Grant’s Command Post

From this knoll, west of the intersection of State Routes 3  and 20 and just out of sight from the highway, Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant oversaw his first battle in the Eastern Theater. Horace Porter, one of Grant’s staffers wrote after the war: “While the most critical moments were taking place, General Grant manifested no perceptible anxiety, but gave his orders…with…coolness and deliberation…. His speech was never hurried and his manner betrayed no trace of excitability or even impatience.”

Grant “would at times walk slowly up and down, but most of the day he sat upon the stump of a tree, or on the ground, with his back leaning against a tree. The thread gloves remained on his hands, a lighted cigar was in his mouth almost constantly, and his penknife was kept in active use whittling sticks. He would pick up one small twig after another, and sometimes holding the small end away from him would rapidly shave it down to a point.”

From this location Grant would begin to employ his Western tenacity against Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia that would end eleven months later at Appomattox Court House.