eighteen thousand, and it was opposed by General Lee with about sixty-four thousand, according to the highest estimates. Grant crossed the Rapidan on his march southward, and entered a region of country covered with scraggy oak and pine trees and full of tangled underbrush, known as the Wilderness. Here, not far from Chancellorsville, the hostile armies came into collision, and for five days a terrible contest went on; but Grant was unable to drive Lee back. By moving to the left, however, he reached Spottsylvania Courthouse where much heavy fighting took place. A flank movement brought Grant to Cold Harbor, where, early in June, in attempting to carry the Confederate works by assault, he lost thirteen thousand men in a half hour, and his men refused to renew the attack. Grant again moved to the left and crossed the James, having resolved to lay siege to Petersburg.

Lee's Generalship. - General Lee's management of this campaign alone would have rendered him famous. In the long series of engagements that took place from the Wilderness to the James, he had defeated his powerful antagonist again and again, and inflicted on him a loss that exceeded the total number of his own forces. Not only did he do this, but in spite of all the difficulties that surrounded him, he succeeded in keeping the expeditions that were to coöperate with the Army of the Potomac from rendering any very effective aid. The chief results of these minor campaigns were as follows.

Butler Imprisoned. Butler landed at Bermuda Hundred, a bottle-shaped piece of land made by a bend in the James. This he fortified and made the base of his operations. But the Confederates under Beauregard defeated him at Drury's Bluff, and forcing him within his de

fenses imprisoned him by building a line of strong fortifications across the neck of his bottle, thus for the time rendering him harmless. General Grant said that "his army was as completely shut off as if it had been in a bottle strongly corked."

Defeat of Sigel at New Market. Early in May, General Sigel with seven thousand men advanced up the Valley;

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Cadets at New Market

but at New Market, General John C. Breckenridge defeated him and forced him to retreat. Just before the battle, a battalion of cadets from the Virginia Military Institute, two hundred and thirty strong, came under the command of Colonel Ship to aid the Confederates in driving Sigel back, and in the engagement behaved with distinguished gallantry. The cadets occupied a position in the Confederate line just in front of Sigel's artillery battery, which they charged with the steadiness of old veterans

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and captured, bayoneting some of the cannoneers who stood to their guns. When the battle was over, forty-six of the brave boys lay upon the field wounded and eight were dead. This incident shows that even the boys were filled with the determination to fight the war out to its bitter end.

Early defeats Hunter and threatens Washington.

On

the first of June, 1864, General David Hunter, who after the battle of New Market had succeeded Sigel, was commanded by the Federal authorities to begin another campaign in the Valley, the special object of which was to capture Lynchburg. Near Port Republic he defeated General W. E. Jones, whom General Lee had ordered from southwest Virginia to defend the Valley. After doing this he was reënforced by cavalry under Generals Crook and Averill, which raised his force to eighteen thousand, and now for a time he went his way without serious opposition. His march was marked by the most wanton destruction of property. At Lexington he burned the Virginia Military Institute, the residence of Governor Letcher, and other private property. On reaching Lynchburg he encountered General Early,1 whom Lee, after defeating Grant at Cold Harbor, had sent with a detachment of troops to defend the city. Hunter now retreated precipitately towards West Virginia. In July, Early marched into Maryland, and, though he had but twelve thousand men, he approached within cannon shot of Washington, but found the city too strongly garrisoned to venture to attack it with his small force. Later he made a raid into Pennsyl

1 Jubal A. Early was born in Virginia in 1818, graduated at West Point, and served in the Mexican War, rising to the rank of colonel. He was among the first to volunteer in the service of the Confederacy. After the war he engaged in the practice of law. He died in Lynchburg in 1894.