| [242] | Born at Richmond, Virginia, 1825; died, 1875. Graduated at West Point, 1846; served well in Mexican War and afterwards on Puget Sound, where he resisted encroachments of the British; entered Confederate service in 1861; brigadier general, 1862; wounded at Gaines’s Mill; commanded charge at Gettysburg; in 1864 defended Petersburg skillfully against Butler; engaged in the insurance business until his death. |
| [243] | The official figures are 20,451 and 23,003. See Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol. III., pp. 437-439. |
| [244] | There was opposition to conscription in the South also, especially in Georgia. |
CHAPTER XXX.
the campaigns of 1864.
GRANT AND LEE IN VIRGINIA.
530. Plan of Campaigns.—The spring of 1864 found Grant as general in chief of all the Union armies, with Meade at the head of the Army of the Potomac, Sherman at the head of all Federal troops in the West, and General B. F. Butler in immediate command of the Army of the James. Grant chose not to supersede Meade, but decided, while keeping him in the field, to superintend the Eastern campaign in person. The “grand strategy” was that all the Union armies should advance on the 4th of May, and that each should keep its opponents so occupied that no one Confederate army could reënforce any of the others. The Army of the Potomac was to move directly toward Richmond, attacking the enemy wherever they could be found. Sherman was to push south from Chattanooga with a similar purpose, toward Atlanta, while Butler was to advance up the James River from Fortress Monroe to Richmond. In this way, it was hoped to finish the war in the course of the summer.
Operations in the East, 1864
531. Advance of Grant toward Richmond.—Grant, with a force of about one hundred and twenty thousand men, crossed the Rapidan and came upon Lee a little south of Chancellorsville. The reports do not reveal exactly the size of Lee’s army, but he probably had about sixty-five thousand men. The Confederates were strongly intrenched, and a hotly contested battle raged for two days, May 5 and 6. It is known as “The Battle of the Wilderness,” since it was fought in a country of tangled thickets. In some cases, so fierce was the fighting, small trees were severed by bullets. Lee could not be dislodged from his strong intrenchments, and Grant, after enormous losses, moved with the bulk of his force by the left flank, and thus forced the Confederates to leave their defenses and fall back to a new line. From the 8th to the 20th various desperate conflicts took place about Spottsylvania, with a similar result. These battles were among the most stubbornly fought of the whole war, the conflict at what is known as the “Bloody Angle” being memorable as an engagement at close quarters, in which large numbers were killed. On the 21st, Grant, undismayed by his failure to break the Confederate lines, again moved by the left flank, and Lee fell back still nearer to Richmond, intrenching himself very strongly on the North Anna River, and later at Cold Harbor. Here, on June 3, Grant made a desperate effort to crush the Confederates by assault, but Lee’s lines could not be broken, and the attempt was as unsuccessful as the Confederate assaults had been at Malvern Hill and at Gettysburg. At Cold Harbor, the Federal loss was over ten thousand, while that of the Confederates behind their intrenchments was only about two thousand. The entire campaign is rendered memorable by the unfailing skill of Lee’s resistance and his remarkable foresight in divining the movements of his enemy, as well as by the splendid energy of Grant’s attacks.