President Lincoln had watched closely the progress of these events, and had come to recognize in Grant the master spirit of the war, on the Northern side.  Accordingly he determined to give him general command of all the Union armies.  In December, 1863, a bill was introduced in the Senate by Hon. E.B.  Washburne, of Illinois, and passed both houses of Congress, creating the rank of Lieutenant-General in the army.  President Lincoln approved the act, and immediately nominated Grant for the position.  The nomination was confirmed; and on the 17th of March, 1864, Grant issued his first order as Lieutenant-General, assuming command of the armies of the United States, and announcing that his headquarters would be in the field and until further orders with the Army of the Potomac.  Of this army he shrewdly remarked that it seemed to him it “had never fought its battles through.”  He proposed, first of all, to teach that army “not to be afraid of Lee.”  “I had known him personally,” said Grant, “and knew that he was mortal.”  With characteristic energy he formed a simple but comprehensive plan of operations both East and West; sending Sherman on his great march to Atlanta and the sea, while he, with the Army of the Potomac, pushed straight for Richmond.  These operations were vigorously urged, and when they were ended the war was ended.  It was but little more than a year from the date of Grant’s commission as Lieutenant-General till he received Lee’s surrender at Appomattox.

Immediately upon Grant’s appointment as Lieutenant-General, he was summoned to Washington.  It was his first visit to the capital since the war began, and he was a stranger to nearly everyone from the President down.  He arrived in the city on the 8th of March (1864), taking quarters at Willard’s Hotel, where, when he went in to dinner, none knew “the quiet, rather stumpy-looking man, who came in leading a little boy—­the boy who had ridden by his father’s side through all the campaign of Vicksburg.”  But soon it was whispered about who was in the room, and there was a loud call for three cheers for Ulysses S. Grant, which were given with a will.  In the evening General Grant attended a reception at the White House, passing in with the throng alone and unannounced.  The quick eye of the President discovered the identity of the modest soldier, and he was most heartily welcomed.  “As soon as it was known that he was present, the pressure of the crowd to see the hero of Vicksburg was so great that he was forced to shelter himself behind a sofa.  So irrepressible was the desire to see him that Secretary Seward finally induced him to mount a sofa, that this curiosity might be gratified.  When parting from the President, he said, ’This has been rather the warmest campaign I have witnessed during the war.’” A graphic account of this interesting event is given by Secretary Welles, who records in his Diary (March 9, 1864):  “Went last evening to the Presidential reception.  Quite