What was grants military objectives in the spring of 1864?
Grant’s strategy and preparations for the spring campaign, and the subsequent operations of the Army of the Potomac are described and analyzed. Among the conclusions which can be drawn from this study was that despite the extraordinarily difficult military and geographical challenges of conducting large scale offensive operations in Tidewater Virginia during the Civil War, Grant came close to achieving a decisive strategic victory that could have ended the war in the summer of 1864. He failed to establish a fully effective system of command relationships. He assigned Richmond rather than Petersburg as the objective for Butler’s Army of the James. He fought in the Wilderness under circumstances unfavorable to his army. He sent Sheridan’s entire Cavalry Corps on a deep raid and away from the critical fighting at Spotsylvania. He failed to exploit the potential of Hancock’s initial flanking movement at Spotsylvania.
