|
CONCLUSION
Forty days of fighting and maneuvering had cost the Federals
55,000 soldiers and the Confederates 32,000. Put another way, Grant had
lost 45 percent it of his original force and Lee almost 50 percent.
Never had the country witnessed bloodletting on such a massive
scale.
|
Grant's crossing of the James closed the Overland Campaign and opened
the Petersburg Campaign. Forty days of fighting and maneuvering had
cost the Federals 55,000 soldiers and the Confederates 32,000. Put
another way, Grant had lost 45 percent of his original force and Lee
almost 50 percent. Never had the country witnessed bloodletting on such
a massive scale. The period from May 22 through June 15—from the
North Anna River to the crossing of the James—contributed
substantially to the campaign's gruesome tally. Grant had sustained losses
approximating nearly 18,000 men killed, wounded, and captured. Lee's
casualties during that period reached slightly over 7,000.
The operations from the Rapidan to the James witnessed a gripping
match of wills and guile between the war's foremost commanders. The
battles around North Anna River, Totopotomoy Creek, and Cold Harbor
highlighted Grant's and Lee's strengths and weaknesses. The Union
general's strong point was his persistent, ruthless pursuit of Lee. He
undertook a grueling regimen of maneuvers and attacks that kept Lee on
the defensive and forced him ever southward, toward Richmond. But try as
Grant might, he could not bring Lee to bay. And he committed the
cardinal sin of underestimating his opponent. Cold Harbor was the debit
for his impudence. The campaign closed, however, on a positive note for
the Federals. Grant skillfully executed a complex maneuver by shifting
his army to the James River, leaving Lee bewildered and advantageously
positioning the Union army to attack Petersburg.
|
GRANT'S CROSSING OF THE JAMES RIVER BROUGHT TO AN END A CAMPAIGN THAT
HAD BEGUN A MONTH AND A HALF EARLIER. THE FIGHTING AT THE NORTH ANNA
AND COLD HARBOR COST THE ARMIES 5,000 MEN KILLED, MANY OF WHOM WERE
HASTILY BURIED IN UNKNOWN GRAVES. (NPS)
|
Lee, for his part, had deflected with consummate skill an aggressive
opponent who at times outnumbered him nearly two to one. He beat Grant
to the North Anna, parried him at Totopotomoy Creek, and repulsed him at
Cold Harbor. But Lee's military combinations, although often inspired,
frequently failed in their execution. Illness prevented Lee from
springing his trap at the North Anna, and poor coordination caused
forfeited opportunities at Bethesda Church on May 30 and at Cold Harbor
on the morning of June 1. Lee's inability to thwart Grant's deployment
across the James ranks as one of his major military disappointments.
Grant's crossing of the James and his investment of Petersburg that
followed ended the grand maneuvers that had characterized the war in
the East. Lee was to find himself locked behind earthworks in a siege he
had labored mightily to avoid. At that juncture, as he had predicted to
Jubal Early, the end was inevitable. It came ten months later.
(click on image for a PDF version)
|
North Anna and Cold Harbor Battlefields
|
|
Back cover: The Flag of Truce, by Julian Scott, courtesy of The
Snite Museum of Art University of Notre Dame, Indiana.
|
|
|
