suffering a permanent loss of some portion of his former activity and elasticity. To the observer, however, the change in no degree diminished the impressiveness of his carriage and bearing. He was, if anything, statelier, with an appearance of greater power and more composure.

During Hancock's long absence the Second Corps saw much of severe and trying service, though no great battle was in that period fought by the Army of the Potomac. General Gibbon, next in rank, having been seriously wounded, BrigadierGeneral William Hays was provisionally assigned to the command. Under General Hays, a sensible, quiet, firm officer, the corps took part in the pursuit of Lee, and afterward moved to the left bank of the Rappahannock, at Morrisville. On the 12th of August, Major-General Gouverneur K. Warren, who had been promoted in recognition of his distinguished services at Gettysburg and who in an especial degree possessed Meade's confidence, was assigned as temporary commander. Under Warren the corps took part in the forward movement across the Rappahannock about the middle of September; and between the 10th and the 15th of October bore a conspicuous and glorious part in the somewhat bewildering operations of those days. On the 14th it was twice engaged with the enemy while acting as rear guard during the retreat on Centreville-in the morning at Auburn and in the

afternoon at Bristoe Station. At the latter point, where the Orange and Alexandria Railroad crosses Broad Run, the corps, through the error of General Sykes, found itself entirely cut off from the rest of the army, and was obliged to confront both the pursuing columns of Lee without the possibility of support from any quarter until night fell. In this perilous position the superb soldiership of Warren not only rescued the troops from impending destruction, but won a brilliant victory. The Second Corps marched that night to join its comrades on the heights of Centreville, carrying with it five captured cannon, two Confederate flags, and five hundred prisoners, the trophies of as pretty a fight as the whole war witnessed.

In the last days of November the corps took a creditable part in the Mine Run expedition, during which Meade almost succeeded in interposing his army between Hill and Ewell and getting a fight out of the latter on his own terms. On the 29th of December, 1863, Hancock returned to the army and resumed command, Warren being absent on leave. This, however, was but a brief episode. On the 8th of January, 1864, Hancock again relinquished the command to Warren and went back to the North, to continue the efforts in which he had been engaged to fill up his depleted regiments. On the 6th of February the corps took part in a demonstration on Morton's ford, which was intended to favor a move

ment upon Richmond by General Butler from the South. The division of General Alexander Hays was thrown across the river and some sharp fighting ensued; but when night fell the troops were withdrawn and went again into camp.

It was early in March, 1864, that Hancock definitively relieved General Warren. The Army of the Potomac was now in the body looking across the Rapidan toward Richmond, and in the spirit contemplating the opening of the great campaign which all believed, even after the disappointments of 1862 and 1863, was to close the rebellion. Again and again the Confederate armies had escaped seemingly inevitable destruction-in part by their own extraordinary gallantry and endurance; in part by good luck and the accidents of war; in part by manifest blunders of management or the hopeless incompetency of Union commanders. The almost incessant battling of two years had told for the national cause in training soldiers and officers for this great final effort; it had told against the Confederate cause through losses both of men and of material which could not be replaced. Moreover, the renowned chieftain who in July had opened the Mississippi to the Gulf, and in November had driven Bragg's army from the heights of Chattanooga, had come from the West to give a last crushing blow to the army of Northern Virginia.

On the 26th of February, 1864, Congress passed

The

a bill to create the grade of lieutenant general. The bill became law on March 1st, and on the same day Grant was nominated to that high office. nomination was confirmed on the 2d. On the 8th General Grant arrived in Washington. After a brief visit to Brandy Station he returned to the West to make his final arrangements for the campaign against Atlanta. On the 26th his headquarters were established at Culpepper. The Army of the Potomac was largely reconstructed. The five corps of which it was composed (the Eleventh and Twelfth having gone West, after Gettysburg, to reenforce the army of Rosecrans) were consolidated into three. Two of these gallant, much-enduring organizations had therefore to lose their name and place. It was a hard fate for the officers and soldiers who had borne their corps colors and badges with so much distinction through so many severe actions. Whether it was actually necessary may, as we now look back upon this episode, be gravely questioned. But it was done for the public good, and was believed to be for the efficiency of the army. The main object was not to increase the mass, and with this the zeal and self-confidence, of the three corps remaining. It was primarily a question of the higher officers. The experiences of 1863 had painfully shown how great a step it is from the charge of a division to that of a corps. The Mine Run campaign had been brought to utter failure by

the incapacity of one out of the five commanders; and it was generally felt that two others of the group were beyond their depth, though intelligent and accomplished officers who were incapable of making gross mistakes or palpably falling short of their high office. General Meade believed that he could find three first-class commanders for the army assembled around Brandy Station; he did not feel sure of a fourth, much less of a fifth.

The two corps which were selected for the sacrifice were the First and the Third. The First Corps was to go entire to the Fifth, which was in the approaching campaign to be commanded by General Warren. The Third Corps was to be divided: its third division was to go to the Sixth Corps under Sedgwick; its first and second divisions, the old divisions of Kearney and Hooker, were to be assigned, still as distinct divisions, to the Second Corps. Of the grief and anger of the officers and men of the Third Corps at this dismemberment of the noble body of troops with which they had been so long connected, of which they had justly been so proud, and which to them had become a sacred thing, it is not fitting that we should speak here.

The assignment of these two divisions of itself wrought a great change in the life of the Second Corps. But greater changes were to come with bewildering rapidity. During the two years which had elapsed since its organization by President