r was granted full authority over all the armies of the
Union. He placed Sherman at Chattanooga in command of a hundred thousand
men and ordered him to invade Georgia. He sent Butler with an army
of fifty thousand up the Peninsula against Richmond on the line of
McClellan's old march. He raised the army of the Potomac to a hundred
and forty thousand effective fighting soldiers, placed Phil Sheridan in
command of his cavalry, put himself at the head of this magnificent army
and faced Lee on the banks of the Rapidan. He was but a few miles from
Chancellorsville where Hooker's men had baptized the earth in blood the
year before.

A new draft of five hundred thousand had given Grant unlimited men for
the coming whirlwind. His army was the flower of Northern manhood. He
commanded the best-equipped body of soldiers ever assembled under the
flag of the Union. His baggage train was sixty miles long and would
have stretched the entire distance from his crossing at the Rapidan to
Richmond.

Lee's army had been recruited to its normal strength of sixty-two
thousand. Again the wily Southerner anticipated the march of his foe
and crept into the tangled wilderness to meet him where his superiority
would be of no avail.

Confident of his resistless power Grant threw his army across the
Rapidan and plunged into the wilderness. From the dawn of the first day
until far into the night the conflict raged. As darkness fell Lee had
pushed the blue lines back a hundred yards, captured four guns and
a number of prisoners. At daylight they were at it again. As the
Confederate right wing crumpled and rolled back, Long-street arrived on
the scene and threw his corps into the breach.

Lee himself rode forward to lead the charge and restore his line. At
sight of him, from thousands of parched throats rose the cries:

"Lee to the rear!"

"Go back, General Lee!"

"We'll settle this!"

They refused to move until their leader had withdrawn. And then with a
savage yell they charged and took the field.

Lee sent Longstreet to turn Grant's left as Jackson had done at
Chancellorsville. The movement was executed with brilliant success.
Hancock's line was smashed and driven back on his second defenses.
Wardsworth at the head of his division was mortally wounded and fell
into Longstreet's hands. At the height of his triumph in a movement that
must crumple Grant's army back on the banks of the river, Longstreet
fell, shot by his own men. In the cha