CHAPTER XVIII.

At Washington—­meeting Secretary Stanton—­interview with president
Lincoln—­made commander of the cavalry corps of the army of the
Potomac—­its officers—­general MEADE’s method of using cavalry
—­opening of the campaign—­Spottsylvania C. H.—­A difference with
general Meade—­preparing to fight Stuart’s cavalry.

Accompanied by Captain Forsyth and Lieutenant Moore, I arrived in Washington on the morning of April, 4, 1864, and stopped at Willard’s Hotel, where, staying temporarily, were many officers of the Army of the Potomac en route to their commands from leave at the North.  Among all these, however, I was an entire stranger, and I cannot now recall that I met a single individual whom I had ever before known.

With very little delay after reaching my hotel I made my way to General Halleck’s headquarters and reported to that officer, having learned in the meantime that General Grant was absent from the city.  General Halleck talked to me for a few minutes, outlining briefly the nature and duties of my new command, and the general military situation in Virginia.  When he had finished all he had to say about these matters, he took me to the office of the Secretary of War, to present me to Mr. Stanton.  During the ceremony of introduction, I could feel that Mr. Stanton was eying me closely and searchingly, endeavoring to form some estimate of one about whom he knew absolutely nothing, and whose career probably had never been called to his attention until General Grant decided to order me East, after my name had been suggested by General Halleck in an interview the two generals had with Mr. Lincoln.  I was rather young in appearance —­looking even under than over thirty-three years—­but five feet five inches in height, and thin almost to emaciation, weighing only one hundred and fifteen pounds.  If I had ever possessed any self-assertion in manner or speech, it certainly vanished in the presence of the imperious Secretary, whose name at the time was the synonym of all that was cold and formal.  I never learned what Mr. Stanton’s first impressions of me were, and his guarded and rather calculating manner gave at this time no intimation that they were either favorable or unfavorable, but his frequent commendation in after years indicated that I gained his goodwill before the close of the war, if not when I first came to his notice; and a more intimate association convinced me that the cold and cruel characteristics popularly ascribed to him were more mythical than real.