A losing cause never showed a braver front than the Confederacy put on
in the Wilderness. It was a front of iron. A man weaker than Grant
would have quailed before it. It was virtually the same old rim of
fire and death that had confronted McClellan, that had consumed Pope,
that almost destroyed both Hooker and Burnside. Either the Union army
must go through this barrier of flame and destruction and scatter it
like brands of fire to right and left, or else the Union could never
be rebuilded on the foundation of victory.

There was much discussion--and some doubt--in the spring of 1864
whether the Silent Man of Galena, now made Commander-in-chief of the
Union armies, could pursue his military destiny to a great fame with
Robert E. Lee for his antagonist. This talk was bruited abroad; Grant
himself heard it, and had to consider what not a few people were
saying, namely, that he had had before him in the West as leaders of
the enemy only such men as Buckner and Beauregard and Pemberton; now
he must stand up face to face with "Old Bobby Lee" and take the blows
of the great Virginian against whom neither strategy nor force had
hitherto prevailed.

The Man of Galena did not quail. Neither did he doubt. His pictures of
this epoch show him with mouth more close shut than ever; but
otherwise there was no sign. Lee for his part knew that another foeman
was now come, and if we mistake not he divined that the end of the
Confederacy, involving the end of his own military career, was not far
ahead. It is to the credit of his genius that he did not weaken under
such a situation and despair ere the ordeal came upon him; but on the
contrary, he planted himself in the Wilderness and awaited the coming
of the storm.