After the bloody action of the 12th of May, General Grant remained quiet for many days, "awaiting," he says, "the arrival of reënforcements from Washington." The number of these fresh troops is not known to the present writer. General Lee had no reinforcements to expect, and continued to confront his adversary with his small army, which must have been reduced by the heavy fighting to less than forty thousand men, while that of General Grant numbered probably about one hundred and forty thousand.
Finding that his opponent was not disposed to renew hostilities. General Lee, on the 19th of May, sent General Ewell to turn his right flank; but this movement resulted in nothing, save the discovery by General Ewell that the Federal army was moving. This intelligence was dispatched to General Lee on the evening of the 21st, and reached him at Souther's House, on the banks of the Po, where he was calmly reconnoitring the position of the enemy.
As soon as he read the note of General Ewell, he mounted his horse, saying, in his grave voice, to his staff, "Come, gentlemen;" and orders were sent to the army to prepare to move. The troops began their march on the same night, in the direction of Hanover Junction, which they reached on the evening of the 22d. When, on May 23d, General Grant reached the banks of the North Anna, he found Lee stationed on the south bank, ready to oppose his crossing.
The failure of General Grant to reach and seize upon the important point of Hanover Junction before the arrival of Lee, decided the fate of the plan of campaign originally devised by him. If the reader will glance at the map of Virginia, this fact will become apparent. Hanover Junction is the point where the Virginia Central and Richmond and Fredericksburg Railroads cross each other, and is situated in the angle of the North Anna and South Anna Rivers, which unite a short distance below to form the Pamunkey. Once in possession of this point, General Grant would have had easy communication with the excellent base of supplies at Aquia Creek; would have cut the Virginia Central Railroad; and a direct march southward would have enabled him to invest Richmond from the north and northwest, in accordance with his original plan. Lee had, however, reached the point first, and from that moment, unless the Southern force were driven from its position, the entire plan of campaign must necessarily be changed.
The great error of General Grant in this arduous campaign would seem to have been the feebleness of the attack which he here made upon Lee. The position of the Southern army was not formidable, and on his arrival they had had no time to erect defences. The river is not difficult of crossing, and the ground on the south bank gives no decided advantage to a force occupying it. In spite of these facts—which it is proper to say General Grant denies, however—nothing was effected, and but little attempted. A few words will sum up the operations of the armies during the two or three days. Reaching the river, General Grant threw a column across some miles up the stream, at a point known as Jericho Ford, where a brief but obstinate encounter ensued between Generals Hill and Warren, and this was followed by the capture of an old redoubt defending the Chesterfield bridge, near the railroad crossing, opposite Lee's right, which enabled another column to pass the stream at that point. These two successful passages of the river on Lee's left and right seemed to indicate a fixed intention on the part of his adversary to press both the Southern flanks, and bring on a decisive engagement; and, to coöperate in this plan, a third column was now thrown over opposite Lee's centre.
These movements were, however, promptly met. Lee retired his two wings, but struck suddenly with his centre at the force attempting to cross there; and then active operations on both sides ceased. In spite of having passed the river with the bulk of his army, and formed line of battle, General Grant resolved not to attack. His explanation of this is that Lee's position was found "stronger than either of his previous ones."
Such was the result of the able disposition of the Southern force at this important point. General Grant found his whole programme reversed, and, on the night of the 26th, silently withdrew and hastened down the north bank of the Pamunkey toward Hanovertown preceded by the cavalry of General Sheridan.
That officer had been detached from the army as it approached Spottsylvania Court-House, to make a rapid march toward Richmond, and destroy the Confederate communications. In this he partially succeeded, but, attempting to ride into Richmond, was repulsed with considerable loss. The only important result, indeed, of the expedition, was the death of General Stuart. This distinguished commander of General Lee's cavalry had been directed to pursue General Sheridan; had done so, with his customary promptness, and intercepted his column near Richmond, at a spot known as the Yellow Tavern; and here, in a stubborn engagement, in which Stuart strove to supply his want of troops by the fury of his attack, the great chief of cavalry was mortally wounded, and expired soon afterward. His fall was a grievous blow to General Lee's heart, as well as to the Southern cause. Endowed by nature with a courage which shrunk from nothing; active, energetic, of immense physical stamina, which enabled him to endure any amount of fatigue; devoted, heart and soul, to the cause in which he fought, and looking up to the commander of the army with childlike love and admiration, Stuart could be ill spared at this critical moment, and General Lee was plunged into the deepest melancholy at the intelligence of his death. When it reached him he retired from those around him, and remained for some time communing with his own heart and memory. When one of his staff entered, and spoke of Stuart, General Lee said, in a low voice, "I can scarcely think of him without weeping."
The command of the cavalry devolved upon General Hampton, and it was fought throughout the succeeding campaign with the nerve and efficiency of a great soldier; but Stuart had, as it were, formed and moulded it with his own hands; he was the first great commander of horse in the war; and it was hard for his successors, however great their genius, to compete with his memory. His name will thus remain that of the greatest and most prominent cavalry-officer of the war.
Crossing the Pamunkey at Hanovertown, after a rapid night-march, General Grant sent out a force toward Hanover Court-House to cut off Lee's retreat or discover his position. This resulted in nothing, since General Lee had not moved in that direction. He had, as soon as the movement of General Grant was discovered, put his lines in motion, directed his march across the country on the direct route to Cold Harbor, and, halting behind the Tottapotomoi, had formed his line there, to check the progress of his adversary on the main road from Hanovertown toward Richmond. For the third time, thus, General Grant had found his adversary in his path; and no generalship, or rapidity in the movement of his column, seemed sufficient to secure to him the advantages of a surprise. On each occasion the march of the Federal army had taken place in the night; from the Wilderness on the night of May 7th; from Spottsylvania on the night of May 21st; and from near the North Anna on the night of May 26th. Lee had imitated these movements of his opponent, interposing on each occasion, at the critical moment, in his path, and inviting battle. This last statement may be regarded as too strongly expressed, as it seems the opinion of Northern writers that Lee, in these movements, aimed only to maintain a strict defensive, and, by means of breastworks, simply keep his adversary at arm's length. This is an entire mistake. Confident of the efficiency of his army, small as it was, he was always desirous to bring on a decisive action, under favorable circumstances. General Early bears his testimony to the truth of this statement. "I happen to know," says this officer, "that General Lee had always the greatest anxiety to strike at Grant in the open field." During the whole movement from the Wilderness to Cold Harbor, the Confederate commander was in excellent spirits. When at Hanover Junction he spoke of the situation almost jocosely, and said to the venerable Dr. Gwathmey, speaking of General Grant, "If I can get one more pull at him, I will defeat him."
This expression does not seem to indicate any depression or want of confidence in his ability to meet General Grant in an open pitched battle. It may, however, be asked why, if such were his desire, he did not come out from behind his breastworks and fight. The reply is, that General Grant invariably defended his lines by breastworks as powerful as—in many cases much more powerful than—his adversary's. The opposing mounds of earth and trees along the routes of the two armies remain to prove the truth of what is here stated. At Cold Harbor, especially, the Federal works are veritable forts. In face of them, the theory that General Grant uniformly acted upon the offensive, without fear of offensive operations in turn on the part of Lee, will be found untenable. Nor is this statement made with the view of representing General Grant as over-cautious, or of detracting from his merit as a commander. It was, on the contrary, highly honorable to him, that, opposed to an adversary of such ability, he should have neglected nothing.
Reaching the Tottapotomoi, General Grant found his opponent in a strong position behind that sluggish water-course, prepared to dispute the road to Richmond; and it now became necessary to force the passage in his front, or, by another flank march, move still farther to the left, and endeavor to cross the Chickahominy somewhere in the vicinity of Cold Harbor. This last operation was determined upon by General Grant, and, sending his cavalry toward Cold Harbor, he moved rapidly in the same direction with his infantry. This movement was discovered at once by Lee; he sent Longstreet's corps forward, and, when the Federal army arrived, the Southern forces were drawn up in their front, between them and Richmond, thus barring, for the fourth time in the campaign, the road to the capital.
During these movements, nearly continuous fighting had taken place between the opposing columns, which clung to each other, as it were, each shaping its march more or less by that of the other. At last they had reached the ground upon which the obstinate struggle of June, 1862, had taken place, and it now became necessary for General Grant either to form some new plan of campaign, or, by throwing his whole army, in one great mass, against his adversary, break through all obstacles, cross the Chickahominy, and seize upon Richmond. This was now resolved upon.
Heavy fighting took place on June 2d, near Bethesda Church and at other points, while the armies were coming into position; but this was felt to be but the preface to the greater struggle which General Lee now clearly divined. It came without loss of time. On the morning of the 3d of June, soon after daylight, General Grant threw his whole army straightforward against Lee's front—all along his line. The conflict which followed was one of those bloody grapples, rather than battles, which, discarding all manoeuvring or brain-work in the commanders, depend for the result upon the brute strength of the forces engaged. The action did not last half an hour, and, in that time, the Federal loss was thirteen thousand men. When General Lee sent a messenger to A.P. Hill, asking the result of the assault on his part of the line, Hill took the officer with him in front of his works, and, pointing to the dead bodies which were literally lying upon each other, said: "Tell General Lee it is the same all along my front."
The Federal army had, indeed, sustained a blow so heavy, that even the constant mind and fixed resolution of General Grant and the Federal authorities seem to have been shaken. The war seemed hopeless to many persons in the North after the frightful bloodshed of this thirty minutes at Cold Harbor, of which fact there is sufficient proof. "So gloomy," says a Northern historian,[1] "was the military outlook after the action on the Chickahominy, and to such a degree, by consequence, had the moral spring of the public mind become relaxed, that there was at this time great danger of a collapse of the war. The history of this conflict, truthfully written, will show this. The archives of the State Department, when one day made public, will show how deeply the Government was affected by the want of military success, and to what resolutions the Executive had in consequence come. Had not success elsewhere come to brighten the horizon, it would have been difficult to have raised new forces to recruit the Army of the Potomac, which, shaken in its structure, its valor quenched in blood, and thousands of its ablest officers killed and wounded, was the Army of the Potomac no more."
[Footnote 1: Mr. Swinton, in his able and candid "Campaigns of theArmy of the Potomac."]
The campaign of one month—from May 4th to June 4th—had cost the Federal commander sixty thousand men and three thousand officers—numbers which are given on the authority of Federal historians—while the loss of Lee did not exceed eighteen thousand. The result would seem an unfavorable comment upon the choice of the route across the country from Culpepper instead of that by the James. General McClellan, two years before, had reached Cold Harbor with trifling losses. To attain the same point had cost General Grant a frightful number of lives. Nor could it be said that he had any important successes to offset this loss. He had not defeated his adversary in any of the battle-fields of the campaign; nor did it seem that he had stricken him any serious blow. The Army of Northern Virginia, not reënforced until it reached Hanover Junction, and then only by about nine thousand men under Generals Breckinridge and Pickett, had held its ground against the large force opposed to it; had repulsed every assault; and, in a final trial of strength with a force largely its superior, had inflicted upon the enemy, in about an hour, a loss of thirteen thousand men.
These facts, highly honorable to Lee and his troops, are the plainest and most compendious comment we can make upon the campaign. The whole movement of General Grant across Virginia is, indeed, now conceded even by his admirers to have been unfortunate. It failed to accomplish the end expected from it—the investment of Richmond on the north and west—and the lives of about sixty thousand men were, it would seem, unnecessarily lost, to reach a position which might have been attained with losses comparatively trifling, and without the unfortunate prestige of defeat.
General Lee remained facing his adversary in his lines at Cold Harbor, for many days after the bloody struggle of the 3d of June, confident of his ability to repulse any new attack, and completely barring the way to Richmond. The Federal campaign, it was now seen, was at an end on that line, and it was obvious that General Grant must adopt some other plan, in spite of his determination expressed in the beginning of the campaign, to "fight it out on that line if it took all the summer." The summer was but begun, and further fighting on that line was hopeless. Under these circumstances the Federal commander resolved to give up the attempt to assail Richmond from the north or east, and by a rapid movement to Petersburg, seize upon that place, cut the Confederate railroads leading southward, and thus compel an evacuation of the capital.
[Illustration: Map of Petersburg and Environs.]
It would be interesting to inquire what the course of General Lee would have been in the event of the success of this plan, and how the war would have resulted. It would seem that, under such circumstances, his only resource would have been to retire with his army in the direction of Lynchburg, where his communications would have remained open with the south and west. If driven from that point, the fastnesses of the Alleghanies were at hand; and, contemplating afterward the possibility of being forced to take refuge there, he said: "With my army in the mountains of Virginia, I could carry on this war for twenty years longer." That spectacle was lost to the world—Lee and his army fighting from mountain fastness to mountain fastness—and the annals of war are not illustrated by a chapter so strange. That Lee was confident of his ability to carry on such a struggle successfully is certain; and Washington had conceived the same idea in the old Revolution, when he said that if he were driven from the seaboard he would take refuge in West Augusta, and thereby prolong the war interminably.
To return from these speculations to the narrative of events. General Grant remained in front of Lee until the 12th of June, when, moving again by his left flank, he crossed the Chickahominy, proceeded in the direction of City Point, at which place the Appomattox and James Rivers mingle their waters, and, crossing the James on pontoons, hastened forward in order to seize upon Petersburg. This important undertaking had been strangely neglected by Major-General Butler, who, in obedience to General Grant's orders, had sailed from Fortress Monroe on the 4th of May, reached Bermuda Hundred, the peninsula opposite City Point, made by a remarkable bend in James River, and proceeded to intrench himself. It was in his power on his arrival to have seized upon Petersburg, but this he failed to do at that time, and the appearance of a force under General Beauregard, from the south, soon induced him to give his entire attention to his own safety. An attack by Beauregard had been promptly made, which nearly resulted in General Butler's destruction. He succeeded, however, in retiring behind his works across the neck of the Peninsula, in which he now found himself completely shut up; and so powerless was his situation, with his large force of thirty thousand men, that General Grant wrote, "His army was as completely shut off … as if it had been in a bottle strongly corked."
The attempt of General Grant to seize upon Petersburg by a surprise failed. His forces were not able to reach the vicinity of the place until the 15th, when they were bravely opposed behind impromptu works by a body of local troops, who fought like regular soldiers, and succeeded in holding the works until night ended the contest.
When morning came long lines were seen defiling into the breastworks, and the familiar battle-flags of the Army of Northern Virginia rose above the long line of bayonets giving assurance that the possession of Petersburg would be obstinately disputed.
General Lee had moved with his accustomed celerity, and, as usual, without that loss of time which results from doubt of an adversary's intentions. If General Grant retired without another battle on the Chickahominy, it was obvious to Lee that he must design one of two things: either to advance upon Richmond from the direction of Charles City, or attempt a campaign against the capital from the south of James River. Lee seems at once to have satisfied himself that the latter was the design. An inconsiderable force was sent to feel the enemy near the White-Oak Swamp; he was encountered there in some force, but, satisfied that this was a feint to mislead him, General Lee proceeded to cross the James River above Drury's Bluff, near "Wilton," and concentrate his army at Petersburg. On the 16th he was in face of his adversary there. General Grant had adopted the plan of campaign which Lee expected him to adopt. General McClellan had not been permitted in 1862 to carry out the same plan; it was now undertaken by General Grant, who sustained better relations toward the Government, and the result would seem to indicate that General McClellan was, after all, a soldier of sound views.
As soon as General Lee reached Petersburg, he began promptly to draw a regular line of earthworks around the city, to the east and south, for its defence. It was obvious that General Grant would lose no time in striking at him, in order to take advantage of the slight character of the defences already existing; and this anticipation was speedily realized. General Lee had scarcely gotten his forces in position on the 16th when he was furiously attacked, and such was the weight of this assault that Lee was forced from his advanced position, east of the city, behind his second line of works, by this time well forward in process of construction. Against this new line General Grant threw heavy forces, in attack after attack, on the 17th and 18th, losing, it is said, more than four thousand men, but effecting nothing. On the 21st General Lee was called upon to meet a more formidable assault than any of the preceding ones—this time more to his right, in the vicinity of the Weldon Railroad, which runs southward from Petersburg. A heavy line was advanced in that quarter by the enemy; but, observing that an interval had been left between two of their corps, General Lee threw forward a column under General Hill, cut the Federal lines, and repulsed their attack, bearing off nearly three thousand prisoners.
On the same night an important cavalry expedition, consisting of the divisions of General Wilson and Kautz, numbering about six thousand horse, was sent westward to cut the Weldon, Southside, and Danville Railroads, which connected the Southern army with the South and West. This raid resulted in apparently great but really unimportant injury to the Confederate communications against which it was directed. The Federal cavalry tore up large portions of the tracks of all three railroads, burning the wood-work, and laying waste the country around; but the further results of the expedition were unfavorable. They were pursued and harassed by a small body of cavalry under General W. H.F. Lee, and, on their return in the direction of Reams's Station, were met near Sapponey Church by a force of fifteen hundred cavalry under General Hampton. That energetic officer at once attacked; the fighting continued furiously throughout the entire night, and at dawn the Federal horse retreated in confusion. Their misfortunes were not, however, ended. Near Reams's, at which point they attempted to cross the Weldon Railroad, they were met by General Fitz Lee's horsemen and about two hundred infantry under General Mahone, and this force completed their discomfiture. After a brief attempt to force their way through the unforeseen obstacle, they broke in disorder, leaving behind them twelve pieces of artillery, and more than a thousand prisoners, and, with foaming and exhausted horses, regained the Federal lines.
Such was the result of an expedition from which General Grant probably expected much. The damage done to Lee's communications was inconsiderable, and did not repay the Federal commander for the losses sustained. The railroads were soon repaired and in working order again; and the Federal cavalry was for the time rendered unfit for further operations.
It was now the end of June, and every attempt made by General Grant to force Lee's lines had proved unsuccessful. It was apparent that surprise of the able commander of the Confederate army was hopeless. His works were growing stronger every day, and nothing was left to his great adversary but to lay regular siege to the long line of fortifications; to draw lines for the protection of his own front from attack; and, by gradually extending his left, reach out toward the Weldon and Southside Railroads.
To obtain possession of these roads was from this time General Grant's great object; and all his movements were shaped by that paramount consideration.
The first days of July, 1864, witnessed, at Petersburg, the commencement of a series of military manoeuvres, for which few, if any, precedents existed in all the annals of war. An army of forty or fifty thousand men, intrenched along a line extending finally over a distance of nearly forty miles, was defending, against a force of about thrice its numbers, a capital more than twenty miles in its rear; and, from July of one year to April of the next, there never was a moment when, to have broken through this line, would not have terminated the war, and resulted in the destruction of the Confederacy.
A few words in reference to the topography of the country and the situation will show this. Petersburg is twenty-two miles south of Richmond, and is connected with the South and West by the Weldon and Southside Railroads, which latter road crosses the Danville Railroad, the main line of communication between the capital and the Gulf States. With the enemy once holding these roads and those north of the city, as they were preparing to do, the capital would be isolated, and the Confederate Government must evacuate Virginia. In that event the Army of Northern Virginia had also nothing left to it but retreat. Virginia must be abandoned; the Federal authority would be extended over the oldest and one of the largest and most important members of the Confederacy; and, under circumstances so adverse, it might well be a question whether, disheartened as they would be by the loss of so powerful an ally, the other States of the Confederacy would have sufficient resolution to continue the contest.
These considerations are said to have been fully weighed by General Lee, whose far-reaching military sagacity divined the exact situation of affairs, and the probable results of a conflict so unequal as that which General Grant now forced upon him. We have noticed, on a preceding page, his opinions upon this subject, expressed to a confidential friend as far back as 1862. He then declared that the true line of assault upon Richmond was that now adopted by General Grant. As long as the capital was assailed from the north or the east, he might hope with some reason, by hard fighting, to repulse the assault, and hold Richmond. But, with an enemy at Petersburg, threatening with a large force the Southern railroads, it was obviously only a question of time when Richmond, and consequently Virginia, must be abandoned.
General Lee, we repeat, fully realized the facts here stated, when his adversary, giving up all other lines, crossed James River to Petersburg. Lee is said, we know not with what truth, to have coolly recommended an evacuation of Richmond. But this met with no favor. A powerful party, including both the friends and enemies of the Executive, spoke of the movement as a "pernicious idea." If recommended by Lee, it was speedily abandoned, and all the energies of the Government were concentrated upon the difficult task of holding the enemy at arm's length south of the Appomattox and in Charles City.
In a few weeks after the appearance of the adversaries opposite each other at Petersburg, the lines of leaguer and defence were drawn, and the long struggle began. General Grant had crossed a force into Charles City, on the north bank of James River, and thus menaced Richmond with an assault from that quarter. His line extended thence across the neck of the Peninsula of Bermuda Hundred, and east and south of Petersburg, where, day by day, it gradually reached westward, approaching nearer and nearer to the railroads feeding the Southern army and capital. Lee's line conformed itself to that of his adversary. In addition to the works east and southeast of Richmond, an exterior chain of defences had been drawn, facing the hostile force near Deep Bottom; and the river at Drury's Bluff, a fortification of some strength, had been guarded, by sunken obstructions, against the approach of the Federal gunboats. The Southern lines then continued, facing those of the enemy north of the Appomattox, and, crossing that stream, extended around the city of Petersburg, gradually moving westward in conformity with the works of General Grant. A glance at the accompanying diagram will clearly indicate the positions and relations to each other of the Federal and Confederate works. These will show that the real struggle was anticipated, by both commanders, west of Petersburg; and, as the days wore on, it was more and more apparent that somewhere in the vicinity of Dinwiddie Court-House the last great wrestle of the opposing armies must take place.
To that conclusive trial of strength we shall advance with as few interruptions as possible. The operations of the two armies at Petersburg do not possess, for the general reader, that dramatic interest which is found in battles such as those of Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, deciding for the time the fates of great campaigns. At Petersburg the fighting seemed to decide little, and the bloody collisions had no names. The day of pitched battles, indeed, seemed past. It was one long battle, day and night, week after week, and month after month—during the heat of summer, the sad hours of autumn, and the cold days and nights of winter. It was, in fact, the siege of Richmond which General Grant had undertaken, and the fighting consisted less of battles, in the ordinary acceptation of that word, than of attempts to break through the lines of his adversary—now north of James River, now east of Petersburg, now at some point in the long chain of redans which guarded the approaches to the coveted Southside Railroad, which, once in possession of the Federal commander, would give him victory.
Of this long, obstinate, and bloody struggle we shall describe only those prominent incidents which rose above the rest with a species of dramatic splendor. For the full narrative the reader must have recourse to military histories aiming to chronicle the operations of each corps, division, and brigade in the two armies—a minuteness of detail beyond our scope, and probably not desired by those who will peruse these pages.
The month of July began and went upon its way, with incessant fighting all along the Confederate front, both north of James River and south of the Appomattox. General Grant was thus engaged in the persistent effort to, at some point, break through his opponent's works, when intelligence suddenly reached him, by telegraph from Washington, that a strong Confederate column had advanced down the Shenandoah Valley, crossed the Potomac, and was rapidly moving eastward in the direction of the Federal capital.
This portentous incident was the result of a plan of great boldness devised by General Lee, from which he expected much. A few words will explain this plan.
A portion of General Grant's plan of campaign had been an advance up the Valley, and another from Western Virginia, toward the Lynchburg and Tennessee Railroad—the two columns to coöperate with the main army by cutting the Confederate communications. The column in Western Virginia effected little, but that in the Valley, under General Hunter, hastened forward, almost unopposed, from the small numbers of the Southern force, and early in June threatened Lynchburg. The news reached Lee at Cold Harbor soon after his battle there with General Grant, and he promptly detached General Early, at the head of about eight thousand men, with orders to "move to the Valley through Swift-Run Gap, or Brown's Gap, attack Hunter, and then cross the Potomac and threaten Washington." [Footnote: This statement of his orders was derived from Lieutenant-General Early.]
General Early, an officer of great energy and intrepidity, moved without loss of time, and an engagement ensued between him and General Hunter near Lynchburg. The battle was soon decided. General Hunter, who had more cruelly oppressed the inhabitants of the Valley than even General Milroy, was completely defeated, driven in disordered flight toward the Ohio, and Early hastened down the Valley, and thence into Maryland, with the view of threatening Washington, as he had been ordered to do by Lee. His march was exceedingly rapid, and he found the road unobstructed until he reached the Monocacy near Frederick City, where he was opposed by a force under General Wallace. This force he attacked, and soon drove from the field; he then pressed forward, and on the 11th of July came in sight of Washington.
It was the intelligence of this advance of a Confederate force into Maryland, and toward the capital, which came to startle General Grant while he was hotly engaged with Lee at Petersburg. The Washington authorities seem to have been completely unnerved, and to have regarded the capture of the city as nearly inevitable. General Grant, however, stood firm, and did not permit the terror of the civil authorities to affect him. He sent forward to Washington two army corps, and these arrived just in time. If it had been in the power of General Early to capture Washington—which seems questionable—the opportunity was lost. He found himself compelled to retire across the Potomac again to avoid an attack in his rear; and this he effected without loss, taking up, in accordance with orders from Lee, a position in the Valley, where he remained for some months a standing threat to the enemy.
Such was the famous march of General Early to Washington; and there seems at present little reason to doubt that the Federal capital had a narrow escape from capture by the Confederates. What the result of so singular an event would have been, it is difficult to say; but it is certain that it would have put an end to General Grant's entire campaign at Petersburg. Then—but speculations of this character are simply loss of time. The city was not captured; the war went upon its way, and was destined to terminate by pure exhaustion of one of the combatants, unaffected bycoups de mainin any part of the theatre of conflict.
We have briefly spoken of the engagement between Generals Early and Hunter, near Lynchburg, and the abrupt retreat of the latter to the western mountains and thence toward the Ohio. It may interest the reader to know General Lee's views on the subject of this retreat, which, it seems, were drawn from him by a letter addressed to him by General Hunter:
"As soon after the war as mail communications were opened," writes the gentleman of high character from whom we derive this incident, "General David Hunter wrote to General Lee, begging that he would answer him frankly on two points:"
'I. His (Hunter's) campaign in 1864 was undertaken on information received by General Halleck that General Lee was about to detach forty thousand picked troops to send to Georgia. Did not his (Hunter's) move prevent this?
'II. When he found it necessary to retreat from Lynchburg, did he not take the most feasible route?'
General Lee wrote a very courteous reply, in which he said:
'I. General Halleck was misinformed. I hadno troops to spare, and forty thousand would have taken nearly my whole army.
'II. I am not advised as to the motives which induced you to adopt your line of retreat, and am not, perhaps, competent to judge of the question;but I certainly expected you to retreat by wayof the Shenandoah Valley.'
"General Hunter," adds our correspondent, "never published this letter, but I heard General Lee tell of it one day with evident pleasure."
Lee's opinion of the military abilities of both Generals Hunter and Sheridan was indeed far from flattering. He regarded those two commanders—especially General Sheridan—as enjoying reputations solely conferred upon them by the exhaustion of the resources of the Confederacy, and not warranted by any military efficiency in themselves.
The end of the month of July was now approaching, and every attempt made by General Grant to break through Lee's lines had resulted in failure. At every point which he assailed, an armed force, sufficient to repulse his most vigorous attacks, seemed to spring from the earth; and no movement of the Federal forces, however sudden and rapid, had been able to take the Confederate commander unawares. The campaign was apparently settling down into stubborn fighting, day and night, in which the object of General Grant was to carry out his programme of attrition. Such was the feeling in both armies when, at dawn on the 30th of July, a loud explosion, heard for thirty miles, took place on the lines near Petersburg, and a vast column of smoke, shooting upward to a great height, seemed to indicate the blowing up of an extensive magazine.
Instead of a magazine, it was a mine which had thus been exploded; and the incident was not the least singular of a campaign unlike any which had preceded it.
The plan of forming a breach in the Southern works, by exploding a mine beneath them, is said by Northern writers to have originated with a subordinate officer of the Federal army, who, observing the close proximity of the opposing works near Petersburg, conceived it feasible to construct a subterranean gallery, reaching beneath those of General Lee. The undertaking was begun, the earth being carried off in cracker-boxes; and such was the steady persistence of the workmen that a gallery five hundred feet long, with lateral openings beneath the Confederate works, was soon finished; and in these lateral recesses was placed a large amount of powder.
All was now ready, and the question was how to utilize the explosion. General Grant decided to follow it by a sudden charge through the breach, seize a crest in rear, and thus interpose a force directly in the centre of Lee's line. A singular discussion, however, arose, and caused some embarrassment. Should the assaulting column consist of white or negro troops? This question was decided, General Grant afterward declared, by "pulling straws or tossing coppers"—the white troops were the fortunate or unfortunate ones—and on the morning of July 30th the mine was exploded. The effect was frightful, and the incident will long be remembered by those present and escaping unharmed. The small Southern force and artillery immediately above the mine were hurled into the air. An opening, one hundred and fifty feet long, sixty feet wide, and thirty feet deep, suddenly appeared, where a moment before had extended the Confederate earthworks; and the Federal division, selected for the charge, rushed forward to pierce the opening.
The result did not justify the sanguine expectations which seem to have been excited in the breasts of the Federal officers. A Southern writer thus describes what ensued:
"The 'white division' charged, reached the crater, stumbled over thedébris, were suddenly met by a merciless fire of artillery, enfilading them right and left, and of infantry fusillading them in front; faltered, hesitated, were badly led, lost heart, gave up the plan of seizing the crest in rear, huddled into the crater, man on top of man, company mingled with company; and upon this disordered, unstrung, quivering mass of human beings, white and black—for the black troops had followed—was poured a hurricane of shot, shell, canister, musketry, which made the hideous crater a slaughter-pen, horrible and frightful beyond the power of words. All order was lost; all idea of charging the crest abandoned. Lee's infantry was seen concentrating for the carnival of death; his artillery was massing to destroy the remnants of the charging divisions; those who deserted the crater, to scramble over thedébrisand run back, were shot down; then all that was left to the shuddering mass of blacks and whites in the pit was to shrink lower, evade the horriblemitraille, and wait for a charge of their friends to rescue them or surrender."
These sentences sufficiently describe the painful scene which followed the explosion of the mine. The charging column was unable to advance in face of the very heavy fire directed upon them by the Southern infantry and artillery; and the effect of this fire was so appalling that General Mahone, commanding at the spot, is said to have ordered it to cease, adding that the spectacle made him sick. The Federal forces finally succeeded in making their way back, with a loss of about four thousand prisoners; and General Lee, whose losses had been small, reëstablished his line without interruption.
Before passing from this incident, a singular circumstance connected with it is deserving of mention. This was the declaration of the Congressional Committee, which in due time investigated the whole affair.
The conclusion of the committee was not flattering to the veteran Army of the Potomac. The report declared that "the first and great cause of disaster was the employment of white instead of black troops to make the charge."
Throughout the months of August and September, Lee continued to be attacked at various points along his entire front, but succeeded in repulsing every assault. General Grant's design may be said, in general terms, to have been a steady extension of his left toward the Confederate communications west of Petersburg, while taking the chances, by attacks north of James River, to break through in that quarter and seize upon Richmond. It is probable that his hopes of effecting the last-mentioned object were small; but operations in that direction promised the more probable result of causing Lee to weaken his right, and thus uncover the Southside Railroad.
An indecisive attack on the north of James River was followed, toward the end of August, by a heavy advance, to seize upon the Weldon Railroad near Petersburg. In this General Grant succeeded, an event clearly foreseen by Lee, who had long before informed the authorities that he could not hold this road. General Grant followed up this success by sending heavy forces to seize Reams's Station, on the same road, farther south, and afterward to destroy it to Hicksford—which, however, effected less favorable results, Lee meeting and defeating both forces after obstinate engagements, in which the Federal troops lost heavily, and were compelled to retreat.
These varying successes did not, however, materially affect the general result. The Federal left gradually reached farther and farther westward, until finally it had passed the Vaughan, Squirrel Level, and other roads, running south-westward from Petersburg, and in October was established on the left bank of Hatcher's Run, which unites with Gravelly Run to form the Rowanty. It was now obvious that a further extension of the Federal left would probably enable General Grant to seize upon the Southside Railroad. An energetic attempt was speedily made by him to effect this important object, to which it is said he attached great importance from its anticipated bearing on the approaching presidential election.
On the 27th of October a heavy column was thrown across Hatcher's Run, in the vicinity of Burgess's Mill, on the Boydton Road, and an obstinate attack was made on Lee's lines there with the view of breaking through to the Southside Road. In this, however, General Grant did not succeed. His column was met in front and flank by Generals Hampton—who here lost his brave son, Preston—and W.H.F. Lee, with dismounted sharp-shooters; infantry was hastened to the threatened point by General Lee, and, after an obstinate struggle, the Federal force was driven back. General Lee reporting that General Mahone charged and "broke three lines of battle."[1]
[Footnote 1:Dispatch of Lee, October28, 1864.—It was the habit of General Lee, throughout the last campaign of the war, to send to Richmond, from time to time, brief dispatches announcing whatever occurred along the lines; and these, in the absence of official reports of these occurrences on the Confederate side, are valuable records of the progress of affairs. These brief summaries are reliable from the absence of all exaggeration, but cannot be depended upon by the historian, for a very singular reason, namely, that almost invariably the Confederate successes are understated. On the present occasion, the Federal loss in prisoners near Burgess's Mill and east of Richmond—where General Grant had attacked at the same time to effect a diversion—are put down by General Lee at eight hundred, whereas thirteen hundred and sixty-five were received at Richmond.
Lee's dispatch of October 28th is here given, as a specimen of these brief military reports.
October28, 1864.
Hon. Secretary of War:
General Hill reports that the attack of General Heth upon the enemy on the Boydton Plank-road, mentioned in my dispatch last evening, was made by three brigades under General Mahone in front, and General Hampton in the rear. Mahone captured four hundred prisoners, three stand of colors, and six pieces of artillery. The latter could not be brought off, the enemy having possession of the bridge.
In the attack subsequently made by the enemy General Mahone broke three lines of battle, and during the night the enemy retreated from the Boydton Road, leaving his wounded and more than two hundred and fifty dead on the field.
About nine o'clock P.M. a small force assaulted and took possession of our works on the Baxter Road, in front of Petersburg, but were soon driven out.
On the Williamsburg Road General Field captured upward of four hundred prisoners and seven stand of colors. The enemy left a number of dead in front of our works, and to-day retreated to his former position.
R.E. Lee]
With this repulse of the Federal forces terminated active operations of importance for the year; and but one other attempt was made, during the winter, to gain ground on the left. This took place early in February, and resulted in failure like the former—the Confederates losing, however, the brave General John Pegram.
The presidential election at the North had been decided in favor of Mr. Lincoln—General McClellan and Mr. Pendleton, the supposed advocates of peace, suffering defeat. The significance of this fact was unmistakable. It was now seen that unless the Confederates fought their way to independence, there was no hope of a favorable termination of the war, and this conclusion was courageously faced by General Lee. The outlook for the coming year was far from encouraging; the resources of the Confederacy were steadily being reduced; her coasts were blockaded; her armies were diminishing; discouragement seemed slowly to be invading every heart—but, in the midst of this general foreboding, the commander of the Army of Northern Virginia retained an august composure; and, conversing with one of the Southern Senators, said, "For myself, I intend to die sword in hand."
That his sense of duty did not afterward permit him to do so, was perhaps one of the bitterest pangs of his whole life.
Before entering upon the narrative of the last and decisive campaign of the war, we shall speak of the personal demeanor of General Lee at this time, and endeavor to account for a circumstance which astonished many persons—his surprising equanimity, and even cheerfulness, under the pressure of cares sufficient, it would seem, to crush the most powerful organization.
He had established his headquarters a mile or two west of Petersburg, on the Cox Road, nearly opposite his centre, and here he seemed to await whatever the future would bring with a tranquillity which was a source of surprise and admiration to all who were thrown in contact with him. Many persons will bear their testimony to this extraordinary composure. His countenance seldom, if ever, exhibited the least traces of anxiety, but was firm, hopeful, and encouraged those around him in the belief that he was still confident of success. That he did not, however, look forward with any thing like hope to such success, we have endeavored already to show. From the first, he seems to have regarded his situation, unless his army were largely reënforced, as almost desperate; those reënforcements did not come; and yet, as he saw his numbers day by day decreasing, and General Grant's increasing a still larger ratio, he retained his courage, confronting the misfortunes closing in upon him with unmoved composure, and at no time seemed to lose his "heart of hope."
Of this phenomenon the explanation has been sought in the constitutional courage of the individual, and that instinctive rebound against fate which takes place in great organizations. This explanation, doubtless, is not without a certain amount of truth; but an attentive consideration of the principles which guided this eminent soldier throughout his career, will show that his equanimity, at a moment so trying, was due to another and more controlling sentiment. This sentiment was his devotion to Duty—"the sublimest word in our language." Throughout his entire life he had sought to discover and perform his duty, without regard to consequences. That had been with him the great question in April, 1861, when the war broke out: he had decided in his own mind what he ought to do, and had not hesitated.
From that time forward he continued to do what Duty commanded without a murmur. In the obscure campaign of Western Virginia—in the unnoted work of fortifying the Southern coast—in the great campaigns which he had subsequently fought—and everywhere, his consciousness of having performed his duty to the best of his knowledge and ability sustained him. It sustained him, above all, at Gettysburg, where he had done his best, giving him strength to take upon himself the responsibility of that disaster; and, now, in these last dark days at Petersburg, it must have been the sense of having done his whole duty, and expended upon the cause every energy of his being, which enabled him to meet the approaching catastrophe with a calmness which seemed to those around him almost sublime.
If this be not the explanation of the composure of General Lee, throughout the last great struggle with the Federal Army, the writer of these pages is at a loss to account for it. The phenomenon was plain to all eyes, and crowned the soldier with a glory greater than that which he had derived from his most decisive military successes. Great and unmoved in the dark hour as in the bright, he seemed to have determined to perform his duty to the last, and to shape his conduct, under whatever pressure of disaster, upon the two maxims, "Do your duty," and "Human virtue should be equal to human calamity."
There is little reason to doubt that General Lee saw this "calamity" coming, for the effort to reënforce his small army with fresh levies seemed hopeless. The reasons for this unfortunate state of things must be sought elsewhere. The unfortunate fact will be stated, without comment, that, while the Federal army was regularly and largely reënforced, so that its numbers at no time fell below one hundred and fifty thousand men. Lee's entire force at Petersburg at no time reached sixty thousand, and in the spring of 1865, when he still continued to hold his long line of defences, numbered scarcely half of sixty thousand. This was the primary cause of the failure of the struggle. General Grant's immense hammer continued to beat upon his adversary, wearing away his strength day by day. No new troops arrived to take the places of those who had fallen; and General Lee saw, drawing closer and closer, the inevitable hour when, driven from his works, or with the Federal army upon his communications, he must cut his way southward or surrender.
A last circumstance in reference to General Lee's position at this time should be stated; the fact that, from the autumn of 1864 to the end in the spring of 1865, he was felt by the country and the army to be the sole hope of the Confederacy. To him alone now all men looked as thedeus ex machinâto extricate them from the dangers surrounding them. This sentiment needed no expression in words. It was seen in the faces and the very tones of voice of all. Old men visited him, and begged him with faltering voices not to expose himself, for, if he were killed, all would be lost. The troops followed him with their eyes, or their cheers, whenever he appeared, feeling a singular sense of confidence from the presence of the gray-haired soldier in his plain uniform, and assured that, as long as Lee led them, the cause was safe. All classes of the people thus regarded the fate of the Confederacy as resting, not partially, but solely, upon the shoulders of Lee; and, although he was not entitled by his rank in the service to direct operations in other quarters than Virginia, there was a very general desire that the whole conduct of the war everywhere should be intrusted to his hands. This was done, as will be seen, toward the spring of 1865, but it was too late.
These notices of General Lee individually are necessary to a clear comprehension of the concluding incidents of the great conflict. It is doubtful if, in any other struggle of history, the hopes of a people were more entirely wrapped up in a single individual. All criticisms of the eminent soldier had long since been silenced, and it may, indeed, be said that something like a superstitious confidence in his fortunes had become widely disseminated. It was the general sentiment, even when Lee himself saw the end surely approaching, that all was safe while he remained in command of the army. This hallucination must have greatly pained him, for no one ever saw more clearly, or was less blinded by irrational confidence. Lee fully understood and represented to the civil authorities—with whom his relations were perfectly friendly and cordial—that if his lines were broken at any point, the fate of the campaign was sealed. Feeling this truth, of which his military sagacity left him in no doubt, he had to bear the further weight of that general confidence which he did not share. He did not complain, however, or in any manner indicate the desperate straits to which he had come. He called for fresh troops to supply his losses; when they did not arrive he continued to oppose his powerful adversary with the remnant still at his command. These were now more like old comrades than mere private soldiers under his orders. What was left of the army was its best material. The fires of battle had tested the metal, and that which emerged from the furnace was gold free from alloy. The men remaining with Lee were those whom no peril of the cause in which they were fighting could dishearten or prompt to desert or even temporarily absent themselves from the Southern standard; and thiscorps d' élitewas devoted wholly to their commander. For this devotion they certainly had valid reason. Never had leader exhibited a more systematic, unfailing, and almost tender care of his troops. Lee seemed to feel that these veterans in their ragged jackets, with their gaunt faces, were personal friends of his own, who were entitled to his most affectionate exertions for their welfare. His calls on the civil authorities in their behalf were unceasing. The burden of these demands was that, unless his men's wants were attended to, the Southern cause was lost; and it plainly revolted his sense of the fitness of things that men upon whom depended the fate of the South should be shoeless, in tatters, and forced to subsist on a quarter of a pound of rancid bacon and a little corn bread, when thousands remaining out of the army, and dodging the enrolling-officers, were well clothed and fed, and never heard the whistle of a bullet. The men understood this care for them, and returned the affectionate solicitude of their commander in full. He was now their ideal of a leader, and all that he did was perfect in their eyes. All awe of him had long since left them—they understood what treasures of kindness and simplicity lay under the grave exterior. The tattered privates approached the commander-in-chief without embarrassment, and his reception of them was such as to make them love him more than ever. Had we space we might dwell upon this marked respect and attention paid by General Lee to his private soldiers. He seemed to think them more worthy of marks of regard than his highest officers. And there was never the least air of condescension in him when thrown with them, but a perfect simplicity, kindness, and unaffected sympathy, which went to their hearts. This was almost a natural gift with Lee, and arose from the genuine goodness of his heart. His feeling toward his soldiers is shown in an incident which occurred at this time, and was thus related in one of the Richmond journals: "A gentleman who was in the train from this city to Petersburg, a very cold morning not long ago, tells us his attention was attracted by the efforts of a young soldier, with his arm in a sling, to get his overcoat on. His teeth, as well as his sound arm, were brought into use to effect the object; but, in the midst of his efforts, an officer rose from his seat, advanced to him, and very carefully and tenderly assisted him, drawing the coat gently over his wounded arm, and buttoning it up comfortably; then, with a few kind and pleasant words, returning to his seat. Now the officer in question was not clad in gorgeous uniform, with a brilliant wreath upon his collar, and a multitude of gilt lines upon the sleeves, resembling the famous labyrinth of Crete, but he was clad in a simple suit of gray, distinguished from the garb of a civilian only by the three stars which every Confederate colonel in the service, by the regulations, is entitled to wear. And yet he was no other than our chief, General Robert E. Lee, who is not braver than he is good and modest."
To terminate this brief sketch of General Lee, personally, in the winter of 1864. He looked much older than at the beginning of the war, but by no means less hardy or robust. On the contrary, the arduous campaigns through which he had passed seemed to have hardened him—developing to the highest degree the native strength of his physical organization. His cheeks were ruddy, and his eye had that clear light which indicates the presence of the calm, self-poised will. But his hair had grown gray, like his beard and mustache, which were worn short and well-trimmed. His dress, as always, was a plain and serviceable gray uniform, with no indications of rank save the stars on the collar. Cavalry-boots reached nearly to his knees, and he seldom wore any weapon. A broad-brimmed gray-felt hat rested low upon the forehead; and the movements of this soldierly figure were as firm, measured, and imposing, as ever. It was impossible to discern in General Lee any evidences of impaired strength, or any trace of the wearing hardships through which he had passed. He seemed made of iron, and would remain in his saddle all day, and then at his desk half the night, without apparently feeling any fatigue. He was still almost an anchorite in his personal habits, and lived so poorly that it is said he was compelled to borrow a small piece of meat when unexpected visitors dined with him.
Such, in brief outline, was the individual upon whose shoulders, in the last months of 1864 and the early part of 1865, rested the Southern Confederacy.
In approaching the narrative of the last tragic scenes of the Confederate struggle, the writer of these pages experiences emotions of sadness which will probably be shared by not a few even of those readers whose sympathies, from the nature of things, were on the side of the North. To doubt this would be painful, and would indicate a contempt for human nature. Not only in the eyes of his friends and followers, but even in the eyes of his bitterest enemies, Lee must surely have appeared great and noble. Right or wrong in the struggle, he believed that he was performing his duty; and the brave army at his back, which had fought so heroically, were inspired by the same sentiment, and risked all on the issue.
This great soldier was now about to suffer the cruellest pang which the spite of Fate can inflict, and his army to be disbanded, to return in poverty and defeat to their homes. That spectacle was surely tragic, and appealed to the hardest heart; and if any rejoiced in such misery he must have been unsusceptible of the sentiment of admiration for heroism in misfortune.
The last and decisive struggle between the two armies at Petersburg began in March, 1865. But events of great importance in many quarters had preceded this final conflict, the result of which had been to break down all the outer defences of the Confederacy, leaving only the inner citadel still intact. The events in question are so familiar to those who will peruse these pages, that a passing reference to them is all that is necessary. Affairs in the Valley of Virginia, from autumn to spring, had steadily proceeded from bad to worse. In September, General Sheridan, with a force of about forty-five thousand, had assailed General Early near Winchester, with a force of about eight or nine thousand muskets, and succeeded in driving him up the Valley beyond Strasburg, whence, attacked a second time, he had retreated toward Staunton. This was followed, in October, by another battle at Cedar Run, where Early attacked and nearly crushed General Sheridan, but eventually was again repulsed, and forced a second time to retreat up the Valley to Waynesboro', where, in February, his little remnant was assailed by overwhelming numbers and dispersed. General Sheridan, who had effected this inglorious but important success, then proceeded to the Lowlands, joined General Grant's army, and was ready, with his large force of horse, to take part in the coming battles.
A more important success had attended the Federal arms in the West. General Johnston, who had been restored to command there at the solicitation of Lee, had found his force insufficient to oppose General Sherman's large army; the Confederates had accordingly retreated; and General Sherman, almost unresisted, from the exhaustion of his adversary, marched across the country to Savannah, which fell an easy prize, and thence advanced to Goldsborough, in North Carolina, where he directly threatened Lee's line of retreat from Virginia.
Such was the condition of affairs in the months of February and March, 1865. In the former month, commissioners from the Confederate Government had met President Lincoln in Hampton Roads, but no terms of peace could be agreed upon; the issue was still left to be decided by arms, and every advantage was upon the Federal side. General Lee, who had just been appointed "General-in-Chief"—having thus imposed upon him the mockery of a rank no longer of any value—saw the armies of the enemy closing in upon him, and did not deceive himself with the empty hope that he could longer hold his lines at Petersburg. The country, oppressed as it was, and laboring under a sentiment akin to despair, still retained in almost undiminished measure its superstitious confidence in him; but he himself saw clearly the desperate character of the situation. General Grant was in his front with a force of about one hundred and fifty thousand men, and General Sherman was about to enter Virginia with an army of about the same numbers. Lee's force at Petersburg was a little over thirty thousand men—that of Johnston was not so great, and was detained by Sherman. Under these circumstances, it was obviously only a question of time when the Army of Northern Virginia would be overwhelmed. In February, 1865, these facts were perfectly apparent to General Lee: but one course was left to him—to retreat from Virginia; and he promptly began that movement in the latter part of the month, ordering his trains to Amelia Court-House, and directing pontoons to be got ready at Roanoke River. His aim was simple—to unite his army with that of General Johnston, and retreat into the Gulf States. In the mountains of Virginia he could carry on the war, he had said, for twenty years; in the fertile regions of the South he might expect to prolong hostilities, or at least make favorable terms of peace—which would be better than to remain in Virginia until he was completely surrounded, and an unconditional submission would alone be left him.
It will probably remain a subject of regret to military students, that Lee was not permitted to carry out this retreat into the Gulf States. The movement was arrested after a consultation with the civil authorities at Richmond. Upon what grounds a course so obviously necessary was opposed, the present writer is unable to declare. Whatever the considerations, Lee yielded his judgment; the movement suddenly stopped; and the Army of Northern Virginia—if a skeleton can be called such—remained to await its fate.
The condition of the army in which "companies" scarce existed, "regiments" were counted by tens, and "divisions" by hundreds only, need not here be elaborately dwelt upon. It was indeed the phantom of an army, and the gaunt faces were almost ghostly. Shoeless, in rags, with just sufficient coarse food to sustain life, but never enough to keep at arm's-length the gnawing fiend Hunger, Lee's old veterans remained firm, scattered like a thin skirmish-line along forty miles of works; while opposite them lay an enemy in the highest state of efficiency, and numbering nearly five men to their one. That the soldiers of the army retained their nerve under circumstances so discouraging is surely an honorable fact, and will make their names glorious in history. They remained unshaken and fought undismayed to the last, although their courage was subjected to trials of the most exhausting character. Day and night, for month after month, the incessant fire of the Federal forces had continued, and every engine of human destruction had been put in play to wear away their strength. They fought all through the cheerless days of winter, and, when they lay down in the cold trenches at night, the shell of the Federal mortars rained down upon them, bursting, and mortally wounding them. All day long the fire of muskets and cannon—then, from sunset to dawn, the curving fire of the roaring mortars, and the steady, never-ceasing crack of the sharp-shooters along the front. Snow, or blinding sleet, or freezing rains, might be falling, but the fire went on—it seemed destined to go on to all eternity.
In March, 1865 however, the end was approaching, and General Lee must have felt that all was lost. His last hope had been the retreat southward in the month of February. That hope had been taken from him; the result was at hand; and his private correspondence, if he intrusted to paper his views of the situation, will probably show that from that moment he gave up all anticipation of success, and prepared to do his simple duty as a soldier, leaving the issue of affairs to Providence. Whatever may have been his emotions, they were not reflected in his countenance. The same august composure which had accompanied him in his previous campaigns remained with him still, and cheered the fainting hearts around him. To the 2d of April, and even up to the end, this remarkable calmness continued nearly unchanged, and we can offer no explanation of a circumstance so astonishing, save that which we have already given in a preceding chapter.