Robert Stiles, Four years under Marse Robert

[303] poured out of the muzzle upon the ground. The gun carriage, with two of its wheels, was carried into Richmond and hung up in the arsenal as an evidence of what musketry fire might be and do. Dr. Gaines, of Gaines' Mill, whom I knew very well, had the other wheel carried to his house. I saw it there a few years later. The hub and tire had actually fallen apart.

A brief epitome of some of the salient features and results of the campaign of 1864, from the Wilderness to Cold Harbor, inclusive, may not be devoid of interest.

The campaign covered, say sixty miles of space and thirty days of time. General Lee had a little under 64,000 men of all arms present for duty at the outset, and he put hors de combat of Grant's army an equal number man for man. Mr. Swinton, p. 482 of his “Army of the Potomac,” puts Grant's loss at “above sixty thousand men;” so that Grant lost in killed and wounded and prisoners more than a thousand men per mile and more than two thousand men per day during the campaign.

Again, Lee had, as stated, at the start, present for duty, less than 64,000 men, and the reinforcements he received numbered 14,400 men; so that, from first to last, he had under his command in this campaign, say 78,400 men; while Grant had at the start, present for duty, 141,160 men, and the reinforcements he received numbered 51,000 men; so that from first to last he had under his command in this campaign, say 192,160 men.

Now, Grant's one desire and effort was to turn Lee's either flank, preferably his right flank, and thus get between him and Richmond. To accomplish this purpose, with his preponderance of numbers, he might have left man for man in Lee's front, and at the same time thrown an army of 77,000 to 114,000 on his flank, and yet he utterly failed to get around or to crush that inevitable, indomitable flank.

From what I have read and heard of Grant, and the opinion I have formed of him, it is my belief that if this proposition had been put to him he would have admitted candidly that he would not have dared to leave man for man in Lee's front; that it would have been utterly unsafe for him to do