ble; but
if this was the inevitable and only price, Grant was willing to pay it,
justly regarding it as cheaper than a continuation of the process of
purchase by piecemeal. In a few hours the frightful struggle in the
Wilderness was in progress. All day on the 5th, all day on the 6th, the
terrible slaughter continued in those darksome woods and swamps. "More
desperate fighting has not been witnessed on this continent," said
Grant. The Union troops could not force their way through those tangled
forests. Thereupon, accepting the situation in his imperturbable way, he
arranged to move, on May 7, by the left flank southerly towards
Spottsylvania. Lee, disappointed and surprised that Grant was advancing
instead of falling back, could not do otherwise than move in the same
course; for, in fact, the combatants were locked together in a grappling
campaign. Then took place more bloody and determined fighting. The Union
losses were appalling, since the troops were attacking an army in
position. Yet Grant was sanguine; it was in a dispatch of May 11 that
he said that he had been getting the better in the struggle, and that he
proposed to fight it out on that line if it took all summer. The result
of the further slaughter at Spottsylvania was not a victory for either
leader, but was more hurtful to Lee because he could less well afford to
have his men killed and wounded. Grant, again finding that he could not
force Lee out of his position, also again moved by the left flank,
steadily approaching Richmond and dragging Lee with him. The Northern
loss had already reached the frightful total of 37,335 men; the
Confederate loss was less, but enormous. Amid the bloodshed, however,
Grant scented success. On May 26 he wrote: "Lee's army is really
whipped.... Our men feel that they have gained the morale over the
enemy.... I may be mistaken, but I feel that our success over Lee's army
is already assured." He even gratified the President by again
disregarding all precedent in Virginian campaigns, and saying that the
promptness with which reinforcements had been forwarded had contributed
largely to the promising situation! But almost immediately after this
the North shuddered at the enormous and profitless carnage at Cold
Harbor. Concurrently with all this bloodshed, there also took place the
famous and ill-starred movement of General Butler upon Richmond, which
ended in securely shutting up him and his forces at Bermuda Hundred, "as
in a bot