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| Belle plain, where the wagon-trains started In Grant's advance through the desolate tract guarded by Lee's veterans, extending for ten miles along the south bank of the Rapidan and for fifteen miles to the southward, he was unable to gather a particle of forage. His train of wagons in single file would have stretched from the Rapidan to Richmond. Never was a quartermaster's corps better organized than that of the Army of the Potomac in 1864. General Rufus Ingalls, Chief Quartermaster, managed his department with the precision of clockwork. The wagons, as fast as emptied, were returned to the base to be reloaded. Nevertheless within a week the losses of this well-equipped Army of the Potomac in the Wilderness campaign made dreadful reading. But with grim determination Grant wrote on May 11, 1864: “I am now sending back to Belle Plain all my wagons for a fresh supply of provisions and ammunition, and I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer.” |
