CH. XXIII.] GRANT 439 and going to the front for the great movement. I said, 'I suppose, General, you don't mean to breakfast again until the war is over.' 'Not here, I sha'n't.' He gets over the ground queerly. He does not march, nor quite walk, but pitches along as if the next step would bring him on his nose. But his face looks firm and hard, and his eye is clear and resolute, and he is certainly natural, and clear of all appearance of self-consciousness. How war, how all great crises, bring us to the one-man power!" I have now brought the story down to the last year of the war, and from this time onward I shall treat military affairs only in a general way. "It was not till after both Gettysburg and Vicksburg," wrote General Sherman, "that the war professionally began."2 In 1864 and 1865 the campaigns and the battles were, as in the previous years, the events on which all else depended; but now that the President and generals had learned well the lessons of war, and began to conduct it with professional skill, there is a measure of justification for the writer who prefers henceforward to dwell upon the political and social side of the conflict to the dwarfing of the military picture.3 The details of Grant's plan need not concern us. The two salient features of it are simple and of the utmost importance; they were the destruction or capture of Lee's army by him 1 Adams's Dana, vol. ii. p. 272. 2 W. T. Sherman wrote R. N. Scott, Sept. 6, 1885: "I contend and have contended with European officers of world-wide fame that the military profession of America was not responsible for the loose preliminary operations of 1862, and that it was not till after both Gettysburg and Vicksburg that the war professionally began. Then our men had learned in the dearest school of earth the simple lesson of war. Then we had brigades, divisions, and corps which could be handled professionally, and it was then that we as professional soldiers could rightfully be held to a just responsibility." North Amer. Rev., March, 1886, p. 302. The large number of excellent works on the war by military critics is well known. Ropes's Story of the Civil War, which by the publication of part ii. in 1899 is brought to the close of 1862, is concise, and will be foun! interesting by the general reader. self and his force of 122,000 men, and the crushing of Joseph E. Johnston by Sherman with his army of 100,000.1 From the nature of the situation a second objective point in the one case was Richmond, in the other, Atlanta. The winter and early spring had been spent largely in systematic and effective preparation. The confidence of the people in Grant was so great that many were sanguine that the war would be over by midsummer.2 On the night of May 3 the Army of the Potomac began its advance by crossing the Rapidan without molestation, and encamping the next day in the Wilderness, where one year before Hooker had come to grief. Grant had no desire to fight a battle in this tangled jungle; but Lee, who had watched him intently, permitted him to traverse the river unopposed, thinking that, when he halted in the dense thicket, every inch of which was known to the Confederate general and soldiers, the Lord had delivered him into their hands. Lee ordered at once the concentration of his army, and with Napoleonic swiftness marched forward to dispute the advance of his enemy. May 5 the forces came together in the Wilderness, and a hot battle raged. The Confederates were in number only half of the Union troops, but the difficulties of the battle-ground which their leader had chosen, their better topographical knowledge, the circumstance that the superior Federal artillery could be little used made it an equal contest, neither side gaining the advantage. Grant perceived that he must fight his way through the Wilderness, and prepared to take the offensive the next day; but Lee had likewise determined on attack Both desiring the initiative, the battle was on at an early hour. It pro 1 For the size of the armies, see Nicolay and Hay, vol. viii. p. 352, vol. ix. p. 2. 2 See N. Y. Tribune, March 16, 18, World, March 29, Independent, Feb. 18, and letter of H. Greeley, ibid., Feb. 25; Life of Seward, vol, iii. p. 209; Gray's Letters, vol. ii. p. 517; Greeley's Amer. Conflict, vol. ii. p. 654. The Virginia Campaign of '64 and '65, Humphreys, p. 17; Nicolay and Hay, vol. viii. p. 352. CH. XXIII.] BATTLE OF THE WILDERNESS 44 gressed with varying fortune, each force gaining successes at different moments, and at different parts of the line. At one time the Confederate right wing was driven back, and disaster seemed imminent, when Longstreet came up and saved the day. A Texas brigade of Longstreet's corps went forward to the charge, and Lee, who like his exemplar Washington was an eager warrior, and loved the noise and excitement of battle, spurred onward his horse, and, intensely anxious for the result, started to follow the Texans as they advanced in regular order. He was recognized, and from the entire line came the cry, "Go back, General Lee! go back!"1 This movement of the Confederates was stopped by the wounding of Longstreet by a shot from his own men, an accident similar to that by which Stonewall Jackson one year before had received his mortal hurt.2 The fighting of these two days is called the Battle of the Wilderness. Both generals claimed the advantage; both were disappointed in the result. Grant, who had expected that the passage of the Rapidan and the turning of the right of the Confederates would compel them to fall back, had hoped to march through the Wilderness unopposed, fight them in more open country, and inflict upon them a heavy blow. Lee, in no way daunted because Grant had taken command in person of the Army of the Potomac, thought, undoubtedly, that his victories in the West had been due more to the lack of skill of his opponents than to able generalship, and had hoped to beat Grant as he had beaten McClellan, Pope, Burnside, and Hooker, drive him back across the Rapidan, and constrain him, like his predecessors, to abandon his campaign. Measured by casualties, the Confederates came the nearer to victory. The Union loss was 17,666; that of the Confederates was certainly less, although an accurate report of it is lack 3 1 Life of Lee, Long, p. 330; do. Fitzhugh Lee, p. 331; Taylor's Four Years, p. 127. 2 Longstreet was not able to resume active duty until October. - From Manassas to Appomattox, p. 574. 8 Century War Book, vol. iv. p. 182. |