From the collection of Frederick Hill Meserve

GRANT AT COLD HARBOR, VIRGINIA, JUNE 14, 1864

Sitting at left of picture is Col. John A. Rawlins, Chief of Staff; standing behind Grant is Col. Theodore S. Bowers; sitting at Grant's left (head showing near tree) is Col. William L. Duff; sitting at right of picture is Gen. John G. Barnard.

THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

ASTOM, LENOX TILDEN FOUNDAT

wrote Halleck that he should throw his army across the James as soon as possible, cut off all sources of supply, and press the enemy from the other side. Swiftly and silently he marched around Lee's flank for fifty miles, to the southeast, eluding him completely, and on the 15th of June, while Lee was guessing where the enemy might be, Grant wired to Washington that the Army of the Potomac would cross the James on pontoon bridges the next day, and that he would have Petersburg secured if possible before Lee got there in much force. Lincoln wired back: "I begin to see it; you will succeed. God bless you all."

CHAPTER XX

FROM COLD HARBOR TO PETERSBURG

FROM the Wilderness to Cold Harbor, Grant had hammered Lee for seventy miles and had lost over 40,000 men, of whom 10,000 had been killed. In each engagement his losses had been fairly matched by Lee's, except at Cold Harbor; and the net benefit had been with Grant. The Army of the Potomac had been sadly shattered, but Lee's army had been shattered too, and Lee had fewer men to spare. Yet it had cost Grant some repute in Washington. While Spotsylvania was in fight, Lincoln told a crowd of serenaders, "I know that General Grant has not been jostled in his purposes, that he has made all his points, and to-day he is on the line as he purposed when he moved his armies." "He has the grip of a bull-dog," he told Frank Carpenter the painter; "when he once gets his teeth in nothing can shake him off"; and two weeks later he endorsed Grant's declaration that "everything looks exceedingly favorable for us." It was after Cold Harbor that he wrote: "I begin to see it; you will succeed." But others had less confidence than Lincoln. "All un

der God depends on Grant," wrote Chase. "So far he has achieved very little and that little has cost beyond computation." Grimes, of Iowa, wrote: "He has lost a vast number of men and is compelled to abandon his attempt to capture Richmond on the north side, and cross the James River. The question is asked significantly, why did he not take his army south of the James River at once and thus save seventyfive thousand men?"

Grimes had not fully fathomed the significance of Grant's campaign; and those who criticized him, because McClellan had maneuvered nearer Richmond without much fighting and without much loss, failed to remember that McClellan's aim was to invest the rebel Capital, while Grant primarily was after Lee, not Richmond; that McClellan had abandoned all he gained, while Grant held his advance, and that McClellan, having neared his goal with little damage to the enemy, fell back, while Grant, contesting every hard-fought step, had chopped deep into Lee's defense. If Grant had gone toward Richmond first by sailing up the James, he would have found Lee fixed in the Confederate Capital in the best possible position to withstand a siege against far greater numbers, while rebel troops would have been free to roam the State and threaten Washington. There would have been many months of siege and