Adam Badeau, Military history of Ulysses S. Grant from April 1861 to April 1865. Volume 1

‘ [205] subsistence during the next five days three rations;’ and corps commanders were instructed to direct their ‘chief quartermasters to seize, for the use of the army in the field during the ensuing campaign, such land transportation as may be necessary, belonging to the inhabitants of the country through which they may pass.’

These orders and dispatches were all written in Grant's own hand, and nearly all signed with his own name. Like most of the important papers emanating from his headquarters during the war, they were his own composition, struck out at the moment they were needed by the emergency of the moment, and sent off without emendation or change. Dates and names, and matter of that description in the larger reports were, of course, often supplied by others, but the gist and the text were Grant's own. None of his staff-officers ever attempted to imitate his style.¹ On the 30th of April, as soon as the troops could be supplied with three days rations in their haversacks, the advance of McClernand's corps was marched from Bruinsburg, at the mouth of the Bayou Pierre, towards the high ground, two and a half miles inland. The road runs close to the south side of the bayou, entering the hills through a defile which might easily have been defended. The remainder of the Thirteenth, and two divisions of the Seventeenth corps were ferried across the river as rapidly as possible, from De Shroon's. Not a tent nor a wagon accompanied them, nor was any personal baggage trans of the army.