19. Robert E. Lee outgeneraled Ulysses S. Grant
Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant did not face each other across a battlefield until May 1864. By then the Confederate Army had been shattered at Gettysburg. It was demoralized, in short supply of virtually everything it needed, and outnumbered by its foes. The Union army engaged Lee’s forces in battle at the Wilderness outside Chancellorsville, Spotsylvania Court House, North Anna, Topopotomoy Creek, and Cold Harbor. Only the latter was a Confederate victory, as Grant’s assaults were bloodily repulsed. Nonetheless, after each of the bloody battles, Grant continued to advance upon Richmond. Lee was forced to withdraw to another defensive position nearer the Confederate capital. By late summer, Lee’s army had been forced into the trenches around Richmond and Petersburg. Grant also initiated flanking attacks that summer using his cavalry to destroy the Confederate positions to Lee’s rear.
Once Lee entered the trenches, the end was just a matter of time. Union forces captured and destroyed railroad facilities and junctions which provided Lee with his only sources of food and supplies. By the spring, of 1865, Lee’s positions around Richmond and Petersburg were untenable. He attempted to withdraw, hoping to join with Joseph Johnston’s dwindling army in North Carolina. Grant’s aggressive pursuit captured Confederate supply depots before Lee could reach them, and eventually cut him off near Appomattox Court House. There Lee accepted the inevitable and surrendered his command under surprisingly generous terms offered by Grant. The Confederate government had by then already fled, and was all but dissolved. Grant’s relentless pounding during the summer of 1864 destroyed the Army of Northern Virginia as a fighting force. At its peak, in 1862, Lee commanded about 91,000 men. When he surrendered, he commanded about 25,000.