Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 7.djvu/546

 CHAPTEK XVI. THE CIVIL WAR: III. (1) THE WILDERNESS. IT will be remembered that after the battle of Gettysburg and the retreat of Lee from Pennsylvania, the indecisive manoeuvres of the autumn left the Federal and Confederate armies once more facing each other in their winter quarters north and south of the Rappahannock during the winter of 1863-4. In the West, the Tennessee campaign closed with the battles of Chickamauga and Chattanooga, leaving the Unionist forces in winter quarters at the latter city, and the Confederate army posted in the mountain passes about Dalton, twenty miles to the south, ready to oppose their advance into Georgia. From the winter of 1863-4 onward down to the spring months of 1865, military operations gradually became centred in two great and final campaigns of the Union armies, one in the East and the other in the West. Early in March, 1864, Grant was called to Washington to be invested with the grade of Lieutenant-General, revived for him by act of Congress, and to assume command of all the armies of the United States, with special direction of the campaign against Richmond. He placed Sherman in command of the Western armies, and concerted with that general the simple military policy that there should be two leading campaigns ; one to be conducted by himself in the East, against Lee and Richmond, the other by Sherman in the West against Bragg's successor, Johnston, with Atlanta for its first objective. The two Confederate armies were 800 miles apart, and should either give way, it was to be followed without halt or delay to battle or surrender, to prevent its junction with the other. Sherman was given full discretion as to the plan and details of his own movements in the West ; Meade was left in full command of the Army of the Potomac to execute the personal orders of Grant. A minor campaign under Banks, from New Orleans against Mobile, was also provisionally planned, though Grant thought this an unwise diversion of strength which was more needed in other directions. The underlying idea of Grant's strategy was the continuous and