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Grant and Lee were the greatest antagonists in American military history.
Each was a brilliant, aggressive general, the best soldier in his army.
Each looked to seize the initiative.
Each anticipated what his opponent would do by imagining how he would react
in the same situation. Neither would accept defeat.
Consequently, in May 1864, when they finally locked horns,
each general faced the challenge of his life.
"Gen. Grant will go down like the rest of the Yankee gens
that have been brought against this army." --Confederate soldier from Georgia, 10 March 1864
"The art of war is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is.
Get at him as soon as you can, strike him as hard as you can
and as often as you can, and keep moving on." --Ulysses S. Grant
Grant's crucial goal was to destroy Lee's army rather than to gain territory.
If he was successful, the war would be over.
Lee's goal was much the same; if he did not destroy Grant,
Richmond would inevitably fall.
One of the keys to Grant's effectiveness was numbers.
He commanded 120,000 soldiers, while Lee had but 65,000 when they met on May 5.
The other was Grant's determination.
In The Wilderness however, the Confederate shortage of troops was less consequential.
Lee attacked, hoping to obliterate Grant's army in what would be the final major battle of the war.
Grant responded calmly with a relentless wave of assaults.
On May 5, darkness alone saved the Army of Northern Virginia.
On May 6, Grant ordered Winfield Scott Hancock, with one half of the Army of the Potomac,
to attack at five in the morning.
Lee had planned virtually the same offensive at daybreak.
Hancock's massive assault nearly overwhelmed the Confederate lines.
Grant wrote, "The woods were set on fire by the bursting shell,
and the conflagration raged. The wounded were either suffocated or burned to death."
At the end of the day, each commander had lost almost 20% of his army,
but the battle was a draw.
However, for the first time, a Union army would head south following an encounter
with Lee in Virginia.
Grant would keep his troops moving to the south and east, attacking
the Confederates at every opportunity.
Grant marched 12 miles to Spotsylvania Courthouse,
as he put it, "To get between Lee's army and Richmond."
Lee, however, anticipated the move. His troops arrived first and dug in.
"Ulysses S. Grant, to his Chief of Staff, Henry Halleck, 11 May 1864.
I propose to fight it out on this line, if it takes all summer."
The natural features of the landscape dictated that entrenchments take the form
of an inverted U, a shape that Lee put to effective use.
Troops from one wing formed a reserve that could easily reinforce the other.
The weakness of this breastwork was its apex, a part of which would
earn the descriptive name, "The Bloody Angle."
On May 11, Grant sent 20,000 of Hancock's troops against this apex.
Union soldiers charged the breastworks and engaged the Confederates in horrendous
hand-to-hand fighting for the next 18 hours.
The space was insufficient for them to maneuver, an area about the size
of 2 football fields.
Some could not even lift their arms to fight.
Grant then hurled another 15,000 soldiers at the bloody angle.
The Southerners counterattacked.
Grant wrote, "Five times during the day, Lee assaulted furiously.
All the trees between the lines were very much cut to pieces by artillery and musketry."
The dead lay 8 to 10 deep in places.
Both generals lost close to 7,000 soldiers that day.
When Lee showed no signs of abandoning his entrenchments at Spotsylvania,
Grant again move beyond Lee's east flank.
The two armies raced 25 miles south to the North Anna River and Hanover Junction,
where 2 rail lines converged.
Once again, Grant met a well-entrenched enemy,
this time protected behind breastworks constructed during the preceding winter.
For a time, the Army of the Potomac was vulnerable because it was separated into
3 components by the curves of the North Anna River.
Lee, however, was too ill with an intestinal malady to orchestrate an attack.
Grant whirled once more to the east and south.
This time he beat Lee to their common destination, Cold Harbor,
but his troops were too exhausted to seize the advantage. Lee dug in.
Frustrated, Grant ordered a broad frontal assault at the center of a
7 mile-long Confederate line.
A number of his soldiers wrote their names on their uniforms so that
their corpses could be easily identified.
Some 7,000 Union troops, exposed to relentless Confederate firepower, were slaughtered.
"I have always regretted that the last assault at Cold Harbor was ever made.
No advantage whatever was gained to compensate for the heavy loss
we sustained." --Ulysses S. Grant
"My idea from the start has been to beat Lee's army, if possible, north of Richmond.
I now find after more than 30 days of trial that the enemy deems it of the first importance
to run no risks with the armies they now have.
They act purely on the defensive, behind breastworks. I will move the army
to the south side of the James River." --Ulysses S. Grant to Henry Halleck, 5 June 1864
Grant ordered his engineers to build a pontoon bridge 30 miles east of Richmond.
It would be the longest in military history.
An army of 115,000 men would cross a river 700 yards wide.
This was Grant's ultimate maneuver to the left, one so bold that even Lee could not counter it.
This time, Grant successfully outflanked his opponent.
He would threaten Richmond from the south through Petersburg.
For a few days Lee did not know that Grant had left Cold Harbor.
He had anticipated the crossing, and had warned the Confederate President,
Jefferson Davis, of this possibility the day before it happened.
However, unable to leave the northern exposures of Richmond unprotected,
Lee was trapped.
Not until June 18 was he certain of Grant's new position.
By then, the first attack on Petersburg had been made by General William F. Smith.
Grant believed that had the June 15 attempt been conducted with competence,
the city would have been easily taken.
Instead, the Siege of Petersburg began. It was to last 10 long months.
By the spring of 1865, after having survived various assaults,
including an attempt to tunnel under its fortifications, Petersburg was ready to fall.
The road would soon be open to Richmond, but it was still Lee and his army,
rather than any city, that Grant had most squarely in his sights.