No characteristic of Davis was more marked than his regard for the weak,
the helpless and the captive. His final answer to his assailants was to
repeat with emphasis his orders to General Winder to see to it that the
same rations issued to Confederate soldiers in the field should be given
to all prisoners of war, though taken from a starving army and people.
Enraged by the defeat of their mad schemes, the conspirators drew
together now to depose Davis and set up a military dictatorship.
CHAPTER XL
IN SIGHT OF VICTORY
When Grant crossed the Rapidan with his army of one hundred forty-one
thousand one hundred and sixty men Lee faced him with sixty-four
thousand. The problem of saving Richmond from the tremendous force under
the personal command of the most successful general of the North was not
the only danger which threatened the Confederate Capital. Butler was
pressing from the Peninsula with forty thousand men along the line of
McClellan's old march, supported again by the navy.
Jefferson Davis knew the task before Lee to be a gigantic one yet he did
not believe that Grant would succeed in reaching Richmond.
The moment the Federal general crossed the Rapidan and threw his army
into the tangled forest of the Wilderness, Lee sprang from the jungles
at his throat.
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