I find it very interesting that when Century Magazine [?] was going to publish all the leading generals memories of the Civil War, they all refused to do so until they saw what Grant was going to write.

"In his memoirs, General Grant seeks to produce the impression—perhaps it would not be straining what he does say, to declare that he substantially asserts—that the assault of the crest of Missionary Ridge was the necessary sequence of his orders. He admits that he gave the troops permission to halt at the base of the Ridge to re-form. This statement of General Grant is absolutely refuted by the anger displayed by him (which display was witnessed by many living men, and has been publicly attested by several responsible witnesses) when he saw my division commence the assault of Missionary Ridge, accompanied by the breathing out of threaten!ngs and slaughter, against myself especially, if the assault failed. General Grant's statement in his memoirs on this point is further refuted by the fact that, from the division commanders down to the humblest private soldier in the two divisions most conspicuous in the assault, no man has ever yet been found who does not say the orders he received peremptorily ordered him to halt at the base of the Ridge. If General Grant intended the assault of the crest of the Ridge to follow immediately on the heels of the initial success, with simply a halt for reformation and without further orders, he certainly kept that intention severely to himself. None of the official reports of officers subordinate to General Grant, but who were connected with the troops who made the assault, nor other contemporaneous literature, such as the reports of newspaper correspondents who were on the ground, contain any hint, not even the most remote, of ever having heard of any such intention."

Major General Thomas Wood. 1893