Civil War-dated ALS signed “U. S. Grant, Lt. Gen.,” two pages, 7.75 x 10, Head Quarters Armies of the United States letterhead, February 6, 1865. Addressed from City Point, Virginia, a handwritten letter to Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, in full: “In the affair of yesterday when the enemy attacked a port of the 2d Corps and were handsomely repulsed, leaving a part of their dead for us to bury, our losses were three officers & eighteen men killed, eleven Officers & ninety-two men wounded and twenty-two men missing. In front of one Brigade of Mott’s Div. he buried thirty-one of the enemy and counted twenty two graves besides some of which were large enough for five or six bodies each. Gen. Smythe estimates the loss of the enemy in his front at two hundred. Our captures for the day were about one hundred men, half of them taken by the Cavalry and the rest by the 5th & 2d Corps. This afternoon the 5th Corps advanced and drove the enemy [Grant strikes through “inside this intrenchment”] back on to this Artillery, probably into this intrenchments, beyond Dabney’s Mill. Here the enemy was reinforced and drove Warren back. Our troops are still out and will not be returned to their old position unless driven to it by the difficulty of supplying them. The casualties for to-day I will report as soon as learned.” In fine condition, with a small stain to the top edge of the first page.
Grant’s casualty report relates to the Battle of Hatcher's Run, fought on February 5–7, 1865, as part of a series of Union offensives during the siege of Petersburg, which aimed at cutting off Confederate supply traffic on Boydton Plank Road and the Weldon Railroad west of Petersburg, Virginia. The Union plan was to send Brig. Gen. David McM. Gregg's cavalry out to the Boydton Plank Road to destroy all the Confederate supply wagons they could find, while the V Corps and II Corps provided support and kept the Confederates occupied to the north and east. The result was a victory for the Union, whose forces nearly tripled that of their enemy (34,517 to 13,835). A detailed letter of loss from late in the Civil War — Lee's surrender came just two months after General Grant penned this letter.
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