There was but one thing for him to do—change his base to the
James river, and that everlasting ‘forward’ move by the left flank had to be performed once more.
That great soldier,
McClellan, always insisted that the proper route to
Richmond was by the
James, and that
McClellan was right was here demonstrated.
Had that able commander been given what he called for in men and munitions of war, and at the same time as free a rein as had been given
General Grant,
Richmond would have fallen two years before
Grant began his advance by this new road.
But re-enforcements had been denied him, and he was, moreover, embarrassed by arbitrary orders from
Washington.
Grant could have gone to
City Point by another route in less time without the loss of a man, much less 55,000.
Many another general had before him suffered from having taken the wrong road, but I doubt if any other had paid so dearly for his mistake.
But the war of attrition
Grant had inaugurated was bearing fruit.
The grind was to go on, and it was only a question of time when the
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Confederacy would send its last grist to the mill.
No one knew this fact better than
General Grant, and it was all he now hoped for.
And where was the doughty
Ben Butler all this time, from whom
General Grant had expected such valuable aid?
Beauregard, with an insignificant force, had ‘bottled him up’ on a narrow strip of land at
Bermuda Hundred, and where he kept him as long as he desired, and then withdrew the cork and allowed
Butler to go to
Drewry's Bluff and dig the
Dutch Gap Canal, which since has been of inestimable value to the commerce of the
James.
