Chapter 22: from Cold Harbor to evacuation of Richmond and Petersburg
- Grant's change of base -- Petersburg Proves to be his immediate objective -- Lee just in time to prevent the capture of the city -- our battalion stationed first in the Petersburg lines, then between the James and the Appomattox -- the writer commissioned Major of artillery and ordered to Chaffin's Bluff -- the battalion there greatly demoralized -- Measures adopted to tone it up -- rapid downward trend of the Confederacy -- “a kid of the Goats” gives a lesson in pluck.
The repulse at Cold Harbor marked a crisis in the campaign. If Richmond was to continue to be Grant's immediate objective, there was but one thing for him to do, and that was to fight, to renew his attack upon Lee's lines. He was as close to Richmond as he could get by the old process of sliding southward and eastward. Every foot of further progress in that direction would be progress away from the goal. He must decide, then, between another effort to force his men to the imminent deadly breach and the abandonment of Richmond as his immediate objective. It took him nine days to decide, and then he folded his tents, like the Arabs, and silently stole away-at night, the night of June 12th. He was just in time. It was not Lee's habit to give his adversary the choice of moves, especially if he took long to choose. He seldom abandoned the initiative — that is where at all practicable for him to retain it. He had only seemed to abandon it this time. It would have been, even for him, an astounding piece of audacity, with his worn and wasted little army, to march out from his intrenchments and attack Grant's overwhelming numbers, yet he had determined to do this very thing. On page 37 of his address, so often quoted, General Early says:
