The Overland campaign was part of the wide-ranging Union effort to win the war after the stunning victories of the summer and fall of 1863. When the approximately 120,000-strong Army of the Potomac (versus Robert E. Lee’s 65,000-man Army of Northern Virginia) crossed the Rapidan River in Virginia in the first week of May 1864, it carried with it the high hopes of a war-weary Northern people for a quick end to the seemingly endless conflict. A weakened South, low in both materiel and morale, could not possibly withstand the mighty numbers and logistical power of the two major Northern armies gathered in Virginia and Tennessee. They were poised to strike and destroy under the direction of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman, the victors of Shiloh, Vicksburg, and Chattanooga and heroes of the Union’s western armies.
At least that was the common wisdom in early 1864. Despite the optimism, there was much reason to be suspicious of an easy victory, as President Abraham Lincoln and General Grant knew all too well. Experience had demonstrated that superior numbers and overwhelming industrial power did not translate into winning the war, at least not without the kind of military leadership that would bring decisive victory on the battlefield. Leadership was particularly deficient in the hard-luck Army of the Potomac, the Union’s principal military unit in the eastern theater, despite its recent (and only) clear-cut victory at Gettysburg under the command of Gen. George Gordon Meade. That is why Grant, by this time commander of all Union forces, chose to personally accompany the eastern army and direct its operations, even at the risk of confusing the chain of command. Gen. Lee was a formidable foe, and his soldiers had bested their opponents in many battles fought in 1862 and 1863 on some of the same ground across which the Army of the Potomac was now marching. Grant’s plan for victory was simple and straightforward: Force the Army of Northern Virginia out into the open and defeat them in battle, then “On to Richmond.” With other Union armies also on the attack, the war could be over shortly, if all went well.
All did not go well, however. The movements of the Overland campaign brought with it the dramatic unraveling of the Union strategy against Lee. Grant’s attempt to move swiftly through a thick patch of overgrown brush and trees known locally as the Wilderness (May 5-6) was foiled as Lee adeptly blocked his way and forced a battle, which resulted in a tactical victory for the rebel defenders. The two-day Battle of the Wilderness resulted in 18,000 Union and 11,000 Confederate casualties. A shock for Lee came when Grant refused to pack up and go home, as so many Union commanders had done before him.
Grant moved south from the Wilderness and brought his army to Spotsylvania Court House, where Lee’s men were waiting behind a line of strong earthworks. The Battles of Spotsylvania raged back and forth for several days. The Confederates fought off repeated Union assaults behind a defensive position known as the “Mule Shoe.” On May 12 the Federals broke through a part of Lee’s formation, but the Southerners stood their ground for 22 hours of fighting in what came to be called the “Bloody Angle.” On May 18, after many days of constant fighting, Grant turned southeast again, but Lee continued to thwart the Union army’s thrusts toward Richmond, Virginia, at North Anna River (May 23-27), Totopotomoy Creek (May 26-30), and Bethesda Church (May 30).
The spring of 1864 was one of Lee’s finest moments, when he switched from his favored aggressive style to a more defensive approach, thus prolonging the life of the Confederate nation. Weakened by illness, handicapped by the deaths and injuries of Gens. James Longstreet, Richard S. Ewell, Ambrose P. Hill, and J. E. B. Stuart, and faced with a much larger opponent, Lee and his army adapted brilliantly. He knew that the Confederacy’s best hopes rested on a failure of Northern will to carry on the war, once the high cost of these battles was widely known. Lee hoped Lincoln would lose the presidency and that a Democratic administration favorable to Southern independence would bring the participants to a conference table. The stakes were high, indeed.
Thus, decisions made by both Grant and Lee (and backed fully by their presidents) turned the war into a relentless, exhausting, horrific experience for the soldiers. Cold Harbor, the misnamed tiny crossroads town deep in rural Virginia, is a case study of the new style of warfare. The Battle of Cold Harbor, the last fight of the Overland campaign, began on the morning of June 3, with 59,000 well-entrenched Confederates facing 109,000 Federals across a seven-mile front. The assault was a disaster, and before the end of the day, Grant stopped the fighting. The details of the carnage retain their power to shock and sadden. Grant’s massive frontal assault on entrenched Confederate lines failed miserably. That terrible day saw some 7,000 Union casualties compared with less than 1,500 for the rebels, shattered three Union corps, and lent truth to the anguished memories of a Southern soldier who wrote, “It was not war, it was murder.”
Grant and Lee’s movements across the countryside of Virginia came to an end when Grant ordered the Army of the Potomac to cross the James River and head for Petersburg, the vital rail center of the Confederacy. There, he would stay for 10 months before the fall of Richmond.
The costs of the Overland campaign were huge. For 40 days, Grant had waged a war of attrition in a series of battles that resulted in 60,000 Union losses against approximately 35,000 Confederate. Both sides, however, were determined to prevail and, even in those dark months, found the will to continue fighting. Undeniably, the costs of the war escalated dramatically in 1864, and, undeniably, Ulysses S. Grant, called “the butcher” after Cold Harbor, played a large role in that escalation, as did Robert E. Lee. But the bigger picture must be kept in mind, and that bigger picture is neatly summed up by Gen. Horace Porter, of Grant’s staff, who described his superiors’ attitude after June 3: “General Grant, with his usual habit of mind, bent all his energies toward consummation of his plans for the future.” The Overland campaign, though wasteful and bloody, brought Lee’s army to a state of immobility, backed up against Petersburg and Richmond. In the end, Grant’s plans, fully endorsed by Lincoln, were consummated, as the armies he commanded successfully defeated the Confederates, restored the Union, and brought (although imperfectly realized) freedom to 4 million slaves.
See also Chattanooga, Battle of; Petersburg campaign; Shiloh, Battle of; Vicksburg campaign.
Further reading: Gordon C. Rhea, The Battle of the Wilderness: May 5-6, 1864 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1994); Gordon C. Rhea, The Battles for Spotsylvania Courthouse and the Road to Yellow Tavern, May 7-12, 1864 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1997); David J. Eicher, The Longest Night: A Military History of the Civil War (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001).
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