The Wilderness, Part I: Grant and Lee Prepare for a Fight
The summer days are almost here, when we shall be wearily plodding over the roads once more in search of victory or death. Many a poor fellow will find the latter. I dread the approaching campaign. I can see horrors insurmountable through the summer months. --Pvt. Robert G. Carter, 22nd Mass. Infantry
"You've never met Bobby Lee and his boys" was something Grant heard quite often after he took command and settled in with the Army of the Potomac. And certainly this was true. The skepticism that prompted this remark from many of the soldiers and the press was rooted in the failure of every general who preceded Grant and the three bloody years that came as a result of such failure. Despite his reputation of being a bold leader, many in the ranks were unimpressed. It was simply by virtue of past failures and Lee's genius that Grant was at odds with many of his men
Some of the first work as Army commander Grant initiated, necessary as it was, would not garner him much respect either. For example, he disbanded the proud but understrengthed I and III Corps who had suffered severely at Gettysburg and redistributed the units among the II and V Corps. This move did not sit well with many of the veterans of those units who were proud of their being identified with their corps. He sought to end the three-year practice of prisoner exchanges in order to prevent the South from replenishing its ranks. He streamlined the number of headquarters wagons to one per regiment, one per brigade, and two per division (Jaynes, 1986). Consequently this threw hundreds of drivers into the ranks. Finally, he converted Washington's excess cavalrymen into infantry, issued them muskets, and marched them off to the Army's headquarters in Virginia.
Meanwhile on the other side of the lines, Lee was having his own problems. As he sat and watched Grant's army grow by the day, his force remained depressingly small by comparison. Though he would soon re-obtain the service of Longstreet's corps from Tennessee, he lost the remnants of Pickett's shattered brigade to the necessary containment of federal garrisons south of Richmond. He also saw a brigade under Robert Hoke leave for North Carolina. In late April Lee sent a dispatch to Jefferson Davis in Richmond:
Everything indicates a concentrated attack on this front, which renders me the more anxious to get back the troops belonging to this army, & causes me to suggest, if possible, that others be moved from points at the south, where they can be spared, to Richmond" (Jaynes, 1986, p. 45).
Latest Articles