Grant had not gone far when he met a more stubborn resistance than he had expected, fought a number of desperate and bloody battles, and lost a great many men.  Fight and move forward, was his motto, so he resolved not to turn his face towards Washington and his back towards Richmond, as others had done before him.  The terrible waste of human life that followed his battles, found him in want of recruits.  No reserves of any consequence had been organized, and the government were sorely troubled to find men to fill the thinned ranks of our heroic army.  Where were these men to be got from in time to be of service?

Think of it, my son, we had 25,000 instructed artillerists in the forts around Washington.  Here was a temptation hard to be resisted.  These men could do good service in the field as infantry; and, in an evil hour, it was decided to send them to Grant’s army for that purpose.

Then the great question arose, how were their places to be supplied?  How were the forts to be defended, in case of attack, without them?  It would not do to strip the defenses of all troops, and leave the forts without garrisons.  If we did, the enemy would surely find it out, for Washington was full of his spies, and we should come to grief.  The President, the cabinet, and all the generals, had resolved, from the first, that that this must never be done, under any contingency.

But what, at the time, was considered a happy thought, seized on the government.  I have said a happy thought, my son, but it was a very unwise one.  Let the future historian record it, for it is recorded in the dispatches, as well as in the acts of the government.

Yes, my son, it was resolved, first, that Richmond should fall in an hundred days, or at least during the summer; second, that to insure the fall of Richmond within that time, the experienced troops, then in the fortifications of Washington, should be sent to the Army of the Potomac; third, that to replace these and other garrisons, a call should be made on some of the States for 100,000 militiamen, to serve for one hundred days.  To the end of developing this grand idea, all the old artillery regiments were sent away to Grant.  And their places were filled by an equal number of “hundred days’ men,” nice and fresh, fresh and green, mostly from the State of Ohio.

I have no doubt, my son, that it will seem strange to you, as it will to all intelligent readers hereafter, that raw troops should have been called to defend the capital in the fourth year of a great war.  But the War Department carried on the war according to this method then.  The result is not just now very pleasant to contemplate; but it was what ordinary foresight might have predicted.  Our error was the enemy’s opportunity, and he quickly proceeded to take advantage of it.  Washington was in danger, and Washington might have been captured with but little trouble had the enemy sent the right man to command his troops.  How near it came being lost, and how accidentally it was saved, I shall record hereafter, for the benefit of the future historian.