No man in America understood the tense situation more clearly than
Jefferson Davis. His agents in the North kept him personally informed of
every movement of the political chess board. Personally he had never
believed in the possibility of the South winning in a conflict of arms
since the death of Jackson had been given its full significance in the
battle of Gettysburg. He had however believed in the possibility of the
party of the North which stood for the old Constitution winning an
election on the issue of a bloody and unsuccessful war and, on their
winning, that he could open negotiations for peace and gain every point
for which the war had been fought. It all depended on the battles of the
coming spring and summer.
Grant, the new Commander-in-Chief of the armies of the Union, had been
given a free hand with unlimited resources of men and money. He was now
directing the movements of nearly a million soldiers in blue.
Sherman was drilling under his orders an army of a hundred thousand with
which to march into Georgia--while Grant himself would direct the
movement of a quarter of a million men in his invasion of Virginia.
The Confederate President saw at once that Lee's army must be raised to
its highest point of efficiency and that it was of equal importance that
Joseph E.
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