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army,
Grant inaugurated a campaign against
Lee which involved a succession of bloody battles hardly paralleled in modern warfare, in which the
Confederate commander, almost constantly acting on a careful defensive, to husband his rapidly failing strength, was barely able throughout this terrible summer to hold his own and protect
Richmond.
By thus always fighting behind fortified lines and taking few chances,
Lee was enabled to inflct far greater losses on the
Union army than his own sustained.
But, nevertheless, the
Confederate losses were also quite large.
Confederate bulletins and newspapers from time to time announced the repulse of the
Yankees with ‘great slaughter,’ and showered enthusiastic praises upon the brave and brilliant defense their great leader was making against overwhelming numbers, yet the
Union army day by day drew nearer and nearer
Richmond, and the very terseness with which, after the first trial of strength with
Grant, the heretofore bold and dashing Confederates hugged their breastworks, was evidence that they were cowed and dismayed by this new order of warfare.
Grant at once detected this after the
Wilderness; he asserted to his government that
Lee was already whipped, and that it was impossibie to get a battle out of him in the open.
Grant pressed the fighting with such ferocity and persisted in it with such bull dog tenacity that he began to be stigmatized by his enemies North and South as a ‘butcher.’
It is my purpose to indulge in some speculations concerning this campaign, and the
Union losses, comparing them with other campaigns of the war, and then let the reader form his own conclusions as to whether
Grant's eventual success was dearly bought or otherwise.
The period of which I shall treat is the forty-one days beginning with the
battle of the Wilderness, on the 5th of May, and ending with the crossing of the
James on the 15th of June, 1864.
The fighting, beginning on the 5th, was almost continuous throughout the month of May, but practically ended with the
battle of Cold Harbor on the third of June.
The total Union losses in all the battles of this period in killed and wounded (I do not include prisoners, as they are not counted in the butcher's bill), was follows:
| Killed. | Wounded. | Total. |
| Wilderness, 2 days | 2,246 | 12,037 | 14,283. |
| Spotsylvania, 14 days | 2,725 | 13,413 | 16,138. |
| North Anna, Cold Harbor, etc., 24 days | 2,436 | 11,811 | 14,247. |
| —— | —— | ——— |
| Total, 41 days | 7,407 | 37,261 | 44,668. |
The campaign in which these losses were made may be truthfully
