" He even gratified the President by again
disregarding all precedent in Virginian campaigns, and saying that the
promptness with which reinforcements had been forwarded had contributed
largely to the promising situation! But almost immediately after this
the North shuddered at the enormous and profitless carnage at Cold
Harbor. Concurrently with all this bloodshed, there also took place the
famous and ill-starred movement of General Butler upon Richmond, which
ended in securely shutting up him and his forces at Bermuda Hundred, "as
in a bottle strongly corked."
Such was the Virginian situation early in June. By a series of most
bloody battles, no one of which had been a real victory, Grant had come
before the defenses of Richmond, nearly where McClellan had already
been. And now, like McClellan, he proposed to move around to the
southward and invest the city. It must be confessed that in all this
there was nothing visible to the inexperienced vision of the citizens at
home which made much brighter in their eyes the prestige of Mr.
Lincoln's war policy. Nor could they see, as that summer of the
presidential campaign came and went, that any really great change or
improvement was effected.
On the other hand, there took place in July what is sometimes lightly
called General Early's raid against Washington. In fact, it was a
genuine and very serious campaign, wherein that general was within a few
hours of capturing the city.
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