Gregg, Wilson, and Merritt, Generals Custer, and Davies, and Colonels Gregg, Divine, Chapman, McIntosh, and Gibbs, brigade commanders. All the officers and men behaved splendidly.

EDWIN M. STANTON, Secretary of War.

Such was the posture of affairs when the Secretary rereceived over the wires, trembling to the messages of a nation's struggle for life, "at noon of night," the words of cheer from the heroes of the battle-field.

Friday, May 14th, the opposing armies again met in the shock of battle. The corps of Burnside and Hancock advanced upon Lee's right wing, covering Spottsylvania Court-House.

Over a broken, hilly, piny wilderness, where no man could walk erect, and crowded with rifle-pits, with unfaltering steps the "boys" moved forward, pushing the enemy backward to his main line of intrenchments.

There were deeds of unrivaled valor before the sun of Friday set. Three regiments of Hartrauft's brigade were flanked on the left, and nearly surrounded; but upon the demand to surrender, refused, and fought hand-to-hand for their colors, until resistance was in vain, and a part of the troops were taken prisoners. Three thousand Union troops had fallen in this engagement.

Saturday was a pause after the strife of eight long hours, while General Grant's sleepless watch of his great antagonist made the comparative quiet most valuable to him in the modification of his plans, to meet the changed aspect of the field.

Both armies were busy burying those who had fought their last battle, and heeded not the war of elements which drenched but could not cleanse the crimsoned soil. Intrenchments were thrown up, and, excepting a little skirmishing, the embattled hosts rested from the harvest of death.

ARRIVAL OF RE-ENFORCEMENTS.

499

CHAPTER XXIV

THE DEEPENING CONFLICT.

The Struggle renewed.-General Grant's skillful Movements of his Army.-Cold Harbor. The grand March to the James River.-Assault on PetersburgIncidents.-Burnside's Mines.-Naval Victories.-General Grant and the Grandmother of General McPherson.-General Sherman and Affairs in the Southwest.

THE interlude of quiet had its own unwritten history of sad and cheerful scenes-the erection and marking of headboards to many graves; the painful transmission of the fate of the killed, wounded, and captured, to the scattered homes they left in the strength of manhood; the messages of love from the uninjured; the chapel-tent scenes of prayer and praise-all filled up the soldier's leisure moments. The 18th of May broke the rest of the great armies.

General Grant had prepared, during the previous night, for an attack upon his unyielding antagonist, by massing his forces on Lee's left, to break it, if possible, and turn it -a bold movement, the more hopeful because unexpected from that quarter by the foe, who supposed that portion of the line to have been quite abandoned for any decisive work.

On this early spring morning the assault began; but the enemy was not unprepared for it. The rifle-pits captured on the 12th were retaken, and then came the stern resistance which opened again the sanguinary contest. General Wright's Sixth Corps was on the right, and next the Second Corps, and, further to the left, a portion of Burnside's corps. The useless havoc of the attempt to scale the works in the fire of the rifle-pits was abandoned, and a few days of rest followed, during which twenty-five thousand fresh and excellent troops were added to the Army of the Potomac.

May 20th, the army was once more in motion. The

unequaled flanker was again upon his enemy, and soon forced him out of Spottsylvania Court-House, making a retreat toward his capital behind North Anna River. Our pursuit was close, and attended by an attack resulting in but little loss to us, and a repulse to the rebels.

Lee, finding he was fairly flanked again, retired to the South Anna, where he was protected by strong fortifications. Avoiding collisions by another flank movement, in the direction of Hanover Junction, the thwarted chief was compelled to evacuate his stronghold.

The 27th, General Sheridan, with two divisions of cavalry, seized Hanover Ferry and Hanovertown, the crossing-places on Pamunkey River.

Two days later, the whole army was over the stream, and in position three miles from its banks. Thus was another of General Grant's brilliant and daring maneuvers crowned with complete success. On Sunday, the 29th, his army was encamped in a fertile country, within fifteen miles of Richmond. By this admirable movement, he not only turned Lee's works on the Little River and the South Anna, and avoided the hazard of crossing those two strongly defended rivers, but made himself master of the situation with regard to his new base of supplies. He was furthermore left entirely free as to the route by which he would attack Richmond, and be in full communication and co-operation with the column under General Butler. All this was accomplished within twenty-four days from the day when he struck tents at Culpepper Court-House.

What enormous strides he made toward the heart of the rebellion within that brief period, and all by disembarrassing his movements of the necessity of looking back to one inflexible line of communications and one unchanging base of supplies. This was his simple strategy, though the execution of it was as brave and brilliant as its conception was bold and original. It was this same strategy that made the march from Bruinsburg to Vicksburg one unbroken series of victories.

He was master of the Peninsula without having uncovered Washington for a single hour, and without having created the necessity of leaving one-fourth of his army be

THE CONDITION AT THE END OF MAY.

501

hind for the defense of that city. He had uncontrolled choice of a line of attack on Richmond on every side but one. His cavalry had traversed the whole country, and knew all the roads and all the topography. He had communication with General Butler's force, and could unite the two armies whenever the occasion demanded. And finally he could supply his troops by the Pamunkey or the James at his own option. These results were the achievements of a master hand in the art of war.

This removal of the seat of war from the Orange and Alexandria Railroad to the very walls of Richmond completed a cycle of two years in the history of the rebellion. Hanover, White House, Cold Harbor, Shady Grove Church, are names with which we were familiar on the 31st of May, 1862. Then, however, every stream, every swamp, every line of rifle-pits brought our forces to a halt, until days ran into weeks, and weeks into weary months of waiting. But now the great column moved irresistibly on, for at its head there was a skillful and active soldier, a man who knew no such word as halt after he once was in motion, and was appalled by no obstructions, and least of all by phantoms.

Such was the posture of the contending armies at the close of the great battle-month of May.

General Lee's anticipated path of march for General Grant was undisturbed by the tramp of the legions of the Republic, and the Napoleon of the rebellion was compelled to see his visions of victory fade before the humiliation of a new and more doubtful field of contest, nearer than ever the walls of Richmond.

During the month of sanguinary progress by the Potomac Army, General Sherman's splendid columns had been sweeping down upon Atlanta, in the Southwest, making Buzzard's Roost, Dalton, and Resaca, historical names by the victories and the strategy of the resistless advance toward the Georgia stronghold.

With June came the fiercely-fought battles of Cold Harbor. On the 4th, General Grant telegraphed to the War Department the following statement :-“About seven P. M., of Friday, June 3d, the enemy suddenly attacked

Smith's brigade of Gibbons's division. The battle lasted with great fury for half an hour, and the attack was unwaveringly repulsed. At six P. M., Wilson, with his cavalry, fell upon the rear of a brigade of Heth's division, which Lee had ordered around to his left, apparently with the intention of enveloping Burnside. After a sharp but short conflict, Wilson drove them from their rifle-pits in confusion. He took a few prisoners. He had previously fought with and routed Gordon's brigade of rebel cavalry. During these fights he lost several cfficers, among them Colonel Preston, First Vermont Cavalry, killed; Colonel Benjamin, Eighth New York Cavalry, seriously wounded. General Stannard, serving in the Eighteenth Corps, was also severely wounded. Our entire loss in killed, wounded and missing during the three days' operations around Cold Harbor did not exceed, according to the AdjutantGeneral's Report, seven thousand five hundred. This morning (Saturday, June 4th), the enemy's left wing, in front of Burnside, was found to have been drawn in during the night."

The bristling fortifications that guarded the Chickahominy, whose passage had been so desperately and successfully resisted, and the earthworks extending to Richmond, convinced General Grant that to get to the rebel capital in that direction would be impossible.

For ten days the disappointed, maddened foe beat at intervals against our lines, but was repulsed with every desperate attempt to break the coil closing around them.

General Grant, with a comprehensive and daring strategy, is determined to swing his whole army around on the south side of the capital, and make James River the base of supplies. In that part of the grand field of operations, there had been bold movements. General Butler had sent an expedition up York River to West Point, to make the enemy believe he was going across the peninsula to Richmond. Butler, however, dropped down again, and up James River, landing at City Point, fifteen miles from Richmond. His object was, to cut the railroads, and prevent Beauregard from helping Lee, and take Fort Darling