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at currentaccountswich.com.uky. I'm I'm Tracy. everyone, thanks for tuning in to episode 487 of our Civil War podcast. My name is Rich.

And I'm Tracy. Hello, y'all. Welcome to the podcast. In his final official report,

submitted after the end of hostilities, Ulysses S. Grant claimed that early in the Civil War,

he became convinced that there was only one

way to defeat the Confederacy, first by using, quote, the greatest number of troops

practicable against the armed force of the enemy. And then by hammering the rebel armies and

resources, quote,

Until by mere attrition, if no other way, there should be nothing left to him but submission.

Although Grant made his report with the full benefit of hindsight,

there's no reason to suppose that this passage misstates his strategy for 1864,

after his rise to General and Chief of the Union armies. It certainly squares with the way he

organized the federal effort in Virginia that spring. By May 5, 1864, no fewer than 165,000 federal soldiers menaced Virginia.

Grant and Mead had 122,000 men in the wilderness. Meanwhile, southeast of Richmond, Major General

Benjamin Butler, with 27,000 more, steamed up the James River toward Bermuda 100.

6,000 troops under Major General Franz Siegel had begun a march up the Shenandoah Valley, while another 8,500, under Brigadier General's George Crook and William Averill,

forged across the Allegheny Mountains toward targets in western Virginia.

...