Note: From A to K is just one mile.
R.D. Servos N.Y.
Diagram of the Attack on Sickles and Sykes.
The Confederate loss on this eventful day was 16,000, the Union loss not one-fifth as great. General Hancock, whose command bore the brunt of the charge, was severely wounded. Meade should have pressed his advantage, but did not, and next day Lee retreated under cover of a storm and escaped across the Potomac. His losses during the three days had been frightful, amounting to 23,000. In one brigade, numbering 2,800 on July 1st, only 835 answered roll-call three days later. Meade’s total losses were also 23,000. Meade had had on the field in all 83,000 men and 300 guns, Lee 69,000 and 250 guns.
Gettysburg marks the turning of the tide. The South’s dream of getting a foothold in the North was forever past. She was soon to hear a gallant Northerner’s voice demanding the surrender of Richmond.
CHAPTER VIII.
COLLAPSE OF THE CONFEDERACY
Gettysburg was the last general engagement in the East during 1863. The next spring, as we have noticed, Grant was appointed Lieutenant-General, with command of all the northern armies, now numbering over 600,000 effectives. This vast body of men he proposed to use against the fast-weakening Confederacy in concerted movements. Sherman’s part in the great plan has already been traced. The hardest task, that of facing Lee, the hero of Vicksburg and Chattanooga reserved for himself. Greek thus met Greek, and the death-grapple began.
May 4th the Army of the Potomac crossed the Rapidan and entered the Wilderness, Meade in immediate command, with 120,000 men present for duty. Lee, heading an army of 62,000 veterans, engaged his new antagonist without delay. For two days the battle raged in the gloomy woods. There was no opportunity for brilliant manoeuvres. The men of the two armies lay doggedly behind the trees, each blazing away through the underbrush at an unseen foe, often but a few yards off, while a stream of mangled forms borne on stretchers came steadily pouring to the rear. The tide of battle surged this way and that, with no decisive advantage for either side.
But Grant, as Lee said of him, “was not a retreating man.” If he had not beaten, neither had he been beaten. Advance was the word. On the night of the 7th he began that series of “movements by the left flank” which was to force Lee forever from the Rappahannock front. The army stretched nearly north and south, facing west. Warren’s corps, at the extreme right, quietly withdrew from the enemy’s front, and marching south took a position beyond Hancock’s, hitherto the left. Sedgwick’s corps followed. By this sidling movement the army worked its way south, all the while presenting an unbroken front to the enemy. Yet, on reaching Spottsylvania, Grant found Lee’s army there before him. Sharp fighting began again on the 9th and continued three days, but was indecisive, mainly from the wild nature of the country, heavily timbered, with only occasional clearings.
Death of General Sedgwick at Spottsylvania. May 9, 1864.