One of the reasons Halleck responded coolly to Grant's proposal of January 1864 for a raid with 60,000 men from Suffolk, Virginia to Raleigh, North Carolina, was that Old Brains doubted that forces sufficient for the raid as well as the defense of Washington, D.C. could be mustered. Yet eventually such forces materialized. The Army of the Potomac came up with about 103,000 present for duty, IX Corps with about 21,000. The Army of the James mustered around 33,000. Combining IX Corps with the Army of the James would have left the Army of the Potomac with 103,000 men to defend the capital while about 54,000 marched from Suffolk through Raleigh, wrecking railroads as they went, and seized Wilmington from behind. Richmond would still have had rail links with the rest of the South with the Virginia Central, South Side and Richmond & Danville Railroads. With the benefit of hindsight, the best plan may have been Maj. Gen. John G. Foster's. This former Union commander in North Carolina recommended sailing up the James and seizing Petersburg.
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