In the informal conversation which followed, General Grant inquired what special service was expected of him; to which the President replied that the country wanted him to take Richmond; and being asked if he could do so, replied that he could if he had the troops, which he was assured would be furnished him.  On the following day, Grant went to the Army of the Potomac, where Meade received him with frank courtesy, generously suggesting that he was ready to yield the command to any one Grant might prefer.  Grant, however, informed Meade that he desired to make no change; and, returning to Washington, started west without a moment’s loss of time.  On March 12, 1864, formal orders of the War Department placed Grant in command of all the armies of the United States, while Halleck, relieved from that duty, was retained at Washington as the President’s chief of staff.

Grant frankly confesses in his “Memoirs” that when he started east it was with a firm determination to accept no appointment requiring him to leave the West; but “when I got to Washington and saw the situation, it was plain that here was the point for the commanding general to be.”  His short visit had removed several false impressions, and future experience was to cure him of many more.

When Grant again met Sherman in the West, he outlined to that general, who had become his most intimate and trusted brother officer, the very simple and definite military policy which was to be followed during the year 1864.  There were to be but two leading campaigns.  Sherman, starting from Chattanooga, full master of his own movements, was to lead the combined western forces against the Confederate army under Johnston, the successor of Bragg.  Grant would personally conduct the campaign in the East against Richmond, or rather against the rebel army under Lee.  Meade would be left in immediate command of the Army of the Potomac, to execute the personal daily directions of Grant.  The two Confederate armies were eight hundred miles apart, and should either give way, it was to be followed without halt or delay to battle or surrender, to prevent its junction with the other.  Scattered as a large portion of the Union forces were in garrisons and detachments at widely separated points, there were, of course, many details to be arranged, and a few expeditions already in progress; but these were of minor importance, and for contributory, rather than main objects, and need not here be described.

Returning promptly to Washington, Grant established his headquarters with the Army of the Potomac, at Culpepper, and for about a month actively pushed his military preparations.  He seems at first to have been impressed with a dread that the President might wish to influence or control his plans.  But the few interviews between them removed the suspicion which reckless newspaper accusation had raised; and all doubt on this point vanished, when, on the last day of April, Mr. Lincoln sent him the following explicit letter: