had wished to speak of warriors on the same plane with Napoleon, he would have been constrained to mention Hannibal and Cæsar. But it is the fate of indiscriminate eulogy to fall into all sorts of contradictions: they are here only emphasized by the narrowness of Grant's world-view. Sheridan was, in fact, an excellent cavalry officer and an excellent infantry officer, but not superior in merit to perhaps a dozen men that might be mentioned as belonging to those branches of the military service of the United States and the Confederates States during the Civil War. His own field operations, his own enunciation already mentioned as preceding the Wilderness Campaign, his raid immediately following that, subsequent raids compared with those of other officers, his letters on military matters from Europe, his self-confessed tendency to insubordination, his whole military career, considering the large means always placed at his disposal, the revelations of his personal memoirs, do not mark him out as the prodigy in war, confusedly described by Grant, and stamped by him subsequently as such by the gift of the lieutenant-generalcy of the Army of the United States. Grant, in reviewing the character and capabilities and service of those who had fought under him did not do it from the point of view of the stern virtue which did not love Cæsar less, but Rome more. With all his great and admirable qualities, he had not the love of truth for its and his own sake which is the very core of loftiness of soul. He had, moreover, the art of suppression so much at command, he was so deft in the stroke of his chisel in producing a life-like effect, that it takes a connoisseur to discern that the product sometimes stands on feet of clay.

Sheridan's arrival at City Point on the 26th of March found there the President of the United States. On the next day General Sherman arrived from Goldsboro', North Carolina, whence he had come by sea for conference with

Grant as to the final movements for closing the campaign. Sherman's personality and movements, however, having only the most remote relation to a memoir of General Meade, the briefest mention of his operations with reference to those of the Army of the Potomac will suffice here.

Following the practice heretofore pursued in these pages of noting important occurrences outside of the zone of operations of the Army of the Potomac, mention of some of the most striking events beyond it is here continued. On the 17th of July, 1864, Mr. Jefferson Davis had committed the folly of displacing General Joseph E. Johnston and putting General Hood in command of the army opposing Sherman besieging Atlanta, Georgia. Admiral Farragut captured Mobile Bay, Alabama, on the 5th of August, 1864. On September 1st Sherman occupied Atlanta, while Hood marched away to his rear only to be grievously defeated by Thomas at Nashville, Tennessee. On November 16, 1864, Sherman started from Atlanta on his celebrated March to the Sea. Reaching it, he captured, in co-operation with the navy, the city of Savannah, Georgia, on the 22d of December, 1864. In January, 1865, Johnston was restored to the command of the army opposing Sherman. On February 1, 1865, Sherman began to move north to join Grant and Meade before Petersburg. On February 22d, 1865, General Schofield captured Wilmington, North Carolina. As Sherman marched north the ghosts of secession flitted away before his progress, and desolation reigned in their places. Columbia, South Carolina, was evacuated and fired on February, the 17th, by which side is not settled to this day. Charleston, South Carolina, which had previously suffered from bombardment, was evacuated on the 18th. And now, towards the end of March, as mentioned above, Sherman was with the Army of the Potomac, arranging plans for the co-operation of his forces with it in

the endeavor to hem Lee in on every side. As the event proved, however, Sherman's army was able to take no part in the final events ending with the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia.

The toils were fast closing in on that devoted army. Lee, as was suspected at the time, and as we now know, fully appreciated the situation, and made preparations to meet it and to avoid the final calamity. He was only awaiting the time when the roads would be fit for retreat, when he intended to cut loose from the leaguer which he had so long endured and march for the open country towards the south and west, where haply he might make junction with Johnston vainly attempting to stem the tide of Sherman's invasion sweeping up along the coast. To enable him to do this to the best advantage, it would be necessary to make such a heavy onslaught on Grant's right as would cause him to recoil from the strong lodgment on his left, and this he soon essayed with the greatest audacity. Grant, too, was waiting only for better roads to enable him to move to advantage around the right of Lee's entrenchments. He had appointed the 29th of March for the essay, and with his usual resoluteness of purpose kept faith with himself.

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE END OF THE WAR.

ON the 25th of March, 1865, the Ninth Corps, under General Parke, was resting its right on the Appomattox, east of Petersburg, occupying an entrenched line of seven miles in length terminating at Fort Howard, at the Jerusalem Plank Road, about a mile east of the Petersburg and Weldon Railroad. On its left was the Sixth Corps, occupying a salient of the general line, at Fort Fisher. On the left of that, resting its left on Hatcher's Run, was the Second Corps. In the rear of the Second Corps was, in reserve, the Fifth. The army, it will be seen, had concentrated towards the left, and this gave Lee his apparent opportunity to gain free passage for his retreat, so he furiously delivered the first stroke towards that end. Withdrawing nearly half his force from outlying entrenchments, he concentrated it on the east of Petersburg, where the lines were so scant a distance apart that an active armed man could scour across the space between them in less than a minute. Here, before the dawn of the 25th, the pioneers of Gordon, the general in command of the contemplated assault, aided by an order permitting Confederate deserters to bring their arms with them to the picket-posts, captured some of them, and pushing forward to clear away the abattis and other obstructions from the opposing lines, were closely followed by the columns assaulting Fort Stedman and its outlying redoubts. General Meade happened to be at City Point at the time, and was communicated with as soon as the telegraph wires, cut by the enemy's skirmishers, were restored, but Parke proved

equal to the emergency. Batteries Nos. Batteries Nos. 9 and 10, about half a mile apart, on the right of Fort Stedman, Fort Stedman itself, and Batteries Nos. 11 and 12, close together, near the left of Fort Stedman, were assaulted by the enemy, who captured Battery No. 10 and Batteries Nos. 11 and 12, and also Fort Stedman itself. In the almost pitchy darkness reigning at first over the field, General Parke promptly withdrew Willcox's troops, on the right, near the Appomattox, to recapture the part of the line taken, supported by the reserves under Hartranft, and by the artillery, under Tidball, on the ridge in the rear. The enemy, marching right and left to capture other works, was repulsed. Day dawning, artillery was concentrated on the captured fort and supplementary works, and soon Batteries Nos. II and 12 were retaken, and soon after that Fort Stedman and Battery No. 10. The troops of the enemy, largely unable to return, on account of the artillery- and musketry-fire that searched the open space between the hostile lines, were captured in droves, although many also lost their lives or were wounded in trying to escape. By eight o'clock the affair here was over.

This assault on the right had its reflex action on the left. Humphreys says that General Meade, as soon as the telegraph worked, sent orders to Warren and Wright to support Parke. Of himself Humphreys says that he got the Second Corps under arms, telegraphed General Meade and Parke, whom Meade had by telegraph put in command of the field, advanced upon the enemy in his immediate front, and captured and retained the picket-entrenchments there. As a matter of fact he did not wait for a reply, but put his corps in at once without hesitation. I happened to see him a few days afterwards, and asked him, when referring to the event, whether the noise on his right admitted of any doubt in his mind as to what was occurring, and he replied, "not