Existing comment:
Clash of Titans
Both Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant had sterling records of success gained hundreds of miles apart. The Battle of the Wilderness marked the first confrontation between the two. A nation, the world, awaited the result.
Lee:
brutally successful against great odds. A gambler, but a calculated one. Wildly popular with the people of the Confederacy, much beloved by his soldiers, and respected -- sometimes feared -- by his Union enemies. For much of the war, he had held the initiative in Virginia.
Grant:
more famous than popular, still largely unknown to the Army of the Potomac. A man of relentless determination, always mindful of the huge advantages the Union held in men and material. Though Grant commanded all Union armies, in the coming campaign he would give his personal attention to the Army of the Potomac.
Different Roles:
Lee directed only his Army of Northern Virginia, which had yielded little ground to the Union in three years of war.
From his headquarters with the Army of the Potomac, Grant managed a spring offensive involving five armies spanning more than 1,200 miles.
An Uneasy Relationship:
When Grant arrived in Virginia, the men of the Army of the Potomac knew of him only what they had read in the newspapers. They received him cautiously.
"The feeling about Grant is peculiar -- a little jealousy, a little dislike, a little envy,... All, however, are willing to give him a full chance and his own time for it. If he succeeds, the war is over."
-- Capt. Charles Francis Adams, 1st Massachusetts Cavalry |