It was nearly ten days after this my first ride into the wilds of Dinwiddie, before I again set out to look after the cavalry. The end of October was approaching. Grant had continued to hammer away along his immense line of earth-works; and day by day, step by step, he had gone on extending his left in the direction of the Southside railroad.
If the reader will keep this in view, he will understand every movement of the great adversaries. Grant had vainly attempted to carry Lee’s works by assault, or surprise,—his only hope of success now was to gradually extend his lines toward the Southside road; seize upon that great war artery which supplied life-blood to Lee’s army; and thus compel the Confederate commander to retreat or starve in his trenches. One thing was plain—that when Grant reached the Southside railroad, Lee was lost, unless he could mass his army and cut his way through the forces opposed to him. And this fact was so obvious, the situation was so apparent—that from the moment when the Weldon road was seized upon by General Grant, that officer and his great adversary never removed their eyes from the real point of importance, the true key of the lock—namely the Southside railroad, on Lee’s right.
Elsewhere Grant attacked, but it was to cover some movement, still toward his left. He assaulted Lee’s works, north of the James—but it was south of the Appomattox that he was looking. The operations of the fall and winter, on the lines around Petersburg were a great series of marches and counter-marches to and fro, suddenly bursting into battles. Grant massed his army heavily in front of the works in Charles City opposite the left of Lee; attempted to draw in that direction his adversary’s main force; then suddenly the blue lines vanished; they were rushed by railroad toward Petersburg, and Grant hastened to thrust his columns still farther beyond Lee’s right, in order to turn it and seize the Southside road.
That was not the conception of a great soldier, it may be, reader; but it was ingenious. General Grant was not a man of great military brain—but he was patient, watchful, and persevering. To defeat Lee, what was wanted was genius, or obstinacy—Napoleon or Grant. In the long run, perseverance was going to achieve the results of genius. The tortoise was going to reach the same goal with the hare. It was a question of time—that was all.
So, throughout October, as throughout September, and August, and July, General Grant thundered everywhere along his forty miles of earth-works, but his object was to raise a smoke dense enough to hide the blue columns moving westward. “Hurrah! we have got Fort Harrison!” exclaimed his enthusiastic subordinates. Grant would much rather have heard, “We have got the White Oak road!” Fort Harrison was a strong out-post simply; the White Oak road was the postern door into the citadel.
Gradually moving thus, from the Jerusalem plank road to the Weldon railroad, from the Weldon railroad to the Squirrel Level road, from the Squirrel Level road toward the Boydton road, beyond which was the White Oak road, Grant came, toward the end of October, to the banks of the Rowanty. As this long blue serpent unfolded its coils and stretched its threatening head into the Dinwiddie woods, Lee had extended his right to confront it. The great opponents moved pari passu, each marching in face of each other. Like two trained and skillful swordsmen, they changed ground without moving their eyes from each others’ faces—the lunge was met by the parry; and this seemed destined to go on to infinity.
That was the unskilled opinion, however. The civilians thought that—Lee did not. It was plain that this must end somewhere. Lee’s line would not bear much further extension. It reached now from a point on the Williamsburg road, east of Richmond, to Burgess’s Mill, west of Petersburg. His forty thousand men were strung over forty miles. That made the line so thin that it would bear little more. Stretched a little farther still, and it would snap.
Lee called in vain for more men. The Government could not send them. He predicted the result of failure to receive them. They did not come.
And Grant continued to move on, and Lee continued to stretch his thin line, until it began to crack.
Such was the situation of affairs at the end of October—when Grant aimed a heavy blow to cut the line in pieces. The blue serpent raised its head, and sprung to strike.