Fortunately for the Federal cause, the administration at Washington had at last learned that uniform, continued, and complete success is a thing not to be expected of any commander in the field. The administration, therefore, did not withdraw its confidence from Grant or put some other in his place because Lee had thus far baffled him in his endeavors, or because in this instance he had met with bloody defeat at Lee's hands. As for Grant himself, he was always a man of calm mind in no way given to hysterical exaltations on the one hand, or morbid depressions of spirit on the other. He accepted his defeat at Cold Harbor as a mere incident in a campaign which he was determined to carry on to the end in the best way he could.
The campaign had now endured for almost exactly one month. During that time Grant had lost about 60,000 men and 3,000 officers. Lee's loss has been estimated at about 18,000 men, with a proportionate number of officers. The campaign in the field was now practically over, and it remained for Grant to settle his army before Richmond and Petersburg as a besieging force. The object of the campaign in the field, as we have seen, and as General Grant has himself declared, was to crush Lee's army if possible, and failing that to cripple it for defense before his own siege of the Confederate capital should begin. He had succeeded, though at enormous cost to himself, in reducing the numerical strength of his adversary by about one third. Such reduction was undoubtedly less than he had hoped for, but at any rate it was something to the good, so far as his operations were concerned, and it left him in better case for the beginning of that siege during which, as he well knew, he could limitlessly reinforce himself while his adversary had no reserves anywhere to draw upon, even sufficiently to make good those daily losses which defensive operations of necessity involve.
After a week of waiting in indecision Grant determined upon his plan of future operations. He decided that to assail Richmond from the north or east was rendered hopelessly impracticable by the demonstrated alertness of Lee in always interposing the Army of Northern Virginia between the Army of the Potomac and its objective. Halleck proposed from Washington that Grant should place himself on the north and east of the Confederate capital, and conduct siege operations from those directions, thus carrying out that traditional and paralyzing policy which had prevailed during the whole of Halleck's term of command, of keeping the Army of the Potomac always interposed between Lee and Washington. If Halleck had been still Grant's superior in command, there is no doubt that he would have insisted to the end upon this plan of operations, dictated as it always had been by an overweening anxiety lest some Confederate force should succeed in entering the Federal capital city. Grant was a man of very different type. He was not given to fearful imaginings. He saw no reason why those in charge of Washington city—fortified and armed to the teeth as that city was—should not themselves defend the capital against any force that Lee might spare from in front of the Army of the Potomac, so long as that army should continue its operations against the Confederate general with vigor, determination and ceaseless activity. He decided, therefore, to transfer his army from the northern to the southern side of the James river, to seize upon Petersburg, if that should prove possible, to invest that town, if it could not be taken by assault, and by continued movements to the left to cut off Lee's communications.
Here a little geographical explanation is necessary. Petersburg lies on the Appomattox river, twenty-two miles due south of Richmond. It was connected with Richmond by a line of railway and this line was extended from Petersburg southward, by way of Weldon, North Carolina. The Weldon railroad constituted Lee's main line of communication with the coast country south of him. From Petersburg west, extended another line of railway to Lynchburg and beyond, while from Richmond a third line, the Richmond and Danville road, extended southwesterly to Danville, crossing the south side railroad at Burkesville, or as the place was more familiarly known, the Junction.
These three lines of railway constituted Lee's sole means of communication with the country south and west of Richmond. It was Grant's purpose, while holding Lee rigidly to his defensive works, to push his own columns around Lee's right and into his rear, threatening and ultimately cutting these three lines of communication.
Grant hoped so far to conceal his purposes from his wily adversary as to take Petersburg by surprise and capture it, thus at once and easily breaking two of the three lines of Confederate communication, and gaining possession of a position which McClellan two years before had seen and declared to be the military key to Richmond. In aid of this purpose of surprise he set men at work, throwing up fortifications to the north of Richmond, and sent large bodies of cavalry to operate destructively on the north and west of that city, while he held at and near Cold Harbor a sufficiently threatening line in Lee's front to give the impression that he had determined upon making his siege approach in the same way in which McClellan had sought to take the city two years before. He transferred his base of supplies to the White House on York river, where McClellan's base had been.
Then he began his movement upon Petersburg. Sending a large part of his force by water, he moved the rest across the James river by pontoon bridges, all his operations being beyond sight of the Confederates.
In his effort to take Petersburg by surprise he was very nearly successful. At the beginning of the movement he had Butler under his command and well placed south of the James river, with an army of 30,000 men. In anticipation of his own movement with the main army, he ordered Butler to advance at once upon Petersburg, capture that place, and hold it until the Army of the Potomac should come up.
This was a bold movement, and one altogether well planned. But Butler's advance was met at Petersburg with determination by the small force present there, aided by the home guards of elderly men, and men otherwise unfit for the regular service. These men, though unused to the work of the soldier, did that work well until they were slowly driven back and forced to fight in the streets of the city itself. But before Butler could bring up his main body to support the attack he had made with the head of his column, Beauregard arrived upon the scene with a small force of Confederate veterans from the south. That always active commander at once fell with fury upon the Federal advance, and drove it back to the hills outside the city, where, during the night a slender line of earthworks was hastily thrown up by the men with their bayonets, and such spades and shovels as could be found in the city.
In the meantime Lee had penetrated Grant's design, and as usual had met it with celerity and promptitude. Marching his men at a double quick which would speedily have killed off two thirds of them if they had been in less perfect training than they were, he pushed them into Petersburg, and out upon the hills that guard the city in time to meet Grant there in a strong position which diligent labor quickly rendered stronger with earthworks.