From Bull Run to Chattanooga, the Union armies had fought their battles without benefit of either a grand strategy or a su- preme field commander. Even after the great victories of 1863, the situation in 1864 reflected this lack of unity of command. During the final year of the war the people of the North grew restless; and as the election of 1864 approached, many of them advocated a policy of making peace with the Confederacy. President Abraham Lincoln never wavered. Committed to the policy of destroying the armed power of the Confederacy, he sought a general who could pull together all the threads of an emerging strategy and then concentrate the Union armies and their supporting naval power against the secessionists. After Vicks- burg in July 1863, Lincoln leaned more and more toward Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant as the man whose strategic thinking and resolution could lead the Union armies to final victory.
On the morning of May 4, 1864, Meade and Sherman moved out
to execute Grant’s grand strategy. The combat strength of the Army
of the Potomac, slimmed down from seven unwieldy corps, consist-
ed of three infantry corps of 25,000 rifles each and a cavalry corps.
Commanding the 12,000-man cavalry corps was Maj. Gen. Philip H.
Sheridan, an energetic leader whom Grant brought east on Halleck’s
recommendation. Meade had dispersed his cavalry, using troopers as
messengers, pickets, and train guards; but young Sheridan, after consid-
erable argument, eventually succeeded in concentrating all of his sabers
as a separate combat arm. Grant reorganized Burnside’s IX Corps of
20,000 infantrymen, held it as a strategic reserve for a time, and then
assigned the IX Corps to Meade’s army. Lee’s army, now 70,000 strong,
was also organized into a cavalry and three infantry corps.