I explained to him that it was necessary to have a great number of troops to guard and hold the territory we had captured, and to prevent incursions into the Northern States.

These troops could perform this service just as well by advancing as by remaining still; and by advancing they would compel the enemy to keep detachments to hold them back, or else lay his own territory open to invasion.

His answer was: "Oh, yes! I see that.

As we say out West, if a man can't skin he must hold a leg while somebody else does." There was a certain incident connected with the Wilderness campaign of which it may not be out of place to speak; and to avoid a digression further on I will mention it here.
A few days before my departure from Culpeper the Honorable E.B.
Washburne visited me there, and remained with my headquarters for some distance south, through the battle in the Wilderness and, I think, to Spottsylvania.

He was accompanied by a Mr.Swinton, whom he presented as a literary gentleman who wished to accompany the army with a view of writing a history of the war when it was over.