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possession of the main roads, was enabled to reach the North-Anna in advance of us, and took position behind it." And, when he speaks of his final determination to join Butler, he says: "After the Battle of the Wilderness, it was evident that the enemy deemed it of the first importance to run no risk with the army he then had. He acted purely on the defensive, behind breastworks, or, feebly on the offensive, immediately in front of them^ and where, in case of repulse, he could retire behind them. Without a greater sacrifice of life than I was willing to make, all could not be accomplished that I designed north of Richmond."
Mr. Secretary Stanton, with a keenness of strategic acumen which is altogether unparalleled, says: "Forty three days of desperate fighting or marching, by day and night, forced back the rebel army from the Rapidan to their entrenchments around Richmond, and carried the Army of the Potomac to the south side of James River. The strength of the enemy's force when the campaign opened, or the extent of his loss, is not known to this Department. Any inequality between Lee's army and the Army of the Potomac, was fully compensated by the advantage of position."
We are left in the dark whether it was the desperate fighting or the desperate marching which did all this; but, however that may be, it was a wonderful achievement, especially when it is considered that the Army of the Potomac might have been carried to the south side of James River by transports, and Lee's army thereby forced back to the entrenchments around Richmond, without the "Forty-three days of desperate fighting or marching, by day and night," and without the loss of men sustained by Grant There are some who think Stanton is slyly making fun of Grant; but, if he is not, and is in dead earnest, the question naturally arises, in the mind of one not as gifted as the Federal Secretary of War: Dow happened it that, if Lee was being constantly forced back, for forty-three days, over a distance of more than eighty miles, he always had the shorter line, and posses-ion of the main roads, and got the advantage of position, and had time to fortify it?
I happen to know that General Lee always had the grea'.est anxiety to strike at Grant, in the open field; and I should like to know when it was that the latter operated on the defensive, or offensive either, except behind, or immediately in front of, far better entrenchments than General Lee's army, with its limited means, was able to make An inspection of the battle-fields, from the Rapidan to the James, will show that Grant's army did a vast deal more digging than General Lee's.
The truth is, that the one commander was a great captain, and perfect master of his art, while the other had none of the requisites of a great captain, but merely possessed the most ordinary brute courage, and had the control of unlimited numbers and means. Yet, it is claimed that Grant fights and writes better than Alexander, and Hannibal, and Czesar, and Napoleon, and all the rest; and when, in the exercise of his great powers of composition, he turns- the batteries of his rhetoric on Butler, I say, in his own classic language, "Go in!" You can't hit him a lick amiss! I cannot, however, but be amused at the effort to make Butler the scape-goat; and cannot help thinking that Grant ought to have known, beforehand, that he (Butler) was unfit to make war, ex-