END OF BANKS' MILITARY CAREER.

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the act of climbing the banks, by the sharpshooters of the enemy. The rebels were soon driven off by a body of cavalry, who were sent out by General Banks, on hearing of these disasters.

The fleet and army now returned to the Mississippi, General Banks returned to New Orleans, and General Canby replaced him in the field. Thus ended this unfortunate expedition; one for which General Grant was not responsible, as it was planned before the new order of things was inaugurated. With this expedition, the military career of General Banks ended.

CHAPTER XLI.

MAY, 1864.

MILITARY MOVEMENTS—BUTLER AT BERMUDA HUNDRED-DRURY'S BLUFFWILSON'S WHARF-ATTACK on petersburg-CHANGES IN THE CORPSGRANT'S PLAN-BATTLE OF THE WILDERNESS-FIRST DAY'S FIGHT-SECOND DAY'S BATTLE-LEE ATTACKS THE LEFT AND CENTRE-HIS FAILURE, AND DESPERATE ASSAULT ON THE RIGHT-WADSWORTH MORTALLY WOUNDED-GALLANTRY OF SEDGWICK-THIRD DAY'S BATTLE-LEE'S PLAN TO OUTFLANK GRANT-DEATH OF SEDGWICK-BATTLE OF SPOTTSYLVANIA— GRANT'S DESPATCH-TERRIBLE BATTLE OF THE 12TH-DESPERATE FIGHT. ING THE LOSSES-RESULTS FAVORABLE TO THE UNION SIDE-RECONNOISSANCES-BATTLE OF MAY 18TH-THE REPULSE-TORBERT AT GUINNEY'S STATION.

THE notes of preparation now resounded on all sides, and armies, greater than any heretofore, were about to commence a campaign, equal in importance to any recorded on the pages of history. The vast army under Grant, had for its objective point, Lee's army, wherever found; that under General Sherman, Atlanta-Richmond, the head, and Atlanta, the heart of the Confederacy, being aimed at simultaneously. The campaigns of the spring and summer of 1864, were on a far more extensive scale than those of any previous year of the war.

The Confederate army under Lee, was far superior in numbers and discipline to any which that general had ever before commanded, and gave him hopes that victory would crown his efforts; but he had now to contend with an an tagonist who possessed great abilities as a strategist, was fertile in resources, knew no such word as fail, and possessed an iron will and indomitable energy, which never fell short of carrying out his purposes.

The army under General Meade (including the reserves, commanded by Burnside, then at Annapolis) was one hun dred and sixty thousand strong. The head-quarters were near Culpepper, on the Rapidan. Major-general Butler's command, afterward called the Army of the James, consisting of the Army of Southeast Virginia and North Carolina;

BERMUDA HUNDRED-DRURY'S BLUFF.

415

the Tenth corps (Gilmore's), from the Department of the South, and the Eighteenth corps, from Louisiana, numbered forty thousand men, and lay at and around Fortress Monroe. Sigel commanded ten thousand men in the Shenandoah valley, and Generals Crook and Averill had an army of twenty thousand men in Western Virginia. The army in the Shenandoah valley was to be put in motion simultaneously with the advance of the main army; Crook and Averill were to co-operate with Sigel; and the army under General Butler, was to act in unison with that commanded by General Meade.

The advance commenced on the 4th of May. The Tenth and Eighteenth corps, having previously reached Yorktown and Gloucester Point, embarked on transports, on the 4th, and made a feint of proceeding up York river; but General Butler secretly descended the same by night, and moved up the James, with a large squadron of gunboats, four monitors, and the iron-clad Atlanta. Part of the troops were landed at City Point, and Butler, proceeding with the rest to Bermuda Hundred, there intrenched.

On the 6th, he ascertained the enemy's position, and on the day following, in a demonstration toward Petersburg, after a brisk engagement with a hostile force, succeeded in reaching and cutting the railroad. During this coup de main, Colonel Kautz was sent with a body of cavalry to burn the railroad bridge below Petersburg; thus, for the time, cutting off a portion of Beauregard's force which had not yet reached the city, while Colonel West also moved from Williamsburg, with two colored regiments, and successfully demonstrated on Lee's lines, north of the James river. By reconnoissances in force in the direction of Richmond, on the south side of the James, General Butler destroyed much of the railroad between that city and Petersburg, while the rest of his troops were engaged in fortifying at Bermuda Hundred, and at City Point. He then proceeded to besiege Fort Darling, at Drury's Bluff, on the James, which had been unsuccessfully bombarded by the iron-clads, as hitherto recorded. The outer line of earthworks was carried on the 18th of May, and the troops, moving toward the second line, were bringing the artillery to bear on it, but committed the fatal blunder of neglecting to intrench.

On the 16th, the enemy, reinforced by most of Beaure

416 GENERAL BUTLER'S ATTACK ON PETERSBURG.

gard's army, and favored by a dark mist,.made a sally, and assaulting the Union lines with great vigor, forced back the right wing, and so completely flanked it, as to compel the whole army to fall back into the intrenchments at Bermuda Hundred. The Confederates did not pursue. Butler, in this action, lost nearly five thousand troops, killed, wounded, and captured.

On the 20th of May, an attack of the rebel army, on the troops at Bermuda Hundred, was repulsed with a loss of two hundred and sixty-three left dead and wounded upon the field, and an acknowledged loss of over six hundred. The Union loss was heavy, but the position was maintained. An attack upon the same place by the rebels, on the night of the 21st, with infantry and artillery, also met with a severe repulse.

On the 24th of May, Fitzhugh Lee, with a brigade of rebel cavalry, moved on Wilson's wharf, on the north side of the James, and demanded of General Wild, in command of two regiments of colored troops, the surrender of the place. The demand was refused, and the foiled enemy, after a severe conflict, in which the ground was strewn with his dead and wounded, was compelled to withdraw. On the 27th and 28th, the Eighteenth corps, General William F. Smith, was secretly withdrawn, embarked at White House, and sent to reinforce General Grant. All of Beauregard's troops that could be spared, were sent to General Lee.

General Butler, on the 10th of June, made a combined attack on Petersburg. General Gilmore approached it on the north with five thousand five hundred troops; a fine body of cavalry, under General Kautz, attacked it from the south; while General Butler, with the rest of the troops, supported by the gunboats, assaulted it from the northeast and east. General Kautz, after a severe contest, forced his way into the city, and General Butler and the gunboats made a vigorous assault, but General Gilmore found the works in his front too strong, and withdrew, which caused General Kautz also to retire. With this attempt, ended the independent movements of the Army of the James, which was afterward under the direct control of General Grant, in his subsequent operations against Richmond and Petersburg. The five corps of the Army of the Potomac were consolidated by Lieutenant-general Grant into three. The

ADVANCE OF THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC.

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Second was commanded by Major-general W. S. Hancock; the Fifth, by Major-general G. R. Warren, and the Sixth, by Major-general John Sedgwick. The reserve corps from the Ninth (Burnside's) had two divisions of colored troops, and was recruited up to forty thousand men. The cavalry was a full corps, under Major-general Philip H. Sheridan. The Lieutenant-general was with the army in person, and directed its important movements, but the way in which they were carried out, was left to General Meade, in command.

Grant's design was to move on Lee's right flank, and compel him, in order to protect his communications, to fall back on Richmond, in which, a part of the plan of the Union general was to shut up the Confederate army, and at once overthrow both it and the "Confederacy." He foresaw that it would require time for the weakening or surrender of the rebel army, and that its retirement toward Richmond would bring the Union army into battle grounds much more favorable than the region on which Lee was now encamped. Grant hoped to succeed in his flank movement, without a battle, but was prepared should such an event take place. He shortly discovered that Lee was ready to fight him almost as soon as he should make the first movement on his right flank.

On the morning of the 4th of May, Hancock's corps crossed the river at Ely's, and the corps of Warren and Sedgwick at Germania ford. The entire force had crossed the Rapidan at noon. The region on which the troops now entered was called the Wilderness, on which a portion of the battle of Chancellorsville had been fought. It was a marshy soil, full of forest trees, shrubs and brambles which presented great obstacles to the use of artillery, and no slight difficulty to the movements of infantry. The road to Chancellorsville and Fredericksburg was patrolled by Gregg's cavalry, and Wilson's cavalry performed the same duty at Parker's Store and Orange Court House. The battle field of Chancellorsville was occupied by the Second corps; the Fifth lay around Old Wilderness tavern, and the Sixth between the latter place and Germania ford.

On the morning of May 5th, the troops marched in the following order :-Warren's corps on the Spottsylvania road to Parker's Store; Sedgwick's to follow; Hancock to move toward Shady Church, on the Pamunkey road, and join Warren on the left; and Sheridan's cavalry to engage