You have no conception of the amount of labor I have to perform.  An army of men all helpless, looking to the commanding officer for every supply.  Your plain brother, however, has as yet no reason to feel himself unequal to the task, and fully believes that he will carry on a successful campaign against our rebel enemy.  I do not speak boastfully but utter a presentiment.  The scare and fright of the rebels up here is beyond conception.  Twenty three miles above here some were drowned in their haste to retreat, thinking us such vandals that neither life nor property would be respected.  G.J.  Pillow commands at Fort Donelson.  I hope to give him a tug before you receive this.

U.S.G.

[After the fall of Fort Donelson Grant was promoted to the grade of major-general.  Had this victory been immediately followed up, he believed that the entire southwest would have offered little resistance; and had there been one general who would have taken the responsibility and been in command of all the troops west of the Alleghanies, the duration of the war would have been far briefer than it was.

Corinth was the junction of the two most important railroads in the Mississippi Valley.  It was the great strategic position in the West between the Tennessee and Mississippi Rivers, and between Nashville and Vicksburg.  If the Union troops obtained possession of Corinth the Confederates would have no railroad for transportation of armies or supplies until that running east from Vicksburg was reached.

The enemy was in force at Corinth, March 17th.  He attacked Shiloh, April 6th, was defeated April 7th, and evacuated Corinth May 30th.

Up to this time, Grant had believed that the rebellion would suddenly collapse if a decisive victory could be gained.  Donelson and Henry were such victories, but now that the Confederates had collected new armies and assumed the offensive, he gave up all idea of saving the Union except by complete conquest.  Hitherto, he had protected the property of both Federal and Confederate.  Now he began a new policy; he consumed everything that could be used to support armies, regarding supplies within reach of the Confederates as contraband as arms or ordnance stores.  This policy, he says, exercised a material influence in hastening the end.

July 11th, Halleck is appointed to the command of all the armies, with headquarters at Washington.  Grant now has his headquarters at Corinth in command of the District of West Tennessee.  He is practically a department commander.]

Corinth, Mississippi,
August 3d, 1862.

DEAR FATHER: 

Your letter of the 25th of July is just received.  I do not remember receiving the letters, however, of which you speak.  One came from Mary speaking of the secessionist Holt who was said to be employed in the Memphis post office.  I at once wrote to General Sherman who is in command there about it and he is no doubt turned out before this.