1 The lines of the two armies were so close to each other that it was impossible to care for the wounded that lay between them, except by a cessation of hostilities. As the National forces had been the assailants, most of the wounded were theirs. General Grant made an immediate effort to obtain a cessation for this humane purpose, but General Lee delayed it with various trivial excuses for forty-eight hours, and at the end of that time all but two of the wounded were dead. See a part of the correspondence in Grant's "Memoirs," Vol. II., pp. 273 et seq. As to the losses here and at Spottsylvania, authorities differ. The figures given above are from a statement compiled in the Adjutant-General's office.

The Confederate loss—which included Brigadier-General Doles among the killed, and Brigadier-Generals Kirkland, Lane, Law, and Finnegan among the wounded—is unknown; but it was much smaller than the National. The attack of June 3d is recognized as the most serious error in Grant's military career. He himself says, in his "Memoirs," that he always regretted it was ever made. It was as useless, and almost as costly, as Lee's assault upon Meade's centre at Gettysburg. But we do not read that any of Grant's lieutenants protested against it, as Longstreet protested against the attack on Cemetery Ridge.

For some days Grant held his army as close to the enemy as possible, to prevent the Confederates from detaching a force to operate against Hunter in the Shenandoah Valley.

BREVET MAJOR-GENERAL
P. ST. GEORGE COOKE.

General Halleck now proposed that the Army of the Potomac should invest Richmond on the north. This might have prevented any possibility of Lee's launching out toward Washington, but it could hardly have effected anything else. The Confederate lines of supply would have been left untouched, while the National troops would have perished between impregnable intrenchments on the one side and malarious swamps on the other. Grant determined to move once more by the left flank, swing his army across the James, and invest the city from the south. A direct investment of the Confederate capital on that side was out of the question, because the south bank of the James is lower than the city; and the movement would, therefore, resolve itself into a struggle for Petersburg, thirty miles south of Richmond, which was its railroad centre.

To withdraw an army from so close contact with the enemy, march it fifty miles, cross two rivers, and bring it into a new position, was a very delicate and hazardous task, and Grant performed it with consummate skill. He sent a part of his cavalry to make a demonstration on the James above Richmond and destroy portions of Lee's line of supplies from the Shenandoah; he had a line of intrenchments constructed along the north bank of the Chickahominy, from his position at Cold Harbor down to the point where he expected to cross; and directed General Butler to send two vessels loaded with stone to be sunk in the channel of the James as far up-stream as possible, so that the Confederate gunboats could not come down and attack the army while it was crossing. A large number of vessels had been collected at Fort Monroe, to be used as ferry-boats when the army should reach the James. The so-called "bridges" on the Chickahominy were now only names of geographical points, for all the bridges had been destroyed; but each column was to carry its pontoon train.

The march began in the evening of June 12th, and at midday of the 13th a pontoon was thrown across at Long Bridge, fifteen miles below the Cold Harbor position, and Wilson's cavalry crossed and immediately moved out a short distance on the roads toward Richmond, to watch the movements of the enemy and prevent a surprise. The Fifth corps followed quickly, and took a position covering these roads till the remainder of the army could cross. The Second, Sixth, and Ninth corps crossed the Chickahominy a few miles farther down; while the Eighteenth had embarked at White House, to be sent around by water. In the evening of the 13th, the Fifth reached Wilcox's Landing on the James, ten miles below Haxall's, where McClellan had reached the river at the close of his peninsula campaign. The other corps reached the landing on the 14th. The river there is more than two thousand feet wide; but between four o'clock, P.M., and midnight a pontoon was laid, and the crossing began. The artillery and trains were sent over first, and the infantry followed in a long procession that occupied forty-eight hours, the rear guard of the Sixth corps passing over at midnight of the 16th. Thus an army of more than one hundred thousand men was taken from a line of trenches within a few yards of the enemy, marched fifty miles, and, with all its paraphernalia, carried across two rivers and placed in a position threatening that enemy's capital, without a serious collision or disaster. General Ewell said that when the National army got across the James River he knew that the Confederate cause was lost, and it was the duty of their authorities to make the best terms they could while they still had a right to claim concessions.

Most critics of this campaign have persistently proceeded on the assumption that Grant's objective was the city of Richmond, and have accordingly condemned his plan of marching overland, and with apparent conclusiveness have pointed to his heavy losses and to the fact that Richmond was still uncaptured, and then asked the question, which has been wearisomely repeated, why he might not as well have carried his army by water in the first place to a position before Richmond, without loss, as McClellan had done two years before, instead of getting there along a bloody overland trail at such heavy cost. These critics should know, even if Grant himself had not distinctly declared it at the outset, that his objective was not the city of Richmond; that it was Lee's army, which it was his business to follow and fight until he destroyed it. The same critics appear to think also that he ought to have found a way to accomplish his purpose without bloodshed, and that because he did not he was no general, but a mere "butcher," as some of them boldly call him. If they were asked to name a general who had won great victories without himself losing men by the thousand, they would find it difficult to do so, for no such general figures in the pages of history. If there ever was a chance to defeat the Army of Northern Virginia and destroy the Confederacy by anything but hard fighting, it was when McClellan planted his army on the peninsula; but McClellan's timidity was not the quality necessary for a bold and brilliant stroke. Nearly the whole State of Virginia is admirably adapted for defence against an invading army; and by the time that Grant set out on his overland campaign every position where Lee's army could make a stand was thoroughly known, and most of them were fortified; furthermore, the men of his army were now veterans and understood how to use every one of their advantages, while Lee as a general had only to move his army over ground that it had already traversed several times, and manoeuvre for a constant defence. Under these circumstances, nothing but hard and continuous fighting could have conquered such an army. The same criticism that finds fault with General Grant for not transporting his army by water to the front of Richmond instead of fighting his way thither overland, must also condemn General Lee for not surrendering in the Wilderness instead of fighting all the way to Appomattox and then surrendering at last.

NEWSPAPER HEADQUARTERS AT THE FRONT.
(From a war-time photograph.)