Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 7.djvu/566

 634 Gradual weakening of the South. [i864-5 weakened by the long and bloody struggle from the Wilderness to Cold Harbour, and needed a period of rest. The new recruits, that came to make up the losses, had to be drilled and seasoned ; at times operations were delayed by detachments being sent to the Shenandoah Valley, or on cavalry raids. The same inflexibility of purpose, however, with which Grant had pursued his march, characterised the siege. Foiled and driven back from time to time, his left wing gradually extended itself, reaching the Jerusalem plank-road on June 21, and the Weldon railroad two months later, which he stubbornly held thereafter against repeated attempts to dislodge him. A further extension to the point where the Boydton plank-road crosses Hatcher's Run was effected toward the end of October, but Grant's effort to reach the South Side railroad was as yet unavailing. Many noteworthy incidents, such as that of the Petersburg mine, the capture of Fort Harrison, and the capture and recapture of Fort Stedman, occurred during this long siege. While they will always be recalled with intense interest by military students, as illustrations of the high military skill they called forth, and the uncertainties of war they demonstrated, and though as minor occurrences they sometimes assumed serious proportions, their general results remained so evenly balanced in the long account of loss and gain, as to have little effect in either hastening or retarding the final consequences of the gigantic struggle. Far more comprehensive causes than the occasional capture of a few redoubts or a few dozen guns, or the losses of a few thousand combatants in killed, wounded or prisoners, were bringing on the in- evitable termination of the great contest. The strength and spirit of the South were gradually sinking under material and moral exhaustion. Sherman's victorious march from Tennessee to North Carolina had completely cut off the waning resources of Georgia and South Carolina, and brought final ruin to their worn-out railroads. The capture of Savannah, Charleston, Fort Fisher, and Wilmington closed the last avenues of help through blockade-runners. The relentless Confederate conscription, which declared all Southern white men between the ages of 17 and 50 liable to military service, and, in the vigorous language of General Butler, robbed both the cradle and the grave, had for about a year practically ceased to furnish any fresh material for the Southern armies. Lee's army was not only in want of every material of war, but actually suffering through lack of clothing, meat, and bread. Confederate credit and money had fallen to so low a value that the soldiers' pay ceased to have any significance ; it required a thousand paper dollars to buy a barrel of flour. Confederate taxation had been strained until it became confiscation, imperiously demanding, in addition to other burdens, twenty- five per cent. one-fourth of all coin held by individuals or banks in excess of two hundred dollars. The Acts of the Confederate Congress were futile, the dictatorial administration of Jefferson Davis could no longer