366 THE GRAND CAMPAIGN. [1864. would personally conduct the campaign against the strongest army of the Confederacy and its most trusted leader. He planned a campaign in which he considered the Army of the Potomac his centre; the Army of the James, under General Butler, his left wing; the Western armies, now commanded by Sherman, his right wing; and the army under Banks in Louisiana a force operating in the rear of the enemy. In its great features, the plan was this: that all should move simultaneously-Butler against Petersburg, to seize the southern communications of the Confederate capital; Sherman against Johnston's army (then at Dalton, Georgia), to defeat and destroy it, if possible, or at least to force it back and capture Atlanta with its workshops and important communications; Banks to set out on an expedition toward Mobile, to capture that city and close its harbor to blockaderunners; Sigel to drive back the Confederate force in the Shenandoah valley, and prevent that fertile region from being used any longer as a Confederate granary; while the Army of the Potomac, taking Lee's army for its objective, should follow it wherever it went, fighting and flanking it until it should be captured or dispersed. South of the Rapidan is a peculiar region twelve or fifteen miles square, known as the Wilderness. Some of the earliest iron-works in the country were here, and much of the ground was dug over for the ore, while the woods were cut off to supply fuel for the furnaces. A thick second growth 1864.] POSITION OF THE ARMIES. 367 sprang up, with tangled underbrush, the mines were deserted, the furnaces went to decay, and the whole region was desolate, save a roadside tavern or two and here and there a little clearing. Chancellorsville, where a great battle was fought in May, 1863, was upon the eastern edge of this Wilderness. The bulk of Lee's army was now (May, 1864) upon its western edge, with a line of observation along the Rapidan, and head-quarters at Orange Court-House. The Army of the Potomac was north of the Rapidan, opposite the Wilderness, where it had lain since November, when it had crossed to the south side with the purpose of attacking the Army of Northern Virginia, but found it too strongly intrenched along Mine Run, and so recrossed and went into winter quarters. It was now organized in three infantry corps, the Second, Fifth, and Sixthcommanded respectively by Generals Winfield S. Hancock, Gouverneur K. Warren, and John Sedgwick — and a cavalry corps commanded by General Philip H. Sheridan; General George G. Meade being still in command of the whole. Burnside's corps, the Ninth, nearly twenty thousand strong, was at Annapolis, and nobody but General Grant knew its destination. President Lincoln and his Cabinet thought it was to be sent on some duty down the coast; and so perhaps did the enemy. Grant knew too well that there was a leak somewhere in Washington, through which every Government secret escaped to the Confederates; and he therefore delayed till the last moment 368 THE RELATIVE NUMBERS. [1864. the movement of Burnside's corps to a point from which it could follow the Army of the Potomac across the Rapidan within twenty-four hours. The Army of Northern Virginia consisted of two infantry corps, commanded by Generals Richard S. Ewell and Ambrose P. Hill, with a cavalry corps commanded by General James E. B. Stuart; the whole commanded by General Robert E. Lee; while, as an offset to Burnside's corps, General James Longstreet's was within call. The exact number of men in either army cannot be told, as reports and authorities differ; nor can the approximate numbers be mentioned fairly, unless with an explanation. The method of counting for the official reports was different in the two armies. In the National army, a report that a certain number of men were present for duty included every man that was borne on the pay-rolls, whether officer, soldier, musician, teamster, cook, or mechanic, and also all that had been sent away on special duty, guarding trains and the like. This was necessary, because they were all paid regularly, and the money had to be accounted for. In the Confederate army there was no pay worth speaking of, and the principal object of a morning report was to show the exact effective force available that day; accordingly, the Confederate reports included only the men actually bearing muskets or sabres, or handling the artillery. Counted in this way, Lee had sixty thousand or perhaps sixty-five thousand men - for exact reports are wanting, even on that basis. If counted after the 1864.] THE WILDERNESS BATTLE-FIELD. 369 fashion in the National army, his men numbered about eighty thousand. Grant puts his own num bers, everything included, at one hundred and sixteen thousand, and thinks the preponderance was fully offset by the fact that the enemy was on the 370 GRANT CROSSES THE RAPIDAN. [1864. defensive, seldom leaving his intrenchments, in a country admirably suited for defence, and with the population friendly to him. As each side received reënforcements from time to time about equal to its losses, the two armies may be considered as having, throughout the campaign from the Rapidan to the James, the strength just stated. It was clearly set forth by General Grant at the outset that the true objective was the Army of Northern Virginia. In that lay the chief strength of the Confederacy; while that stood, the Confederacy would stand, whether in Richmond or out of it; when that fell, the Confederacy would fall. To follow that army wherever it went, fight it, and destroy it, was the task that lay before the Army of the Potomac; and every man in the army, as well as most men in the country, knew it was a task that could be accomplished only through immense labor and loss of life, hard marching, heavy fighting, and all manner of suffering. The intention was to have the simultaneous movement of all the armies begin as near the 1st of May as possible. It actually began at midnight of the 3d, when the Army of the Potomac was set in motion and crossed the Rapidan, which is there about two hundred feet wide, on five pontoon bridges near Germania, Culpeper Mine, and Ely's fords. On crossing, it plunged at once into the Wilderness, which is here traversed from north to south by two roads, a mile or two apart. And these roads are crossed by two- the Orange turnpike and Orange plank road— running nearly east |