"Where Lee goes there you will go also." Nearly three years
earlier the opposing armies had fought their first battle of Bull
Run only a short distance north of where they now confronted each
other. Campaign and battle between them had swayed to the north
and the south, but neither could claim any great gain of ground
or of advantage. The final struggle was before them. Grant had
two to one in numbers; Lee the advantage in position, for he knew
by heart every road, hill and forest in Virginia, had for his
friendly scout every white inhabitant, and could retire into
prepared fortifications. Perhaps the greatest element of his
strength lay in the conscious pride of his army that for three
years it had steadily barred the way to Richmond. To offset this
there now menaced it what had always been absent before--the
grim, unflinching will of the new Union commander, who had
rightly won for himself the name of "Unconditional Surrender"
Grant.
On the night of May 4, 1864, his army entered upon the campaign
which, after many months, was to end the war. It divided itself
into two parts. For the first six weeks there was almost constant
swift marching and hard fighting, a nearly equally matched
contest of strategy and battle between the two armies, the
difference being that Grant was always advancing, and Lee always
retiring. Grant had hoped to defeat Lee outside of his
fortifications, and early in the campaign had expressed his
resolution "to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer";
but the losses were so appalling, 60,000 of his best troops
melting away in killed and wounded during the six weeks, that
this was seen to be impossible.
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