On Sunday, the 29th, there was one of the severest cavalry-engagements
of the war, at Hawes's shop, west of Hanover Town, where Sheridan drove
the Rebels back upon Bethesda Church. The array came into position on
the 30th, its right towards Hanover Court-House. Lee was already in
position, and during the day there was firing all along the line. Each
corps was engaged. The Second Corps by the Shelton House with a
bayonet-charge pushed the enemy from the outer line of works which he
had thrown up, while the Fifth Corps rolled back, with terrible
slaughter, the mass of men which came upon its flank and front at
Bethesda Church. At Coal Harbor, the Sixth, joined by the Eighteenth
Army Corps, under Major-General W. F. Smith, from Bermuda Hundred, met
Longstreet and Breckenridge and troops from Beauregard. Sheridan had
seized this important point,--important because of the junction of
roads,--and held it against cavalry and infantry till the arrival of the
Fifth and Eighteenth. The point secured, a new line of battle was formed
on the 1st of June. The Ninth held the right at Bethesda Church; the
Fifth was south of the church, joining the Eighteenth; the Sixth held
the road from Coal Harbor to Gaines's Mill; while the Second was thrown
out on the left, on the road leading to Despatch Station and the
Chickahominy, as indicated by the diagram (p. 131).
Such was the position of the army within ten miles of Richmond,--the
line of battle crossing the ground occupied by Stonewall Jackson at the
Battle of Gaines's Mill.
Sanguinary conflicts have since taken place,--bayonet-charges, desperate
encounters with varying success and reverse,--but the record of the
month has closed. There, face to face, cannon fronting cannon, with less
than two hundred feet between, are the two armies on the 31st of May, at
midnight. Without losing a train of supplies, cutting loose from one
base after another,--from Washington, Belle Plain, and Port Royal
successively,--establishing new depots at pleasure, General Grant has
moved from the Rappahannock to the Chickahominy, against the utmost
efforts of General Lee to turn him back. General Grant believes that the
military power of the Rebels must be broken before the Rebellion can be
crushed. Continued hammering produces abrasion at last, in the toughest
iron. Break the iron pillars, and the edifice tumbles. There is a
manifest weakening of the Rebel army. Longstreet's veterans have lost
their fire; and since the Battles of the Wilderness, the Rebel troops
have had no heart for a bayonet-charge.
The line of advance taken by General Grant turned the Rebels from
Washington. The country over which the two armies marched is a
desolation. There is no subsistence remaining. The railroads are
destroyed. Lee has no longer the power to invade the North. On the other
hand, General Grant can swing upon the James and isolate the Rebel army
from direct connection with the South. That accomplished, and, sooner or
later,--with Hunter in the Shenandoah, with Union cavalry sweeping down
to Wilmington, Weldon, and Danville, and up to the Blue Ridge, cutting
railroads, burning bridges, destroying supplies of ammunition and
provisions,--the question with Lee must be, not one of earthworks and
cannon and powder and ball, but of subsistence. Plainly, the day is
approaching when the Army of the Potomac, unfortunate at times in the
past, derided, ridiculed, but now triumphant through unparalleled
hardship, endurance, courage, persistency, will plant its banners on the
defences of Richmond, crumble the Rebel army beyond the possibility of
future cohesion, and, in conjunction with the forces in other
departments, crush out the last vestige of the Rebellion.