Edward Alfred Pollard, The lost cause; a new Southern history of the War of the Confederates ... Drawn from official sources and approved by the most distinguished Confederate leaders.

[510] for the comprehension, and too liberal for the vindictive temper of the dominant party, and he was forced to relinquish the command of the superb army he had organized, and to resign a commission which he might have illustrated by splendid achievements.

It is some consolation to reflect that the verdict of history is neither the sensation of a mob nor the fiat of a political faction. Gen. Grant will have his proper place surely and exactly assigned in the ultimate records of merit in the war. No one will deny this man credit for many good qualities of heart and great propriety of behaviour. He had that coarse, heavy obstinacy, which is as often observed in the Western backwoodsman as in a higher range of character. But he contained no spark of military genius; his idea of war was to the last degree rude — no strategy, the mere application of the vs inertia ; he had none of that quick perception on the field of action which decides it by sudden strokes; he had no conception of battle beyond the momentum of numbers. Such was the man who marshalled all the material resources of the North to conquer the little army and overcome the consummate skill of Gen. Lee. He, who was declared the military genius of the North, had such a low idea of the contest, such little appreciation of the higher aims and intellectual exercises of war that he proposed to decide it by a mere competition in the sacrifice of human life. His plan of operations, as he himself described it, was “to hammer continuously against the armed force of the enemy and his resources, until by mere attrition, if in no other way, there should be nothing left to him but an equal submission with the loyal section of our common country to the Constitution and laws of the land.”

At Washington, the arrangements for the spring campaign of 1864 were made, on the part of the government, to put forth its strength. In all the bureaus of the War Department supplies were provided on a scale of great magnitude, to meet any exigency that could be foreseen. The estimates were based upon an army organization of one million of men. The States were called upon to strengthen the armies by volunteers; new drafts were ordered and put in execution throughout all the Northern States; vast supplies of arms, ammunition, clothing, subsistence, medical stores and forage were provided and distributed in depots to meet the wants of the troops wherever they might operate; horses, mules, wagons, railroad iron, locomotives and cars, bridge timber, telegraph cable and wire, and every material for transportation and communication of great armies under all conditions were supplied. Congress, with unstinting hand, voted large appropriations for recruiting, paying and supplying the troops.

Gen. Grant assumed command as Lieutenant-General of the armies of the United States on the 17th day of March, 1864. The distribution of the Federal armies operating in Virginia was as follows: The Army of