was placed in his hands; he was enabled to concentrate in Virginia the best troops, in large numbers; and the character of this force seemed to promise him assured victory.  General McClellan and others had commanded troops comparatively raw, and were opposed by Confederate armies in the full flush of anticipated success.  General Grant had now under him an army of veterans, and the enemy he was opposed to had, month by month, lost strength.  Under these circumstances it seemed that he ought to succeed in crushing his adversary.

The Federal army present and ready for duty May 1, 1864, numbered one hundred and forty-one thousand one hundred and sixty-six men.  That of General Lee numbered fifty-two thousand six hundred and twenty-six.  Colonel Taylor, adjutant-general of the Army, states the strictly effective at a little less, viz.: 

Ewell                       13,000
Hill                        17,000
Longstreet                  10,000

Infantry                    40,000
Cavalry and artillery       10,000

  Total 50,000

The two statements do not materially differ, and require no discussion.  The force at Lee’s command was a little over one-third of General Grant’s; and, if it be true that the latter commander continued to receive reenforcements between the 1st and 4th days of May, when he crossed the Rapidan, Lee’s force was probably less than one-third of his adversary’s.

Longstreet, it will be seen, had been brought back from the West, but the Confederates labored under an even more serious disadvantage than want of sufficient force.  Lee’s army, small as it was, was wretchedly supplied.  Half the men were in rags, and, worse still, were but one-fourth fed.  Against this suicidal policy, in reference to an army upon which depended the fate of the South, General Lee had protested in vain.  Whether from fault in the authorities or from circumstances over which they could exercise no control, adequate supplies of food did not reach the army; and, when it marched to meet the enemy, in the first days of May, the men were gaunt, half-fed, and in no condition to enter upon so arduous a campaign.  There was naught to be done, however, but to fight on to the end.  Upon the Army of Northern Virginia, depleted by casualties, and unprovided with the commonest necessaries, depended the fate of the struggle.  Generals Grant and Lee fully realized that fact; and the Federal commander had the acumen to perceive that the conflict was to be long and determined.  He indulged no anticipations of an early or easy success.  His plan, as stated in his official report, was “to hammer continuously against the armed force of the enemy and his resources, until by mere attrition, if by nothing else, there should be nothing left of him but an equal submission with the loyal section of our common country to the Constitution and the laws.”  The frightful cost in blood of this policy of hammering continuously and thus wearing away his adversary’s strength by mere attrition, did or did not occur to General Grant.  In either case he is not justly to be blamed.