s
of his campaign--losing in twenty-six days, and nine heavy fights and
several skirmishes, _seven men for one of General Lee's_!

Can any candid thinker analyze these results and then believe Grant a
strategist--a great soldier--anything but a pertinacious fighter? Can
one realize that anything but most obstinate bungling could have swung
such an army round in a complete circle--at a loss of over one-half of
its numbers--to a point it could have reached in twenty-four hours,
without any loss whatever? For the soldiers of the North, in this
disastrous series of blunders, fought with constancy and courage.
Beaten day after day by unfailing troops in strong works, they ever
came again straight at those impregnable positions, against which
obstinate stolidity, or blind rage for blood, drove them to the
slaughter. Hancock's men especially seemed to catch inspiration from
their chivalric leader. Broken and beaten at the Wilderness--decimated
at Spottsylvania, they still were first in the deadly hail of Cold
Harbor--breaking our line and holding it for a moment. Sedgwick and
Warren, too--though the victim of unjust prejudice, if not of
conspiracy--managed their corps with signal ability, in those ceaseless
killings into which Grant's "strategy" sent them.

Nor was the immense superiority of numbers already shown, all. For this
main advance--like every other of General Grant's--had co-operating
columns all around it. Add to the men under his immediate command,
those of the adjunct forces under his inspiration--Butler, 35,000,
Hunter, 28,000 and Sigel, 10,000--and there foots up a grand total of
307,000 men!

We may, therefore, consider that General Lee, in the summer campaign of
1864, kept at bay and nullified the attack of 307,000 men with scarcely
one-fifth their number; not exceeding 63,000![1]

[1] Some time after the notes were made, from which these figures
are condensed, two articles on Grant's campaign appeared in
print--one in the New York "_World_," the other, by Mr. Hugh
Pleasants, in "_The Land We Love_" magazine. Writing from
diametrically opposite standpoints, with data gathered from
opposing sources, Mr. Pleasants and the "_World_" very nearly
agree in their figuring; and it was gratifying to this author to
find that both corroborated the above estimates to within very
inconsiderable numbers. Later historical papers have not
materially changed them