Confederate wizards of the saddle /

by Bennett H. Young

These pronunciamentos of victory sounded well in orders and reports to his superiors. The rulers and overseers in Washington were gladdened by these expressions of confidence and assurance. True, many here and there had thus spoken, but these had no such history as General Grant, and could give no such reasons as he for the hope that was within him.

During the first week of May, 1864, the roads and conditions were such that an advance could be safely made by the Federal forces. On the 2d of May General Lee ascended a high mountain in the midst of his army and with a glass took in the situation. Around and about him were scenes which his genius had made illustrious and which the men of his army, by their valor, had rendered immortal. Longstreet had come back from Tennessee and Georgia and the Army of Northern Virginia had been recruited as far as possible, so as to prepare for the onslaught which the springtime would surely bring, and which the military conditions rendered speedy and certain.

Grant’s forces were well down in Virginia near Culpepper Court House, forty-five miles from Washington. He had one hundred and fifty thousand men under his command. This large army demanded vast trains for supplies, and one-seventh of General Grant’s army was required to take care of his wagon train. Grant had two hundred and seventy-five cannon of the most improved kind, and he had Sheridan, then in the zenith of his fame, as his cavalry leader. There were thirteen thousand cavalrymen to look out for the advance and take care of the flanks of this great array. It is calculated that if Grant’s supply train had marched in single file, it would have covered a distance of one hundred miles; and one of General Grant’s well-informed subordinates said to him, “You have the best clothed and the best fed army that ever marched on any field.”

About the first of May General Lee had sixty-two thousand men ready for battle. He had two hundred and twenty-five guns; five thousand artillerymen and eight thousand five hundred cavalrymen under the renowned “Jeb” Stuart. Each of the great leaders realized, although they gave no outward expression of their conclusion, that the month of May would witness a mighty death grapple, the fiercest and most destructive that the war had seen. Neither the men in gray nor the men in blue would possibly have fought so vigorously had they known what the days from May 4th to June 4th had in store for the legions now ready to face and destroy each other. Day by day the calls of an astounding mortality would be met. Day by day each would accept the demands that duty made, with a fortitude that was worthy of American soldiers, but only General Lee fully realized what these days would bring forth. Not until twenty days later did General Grant grasp the true extent of what this advance meant to the soldiers he had been called to lead.

It was clear from General Grant’s telegrams that he had not expected the sort of campaign that General Lee put up against him in this march to Richmond. On the 4th of May, after he had crossed the Rapidan, he wired to his superiors at Washington that “forty-eight hours would demonstrate whether Lee intends to give battle before receding to Richmond.” General Lee was in no hurry to throw down the gage. He could afford to take his own time. He had met many Federal generals before and he had out-generaled them all. His army was at Orange Court House. Later, to protect his flank, it turned eastward to Spottsylvania County. Gradually Lee was nestling his army between Fredericksburg and the Pamunky River. Richmond was almost due south of Washington, but the Potomac drove Grant westward and in sight of Fredericksburg, where in days gone by Burnside had been crushed. Grant had resolved to go to Richmond, but between him and Richmond was General Lee with his matchless fighters, and hitherto these had proved an unsurmountable barrier to all who undertook to travel this road.

By the morning of the 5th the lines had been formed on the Wilderness Road and it became apparent that every step that General Grant would take on his southern advance was to be skillfully and savagely contested.

On the 5th of May, when the first day of the battle was passed, General Lee had suffered no reverse, and he telegraphed to Richmond: “By the blessing of God we maintained our position against every effort, until night, when the contest closed.” By five o’clock on the morning of the 6th the armies were engaged again. In the midst of a crisis at the front, long expected reinforcements came on the field; General Lee advanced to meet them. The turning point was at hand. The men of Texas were the first to reach the scene of action. Hitherto General Lee had never lost his equipoise, and, riding in the midst of the Texans, did what he rarely ever did before—gave an immediate command on the battlefield. He exclaimed to the Texans: “Charge! Charge! Charge, boys! Charge!” He was rushing amongst them to the front where the storm of lead and iron was heavy and momentarily increasing. When these devoted soldiers saw their great commander exposed to the fire, with one accord they cried out: “Go back, General Lee! Go back! Go back!” The brave artillerymen under Poague shouted, “Come back, General Lee! Come back! Come back!” Oblivious of these tender expressions of their solicitude, lifting himself high up in his stirrups, on “Traveler,” and waving his hat he headed the charge. Up to this moment there had been no firing from the Confederate soldiers. From one end of the line to the other there arose over the battlefield the cry, “Lee to the rear! Lee to the rear!” The roar of artillery and the sharper crackling of musketry could not drown this outburst of solicitude along the Confederate ranks. No danger could quell this agony of his followers or still their fear for his safety. His life was to them above all other considerations, and their concern for him even in the midst of greatest danger was an absorbing passion and consuming desire. A brawny Texas sergeant sprang from the ranks and seized the bridle of “Traveler” and turned him about. The Confederate column refused to move until General Lee retired from the scene of danger. The love and devotion of his followers forced him to go. No commander could, or dare, resist such an appeal.

On the morning of the 10th of May General Grant felt that Washington would like to know what had happened down in the Virginia hills, and so out of the smoke and gloom of the firing line and the burning summer sun he said: “We were engaged with the enemy all day both on the 5th and 6th.... Had there been daylight, the enemy could have injured us very much in the confusion that prevailed.” He confessed that his loss in this battle had been twelve thousand. He quieted the alarms at Washington by saying that the mortality of the Confederates no doubt exceeded his, but he admitted, that was only a guess based on the fact that they had attacked and were repulsed. He added: “At present we can claim no victory over the enemy, neither have they gained a single advantage.” General Grant had now discovered that General Lee would give him battle “this side of Richmond,” and it had cost him seventeen thousand men to reach this conclusion.

By the 8th of May General Grant began to take General Lee more seriously, for he wired: “It is not demonstrated what the enemy will do, but the best of feeling prevails in this army and I feel at present no apprehension for the result.” He now resolved to go east of the route he had chosen and so he despatched the following to his superiors: “My exact route to the James River I have not yet definitely marked out.” It was evident that General Lee had changed General Grant’s plans.

General Grant now set his cavalry to raid General Lee’s trains. Sheridan swung to the right and struck the highway to Richmond. The contending forces had now reached Spottsylvania Court House. It had been a slow march, and it was a death march. By the 10th General Grant became still more uncertain, and he wired: “The enemy hold out front in very strong force and evince a very strong determination to interpose between us and Richmond.... I shall take no backward steps but may be compelled to send back for further supplies. We can maintain ourselves and in the end beat Lee’s army, I believe.”