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.

The result of all these engagements, which had cost Grant, by an official calculation, 9,665 men, was that the Confederates were still in firm possession of their works covering Petersburg, and that Grant was left no other resource than to proceed to envelop the town as far as possible without attacking fortifications.

The immediate operations of his army appear now to have degenerated to an attempt upon the railroads. On the 22d an attempt was made by two divisions of cavalry to get possession of the Weldon railroad; but when a portion of the command had reached the Jerusalem plank-road, A. P. Hill's corps and Anderson's successfully encountered them, and drove them back with severe loss. Gen. Wilson, however, succeeded in reaching the railroad at Ream's station, below where the combatants were engaged, and tore up some of the track. Wilson, joined by Kautz, then struck across to the Southside railroad, doing some damage, and finally came upon the Danville track, having had a sharp engagement with a small Confederate force near Nottoway Court-house. Continuing along the Danville railroad to the southwest, they arrived at the covered bridge over the Staunton river, in the evening of the 24th. Here a body of Virginia and North Carolina militia met them, and after a brisk encounter Wilson and Kautz had to retire. This was the limit of their raid. They returned as rapidly as they could, but at Ream's station one thousand prisoners and all the enemy's artillery and trains were captured by a Confederate force under Hampton and Fitzhugh Lee. Kautz's knowledge of the country enabled him to escape. He, with his shattered command, reached camp on the 30th June, while Wilson, with his men in wretched condition, did not arrive till next day.

North of Richmond, Grant's designs on the railroads were no more successful, and the expedition of Sheridan already noticed as sent out to destroy the railroads between Richmond and the Shenandoah Valley and Lynchburg, had met with disaster, without accomplishing a single important result. He had been intercepted at Trevillian station while moving on the Gordonsville road; and reaching the latter place by a circuit, was twice repulsed by the infantry in the rifle-pits there, and pleading the “want of ammunition” was compelled to withdraw his command across the North Anna and retreat to the White House.

The month of June thus closed with Lee master of the situation around Richmond and Petersburg. In the same month there were other notable successes to strengthen the capital, and public attention was turned to events occurring in other parts of Virginia, the result of which was to open the Shenandoah Valley, that famous avenue into the territory of the North, and to afford Gen. Lee the opportunity of an important diversion. We shall see, indeed, that this ready and resourceful commander, with Grant fully occupied in the south of Virginia, was yet enabled quietly