By June 1863, the War in the east was clearly in the South's favor. Lee's men had moved the Army of the Potomac all over the map. Their completely one-sided victories at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville in the winter of 1862 and spring of 1863 made it seem as though the Army of Northern Virginia was invincible. Only General Meade could disprove that sentiment at Gettysburg. But even Meade could not follow up his impressive Pennsylvania victory by destroying Lee's army before it could retreat to Virginia. And inaction by the Army of the Potomac in the fall of 1863 frustrated Lincoln yet again.
Lincoln needed a general, a good one; one that was willing to take risks and do anything necessary to expedite the War's end. By 1863 Lincoln's search went west. Thomas, Sherman, Grant, McPherson, and Sheridan had all proven themselves able commanders in the western theater. But one man seemed to stick out in the front of the pack.
Hiram Ulysses Grant (his friends called him Sam) was indeed an accomplished general by the time the winter of 1863 rolled around. He had on his resume a long list of strategic military victories: the capture of Forts Henry and Donelson, Shiloh, the essential capture of the Confederate stronghold at Vicksburg that split the Confederacy in two and turned over the Mississippi River solely to the North, and finally Chickamauga. And by the time Lincoln was looking for even a new commander-in-chief, Grant was the top man on his list.
Grant was at his winter headquarters in Nashville on March 3, 1864 when he received word for the Secretary of War that he was to assume command of all Union armies at the earliest possible time. This meant that the man who had once quit the army as a depressed failure would not only command the Army of the Potomac in its campaigns against Robert E. Lee, he would also have supreme command over every other Army the North had at its disposal (Davis, 1996). This was a power of which no other general had previously taken advantage . Always before, General Halleck, the former General-In-Chief, would simply be the "guide on the side" by granting his commanding generals a great deal of autonomy--probably too much autonomy in most cases--and simply ensure that they were remaining true to the objective of the War. Grant would not take this approach, as Lincoln probably knew by simple virtue of Grant's character, and his arrival in Washington was greatly anticipated.
