ence of the
cabinet and a few other officials, made a little speech, and gave him
his commission. Grant replied with a few words, as modest as they
were brief, and in conversation afterward asked what special duty was
required of him. The President answered that the people wanted him to
take Richmond, and asked if he could do it. Grant said that he could
if he had the soldiers, and the President promised that these would be
furnished him. Grant did not stay in Washington to enjoy the new honors
of his high rank, but at once set about preparations for his task. It
proved a hard one. More than a year passed before it was ended, and
all the losses in battle of the three years that had gone before seemed
small in comparison with the terrible numbers of killed and wounded that
fell during these last months of the war. At first Grant had a fear
that the President might wish to control his plans, but this was soon
quieted; and his last lingering doubt on the subject vanished when,
as he was about to start on his final campaign, Mr. Lincoln sent him a
letter stating his satisfaction with all he had done, and assuring him
that in the coming campaign he neither knew, for desired to know, the
details of his plans. In his reply Grant confessed the groundlessness
of his fears, and added, "Should my success be less than I desire and
expect, the least I can say is, the fault is not with you."

He made no complicated plan for the problem before him, but proposed to
solve it by plain, hard, persistent fighting. "Lee's army will be your
objective point," he instructed General Meade. "Where Lee goes there you
will go also." Nearly three years earlier the opposing armies had fought
their first battle of Bull Run only a short distance north of where they
now confronted each other. Campaign and battle between them had swayed
to the north and the south, but neither could claim any great gain of
ground or of advantage. The final struggle was before them. Grant had
two to one in numbers; Lee the advantage in position, for he knew by
heart every road, hill and forest in Virginia, had for his friendly
scout every white inhabitant, and could retire into prepared
fortifications. Perhaps the greatest element of his strength lay in the
conscious pride of his army that for three years it had steadily barred
the way to Richmond. To offset this there now menaced it what had
always been absent before--the grim, unflinching will of the new Union
commander