Station, to stay his advance; and,
third, the failure of General Hancock, who was with the Second Corps
within supporting distance, to take up the movement and give the
finishing stroke to the day's work. To these should be added the
defective staff arrangements by which the various forces in the field
of operations were controlled, the inadequate strength of Smith's
command, which was inexcusable where such a vast force was within call,
the lack of engineer officers and of exact information as to the
character of the ground over which the troops were compelled to
operate, and the total absence of proper support and co-operation on
the part of the Army of the Potomac. Above all, it should be kept in
mind that the enemy held the defensive and had interior lines upon
which he could throw his troops from point to point on his threatened
front, with greater celerity than the attacking force could be
concentrated by outside lines and across wide rivers against him.

When Smith began his movement against Petersburg, which was to be in
the nature of a surprise, the greater part of Grant's army was still
north of the James River, and both Meade and Hancock allege that they
were not notified that a new effort was to be made to capture
Petersburg by Smith alone, after Butler had tried and failed with his
whole army to isolate and cut it off from Richmond by the movement to
Bermuda Hundred. Both of these able officers declare that if they had
known in time that Petersburg was to have been captured, Petersburg
would have been captured. This simple statement, without reference to
its truth, which has never been questioned, is conclusive evidence that
the staff arrangements and the organization of the machinery of command
were fatally defective, for had it been otherwise, every officer who
could have been called upon to take part in the movement, or could have
been expected to co-operate with it, would have been so clearly
instructed as to make his duty entirely plain.

General Smith, in explanation of why he was relieved from command in
the field, not only reflects strongly upon the conduct of General
Butler, but endeavors to show that General Grant "was forced" by Butler
to restore him to full command, in order to prevent the exposure of his
own conduct, yet even if this were true it necessarily leaves both the
question of fact and the question of motives in the dark. Certain
letters which passed between Smith, Grant, Rawlins and