Summary:
General Ulysses S. Grant writes to Chief of Staff Henry Halleck in July, 1864, concerning plans for action in the Shenandoah Valley. Grant wants extensive destruction of the railroad around Staunton and elsewhere.

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Maj.-Gen. HALLECK,
Washington, D. C.:

CITY POINT, VA.,

July 24, 1864

Your dispatch of 1 p.m. yesterday just received. I presume you had not yet received any dispatch directing the Sixth Corps to be returned here and the Nineteenth Corps retained. I would prefer keeping the Army of the Potomac together if possible, and, if necessary, send all the Nineteenth Corps to Washington. You can retain Gen. Wright until I learn positively what has become of Early. I would prefer a complete smash-up of the enemy's roads about Gordonsville and Charlottesville to having the same force here. If Wright and Hunter can do this job let them do it. Submit the matter to Wright for his views.

If they get out to the railroad every raid ought to be destroyed from Gordonsville back toward Richmond and toward Orange Court-House for miles, and from Charlottesville toward Staunton and toward Lynchburg in the same way.

U. S. GRANT,
Lieut.-Gen.

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Bibliographic Information : Letter Reproduced from The War of The Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series 1, Volume 40, Serial No. 82, Pages 421-422, Broadfoot Publishing Company, Wilmington, NC, 1997.