James M. McPherson, in his introduction to the Penguin Classics edition of U.S. Grant’s Personal Memoirs, noted how Horace Porter served on Grant’s staff from the Wilderness to Appomattox. McPherson concluded that, Porter’s “own version of those events, entitled Campaigning with Grant, is next in value only to Grant’s memoirs as a firsthand account of command decisions in that campaign.” Porter in his own preface maintained that, “While serving as a personal aid to the general-in-chief the author early acquired the habit of making careful and elaborate notes of everything of interest which came under his observation, and these reminiscences are simply a transcript of memoranda jotted down at the time.”
The implication that he actually transcribed these supposed notes is ridiculous. Among his unbelievable renderings, Porter remembered verbatim a pair of four-sentence comments and then a speech lasting more than two pages, during a six-mile horseback ride with the General. But what apparently proves the comprehensiveness of Porter’s fabrications, however, is his letter on April Fool’s Day of 1868, an excerpt of which is in the Wyoming State Archives’ Bender Collection. In it, Porter acknowledged that “I kept no notes in the field ….”
My book, Grant Under Fire, describes various episodes in which Porter obviously falsified history, such as Grant’s decision to advance through the Wilderness and his response to Early’s May 6th attack, the feeling of the troops exiting the Wilderness, and events surrounding the Cold Harbor assault. I’ve since found another instance where Porter seemingly lied. After an ordnance boat blew up during the stalemate at Petersburg—right below Grant’s headquarters—Porter described it as a spectator (“On rushing to the edge of the bluff, we found that the cause of the explosion was the blowing up of a boat”), yet he had written at the time, “We had a great blow up near our head quarters while I was away.”
Grant’s biographers have employed a profusion of Campaigning with Grant’s colorful stories in their vindication of the General, regardless of their improbability. Now, all of Porter’s uncorroborated anecdotes should be called into question and used sparingly, if at all.
THE FEELINGS OF THE TROOPS EXITING THE WILDERNESS
Porter is on the mark with his description of the Federal troops exiting the Wilderness by describing them as tired and bone weary making one of the more difficult night marches of the war. He is also accurate in his portrayal of their cheering as they spot the Commanding General & his staff moving south, in stark contrast to their previous year’s experience coming out of the Wilderness. There is ample evidence in soldiers’ letters, diaries, & memoirs. (1) A private in the 19th Maine, “while the regiment was resting by the roadside, Generals Grant & Meade rode along…wild cheers echoed through the forest.” (2) Recalled a Second Corps soldier, “Shortly after dark a loud cheer suddenly arose on the right, & was taken up by regiment after regiment, as Generals Grant & Meade moved toward the left.” (3) George Fowle, 39th Mass, in his “Letters to Eliza” described the situation as Grant & his HQ group passed near the head of the 2nd Corps column as it turned south. “These troops who suddenly realized that this march was an advance not a retreat, loudly cheered their commanding generals as they passed.”
Diary entries and letters of the Federal troops exiting the Wilderness did describe a tiring, wearying march. It’s true that many soldiers were glad about leaving the Wilderness. But the scenario of troops cheering as they turned south is not sustained by many contemporaneous reports from Hancock’s troops or those of other commanders.
That statement of a private in the 19th Maine is not from a contemporaneous account, nor is by your own depiction that of the Second Corps soldier. This is also true of the quote provided by George Fowle’s “Letters to Eliza.” That quote did not come from his correspondence, but seemingly was taken from Morris Schaff’s “The Battle of the Wilderness.” In fact, Fowle’s letter later that month merely noted: “The next night [May 7] we started soon after dark and marched all night and stopped about an hour for breakfast.”
Except for a few reports, one concerning the 2nd Corps, of Grant being cheered by the troops without reference to an advance south, the contemporaneous accounts that I’ve researched overwhelmingly speak of a dark, grueling, slow, but quiet march, or they don’t mention anything unusual at all. Instead of Horace Porter’s “triumphal procession,” the men of the 2nd Corps were generally quiet or asleep. Once again, Porter’s recollections are not to be trusted.