. uniform. ... There was nothing marked in his appearance. He had no gait, no station, no manner, rough, light-brown whiskers, a blue eye, and rather a scrubby look withal." But behind the unprepossessing exterior and the modesty of manner lay a powerful strategic genius.Grant now gave to the Union armies something they had never had before, a concerted plan of action. He ordered simultaneous movements (commencing May 4, 1864) of all the Union armies--Maj. Gen. George G. Meade's Army of the Potomac, which he personally accompanied; Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. Butler's Army of the James; Sherman's Army of the Tennessee; and Banks' troops in Louisiana. Throwing enormous concentrated force against the enemy, Grant planned to batter the Confederates constantly and, if only through attrition, to compel their surrender. The advance of Meade's army into the Virginia Wilderness was skillfully parried by Gen. Robert E. Lee's strategy, but undeterred by the appalling loss of 17,666 men, Grant gave the enemy no rest. At Spotsylvania Court House and on the North Anna, Lee again fended off Grant's sledgehammer blows. At Cold Harbor, Grant ordered a direct assault on the Confederate lines, only to lose 6,000 men in an hour's fighting. Though he was wearing down the Confederates, he had failed to defeat Lee in a single engagement. His prestige plummeted, and enemies in the North began to call him "Grant the Butcher," careless of his men's lives.Grant continued to hammer away. On June 12 he shifted his base, adroitly withdrew from Lee's front, and crossed the James River. Failing to capture Petersburg by surprise, he settled down to a regular siege. From June 18, 1864, to April 2, 1865, the Army of the Potomac was engaged chiefly in mining, sapping, assaulting, cutting Lee's transportation lines, and sending out flanking expeditions. But while Grant was starving Lee in Richmond, Maj. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan was devastating the valley of Virginia, and Sherman...
