[CHAPTER XIII.]
GRANT IN THE EAST. LINCOLN CHOSEN FOR SECOND TERM.
Grant for his great work in the West was made Lieu-ten-ant Gen-er-al, and put in charge of all the for-ces of the Un-ion. He came East, and took the Ar-my of the Po-to-mac in-to his strong safe hands, and Pres-i-dent Lin-coln saw that he would fight to the end.
Then the Ar-my of the Po-to-mac un-der Grant and Meade made a move to-ward Rich-mond. It met Lee in dense woods known as “The Wil-der-ness,” and there, and in and a-bout Spott-syl-va-ni-a Court House, fought for 16 days. The Un-ion ar-my lost 37,000 men. Lee, who led the foe, lost vast hordes, still he would not give up. Grant saw that he must get near-er to Rich-mond and this he did in a qui-et way by send-ing off a part of his ar-my from his right and march-ing it a-round to the rear of his oth-er troops. Then he pushed it as far a-head as he could on his left. Though “out-flanked,” Lee would fall back in time to be a-gain twixt Grant’s troops and Rich-mond. With troops so well matched it was hard for ei-ther to win.
GENERAL GRANT.
GENERAL LEE.
On June 3, 1864, Grant and his men were so near Rich-mond, at a place called Cold Har-bor, that the Un-ion for-ces made a strike at the works of the foe a-long the whole line. In one hours’ time near 6,000 Un-ion men met death.