Adam Badeau, Military history of Ulysses S. Grant from April 1861 to April 1865. Volume 2

‘ [235] abundance of commissary stores. . . The cars can now run from here to Pulaski. . . we have sufficient rolling stock captured from the enemy to answer our purposes. I will endeavor to put this road in order from Pulaski to Decatur, as soon as possible. As yet I have not had time to adopt any general system of conscription, but hope soon to do so, and to bring into the army all men liable to military duty.’

There were delays at the East, as well as the West; and on the 5th, Grant said to Meade: ‘We will not wait for Getty's division. How soon can you move troops? I have been waiting to get off [Weitzel's] troops down the coast, but as Palmer has already moved from Newbern, will wait no longer.’ ‘Palmer probably started from Newbern yesterday, with a force of from three to four thousand men, to cut the same [Weldon] road south of the Roanoke.’

On the 6th, he gave Butler detailed orders for Weitzel's operations. ‘The first object of the expedition under General Weitzel is to close to the enemy the port of Wilmington. There are reasonable grounds to hope for success, if advantage can be taken of the absence of the greater part of the enemy's forces now looking after Sherman in Georgia. . . The object of the expedition will be gained by effecting a landing on the main land between Cape Fear river and the Atlantic, north of the north entrance to the river. Should such landing be effected while the enemy still hold Fort Fisher and the batteries guarding the entrance to the river, then the troops should entrench themselves, and by co-operating with the navy, effect the reduction and capture of those places.’