“The progress of our arms,” Abraham Lincoln declared in his second inaugural address on March 4, 1865, “upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself.” The president made this statement eminently satisfied with the work of recent months done by the men who led the forces that had been raised to persuade the South that their bid for independence was a doomed enterprise. Lincoln’s satisfaction was undoubtedly all the sweeter due to the fact that he had not always felt that way about his military’s leadership. Indeed, as recently as August 1864, Lincoln had felt great trepidation over the prospects for his reelection due to a sense that the public was dissatisfied with the results the Union war effort had produced to that point. Yet, by March 1865, under the leadership of men like Ulysses S. Grant, William T. Sherman, and David Farragut, Union military forces had driven their Confederate counterparts to the brink of total defeat.