after some skirmishing these retired. Another party was dispatched to destroy the bridge of the Fredericksburg and Richmond Railroad across the South Anna-a purpose that was foiled by the presence of a small observing force. The main column then advanced with insignificant opposition, and on the forenoon of the following day, March 1st, reined up before the fortifications of Richmond. The swoop had been so sudden that the troopers passed unopposed within the outer line of redoubts; but the Confederates having, meanwhile, brought up some forces, Kilpatrick found himself arrested before the second line by opposition he could not break through. In the mean time, Colonel Dahlgren, with his isolated party, had moved southward from Frederickshall, after destroying the depot, till he struck the James River, where he did considerable damage to the canal, etc. A native of the country had undertaken to lead the party to a ford not far from Richmond, but through ignorance or treachery he missed his way, and conducted the column to near Goochland Courthouse, a full day's march from the intended point. The guide was hanged on the nearest tree, and Dahlgren moved down the course of the river towards Richmond, in front of which he arrived late on March 1st. But in the interim, General Kilpatrick, having been estopped in front of the fortifications, and hearing nothing of Dahlgren's column, became fearful as to his safety, and decided to fall back down the Peninsula, which he did in face of considerable opposition.

Dahlgren was thus completely isolated from the main body, while the country around him, now thoroughly aroused, was alive with parties of armed citizens and militia. During the night of the 3d, while on the retreat, Colonel Dahlgren, with a hundred horsemen, became separated from the rest of his command, and falling into an ambush, he was killed, with some of his men, the rest surrendering. The other portion succeeded in making a junction with Kilpatrick's column, which returned to the Army of the Potomac by way of Fortress Monroe.

These outlying operations, which were indeed of a rather Quixotic character, very slightly affected the main current of the war, whose issue, it was clearly seen, must await new and weightier trials of strength by the two great armies. As all the grounds of inference led to the belief that the spring campaign must be decisive of the war, both armies, as by consent, settled down in winter cantonments, to recuperate from the wear and tear of the trying season of 1863, and renew their strength for the impending shock of arms. Lee held the south bank of the Rapidan, his forces being distributed from the river along the railroad to Orange Courthouse and Gordonsville. The Army of the Potomac established itself along the Orange and Alexandria Railroad from the Rapidan back to the Rappahannock. The ranks of both armies were replenished by conscripts, and drills, inspections, and reviews were energetically pushed forward within the opposing camps. Thus the months of winter glided by, till vernal grasses and flowers came to festoon the graves on battle-fields over which the contending hosts had wrestled for three years.

Then, upstarting, the armies faced each other along the lines of the Rapidan.

XI.

GRANT'S OVERLAND CAMPAIGN.

MAY-JUNE, 1864.

I.

COMBINATIONS OF THE SPRING CAMPAIGN.

IF one should seek to discover the cause of the indecisive character of the Virginia campaigns, and why it was that for three years the Army of the Potomac, after each advance towards Richmond, was doomed to see itself driven back in discomfiture, it might be thought that a sufficient explanation was furnished in the consideration of the inherent difficulty of the task, arising from the near equality of its adversary in material strength, and the advantage the Confederates enjoyed in fighting defensively on such a theatre as Virginia. But to these weighty reasons must be added another, of a larger scope, and having relation to the general conduct of the war. Justice to the Army of the Potomac demands that this should here be stated, especially as the campaign on which I am about to enter will, happily, show the army under new auspices as regards this particular.

In Virginia, the Army of the Potomac had not only to combat the main army of the South, but an army that, by means of the interior lines held by the Confederates, might be continually strengthened from the forces in the western zone, unless these should be under such constant pressure as to prevent their

diminution. To the Confederates, Virginia bore the character of a fortress thrust forward on the flank of the theatre of war, and such was their estimate of its importance, that they were always ready to make almost any sacrifice elsewhere to insure its tenure.

In this they were greatly favored by the false and wasteful military policy of the North, between whose two great armies in the East and the West there had hitherto been such lack of combination of effort, that the Army of the Potomac and the Army of the West had commonly found themselves in their extremest crises at the moment when the other, reduced to inaction, left the Confederates free to concentre rapidly on the vital point. Since the time when, for a brief period, McClellan had exercised the functions of general-inchief-a period during which he had opportunity to outline, but not to execute, a comprehensive system of operations-an incredible incoherence prevailed in the general conduct of the war. For three years there was presented the lamentable spectacle of three or four independent armies, acting on various lines of operations, and working not only with no unity of purpose, but frequently at cross-purposes; while in the military councils at Washington there ruled alternately an uninstructed enthusiasm and a purblind pedantry.

At the period already reached in this narrative, the conviction had become general throughout the North that this crude experimentalism was seriously jeoparding all hope of a successful issue of the war. This prompted the nomination of Major-General Grant to the grade of lieutenant-generalin which rank he was confirmed by the Senate on the 2d March; and on the 10th, a special order of President Lincoln assigned him to the command of all the "armies of the United States."

The elevation of General Grant to the lieutenant-generalship gave perfect satisfaction throughout the North-a sentiment arising not more from the conviction that it put the conduct of the war on a sound footing, than from the high estimate held by the public of General Grant's military tal

ent. The country had long ago awaked from its early dream of a coming "Napoleon," and there was no danger of its cherishing any such delusion respecting General Grant; but it saw in him a steadfast, pertinacious commander, one who faithfully represented the practical, patient, persevering genius of the North. As it was his happy fortune to reach the high office of general-in-chief at a time when the Administra tion and the people, instructed somewhat in war and war's needs, were prepared to give him an intelligent support, he was at once able, with all the resources of the country at his call, with a million men in the field, and a generous and patriotic people at his back, to enter upon a comprehensive system of combined operations. with which he had to work was brought to a fine and hard edge. the experience of service, thoroughly inured to war. They could march, manoeuvre, and fight. The armies, in fact, were real armies, and were, therefore, prepared to execute operations that at an earlier period would have been utterly impracticable.

Moreover, the instrument one highly tempered and The troops had become, by

The lieutenant-general was committed by the whole bent of his nature to vigorous action; and, upon taking into his hand the baton, he resolved upon a gigantic aggressive system that should embrace simultaneous blows throughout the whole continental theatre of war. His theory of action looked to the employment of the maximum of force against the armies of the Confederates, to such a direction of this power as would engage the entire force of the enemy at one and the same time, and to delivering a series of heavy and uninterrupted blows in the style of what the Duke of Wellington used to call "hard pounding," and of what General Grant has designated as "continuous hammering."

The armed force of the Confederacy was at this time mainly included in the two great armies of Johnston and Lee--the former occupying an intrenched position at Dalton, Georgia, the latter ensconced within the lines of the Rapidan. These bodies were still almost as powerful in numbers as any the South