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.

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[524] who drove the enemy across the Shenandoah, captured six pieces of artillery, and nearly one thousand stand of small arms, and inflicted upon him a heavy loss; Sigel abandoning his hospitals and destroying the larger portion of his train. This signal defeat of Sigel was the occasion of his removal, and the appointment of Hunter to take command of the forces with a larger design, reaching to Lynchburg and Charlottesville, the operations of which, however, were reserved for another month.

The secondary parts of the operations of the month of May against Richmond having thus failed, Gen. Grant, despite his expressed determination to fight all summer on the line he held at Spottsylvania, proposed a movement to the North Anna River, by which he hoped to flank the little army of Lee, that he no longer could hope, even by the “hammering” process, to beat in the open field. Previous, however, to the commencement of this movement, he made an assault, on the 19th May, on Ewell's line, with the view of turning Lee's left; but this failed, and the Federals returned to their camps after a heavy loss. On the night of the 21st the movement to the North Anna was commenced. Gen. Lee was thus necessarily obliged to evacuate his position on the Po, and, by an admirable movement, took up a new position between the North and South Anna Rivers before Grant's army had reached its new destination.

Foiled again, and finding his agile adversary again in his path, Grant found it necessary, on the 24th May, to make another flank movement, by recrossing the North Anna, and marching easterly towards the Pamunkey. To cover his plans, an attack was made on Lee's left, while a portion of Sheridan's cavalry tore up the Central Railroad. But the great Confederate was fully master of the situation, and could not be easily blinded. He comprehended Grant's tactics; he was as prompt in his movements; and he was far more skilful in his strategy than the Federal commander. Accordingly, no sooner did Grant's army, on the 28th, arrive at Hanovertown, on the Pamunkey, fifteen miles northeast of Richmond, than it was found the Confederates were in line of battle, from Atlee's Station, on the railroad, ten or eleven miles north of Richmond to Shady Grove, eight or nine miles north-northeast of the capital. The next day, Grant's forces were across the Pamunkey, marching towards Richmond; and reinforcements from Butler's army, on the James River, were arriving at White House, which once formed the Federal base of supplies.

The singular fortune of war had again made the Peninsula a deadly battle-ground. One month had hardly elapsed since the campaign had begun; and its record of carnage in this brief time was unsurpassed, while, on the other hand, never, in such a space, had such a sum of glory been achieved as that which now illuminated the arms of Lee. When he stood in array against Grant at the Rapidan, his force was not more than fifty thousand men. It was this force which had compelled Grant, after the