FROM SPOTTSYLVANIA TO RICHMOND
The story of this campaign is too long to be narrated in particular. On
both sides it is a record of magnificent valor, endurance, and
resolution, to which the world affords no parallel, when it is
remembered that the armies were recruited from the free citizenship of
the nation. As the weeks and months wore on, General's Grant's visage,
it is said, settled into an unrelaxing expression of grim resolve. He
carried the nation on his shoulders in those days. If he had wearied or
yielded, hope might have vanished. He did not yield nor faint. He
planned and toiled and fought, keeping his own counsel, bearing
patiently the disappointment, the misunderstanding, the doubt, the
criticism, the woe of millions who had no other hope but in his success
and were often on the verge of despair. He beheld his plans defeated by
the incompetence or errors of subordinates whom he trusted, and let the
blame be laid upon himself without protest or murmuring. He knew better
than any one else the terrible cost of life which his unrelenting
purpose demanded; but he knew also that the price of relenting,
involving the discouragement of failure, the cost of another campaign
after the enemy had got breath and new equipment, the possible refusal
of the North to try again, was far greater and more humiliating. Little
wonder that he was oppressed and silent and moody. Yet he ruled his own
spirit in accordance with the habit of his life. No folly or
disappointment provoked him to utter an oath. General Horace Porter, of
his staff, a member of his intimate military family, says that the
strongest expression of vexation that ever escaped his lips was:
"Confound it!" He alone had the genius to be master of the situation at
all times, and the "simple faith in success" that would not let him be
swerved from his aim.
So he pressed on from the Wilderness to Spottsylvania, to North Anna,
to South Anna, to the Pamunky, to Cold Harbor, to the Chickahominy,
fighting and flanking all the way, until at the end of the month he had
pressed Lee back to the immediate vicinity of Richmond. The bloodiest of
all these battles was the ill-judged attack, for which Grant has been
much criticised, on the strongly intrenched rebel lines at Cold Harbor.
If he could have dislodged Lee here he could have compelled him to
retreat into the immediate fortifications of Richmond. But Lee's
position was impregnable: the assault failed. In less than an hour Grant
lost 13,000 men killed, wounded, and missing, and gained nothing
substantial.
General Butler had signally failed to accomplish the work given him to
do. Instead of taking Petersburg, destroying the railroads connecting
Richmond with the south, and laying siege to that city, he had, after
some ineffectual manoeuvring, got his army hemmed in, "bottled up,"
Grant called it, at Bermuda Hundred, where he was almost completely out
of the offensive movement for months. Sigel had been worsted in the
North, and had been relieved by Hunter, who had won measurable success
in the Shenandoah Valley.
Grant, checked on the east and north of Richmond, crossed the
Chickahominy and the James with his whole army by a series of masterly
manoeuvres, regarding the meaning of which his opponent was brilliantly
deceived. Then followed the unsuccessful attempt to capture Petersburg
before it could be reinforced, unsuccessful by reason of the want of
persistence on the part of the general intrusted with the duty. This
failure involved a long siege of that place, which the Confederates made
impregnable to assault. A breach in the defences was made by the
explosion of a mine constructed with vast labor, but there was failure
to follow up the advantage with sufficient promptness. Here the Army of
the Potomac passed the winter, except the part of the army that was
detached to protect Washington from threatened attack, and with which
Sheridan made his great fame in the Shenandoah Valley. Meanwhile
Sherman, in the West, had taken Atlanta, and leaving Hood's army to be
taken care of by Thomas, who defeated it at Nashville, had marched
across Georgia, and was making his way through the Carolinas northward
toward Richmond, an army under Johnston disputing his way by annoyance,
impediment, and occasional battle. Another incident of the winter was
the two attempts on Fort Fisher, near Wilmington, North Carolina,--the
first, under General Butler, a failure; the second, under General Terry,
a brilliant success. All these movements were in execution of plans and
directions given by the lieutenant-general.
It was the 29th of March when, all preparations having been made, Grant
began the final movement. He threw a large part of his army into the
region west of Petersburg and south of Richmond, and at Five Forks, four
days later, Sheridan fought a brilliant and decisive battle, which
compelled Lee to abandon both Petersburg and Richmond, and to attempt to
save his army by running away and joining Johnston. All his movements
were baffled by the eager Union generals, flushed with the consciousness
that the end was near.
On the 7th of April Grant wrote to Lee: "I regard it as my duty to shift
from myself responsibility for any further effusion of human blood by
asking of you the surrender of that portion of the Confederate States
army, known as the Army of Northern Virginia." Lee replied at once,
asking the terms that would be offered on condition of surrender. His
letter reached Grant on the 8th, who replied: "_Peace_ being my great
desire, there is but one condition I would insist upon, namely: that the
men and officers surrendered shall be disqualified for taking up arms
again against the government of the United States until properly
exchanged." He offered to meet Lee or any officers deputed by him for
arranging definite terms. Lee replied the same evening somewhat
evasively, setting forth that he desired to treat for peace, and that
the surrender of his army would be considered as a means to that end.
To this Grant responded on the 9th, having set his army in motion to
Appomattox Court House, that he had no authority to treat for peace; but
added some plain words to the effect that the shortest road to peace
would be surrender. Lee immediately asked for an interview. Grant
received this communication while on the road, and returned word that he
would push on and meet him wherever he might designate. When Grant
arrived at the village of Appomattox Court House he was directed to a
small house where Lee awaited him. Within a short time the conditions
were drafted by Grant and accepted by Lee, who was grateful that the
officers were permitted to keep their side-arms, and officers and men to
retain the horses which they owned and their private baggage.
The number of men surrendered at Appomattox was 27,416. During the ten
days' previous fighting 22,079 of Lee's army had been captured, and
about 12,000 killed and wounded. It is estimated that as many as 12,000
deserted on the road to Appomattox. From May 1, 1864, to April 9, 1865,
the Armies of the Potomac and the James took 66,512 prisoners and
captured 245 flags, 251 guns, and 22,633 stands of small arms. Their
losses from the Wilderness to Appomattox were 12,561 killed, 64,452
wounded, and 26,988 missing, an aggregate of 104,001.
It would be idle adulation to say that in all points during this long
conflict with Lee General Grant always did the best thing, making no
mistakes. The essential point is, and it suffices to establish, his
military fame on secure foundations, that he made no fatal mistake, that
progress toward the great result in view was constant, slower than he
expected, slower than the country expected, but finally everywhere
victorious, substantially on the lines contemplated in the beginning.
After Lee's experience in the Wilderness and at Spottsylvania he seldom
assumed the offensive against Grant. He became prudent, adopted a
defensive policy, fought behind intrenchments or just in front of
fortifications to which he could retire for safety, and waited to be
attacked. Watchful and alert as he was, he was deceived by Grant
oftener than he deceived him, and except that he managed to postpone the
end by skillful tactics, he did not challenge the military superiority
of his foe. He made Grant's victory costly and difficult, but he did not
prevent it. He retreated with desperate reluctance, but he was forced
back. He could not protect his capital; he could not save his army. When
Lee measured powers with Grant, his cause was lost.
There are incidents of the campaign that mitigate its stern and in some
sense savage features. When the imperturbable soldier learned of the
death of his dear friend McPherson, who fell in one of Sherman's
battles, he retired to his tent and wept bitterly. When Lincoln,
visiting Grant at City Point, before the general departed on what was
expected to be the last stage of the campaign, said to him that he had
expected he would order Sherman's army to reinforce the Army of the
Potomac for the final struggle, the reply was that the Army of the
Potomac had fought the Army of Virginia through four long years, and it
would not be just to require it to share the honors of victory with any
other army. It was observed that when he bade good-by to his wife at
this departure his adieus, always affectionate, were especially tender
and lingering, as if presentiment of a crisis in his life oppressed him.
Lincoln accompanied him to the train. "The President," said Grant, after
they had parted, "is one of the few who have not attempted to extract
from me a knowledge of my movements, although he is the only one who has
a right to know them." Long before, Lincoln had written to him: "The
particulars of your campaign I neither know nor seek to know. I wish not
to intrude any restraints or constraints upon you." Grant's reply to
this confidence was: "Should my success be less than I desire or expect,
the least I can say is, the fault is not yours." These two understood
each other by a magnanimous sympathy that had no need of particular
confidences. That Lincoln respected Grant as one whom it was not
becoming for him to presume to question is in itself impressive evidence
of Grant's greatness.