Details
GRANT, Ulysses S., President. Autograph letter signed ("U.S. Grant Lt. Gen.") to Brigadier General Graham, Bermuda Hundred; [Headquarters], City Point, Virginia, 28 November 1864. 1 page, oblong 8vo. Fine.
"HEAVY FIRING IS HEARD..."
A terse, heavily scrawled message, probably carried by military courier from Grant's Headquarters, across the James River by boat to Bermuda Hundred, a large, crook-necked peninsula occupied by Graham's Union troops. Bermuda Hundred, first seized by Federals under command of Benjamin F. ("Beast") Butler, was strategically important because its western border lay along the tracks of the crucial Richmond and Petersburg Railroad, Richmond's sole rail link to the rest of the south. Grant has been alarmed by the sound of gunfire: "Heavy firing is heard apparently in your front. Does it appear to be an attack of the enemy?" The Richmond-Petersburg siege was nearing its final stages by the date of this letter.
"HEAVY FIRING IS HEARD..."
A terse, heavily scrawled message, probably carried by military courier from Grant's Headquarters, across the James River by boat to Bermuda Hundred, a large, crook-necked peninsula occupied by Graham's Union troops. Bermuda Hundred, first seized by Federals under command of Benjamin F. ("Beast") Butler, was strategically important because its western border lay along the tracks of the crucial Richmond and Petersburg Railroad, Richmond's sole rail link to the rest of the south. Grant has been alarmed by the sound of gunfire: "Heavy firing is heard apparently in your front. Does it appear to be an attack of the enemy?" The Richmond-Petersburg siege was nearing its final stages by the date of this letter.