Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. II.djvu/350

282 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS had now at its head a general in whose ability and enterprise he could thoroughly confide, ceased from that moment to exercise any active influence on its movements. He wrote, on April 30, to Gen. Grant: "The particulars of your plans I neither know nor seek to know. You are vigilant and self- reliant, and, pleased with this, I wish not to obtrude any constraints or restraints upon you. ... If there is anything wanting which is in my power to give, do not fail to let me know it. And now, with a brave army and a just cause, may God sustain you." Grant crossed the Rapidan on May 4, intending to move by the right flank of Gen. Lee; but the two armies came together in a gloomy forest called the Wilderness, where, from the 5th to the 7th of May, one of the most sanguinary battles known to mod ern warfare was fought. Neither side having gained any decisive advantage in this deadly struggle, Grant moved to the left, and Lee met him again at Spottsylvania Court-House, where for ten days a series of destructive contests took place, in which both sides were alternately successful. Still moving to the left, Grant again encountered the enemy at the crossing of North Anna river, and still later at Cold Harbor, a few miles northeast of Richmond, where, assaulting Gen. Lee s army in a fortified position, he met with a bloody repulse. He then crossed the James river, intending by a rapid movement to seize Petersburg and the Con-