mond by assault was at an end, and that nothing was left for him but the slow results of siege-operations, wherein he would have to demand a new lease of Northern patience, which he had abused by promises to destroy Lee and to eat a patriotic dinner in Richmond on the Fourth of July. He had sacrificed in the experiment thus concluded more men than there were in Lee's whole army; in one pregnant month of operations he had lost more than sixty thousand men; while Lee had lost in the same time, as reported by his Adjutant-General, about eighteen thousand men, covered probably by the reinforcements of Beauregard, etc, and had conducted his army with such skill, constantly thrusting it between Grant and Richmond, that its morale was never better than after the battle of Cold. Harbour.

A review of this remarkable one month's campaign in Virginia, so glorious to Lee, illustrates the difference between the mediocre commander and the master of the art of war, and is a striking commentary on the fruitful topic of skill against numbers. Gen. Lee was not reinforced by a single musket upon the battles of the Wilderness and Spottsylvania Court-House, and had no resource at hand from which to repair the terrible losses sustained on those bloody fields. It was not until he arrived at Hanover Junction that he received any addition to his thinned ranks; and here he was joined by Pickett's division of Longstreet's corps, and Breckinridge, with two small brigades of infantry, and a battalion of artillery. These, with Hoke's brigade, were the first and only reinforcements received by Gen. Lee since the opening of the campaign. He had commenced the campaign with not more than 50,000 effective men of all arms. The report of the Federal Secretary of War shows that the "available force present for duty, May 1, 1864," in Grant's army, was 141,166, to wit: In the Army of the Potomac 120,386, and in the Ninth corps 20,780. The draft in the United States was being energetically enforced, and volunteering had been greatly stimulated by high bounties. The Northwestern States had tendered large bodies of troops to serve one hundred days, in order to relieve other troops on garrison and local duty, and this enabled Grant to put in the field a large number of troops which had been employed on that kind of duty. It was known that he was receiving heavy reinforcements up to the very time of his movement on the 4th May, and after

wards; so that the statement of his force on the 1st May, by Stanton, does not cover the whole force with which he commenced the campaign. Moreover, Secretary Stanton's report shows that there were, in the Department of Washington and the Middle Department, 47,751 available men for duty, the chief part of which, he says, was called to the front after the campaign began, "in order to repair the losses of the Army of the Potomac ;" and Grant says that, at Spottsylvania Court House, "the 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th, and 18th May, were consumed in manœuvring and awaiting the arrival of reinforcements from Washington." His army, therefore, must have numbered very nearly, if not quite, 200,000 men, before a junction was effected with Butler.

To a review of the odds and difficulties against which Gen. Lee had to contend, and to the comparisons suggested by the operations from the Rapidan to the Chickahominy, there is a view so apposite in the work of a recent military writer,* that we transcribe it here as a just conclusion of what may be said of this campaign, and the two rival commanders of the North and South:

"Skill in arms is the equivalent of thousands of good troops, and may again succeed, as it has so often succeeded before, in gaining, against odds, victories which fix the fate of nations. Let us imagine that an army in the field is commanded by a General who has fought his way upward from grade to grade, who is valiant, devoted, and practised in war. He is versed in all routine duties, knows the uses and capabilities of the different arms, can choose and occupy a position, make the dispositions for the march of his columns, stubbornly cover a retreat, and save his army even after a heavy disaster. But not having a mind capable of comprehensive views or of deep study, he knows nothing of great combinations. Strategy, in the sense of a flexible science to be adapted to circumstances, is a sealed book to him; the theatre of war is written in a cipher to which he has not the key; he can deal with accidents of the country, when they present themselves, as something to be immediately attacked or defended, but they suggest no large problems by the solution of which a few marches decide a campaign. Cautious, from not knowing when he may venture to be bold, and rash from ignorance of what may be attempted

*Col. Hamley: Operations of War.

against him, he spoils his offensive movements by hesitation, defends himself by makeshifts, and only half understands his own blunders when they have ruined his army. This is no unfair picture of what has often passed muster in the world as a respectable leader to be intrusted with the fate of hosts. It would do injustice to some of Napoleon's most celebrated marshals. Such a one will probably acquit himself with credit so long as he is opposed by no qualities superiour to his own.

"But let us imagine that a General of a different stamp enters the field-one who has been taught by study and thought, not merely what has been done in war, and how to conform to respectable precedent (although that may be much), but how to meet new circumstances with new combinations. He has mastered the problems of strategy, and can read the theatre of war. He knows not only how to draw from a situation all its inherent advantages, but how to produce the situation. Thus when a great opportunity arrives he is the less likely to lose it, because it is of his own making; he seizes it unhesitatingly, because he has confidence in his own knowledge of the game; and in darkness and difficulty his step is assured, because he is familiar with the ground he moves When such opponents are matched we have the conditions of startling, brilliant, decisive success in war."

on.

CHAPTER XI.

General Lee's private opinion of the defences of Richmond.—A serious communication to the Government, and how it was treated.-Vagaries of President Davis.-Gen. Lee decides that the safety of Richmond lies in raising the siege-Expedition of Early across the Potomac.-Anxiety of Gen. Lee.-He meditates taking command of the force in Maryland.-Retreat of Early.-Gen. Lee next proposes a diversion in the Valley of Virginia.—Failure of this operation.-Constant extension of Grant's left around Richmond.-Period of despondency in the South.-A letter of Gen. Lee on the question of supplies.-He proposes bringing in two or three years' supplies from Europe.-Desertion the great evil in the Confederate armies.-Difficulties of dealing with it.-Various letters and protests from Gen. Lee on the subject of discipline.-An angry comment of President Davis.-Gen. Lee a severe disciplinarian, and yet loved by his men.-Anecdote of the General and a onearmed soldier.—Skeleton returns of the army.—The popular clamour against President Davis.-Gen. Lee's quasi acceptance of the position of Commander-in-chief. Nature and peculiar history of this rank in the Confederate armies.-Hopeful views of Gen. Lee.-Project of arming the negroes.-Growth of new hopes for the Confederacy.

ALTHOUGH Gen. Lee had fought, in most respects, a successful campaign, and in all respects a glorious one, he feared now that the safety of Richmond was to be put to a test which he had been long persuaded it could not withstand. As long as the enemy chose to "hammer" on his lines, he had nothing to fear; but the anxiety was that Grant might proceed to envelop the city as far as possible, without attacking fortifications; might turn his attention to the railroads on the south side, and trusting to the slow operations of taking one by one Lee's communications, and wearing out his little army, assure himself of a result which he had not been able to obtain by an action in the field.

It was not long before Grant's operations against Richmond developed the very designs which Gen. Lee had suspected and feared; the bulk of the Federal army being transferred to the south side of the James, and after an abortive attempt to take Petersburg, turning its attention to the railroad lines which fed Richmond, and were, indeed, of vital concern to the army which defended it.

It is not necessary to detail these operations further than to explain the ideas which governed Gen. Lee in his radical change of the defence of the capital from a distant line to one immediately covering Richmond and its outpost in Petersburg. When Grant crossed the James River, and developed his design upon the communications of Richmond, Gen. Lee seriously advised the Richmond authorities that he could not hope to hold the Weldon road; and he frequently thereafter expressed his surprise that the government received this information with so little concern, scarcely exhibiting a sense of danger. Indeed, such was the almost incredible obtuseness of the Confederate President and his advisers, that the reader will scarcely be prepared for the statement that while Lee's little army stood in the desperate straits of Richmond and Petersburg, Mr. Davis was actually proposing a detachment from his thin lines to reinforce Charleston, in answer to letters from the Governor of South Carolina, exclaiming, what was the constant cry from that State, that if Charleston was lost, the Southern Confederacy would be instantly non-extant by that event!

But such insane counsels were ultimately abandoned. As Gen. Lee had predicted, the Weldon Railroad, after repeated attemps of the enemy, was at last seized, and firmly held by him; while Grant extended the left flank of his army to insure its tenure. His operations now appeared, by repeated extensions of the left, to be directed against the Southside and Danville roads, which remained covered by Lee's army. These remaining lines of supply were threatened not only by the extension of Grant's line, but might be operated against by a column able to cut itself loose from its base.

In these circumstances of the danger and difficulty of his communications, and the constant accession of unstinted numbers to the enemy in the design of enveloping his army, which could not possibly keep pace with that of Grant in reinforcements, Gen. Lee decided that the safety of Richmond lay in raising the siege. About the first of July, Washington was uncovered as it had never been before. The Army of the Potomac was south of the James; and that of Hunter, which had been defeated at Lynchburg, had retreated wildly into the mountains of Western Virginia, leaving open the line of march to Washington by the Shenandoah Valley. It was an extraordinary opportunity to strike Washington, or at