the guns, and then all was over.  Hancock’s infantry rose with flash on flash from among the rocks by which they were partially protected.  The Confederates were scattered in broken groups.  Retreat was well-nigh impossible.  The impact of the charge was utterly broken, and the Confederate line was blown into rout and ruin.  Victory hovered over the National army.  The Confederate forces staggered away under the blow of defeat.  Night came down on a broken and virtually hopeless cause.  The field was covered with the dead and dying.  Two thousand eight hundred and thirty-four Union soldiers had been killed outright; 13,709 were wounded, and 6643 were missing, making a total of 23,186 men.  The Confederate loss was never definitely ascertained, but was greatly in excess of that of the Federals.  The best estimate has been fixed at 31,621.  The grand total of losses in those fatal three days thus reached the enormous aggregate of 54,807!

SPOTTSYLVANIA.

A losing cause never showed a braver front than the Confederacy put on in the Wilderness.  It was a front of iron.  A man weaker than Grant would have quailed before it.  It was virtually the same old rim of fire and death that had confronted McClellan, that had consumed Pope, that almost destroyed both Hooker and Burnside.  Either the Union army must go through this barrier of flame and destruction and scatter it like brands of fire to right and left, or else the Union could never be rebuilded on the foundation of victory.

There was much discussion—­and some doubt—­in the spring of 1864 whether the Silent Man of Galena, now made Commander-in-chief of the Union armies, could pursue his military destiny to a great fame with Robert E. Lee for his antagonist.  This talk was bruited abroad; Grant himself heard it, and had to consider what not a few people were saying, namely, that he had had before him in the West as leaders of the enemy only such men as Buckner and Beauregard and Pemberton; now he must stand up face to face with “Old Bobby Lee” and take the blows of the great Virginian against whom neither strategy nor force had hitherto prevailed.

The Man of Galena did not quail.  Neither did he doubt.  His pictures of this epoch show him with mouth more close shut than ever; but otherwise there was no sign.  Lee for his part knew that another foeman was now come, and if we mistake not he divined that the end of the Confederacy, involving the end of his own military career, was not far ahead.  It is to the credit of his genius that he did not weaken under such a situation and despair ere the ordeal came upon him; but on the contrary, he planted himself in the Wilderness and awaited the coming of the storm.