Explore "Our Standard-Bearer" by Oliver Optic on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
In my limited space, it would be impossible for me to do anything more than indicate the principal movements of the army. The details are so cumbrous and complicated that they would require a whole volume, and they are not necessary to my purpose in illustrating the character of General Grant.
Doubtless General Lee was aware of the movements of the Union army, for a body of troops, numbering over a hundred thousand, could hardly have been spirited through a hostile region without some tidings of its operations reaching him. But the transfer was made so skilfully and expeditiously that it was practically a surprise. Probably Lee expected to find Grant battering away at his intrenchments at some point between the Chickahominy and the James; but he must have been astonished when he heard of him fifty-five miles distant, menacing his lines on the south side of Richmond.