th, his orders
countermanded, thus destroying the efficiency and usefulness of the
cavalry corps, he must decline to give it further orders and General
Meade could take it and run it himself, as he evidently desired to do.
He kept his poise, however, sufficiently to intimate that he would like
an opportunity to take his corps and go out after Stuart, since he
believed he could whip Stuart in a fair fight if he could have a chance.
Meade reported this conversation to Grant who told Meade to let him go
and try. Grant had confidence enough in Sheridan to believe that he
would make his word good.

The outcome of this was that the entire corps was ordered that very
afternoon to concentrate at Alrich's, on the plank road leading to
Fredericksburg, and be prepared to start at daylight on an expedition
around Lee's right flank, into the enemy's country. It was to be a
second edition, only on a much larger scale, and under a very different
commander, of the Kilpatrick raid, an account of which was given in a
previous chapter. The route selected was very much the same. But,
unlike Kilpatrick and others who had led cavalry expeditions up to that
time, and whose idea was to ride rapidly through the country and avoid
the enemy as much as possible, never fighting unless forced into it
unwillingly, Sheridan went out with the utmost deliberation, looking for
trouble--seeking it--and desiring before every other thing to find
Stuart and fight him on his native heath. The confidence which he
manifested in himself and in the prowess of his command was of its own
kind, and a distinct revelation to the army of the Potomac, in which it
had long been a settled article of belief that Stuart was invincible
and, indeed, up to that time he had been well nigh so, as Sheridan
points out in his memoirs.

In the meantime, the battle was raging around Spottsylvania. Lee's army
was getting into position, his various corps concentrating and
intrenching, and making every preparation for a new base and a stout
resistance. Grant's plans had all miscarried, thus far. Still, he had
taken up his bridges and resolved to fight it out on that line. It was
already evident that there was to be no more retreating. The officers
and men of the army of the Potomac made up their minds that they had
crossed the Rapidan and the Rappahannock for the last time and that Lee
would never be permitted to make a permanent halt outside the
intrenchments of Richmond.

When the