ABSTRACT

Writing fifteen years after General Robert E. Lee surrendered his army at Appomattox, Adam Badeau maintained that “It was not [only] victory that either side was playing for, but existence.” Badeau continued, “If the rebels won, they destroyed a nation; if the [U.S.] government succeeded, it annihilated a rebellion.” As former Military Secretary, and aide-de-camp to General Ulysses S. Grant, Badeau may offer insights into Grant’s approach to waging war:

But above all, he [Grant] understood that he was engaged in a people’s war, and that the people as well as the armies of the South must be conquered, before the war could end. Slaves, supplies, crops, stock, as well as arms and ammunition-everything that was necessary in order to carry on the war was a weapon in the hands of the enemy; and of every weapon the enemy must be deprived. . . . It was indispensable to annihilate armies and resources; to place every rebel force where it had no alternative but destruction or submission.1