Grant came to Washington,[[74]] arriving on March 8, and there was induced by what he heard and saw to lay aside his own previous purpose and the strenuous advice of Sherman, and to fall in with Mr. Lincoln's wishes; that is to say, to take personal control of the campaign in Virginia. He did this with his usual promptness, and set Sherman in command in the middle of the country, the only other important theatre of operations. It is said that Grant, before accepting the new rank and taking Virginia as his special province, stipulated that he was to be absolutely free from all interference, especially on the part of Stanton. Whether this agreement was formulated or not, it was put into practical effect. No man hereafter interfered with General Grant. Mr. Lincoln occasionally made suggestions, but strictly and merely as suggestions. He distinctly and pointedly said that he did not know, and did not wish to know, the general's plans of campaign.[[75]] When the new commander had duly considered the situation, he adopted precisely the same broad scheme which had been previously devised by Mr. Lincoln and General McClellan; that is to say, he arranged a
simultaneous vigorous advance all along the line. It was the way to make weight and numbers tell; and Grant had great faith in weight and numbers; like Napoleon, he believed that Providence has a shrewd way of siding with the heaviest battalions.
On April 30, all being ready for the advance, the President sent a note of God-speed to the general. "I wish to express," he said, "my entire satisfaction with what you have done up to this time, so far as I understand it. The particulars of your plan I neither know, nor seek to know.... If there is anything wanting which is within my power to give, do not fail to let me know it." The general replied in a pleasant tone: "I have been astonished at the readiness with which everything asked for has been yielded, without even an explanation being asked. Should my success be less than I desire and expect, the least I can say is, the fault is not with you." When the President read these strange words his astonishment must have far exceeded that expressed by the general. Never before had he been thus addressed by any commander in Virginia! Generally he had been told that a magnificent success was about to be achieved, which he had done nothing to promote and perhaps much to retard, but which would nevertheless be secured by the ability of a general in spite of unfriendly neglect by a president.
On May 4 General Grant's army started upon its way, with 122,146 men present for duty.
Against them General Lee had 61,953. The odds seemed excessive; but Lee had inside lines, the defensive, and intrenchments, to equalize the disparity of numbers. At once began those bloody and incessant campaigns by which General Grant intended to end, and finally did end, the war. The North could afford to lose three men where the South lost two, and would still have a balance left after the South had spent all. The expenditure in this proportion would be disagreeable; but if this was the inevitable and only price, Grant was willing to pay it, justly regarding it as cheaper than a continuation of the process of purchase by piecemeal. In a few hours the frightful struggle in the Wilderness was in progress. All day on the 5th, all day on the 6th, the terrible slaughter continued in those darksome woods and swamps. "More desperate fighting has not been witnessed on this continent," said Grant. The Union troops could not force their way through those tangled forests. Thereupon, accepting the situation in his imperturbable way, he arranged to move, on May 7, by the left flank southerly towards Spottsylvania. Lee, disappointed and surprised that Grant was advancing instead of falling back, could not do otherwise than move in the same course; for, in fact, the combatants were locked together in a grappling campaign. Then took place more bloody and determined fighting. The Union losses were appalling, since the troops were attacking an army in position. Yet Grant was sanguine;
it was in a dispatch of May 11 that he said that he had been getting the better in the struggle, and that he proposed to fight it out on that line if it took all summer. The result of the further slaughter at Spottsylvania was not a victory for either leader, but was more hurtful to Lee because he could less well afford to have his men killed and wounded. Grant, again finding that he could not force Lee out of his position, also again moved by the left flank, steadily approaching Richmond and dragging Lee with him. The Northern loss had already reached the frightful total of 37,335 men; the Confederate loss was less, but enormous. Amid the bloodshed, however, Grant scented success. On May 26 he wrote: "Lee's army is really whipped.... Our men feel that they have gained the morale over the enemy.... I may be mistaken, but I feel that our success over Lee's army is already assured." He even gratified the President by again disregarding all precedent in Virginian campaigns, and saying that the promptness with which reinforcements had been forwarded had contributed largely to the promising situation! But almost immediately after this the North shuddered at the enormous and profitless carnage at Cold Harbor. Concurrently with all this bloodshed, there also took place the famous and ill-starred movement of General Butler upon Richmond, which ended in securely shutting up him and his forces at Bermuda Hundred, "as in a bottle strongly corked."
Such was the Virginian situation early in June. By a series of most bloody battles, no one of which had been a real victory, Grant had come before the defenses of Richmond, nearly where McClellan had already been. And now, like McClellan, he proposed to move around to the southward and invest the city. It must be confessed that in all this there was nothing visible to the inexperienced vision of the citizens at home which made much brighter in their eyes the prestige of Mr. Lincoln's war policy. Nor could they see, as that summer of the presidential campaign came and went, that any really great change or improvement was effected.
On the other hand, there took place in July what is sometimes lightly called General Early's raid against Washington. In fact, it was a genuine and very serious campaign, wherein that general was within a few hours of capturing the city. Issuing out of that Shenandoah Valley whence, as from a cave of horrors rather than one of the loveliest valleys in the world, so much of terror and mischief had so often burst out against the North, Early, with 17,000 veteran troops, moved straight and fast upon the national capital. On the evening of July 10 Mr. Lincoln rode out to his summer quarters at the Soldiers' Home. But the Confederate troops were within a few miles, and Mr. Stanton insisted that he should come back. The next day the Confederates advanced along the Seventh Street road, in full expectation of marching
into the city with little opposition. There was brisk artillery firing, and Mr. Lincoln, who had driven out to the scene of action, actually came under fire; an officer was struck down within a few feet of him.
The anticipation of General Early was sanguine, yet by no means ill founded. The veterans in Washington were a mere handful, and though the green troops might have held the strong defenses for a little while, yet the Southern veterans would have been pretty sure to make their way. It was, in fact, a very close question of time. Grant had been at first incredulous of the reports of Early's movements; but when he could no longer doubt, he sent reinforcements with the utmost dispatch. They arrived none too soon. It was while General Early was making his final arrangements for an attack, which he meant should be irresistible, that General Wright, with two divisions from the army of the Potomac, landed at the river wharves and marched through the city to the threatened points. With this the critical hours passed away. It had really been a crisis of hours, and might have been one of minutes. Now Early saw that the prize had slipped through his fingers actually as they closed upon it, and so bitter was his disappointment that—since he was disappointed—even a Northerner can almost afford him sympathy. So, his chance being gone, he must go too, and that speedily; for it was he who was in danger now. Moving rapidly, he saved himself, and returned up