tion on the North Anna stronger than either of his previous ones," withdrew, unmolested, to the north bank of the river. Meanwhile Butler, with an army, was moving up the James River, and, taking the Confederates by surprise, occupied, without opposition, City Point and Bermuda Hundred. It was in the chances that a skilful and daring general might have captured Petersburg or Richmond. Butler was neither, and dallied while Beauregard energetically gathered together the loose forces in North and South Carolina, and brought them to the defence of the two places. The result of his operations is thus accurately related by Grant: "His [Butler's] army, therefore, though in a position of great security, was as completely shut off from further operations directly against Richmond as if it had been a bottle strongly corked."2

Marching forward, and fighting on the way, Grant, by June 2, had gone a considerable distance farther south, had reached the ground which one wing of McClellan's army had occupied in May and June, 1862, and was in position near the scene of Fitz John Porter's gallant fight of Gaines's Mill, almost in sight of the spires of the Confederate capital. Lee, about six miles from the exterior fortifications of Richmond, held a position naturally strong, which by intrenchments he had made practically impregnable. Flanking movements being apparently at an end, Grant, with unjustifiable precipitation, ordered an assault in front. This was made at 4.30 in the morning of June 3, and constituted the Battle of Cold Harbor, the greatest blemish on his reputation as a general. The order having at first been given for the attack on the afternoon of the 2d, and then postponed for the morrow, officers and men had a chance to chew upon it,

1 O. R., vol. xxxvi. part i. p. 21.

2 Report, July 22, 1865, ibid., p. 20. The expressive phrase was Barnard's. It was seized upon by the public as an excellent statement of Butler's military incapacity, and its wide dissemination caused Grant annoyance afterwards. See Personal Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 152.

3 "Never attack in front a position which admits of being turned.". Military Maxims of Napoleon (N. Y. 1845), p. 17.

and both knew that the undertaking was hopeless. Horace Porter, an aide-de-camp of Grant, relates that when walking among the troops on staff duty the evening before the battle, he noticed many soldiers of one of the regiments designated for the assault pinning on the backs of their coats slips of paper on which were written their names and home addresses, so that their dead bodies might be recognized on the field, and their fate be known to their families at the North.1

The soldiers sprang promptly to the assault. The history of Hancock's corps, the Second, is an epitome of the action. In about twenty-two minutes its repulse was complete.2 It had "lost over 3000 of its bravest and best, both of officers and men." The true story of the day is told by General Lee: At one part of the Confederate line the Federals were "repulsed without difficulty;" at another, having penetrated a salient, they were driven out "with severe loss," at still another their "repeated attacks . . . were met with great steadiness and repulsed in every instance. The attack extended to our extreme left . . . with like results." Thus he concluded his despatch: "Our loss to-day has been small, and our success, under the blessing of God, all that we could expect." "The casualties in the Union army were probably 7000.5 Grant at that time regretted the attack, as he did also near the close of his life, when he gave expression to his perpetual regret in his Personal Memoirs. "No advantage whatever," he added, "was gained to compensate for the heavy loss we sustained." After the Battle of Cold Harbor

1 Century Magazine, March, 1897, p. 720; see Recollections of a Private, Wilkeson, p. 128.

2 Life of Hancock, Walker, p. 222.

3 Memoranda of 2d Corps, O. R., vol. xxxvi. part i. p. 367.

4 Ibid., part iii. p. 869.

5 H. Porter, Century Magazine, March, 1897, p. 722; see also Humphreys,

p. 182; Century War Book, vol. iv. p. 187.

6 Century Magazine, March, 1897, p. 722; Century War Book, vol. iv. p. 229. But in a later expression of opinion Grant does not appear to advantage. Ibid.

7 Vol. ii. p. 276; also, J. R. Young, vol. ii. p. 304.

he determined to move his army south of the James, and June 12 took up his march, the advance corps reaching the river on the next night.

The loss of Grant from May 4 to June 12 in the campaign from the Rapidan to the James was 54,929,1 a number nearly equal to Lee's whole army at the commencement of the Union advance; that of the Confederates is not known, but it was certainly very much less. Nor do the bare figures tell the whole story. Of this enormous loss the flower of the Army of the Potomac contributed a disproportionate share. Fighting against such odds of position and strategy, the highspirited and capable officers were in the thick of danger, and of the rank and file the veterans were always at the front: they were the forlorn hope. The bounty-jumpers and mercenaries skulked to the rear. The morale of the soldiers was much lower than on the day when, in high spirits, they had crossed the Rapidan. The confidence in Grant of many officers and of most of the men had been shaken.

In the judgment of many military critics, Grant had not been equal to his opportunities, had not made the best use of his advantages, and had secured no gain commensurate with his loss. Yet the friends of McClellan who maintain that because McClellan reached the same ground near Richmond with comparatively little sacrifice of life, his campaign had the greater merit, miss the main point of the situation, that the incessant hammering of Lee's army was a necessary concomitant of success. They attach to the capture of the Confederate capital the subjugation of the South, ignoring that Grant was supremely right in making Lee's army his first objective and Richmond only his second. His strategy was superior to McClellan's in that he grasped the aim of the war, and resolutely and grimly stuck to his purpose in spite of defeats and losses which would have dismayed any but the stoutest soul; and criticism of him is not sound unless it

1 Century War Book, vol. iv. p. 182. The loss in Butler's Army of the James was 6215.

proves, as perhaps it does, that there might have been the same persistent fighting of the Army of Northern Virginia without so great a slaughter of Northern soldiers. The case is certainly stronger for Grant if we compare his work even thus far with the operations of Pope, Burnside, and Hooker. As for Meade, his name is so gratefully associated with the magnificent victory of Gettysburg that our judgment leans in his favor, and would fain rate at the highest his achievements; but it is difficult to see aught that he did afterwards in independent command towards bringing the war to a close. If the narrative be anticipated, and the comparison be made of Grant's total losses to the day on which he received the surrender of Lee's army, with the combined losses of the rest of the commanders of the Army of the Potomac, the result arrived at is that his aggregate was less than theirs,1 and his was the great achievement. The military literature of the South directly and by implication breathes a constant tribute to the effectiveness of his plan and his execution of it. It must not, however, be forgotten that McClellan and Meade had weakened in some measure the power of resistance of the Army of Northern Virginia.2

Sherman, whose headquarters had been at Chattanooga, began his advance on May 6. He was at the head of three armies: the Cumberland, the Tennessee, and the Ohio, commanded, respectively, by Thomas, McPherson, and Schofield, and aggregating 99,000 men. Joseph E. Johnston was at

1 See J. W. Kirkley's computation, Army and Navy Journal, March 20, 1897; also, McClure's Magazine, May, 1898, p. 34.

2 My authorities for this account are the correspondence and reports in O. R., vol. xxxvi. parts i., ii., iii.; Nicolay and Hay, vol. viii.; Humphreys, The Virginia Campaign of 1864-65; Life of Lee, Long; do. Fitzhugh Lee; Taylor's Lee; Grant's Personal Memoirs, vol. ii.; Horace Porter, Campaigning with Gen. Grant, Century Magazine, 1896-97; Charles A. Dana's Reminiscences, McClure's Magazine, May, 1898; Century War Book, vol. iv.; Life of Hancock, Walker; W. F. Smith, From Chattanooga to Petersburg; Butler's Book; Recollections of a Private Soldier, Wilkeson; Swinton, Army of the Potomac; George Cary Eggleston's Recollections of a Rebel.

Dalton, Georgia, strongly intrenched with a force of 53,000.1 The campaign from Chattanooga to Atlanta, which now commenced, is remarkable for the vigor and pertinacity of the attack, the skill and obstinacy of the defence. Two giants met. The greater numbers of Sherman corresponded merely to the nature of his work. In the invasion of an enemy's country, with a constantly lengthening line of supply and a resulting diminution of force by detachments to protect it, an army twice as great as the resistant was necessary to accomplish the object of the campaign, which was the destruction or surrender of the opposing host. Johnston had not as able lieutenants as Sherman, and did not win from them as great a measure of devotion, nor had he in other respects a personnel equal to that of the Union commander, whose army, moreover, had derived confidence for the future from its victory at Chattanooga. But, taking everything into consideration, the conditions of the contest were nearly even. Sherman's work became easier, as will be seen, when he had as antagonist a commander of inferior parts. On the other hand, it cannot be maintained with show of reason that Johnston could have been driven constantly and steadily southward, from position to position, by a general who did not possess a high order of ability. The more one studies this inch-by-inch struggle, the better will one realize that in the direction and supply of each of these brute forces there was a master mind, with the best of professional training, with the profit of three years of warfare. The strife between the two was characterized by honor, as has been that of all noble spirits since Homer's time, who have fought to the end. Either would have regarded the killing of the other as a happy fortune of war, though, indeed, he might have apostrophized his dead body as did Mark Antony that of Brutus; 2 yet twenty-seven years

1 Maj. E. C. Dawes, Century War Book, vol. iv. p. 281. This number is variously given. I have preferred to follow Dawes, who has studied the subject with care. I think the same manner of computation which makes Sherman's force 98,797, will ascribe to Johnston 52,992.

2 Julius Cæsar, act v. scene 5.