the line
of grey blocking his path to Richmond. The army of the Potomac had been
marching and fighting without break for weeks. There had been but little
sleep, and the food in the trains was often far out of the reach of the
men in the fighting line. Men and officers were alike exhausted. While
advantages had been gained at one point or another along the line, and
while it was certain that the opposing army had also suffered severely,
there had been no conclusive successes to inspirit the troops with the
feeling that they were to seize victory out of the campaign.

In emerging from the Wilderness, the head of the column reached the
cross-roads the left fork of which led back to the Potomac and the right
fork to Richmond or to Petersburg. In the previous campaigns, the army
of the Potomac, after doing its share of plucky fighting and taking more
than its share of discouragement, had at such a point been withdrawn for
rest and recuperation. It was not an unnatural expectation that this
course would be taken in the present campaign. The road to the right
meant further fatigue and further continuous fighting for men who were
already exhausted. In the leading brigade it was only the brigade
commander and the adjutant who had knowledge of the instructions for the
line of march. When, with a wave of the hand of the adjutant, the guidon
flag of the brigade was carried to the right and the head of the column
was set towards Richmond, a shout went up from the men marching behind
the guidon. It was an utterance not of discouragement but of
enthusiasm. Exhausting as the campaign had been, the men in the ranks
preferred to fight it out then and to get through with it. Old soldiers
as they were, they were able to understand the actual issue of the
contest. Their plucky opponents were as exhausted as themselves and
possibly even more exhausted. It was only through the hammering of Lee's
diminishing army out of existence that the War could be brought to a
close. The enthusiastic shout of satisfaction rolled through the long
column reaching twenty miles back, as the news passed from brigade to
brigade that the army was not to be withdrawn but was, as Grant's report
to Lincoln was worded, "to fight it out on this line if it took all
summer." When this report reached Lincoln, he felt that the selection of
Grant as Lieutenant-General had been justified. He said: "We need this
man. He fights."

In July, 1864, Washington is once more withi