Assuming overall command of the Union armies, Ulysses Grant busily prepared himself for what was soon to come. At Nashville, Tennessee while conferring with General Sherman, Grant announced that his headquarters “will be in the field, and, until further orders, will be with the Army of the Potomac.”
After conferring with Sherman and others, Grant returned to Washington, D.C. on March 23, 1864 where a number of congressional “radical” Republicans were pressing for the removal of General George Meade as commander of the Army of the Potomac.
Grant resisted, because he and Meade had bonded during an earlier meeting. Meade had offered to resign, and when Grant refused to accept the offer the two men had forged a working alliance which Grant would honor for the duration of the war.