t and calmest criticism
of the North.

That success was made the test of merit; that attrition at last wore
away unre-enforced resistance; that highest honors in life, and
national sorrow in death, were rewards of a man--truly great in many
regards, if justly measured; all these are no proof that General Grant
was either a strategist, or a thinker; no denial that his Rapidan
campaign--equally in its planning and its carrying out--was a bald and
needlessly-bloody failure!

And, realizing this at the supreme moment, can it be wondered that the
people of Richmond, as well as the victorious little army, grew hopeful
once more? Is it strange that--mingled with thanksgivings for
deliverance, unremitting care of the precious wounded, and sorrow for
the gallant dead of many a Virginia home--there rose a solemn
joyousness over the result, that crowned the toil, the travail and the
loss?

And so the South, unrefreshed but steadfast, girded her loins for the
new wrestle with the foe, now felt to be implacable!

CHAPTER XXXVI.

"THE LAND OF DARKNESS AND THE SHADOW OF DEATH."

It is essential to a clear understanding of the events, directly
preceding the fall of the Confederacy, to pause here and glance at the
means with which that result was so long delayed, but at last so fully
accomplished.

From official northern sources, we learn that General Grant crossed the
Rapidan with three corps, averaging over 47,000 men. Therefore, he must
have fought the battles of the Wilderness with at least 140,000 men. At
that time the total strength of General Lee's morning report did not
show 46,000 men for duty. Between the Wilderness and Spottsylvania,
Grant was re-enforced to the extent of near 48,000 picked men; and
again at Cold Harbor with near 45,000 more. Northern figures admit an
aggregate of 97,000 _re-enforcement_ between the Rapidan and the James!
In that time, Lee, by the junction of Breckinridge and all the
fragments of brigades he could collect, received less than 16,000
re-enforcement; and even the junction with Beauregard scarcely swelled
his total additions over 20,000.

Grant's army, too, was composed of the picked veterans of the
North--for his Government had accepted large numbers of hundred-day men
for local and garrison duty, that all the seasoned troops might be sent
him. Yet with an aggregate force of 234,000 men, opposed to a total of
less than 63,000, General Grant failed signally in the plan, or plan