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to put the stopper in the bottle,--that is, I was to construct the impregnable line of intrenchments.
Was that bottle Butler's or Grant's?
He thought the cork was in so strongly that afterwards he advised me that I could hold it against the army of Lee by one man to every six feet of its line.
If it should be said that the enemy put a line of intrenchments in front of my line equally strong, I answer that if that had been done it would have been of no consequence.
I should have been glad if they had put a Chinese wall across there without an opening in it. I had determined that they should not come in there, and I had no call to go out because I had a line of more than twenty miles on its shores guarded by our navy where troops could be embarked and where expeditions could be sent across the rivers by pontoon bridges.
I had three pontoon bridges, one across the Appomattox, during the whole time of my occupation, and two across the James, one at Deep Bottom, and one at Varina.
Over these, between the 14th of June and the 25th of December, 1864, Grant ordered the following expeditions, composed of a corps or more, sometimes from both armies, to move in attack upon Richmond and elsewhere:--
May 28, Smith's corps to Cold Harbor; returned June 14.
June 9, Gillmore crossed the Appomattox and attacked Petersburg.
June 11, I sent Gillmore to attack Petersburg.
June 15, the Eighteenth Corps under Smith was sent to attack Petersburg by order of Grant.
June 16, the Sixth Corps under Wright; afterwards sent thence to Washington.
June 21, expedition to Deep Bottom, crossing the pontoon bridge to the south side of the James River.
July 14, the Eighteenth Corps, Kautz's Cavalry, attacked Petersburg, crossing the Appomattox by the pontoon bridge.
July 17, Birney's Corps crossed the pontoon bridge over the James to meet Hancock, and attacked the enemy's works on the north bank, and returned.
August 19, part of the Second and Tenth Corps crossed the pontoon bridge to attack the defences on the north side of the river around Richmond.
A. M. Thayer and Co. 1892.
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