I believe this was in reply to the criticism of his patrolling Pemberton’s army on the fall of Vicksburg, July 4, 1863. By patrolling the Confederate army, Grant was saved from carrying for and transporting some 30,000 or so Confederate soldiers to Northern prisons. He also felt that many Confederate soldiers, fed up with the war, would desert their commands and head home. Which turned out to be the case. I believe well less than half of my grandfather’s 43rd Tennessee would return back to the regiment following their return to East Tennessee.

The definitive work on this subject is Ella Lonn’s “Desertion During the Civil War”