The National tribune., 1910-01-20
THE WILDERNESS CAMPAIGN
tcontinued from page one.)

Itions arounda Washington. Many of
these were equal to brigade in
strength, and were maSniiicentiy
equipped and drilled. One of Gen.
Grants strongest characteristics was
that of bringing every man to bear
upon the enerHy Thsse regiments were
drawn from the long circle of fortiilca-
tions around Washington and distri-
buted to reinforce, with their fult ana
unbruised proportions, the decimated
brgades andsdivisions. AT hrst,. Two
of these great regiments We're sent 10
the Second Corps and two to the Ninth
Corps. The others followed as the cam
ipaign developed.
Gen. Humphrey. the Adjutant-Gen-
eral of the Army of the Potomac, gIVes
the strength of the army on April 5c'
1864, as being 99,43S infantry caNaiTy
and artillery present for duty
Iequipped." OF this number 5000 were
in the three infantry corps 10 this
must be added the Ninth Corps Whlch
had 923 officers and 1S,40S enlisted
men, with AZ guns, making altogether
I11S,769. OF the Ninth Corps Gen.
Humphreys says only 5000 were vet.
erans, with the remainder troops OF
various degrees of newness. The Army
of the Potomac had 100 guns, which
with the AZ of the Ninth made l92.
Gen. Humphreys cautiously gives the
strength of the Army of Northern Nir-
Iginia as mot less than 6l,953 men, with
probably 22+ guns" The probability
points to the fact, as stated before, that
| its strength was much nearer 10000.
Gen. Grant Present in Person.
By an act approved Feb. 20, 1864,
| Congress revived the grade of Lieu
tenant-General. There was no doubt
! in the minds Of any one for whom this
rank was intended, so that the eX-
! pected happened when the President
| bestowed the commission upon Gen.
Grant, who in the fierce trials of the
great war had risen to unquestioned
supremacy among our commanders.
| Gen. Grants commission was made out
| promptly-to date from March 9, and
! not wasting an hour he went to the
headquarters of the Army of the Po-
! tomac, near Brandy Station, and an
! Inounced his intention, after visiting the
West, of remaining permanently with
| that army. Gen. Badeau gives his rea-
sons for this as the transcendent i'm
portance of the issues in Virginia upon
which the fate of both the National
and rebel capitals depended" and that
! the army commanded by Gen. Lee was
/ the strongest, the best led, and the
! best appointed" army of the Confeder-
| acy. Gen. Badeau goes on to say:
| "Another consideration was that the
| political and personal Influences of var
! ious sorts and of various individuals
which centered at Washington had
thwarted some Generals, and interfered
| with all who had commanded the Army
| of the Potomac since the beginning of
| the war. 1t was Gen. Grants duty
himself to encounter these difficulties,
and to withstand, If he could not pre-
vent, political Interference; to remain
where he could control all the move
ments of all the armies absolutely and
independently. If he remained at the
| East this was secured, but with the
| General-in-Chief / 900 miles away, the
Government might be unable to resist
entreaties or threats of interested or
anxious outsiders, and the best con-
certed schemes might come to naught
| Unless he was near the Capital, he
could not control all the operations of
all the armies without interruption,
and could not carry out the plan that
he believed the only one by which the
rebellion conid be overthrown. In
Washington Gen. Grant would not stay
| in time of war; he must then direct
in person, the campaigns of that re-
nowned Army of the Potomac"
1t had taken a long time, and much
hard fighting, to develope satisfactory
corps commanders in the Army of the
Potomac. 1T will be remembered that
| it went on the Peninsula with that
| splendid old cavalryman, Gen Sumner,
! in command of the Second Corps Gen.
| S. p. HeintZelman in command of the
Third Corps. and Gen. E. d. Keyes in
command of the Fourth Corps. Gen.
keyes was the first to fall by the way
side, having been shelved by Gen. Nc
| CIellan at Fort Monroe and his corps
| broken up, one division sent away to
North Carolina, and the others given
| to McClellan's favorites, Fitz John Por-
ter and VIM. b. Franklin, upon which
tn hn
Gen. Summers i'll health and mishaps
at Antietam and Fredericksburg had
| sent him to the rear; HeintZelman had
| proved Inadequate to the command of
so large a body; Fitz John Porter had
been cashiared by a court martial.
Fredericksburg had dcposed Franklin,
and the First Corps, which had joined
| the army, had lost its first commander
| Irwin Mcdowell, and had then seen his
| successor fall at Gettysburg. After
passing thru Gen. Stoneman's hands
the Third Corps had fallen to Sickles,
whose severe wound, received at Gettys-
! burg, took it from him all too soon for
his fame and the benefit of the army.
Sykes had not proved equal to the com
mand of the Fifth Corps, which had
| been given to Warren, while Hancock
had showed himself such a leader for
| the splendid Second Corps as it de-
served. Ever steady, reliable John
] ISedgWlck ndn taken the SIKH Corps,
and at Maryes flights had shown that
/ he had nodded it into his own likeness
and into one of the most magnificent
! fighting machines that ever stood on
the field of battle.
| There was another reason even more
powerful than those mentioned. The
Army of the Potomac had never been
50 well commanded as under Gen.
George G. Meade. Its discipline and
organization had been raised to proba-
bly, higher point than even the best
armies of Europe. 1t was the very
perfection of a fighting machine. 1t
marched with celebrity and certainty, no
shock could break its unfailing stead
mess, it struck quickly and surely, and
stood with rocklike frmness on the
defensive. No better fighter on the de-
fensive could be found than Cen
Meade, and no one could manuver an
army with greater skill in the face of
an opponent, but the six months of
!campaigning which had followed Get
tysburg had shown him sOrely deficient
| in aggressiveness. While his army suf-
fered no severe blow, yet it did not
inflict one upon the enemy. In the
many manuvers back and forth from
Washington to the Rapidan, he had
every time foiled Lees ablest efforts
to catch him at disadvantage, and