“Not expecting to see you again before the spring campaign opens, I wish to express in this way my entire satisfaction with what you have done up to this time, so far as I understand it.  The particulars of your plan I neither know nor seek to know.  You are vigilant and self-reliant; and, pleased with this, I wish not to obtrude any constraints or restraints upon you.  While I am very anxious that any great disaster or capture of our men in great numbers shall be avoided, I know these points are less likely to escape your attention than they would be mine.  If there is anything wanting which is within my power to give, do not fail to let me know it.  And now, with a brave army and a just cause, may God sustain you.”

Grant’s immediate reply confessed the groundlessness of his apprehensions: 

“From my first entrance into the volunteer service of the country to the present day, I have never had cause of complaint—­have never expressed or implied a complaint against the administration, or the Secretary of War, for throwing any embarrassment in the way of my vigorously prosecuting what appeared to me my duty.  Indeed, since the promotion which placed me in command of all the armies, and in view of the great responsibility and importance of success, I have been astonished at the readiness with which everything asked for has been yielded, without even an explanation being asked.  Should my success be less than I desire and expect, the least I can say is, the fault is not with you.”

The Union army under Grant, one hundred and twenty-two thousand strong, on April 30, was encamped north of the Rapidan River.  The Confederate army under Lee, numbering sixty-two thousand, lay south of that stream.  Nearly three years before, these opposing armies had fought their first battle of Bull Run, only a comparatively short distance north of where they now confronted each other.  Campaign and battle between them had surged far to the north and to the south, but neither could as yet claim over the other any considerable gain of ground or of final advantage in the conflict.  Broadly speaking, relative advance and retreat, as well as relative loss and gain of battle-fields substantially balanced each other.  Severe as had been their struggles in the past, a more arduous trial of strength was before them.  Grant had two to one in numbers; Lee the advantage of a defensive campaign.  He could retire toward cumulative reserves, and into prepared fortifications; knew almost by heart every road, hill, and forest of Virginia; had for his friendly scout every white inhabitant.  Perhaps his greatest element of strength lay in the conscious pride of the Confederate army that through all fluctuations of success and failure, it had for three years effectually barred the way of the Army of the Potomac to Richmond.  But to offset this there now menaced it what was before absent in every encounter, the grim, unflinching will of the new Union commander.