t
once became known to me, and to others serving at that time on his
staff; that it was from the first, and till he went east to take charge
of his new duties, Grant's intention to assign Smith to the command of
the Army of the Potomac. He had come to trust his intelligence,--his
judgment and his extraordinary _coup d'oeil_ implicitly, and to regard
him as a strategist of consummate ability. He made no concealment of
his confidence in him, nor of his intentions in his behalf, and there
can be but little doubt that he would have carried those intentions
into effect could he have done so without injustice to others. But it
is also true that after going to the eastern theatre of war and
conferring with the President, Secretary Stanton, General Meade and
General Butler, the Lieutenant General completely changed his mind, not
only as to the proper plan of campaign for the army of the Potomac,
which he had not previously visited or studied, but as to the
disposition to be made of Smith and the other leading generals. In all
this he had the sagacious advice and support of General Rawlins, his
Chief of Staff and doubtless of other influential persons. Exactly why
he did so, or what were the details of the argument which brought him
to his final conclusions, is still one of the most interesting
unsettled questions of the war. The general argument has already been
indicated in the comprehensive language of Rawlins and that was
doubtless strengthened by Mr. Lincoln, whose homely but astute
reasoning convinced him that the better and safer line of operations
was overland against Lee's army wherever it might be encountered, and
not through a widely eccentric movement by water to a secondary base on
the James River and thence against Richmond.

It is also doubtless true that finding Meade, who had shown himself to
be a prudent and safe commander, if not a brilliant one, not only
favorable to the overland route, but deservedly well thought of by the
President, the cabinet and the army, while Smith, on the other hand, if
not openly opposed to this plan of operations, was somewhat persistent
as was his custom, in favoring a campaign from the lower James, or even
from the sounds of North Carolina, Grant reached the conclusion that it
would be better to retain Meade in immediate command of the principal
army, and to place Smith over all the troops that could be mobilized
from Fortress Monroe in Butler's department. Whatever may have been