The
troopers
pushed
on
and
crossed
the
river,
and
they left
the
sunlight
behind
and
went
up
the
winding
woods roads
that
led
into
the
Wilderness.
This
was
a
mean
gloomy
woodland,
a
dozen
miles
wide
by
half
as
deep,
lying
silent
and
forbidding
along
the
southern
bank
of
the
river.
Its
virgin
timber
had
been
cut
down years
ago,
mostly
to
provide
fuel
for
small
iron-smelting furnaces
in
the
neighborhood,
and
a
tangled
second
growth had
sprung
up—stunted
pines,
Innumerable
small
saplings, dense
underbrush,
here
and
there
a
larger
tree,
vines
and creepers
trailing
every
which
way
through
dead
scrub
pines with
interlaced
spiky
branches;
there
were
very
few
places in
which
a
man
could
see
as
far
as
twenty
yards.
The
soil was
poor,
and
there
were
hardly
any
farms
or
clearings,
and the
land
under
the
trees
was
like
a
choppy
sea,
broken
by ridges
and
hillocks
and
irregular
knolls.
There
were
dark
little
streams
that
never
saw
the
sun, and
these
had
cut
shallow
ravines,
some
of
which
had
very steep
banks.
These
water
courses
wandered
and
twisted
and turned
on
themselves,
soaking
the
low
ground
into
bush-covered
swamps,
and
the
thickets
covered
their
banks.
Once in
a
great
while
there
would
be
a
house—paintless,
sometimes
made
of
hewn
logs,
looking
gaunt
and
forsaken
like the
forest
itself,
with
a
hopeless
corn
patch
and
weedy
pasture
around
it—and
there
were
a
few
aimless
lanes,
hardly more
than
tracks
in
the
jungle,
which
did
not
seem
to
go anywhere
in
particular.
It
was
the
last
place
on
earth
for
armies
to
fight,
and
the entire
Army
of
the
Potomac
was
marching
straight
into
it.
Actually,
the
high
command
had
little
intention
of
fighting
here.
The
two
armies
had
been
facing
each
other,
with the
Rapidan
between
them,
a
number
of
miles
upstream
from the
Wilderness,
and
when
Grant
made
his
plans
he
had
two choices.
He
could
move
by
his
right
flank,
sliding
along
the line
of
the
Orange
and
Alexandria
Railroad
in
the
general direction
of
Gordonsville,
swinging
past
Lee
to
the
west, and
forcing
him
to
fight
in
open
country;
or
he
could
go
by his
left,
slipping
quickly
through
the
Wilderness,
heading for
a
position
behind
Lee's
right—where,
as
in
the
other case,
there
could
be
fighting
in
the
open.
He
had
taken
the
second
choice,
for
reasons
which
seemed good
to
him.
Chief
reason
was
the
matter
of
supply.
Counting everybody,
he
would
be
taking
some
116,000
men
with
him, and
more
than
50,000
horses,
and
it
seemed
improbable that
the
single-tracked
railway
line
could
supply
all
of
them adequately.
Furthermore,
the
railroad
led
through
country infested
with
guerillas—John
S.
Mosby's
famous
irregulars, mostly,
who
attacked
Yankee
supply
lines
and
outposts
so viciously
and
effectively
that
the
region
between
Brandy Station
and
Alexandria
was
commonly
known
as
"Mosby
s Confederacy."
If
the
Federal
army
dangled
at
the
end
of
a hundred
miles
of
railroad,
these
men
would
have
a
field
day, and
so
would
Jeb
Stuart's
far-ranging
cavalry,
and
half
of the
army
would
have
to
be
left
behind
to
cope
with
them. So
the
army
was
going
to
the
left,
where
if
it
made
progress there
would
be
seacoast
bases,
with
a
short
roadway
for
the enormous
wagon
train.
There
might
have
been
a
third
choice:
McClellan's
old smite
of
1862,
putting
the
army
on
boats
and
going
down by
water
to
the
tip
of
the
Virginia
peninsula,
with
a
landing
at
Fortress
Monroe
and
a
quick
march
toward
Richmond
between
York
and
James
rivers.
That
way,
the
army could
get
up
within
shooting
distance
of
Richmond
without trouble,
and
the
long
overland
hike
with
exposed
supply lines
and
hard
fighting
at
every
crossroads
would
be
avoided. Before
he
got
to
Brandy
Station
Grant
felt
that
that
was the
way
to
go,
and
soldiers
as
good
as
John
Sedgwick
agreed. Why
fight
one's
way
to
Richmond
when
the
army
could travel
most
of
the
way
by
water
and
come
up
to
the
doors of
the
Rebel
capital
fresh
and
unbloodied?
The
trouble
was
that
it
was
not
that
kind
of
war
any
more. Meade's
soldiers
had
noticed
many
changes
this
spring,
but what
they
had
not
seen
was
the
fact
that
the
role
of
the Army
of
the
Potomac
itself
had
changed.
The
goal
now
was not
to
capture
Richmond
but
to
fight
the
Army
of
Northern Virginia—to
begin
to
fight
it
as
soon
as
possible
and
to
keep on
fighting
it
until
one
side
or
the
other
could
fight
no
more.