The Memoirs Of General Ulysses S. Grant, Part 3

My position at Corinth , with a nominal command and yet no command, became so unbearable that I asked permission of Halleck to remove my headquarters to Memphis .  I had repeatedly asked, between the fall of Donelson and the evacuation of Corinth , to be relieved from duty under Halleck; but all my applications were refused until the occupation of the town.  I then obtained permission to leave the department, but General Sherman happened to call on me as I was about starting and urged me so strongly not to think of going, that I concluded to remain.  My application to be permitted to remove my headquarters to Memphis was, however, approved, and on the 21st of June I started for that point with my staff and a cavalry escort of only a part of one company.  There was a detachment of two or three companies going some twenty-five miles west to be stationed as a guard to the railroad.  I went under cover of this escort to the end of their march, and the next morning proceeded to La Grange with no convoy but the few cavalry men I had with me.

 From La Grange to Memphis the distance is forty-seven miles. There were no troops stationed between these two points, except a small force guarding a working party which was engaged in repairing the railroad. Not knowing where this party would be found I halted at La Grange . General Hurlbut was in command there at the time and had his headquarters tents pitched on the lawn of a very commodious country house.  The proprietor was at home and, learning of my arrival, he invited General Hurlbut and me to dine with him.  I accepted the invitation and spent a very pleasant afternoon with my host, who was a thorough Southern gentleman fully convinced of the justice of secession.

 After dinner, seated in the capacious porch, he entertained me with a recital of the services he was rendering the cause.  He was too old to be in the ranks himself--he must have been quite seventy then--but his means enabled him to be useful in other ways.  In ordinary times the homestead where he was now living produced the bread and meat to supply the slaves on his main plantation, in the low-lands of Mississippi .  Now he raised food and forage on both places, and thought he would have that year a surplus sufficient to feed three hundred families of poor men who had gone into the war and left their families dependent upon the "patriotism" of those better off.  The crops around me looked fine, and I had at the moment an idea that about the time they were ready to be gathered the "Yankee" troops would be in the neighborhood and harvest them for the benefit of those engaged in the suppression of the rebellion instead of its support.  I felt, however, the greatest respect for the candor of my host and for his zeal in a cause he thoroughly believed in, though our views were as wide apart as it is possible to conceive.