share in securing to them and their descendants a government of law and stability. I believe you are as brave, patriotic, and just as the great prototype, Washington, as unselfish, kind-hearted, and honest as a man should be; but the chief characteristic is the simple faith in success you have always manifested, which I can liken to nothing else than the faith the Christian has in his Saviour. This faith gave you victory at Shiloh and Vicksburg. Also, when you have completed your preparations, you go into battle without hesitation, as at Chattanooga, no doubts, no answers, and I tell you it was this that made us act with confidence. I knew, I knew, wherever I was, that you thought of me; and if I got in a tight place you would help me out if alive."

He besought Grant not to stay in Washington, but to come back to the Mississippi Valley, "the seat of coming empire, and from the West where [when?] our task is done, we will make short work of Charleston and Richmond and the impoverished coast of the Atlantic." But Grant was

wiser. He felt that the duty to which his new commission called him was to try conclusions with General Lee, the most illustrious and successful of the Confederate commanders, whom he had not yet encountered and vanquished. His new rank gave him an authority and prestige which would enable him, he trusted, to overcome the discouragements and discontents of the noble Army of the Potomac, and wield its unified force with victorious might. He knew, moreover, that the government and the people trusted him and would sustain him, as they trusted and would sustain no other, in a fresh and final attempt to destroy the Army of Northern Virginia, upon which the hopes of the Confederacy were staked. Not so much ambition as duty determined him to make his headquarters with the Army of the Potomac.

CHAPTER XIII

THE WILDERNESS AND SPOTTSYLVANIA

WHEREVER Grant had control in the West, and in all his counsels, his distinct purpose was to mass the Union forces and not scatter them, and to get at the enemy. With what ideas and intention he began the new task he set forth definitely in his report made in July, 1865.

"From an early period in the rebellion, I had been impressed with the idea that the active and continuous operations of all the troops that could be brought into the field, regardless of season and weather, were necessary to a speedy termination of the war.

I therefore determined, first, to use the greatest number of troops practicable against the armed force of the enemy, preventing him from using the same force at different seasons against first one and then another of our armies, and the possibility of repose

for refitting and producing necessary supplies for carrying on resistance; second, to hammer continuously against the armed force of the enemy and his resources, until by mere attrition, if in no other way, there should be nothing left to him but an equal submission with the loyal sections of our common country to the Constitution and laws of the land."

Grant instructed General Butler, who had a large army at Fortress Monroe, to make Richmond his objective point. He instructed General Meade, commanding the Army of the Potomac, that Lee's army "would be his objective point, and wherever Lee went he would go also." He hoped to defeat and capture Lee, or to drive him back on Richmond, following close and establishing a connection with Butler's army there, if Butler had succeeded in advancing so far. Sherman was to move against Johnston's army, and Sigel, with a strong force, was to protect West Virginia and Pennsylvania from incursions. This, with plans for keeping all the other armies of the

Confederacy so occupied that Lee could not draw from them, constituted the grand strategy of the campaign.

The theatre of operations of the Army of the Potomac was a region of country lying west of a nearly north-and-south line passing through Richmond and Washington. It was about 120 miles long, from the Potomac on the north to the James on the south, and from 30 to 60 miles wide, intersected by several rivers flowing into Chesapeake Bay. The headquarters of the Union army were at Culpeper Court House, about 70 miles southwest of Washington, with which it was connected by railroad. This was the starting point. Lee's army was about fifteen miles away, with the Rapidan, a river difficult of passage, in front of it, the foothills of the Blue Ridge on its left, and on its right a densely wooded tract of scrub pines and various low growths, almost pathless, known as "the Wilderness."

to

Two courses were open to Grant, march by the right, cross the upper fords, and attack Lee on his left flank, or march by