simultaneously, captured many of the enemy's rifle-pits amidst a storm of direct- and cross-artillery fire, and overrunning them, rushed forward to within a short distance of his main entrenchments, where the fire became so scathing that the troops, not being able to proceed farther, sought every accident of ground for shelter, and began, with whatever implement happened to be at hand, to throw up some slight cover of earth. Although all the troops behaved with exemplary gallantry, suffering during the unusually short period during which the fighting lasted, a loss of four thousand men in killed and wounded, the only serious lodgment in the enemy's works was made by Barlow's division of the Second Corps, which, happening to strike a salient of the enemy's main line, carried it. But unfortunately, his supporting second line did not arrive in time to confirm his hold, and he was swept out of the works by the enemy's reinforcements at that point, which rendered the position thereafter secure. Another portion of the enemy's entrenchments was captured, but had to be relinquished, as in the case cited, through failure to support in time the first assault. The hopelessness of further attack under the conditions of the terrible direct-fire, and also cross-fire coming from the right of Smith, and searching the lines of the Sixth Corps as well as those of his command, and even reaching the left of the Second Corps, having become apparent, the respective corps-commanders were directed to hold the ground gained, and to proceed by regular approaches.

While this was happening on the left of the army, Burnside, on the right, captured rifle-pits along the line in front of him, which had been stripped by Lee to reinforce his right; and he was, at one o'clock, about to move finally upon the enemy when the order suspending attack reached him. Warren, on Burnside's left, had acted in concert with Burnside, both being engaged with Early, temporarily com

manding Ewell's corps. Warren's corps, however, being strung out in a thin line, and having in front of it unfavorable ground, could take the offensive to so little advantage that Birney's division of the Second Corps had been sent to hold his left, when the order suspending further attack arrived. With a slight attack by the enemy, about dark, on a portion of the Sixth Corps, the battle of the 3d ended.

This represents, omitting minute details, the battle of the 3d of June at Cold Harbor. The total loss on the Union side in pitched battle on the 1st and 3d of June was very nearly ten thousand, of which the greatest was sustained by the Second and Sixth Corps and the divisions of the Tenth and Eighteenth. The total loss after crossing the Pamunkey was very nearly thirteen thousand. The loss on the side of the Confederates has never been ascertained. It was probably not more than a fifth of these numbers.

On the 6th and 7th of June Lee took the offensive against the right flank and rear of the army. But the attempts failed, the enemy in his turn experiencing the difficulty of making long advances through a country cut up by numerous streams with their bordering swamps. Grant resolved, despite the suggestion of Halleck to invest Richmond on the north side, to carry out his original project of shifting as an eventuality from the north to the south side of the James. How he could have done otherwise is not apparent, seeing, as we have observed, that he could not force Lee's lines defending the ground leading to the north side of Richmond. On the 9th and 10th of June the preliminary steps for the withdrawal of the army were taken, and it began to retire in the night of the 12th and move towards the James. Before this took place, however, Sheridan had marched. On the 7th of June he had moved north of Richmond on a pathway of railroad destruction, instructed to join Hunter at Charlottesville, northwest of Richmond,

who was expected by that time to have captured Lynchburg, a little south of west from Richmond, and after having destroyed valuable war-material there, to be in a position where, reinforced by Sheridan, they would be able together to combine their forces and join the Army of the Potomac. But, as we have already seen in the chapter on co-operative movements, things had fallen out differently from expectations. Another movement besides Sheridan's had been initiated about the same time. On the 9th of June, while comparative repose reigned in the Army of the Potomac and that of its adversary, an expedition of infantry and cavalry started from the lines of Bermuda Hundred, seeking to capture Petersburg by surprise. The attempt was unsuccessful. General Beauregard, in command of the lines of Petersburg and Bermuda Hundred, sent reinforcements to the town, and the affair ended like a mere reconnoissance in force.

CHAPTER XXIII.

CHANGE OF BASE AND ATTEMPTED SURPRISE OF PETERSBURG.

THAT, from the movements which were to a certain degree under his observation, General Lee should not have known that they indicated crossing the James, is not extraordinary. The visible movements were precisely those which would have been made, had they been intended, after the army's crossing the Chickahominy, to culminate in an advance on Richmond from the southeast, over the Charles River, Central, and New Market Roads. When, on the morning of the 13th of June, Lee had learned that the Army of the Potomac had retired from his front, he had to meet what was apparent, but falsely so, by the countermove of marching a portion of his army towards a position where his right would rest near Malvern Hill, his centre at Riddle's Shop, and his left on the White Oak Swamp, and there await the initiative of the enemy in a direct advance towards Richmond. The extraordinary feature of the event is, not that Lee did not penetrate Grant's design, but that the eventuality which was now taking form had been kept throughout the whole campaign secret.

It

It behooves us now to examine what the Army of the Potomac was doing when, on the morning of the 13th of June, Lee discovered that it had retired from his front. was engaged in an operation, in strategy well conceived, and in tactics admirably executed, the crossing of the James. Unhappily, an incidental project of Grant's failed through his own remissness. Yet, despite this, two distinguished writers on the war have been found to lavish praise upon