ee still moving
so as to cover Richmond--brought Grant by the end of the month to Cold
Harbour, some ten miles east by north of Richmond, close upon the scene
of McClellan's misadventures. Meanwhile Grant had caused an expedition
under General Butler to go by sea up the James, and to land a little
south of Richmond, which, with the connected fortress of Petersburg,
twenty-two miles to the south of it, had only a weak garrison left.
Butler was a man with remarkable powers of self-advertisement; he had now
a very good chance of taking Petersburg, but his expedition failed
totally. From June 1 to June 3 Grant was occupied on the most disastrous
enterprise of his career, a hopeless attack upon a strong entrenched
position, which, with the lesser encounters that took place within the
next few days, cost the North 14,000 men, against a loss to the South
which has been put as low as 1,700. It was the one battle which Grant
regretted having fought. He gave up the hope of a fight with Lee on
advantageous conditions outside Richmond. On June 12 he suddenly moved
his army across the James to the neighbourhood of City Point, east of
Petersburg. Lee must now stand siege in Richmond and Petersburg. Had he
now marched north against Washington, Grant would have been after him and
would have secured for his vastly larger force the battle in the open
which he had so far vainly sought. Yet another disappointment followed.
On July 30 an attempt was made to carry Petersburg by assault immediately
after the explosion of an enormous mine. It failed with heavy loss,
through the fault of the amiable but injudicious Burnside, who now passed
into civil life, and of the officers under him. The siege was to be a
long affair. In reality, for all the disappointment, and in spite of
Grant's confessed mistake at Cold Harbour, his grim plan was progressing.
The force which the South could ill spare was being worn down, and Grant
was in a position in which, though he might have got there at less cost,
and though the end would not be yet, the end was sure. His army was for
the time a good deal shaken, and the estimation in which the West Point
officers held him sank low. His own determination was quite unshaken,
and, though Lincoln hinted somewhat mildly that these enormous losses
ought not to recur, his confidence in Grant was unabated, too.

People in Washington who had watched all this with alternations of
feeling that ended in dejection ha