1 ([Return])
Some time after the notes were made, from which these figures are condensed, two articles on Grant's campaign appeared in print—one in the New York "World," the other, by Mr. Hugh Pleasants, in "The Land We Love" magazine. Writing from diametrically opposite standpoints, with data gathered from opposing sources, Mr. Pleasants and the "World" very nearly agree in their figuring; and it was gratifying to this author to find that both corroborated the above estimates to within very inconsiderable numbers. Later historical papers have not materially changed them; save, perhaps, some southern claims still further to reduce Lee's army.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
DIES IRÆ—DIES ILLA.
It is nowise within the scope of these sketches to detail that memorable siege of Petersburg, lasting nearly one year. It were needless to relate here, how—for more than ten months—that long southern line of defense, constantly threatened and almost as constantly assailed, was held. Men know now that it was not by strength, but by sleepless watch and dogged endurance, that less than 30,000 worn men—so dotted along works extending near forty miles, that at points there was one soldier to every rod of earthwork—held their own, even against the earlier onsets. Men now realize why the Federal general—failing in every separate effort to buy a key-position, even at the cost of six lives for one—was forced to sit down sullenly and wait the slow, but sure, process of attrition.
These matters are now stamped upon the minds of readers, on both sides of the Potomac. In the North they had voluminous reports of every detail; and the cessation of interest elsewhere gave full leisure to study them. In the South, 30,000 earnest historians from the trenches were sought, each one by eager crowds; and the story of every cannonade and skirmish and charge, told in honest but homely words, was burned into the memory of intent listeners.
Slowly that summer wore itself away. Steadily that bloody history traced itself out; punctuated, now by many a fierce and sudden rush of crowding Federals—ever beaten back with frightful loss; again by rare sorties from our line, when our leaders saw the chance to strike some telling blow.
But spite of care in those leaders and superhuman endurance in the men, the southern troops were worn with watching and steadily melting away. Close, ceaseless fighting thinned their ranks; there were no more men—even the youngest of the land, or its first borns—to take the places of the lost veterans. General Grant's words were strictly true—"the South had robbed the cradle and the grave!" The boasted army of the North, led by her latest-chosen champion and strategist, was kept at bay by a skeleton of veterans, barely held together by the worn-out sinews and undeveloped muscle of old age and infancy.