I Propose To Fight It Out

Grant wrote this in a dispatch to Chief of Staff Henry Halleck from Spotsylvania Court House, Virginia, on May 11, 1864, on the sixth day of unrelenting combat during the Overland Campaign. Having lost roughly 20,000 men in the Wilderness and Spotsylvania, Grant chose to press south rather than withdraw — breaking the pattern of every previous Union commander in the East after a costly engagement with Abraham Lincoln's army. The New York Tribune published the line on May 13 under the headline "He Will 'Fight it Out if it Takes All Summer'" and it became the defining statement of Grant's determination. The campaign ultimately lasted through June and led to the siege of Petersburg.