Thus
far, Grant's active campaign, though failing to destroy Lee's army, had
nevertheless driven it into Richmond, and obviously his next step was
either to dislodge it, or compel it to surrender.
Cold Harbor was about ten miles from Richmond, and that city was
inclosed on the Washington side by two circles of fortifications devised
with the best engineering skill. On June 13, Grant threw forward an army
corps across the Chickahominy, deceiving Lee into the belief that he was
making a real direct advance upon the city; and so skilfully concealed
his intention that by midnight of the sixteenth he had moved the whole
Union army with its artillery and trains about twenty miles directly
south and across the James River, on a pontoon bridge over two thousand
feet long, to City Point. General Butler, with an expedition from
Fortress Monroe, moving early in May, had been ordered to capture
Petersburg; and though he failed in this, he had nevertheless seized and
held City Point, and Grant thus effected an immediate junction with
Butler's force of thirty-two thousand. Butler's second attempt to seize
Petersburg while Grant was marching to join him also failed, and Grant,
unwilling to make any needless sacrifice, now limited his operations to
the processes of a regular siege.
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