less a desire to diminish or dim the laurels he might
win.

GRANT'S INTENTION IN SENDING LOGAN

General Grant's great anxiety on account of the situation at
Nashville was manifested for several days by urgent despatches to
General Thomas to attack at once without waiting for further
preparations; then by an order to Thomas to turn over the chief
command to me, Thomas to become subordinate, which order was
suspended; and finally by starting for Nashville himself to direct
operations in person. In the meantime he ordered General John A.
Logan to go to Nashville to relieve Thomas in command of the Army
of the Cumberland, without thought, as he has said, of the question
whether Logan or myself should command the combined armies of the
Cumberland and of the Ohio. Grant had reached Washington from City
Point, and Logan had gone as far as Louisville, when the report of
Thomas's victory of December 15 made it unnecessary for either of
them to proceed farther. The following letters from Grant to Logan
are interesting as explaining the reasons and motives of his action
in sending Logan to Nashville, as well as his estimate of the
services I had rendered in the preceding operations:

"New York, February 14, 1884.
"Hon. John A. Logan, U. S. Senate, Washington, D. C.

"Dear Sir: In reply to your letter of the 11th, I have to say that
my response must be from memory entirely, having no data at hand
to refer to; but in regard to the order for you to go to Louisville
and Nashville for the purpose of relieving General Thomas, I never
thought of the question of who should command the combined armies
of the Cumberland and the Ohio. I was simply dissatisfied with
the slowness of General Thomas moving, and sent you out with orders
to relieve him. No doubt if the order had been carried out, the
question would immediately have arisen as to who was entitled to
the command, provided General Schofield was senior in rank to you,
which I do not know that he was. I know that his confirmation as
a major-general took place long after yours, but I do not know the
date of his commission. The question, in that case, of the command
of the whole would have been settled in a very few hours by the
use of the telegraph between Nashville and Washington. I was in
Washington when you arrived at Louisville and telegraphed me that
General Thomas had moved, and, as I remember the telegram, expressing
gratif