int had cost General Grant
a frightful number of lives. Nor could it be said that he had any
important successes to offset this loss. He had not defeated his
adversary in any of the battle-fields of the campaign; nor did it
seem that he had stricken him any serious blow. The Army of Northern
Virginia, not reenforced until it reached Hanover Junction, and then
only by about nine thousand men under Generals Breckinridge and
Pickett, had held its ground against the large force opposed to it;
had repulsed every assault; and, in a final trial of strength with a
force largely its superior, had inflicted upon the enemy, in about an
hour, a loss of thirteen thousand men.

These facts, highly honorable to Lee and his troops, are the plainest
and most compendious comment we can make upon the campaign. The whole
movement of General Grant across Virginia is, indeed, now conceded
even by his admirers to have been unfortunate. It failed to accomplish
the end expected from it--the investment of Richmond on the north and
west--and the lives of about sixty thousand men were, it would seem,
unnecessarily lost, to reach a position which might have been attained
with losses comparatively trifling, and without the unfortunate
prestige of defeat.

VI.

FIRST BATTLES AT PETERSBURG.

General Lee remained facing his adversary in his lines at Cold Harbor,
for many days after the bloody struggle of the 3d of June, confident
of his ability to repulse any new attack, and completely barring the
way to Richmond. The Federal campaign, it was now seen, was at an end
on that line, and it was obvious that General Grant must adopt some
other plan, in spite of his determination expressed in the beginning
of the campaign, to "fight it out on that line if it took all the
summer." The summer was but begun, and further fighting on that line
was hopeless. Under these circumstances the Federal commander resolved
to give up the attempt to assail Richmond from the north or east, and
by a rapid movement to Petersburg, seize upon that place, cut the
Confederate railroads leading southward, and thus compel an evacuation
of the capital.

[Illustration: Map of Petersburg and Environs.]

It would be interesting to inquire what the course of General Lee
would have been in the event of the success of this plan, and how the
war would have resulted. It would seem that, under such circumstances,
his only resource would have been to retire with his army in the