On March 17, General U. S. Grant was placed in command of all the Federal armies. As it was evident that the great struggle of the year would take place in Virginia, he took charge of General Meade’s army and prepared it for the coming campaign. He had an army of 125,000 men, fully equipped, and with all that money could buy.
At midnight on May 3, the Federal army began to advance. General Lee permitted it to cross the Rapidan and march into the Wilderness where the battle of Chancellorsville had been fought the year before. In this jungle, it would be difficult for the Federals to use their artillery and they would be compelled to fight at a disadvantage. General Grant expected General Lee to retreat to a line nearer Richmond, and he was surprised when his troops plunged into the dense woods and thickets of the Wilderness to find General Lee ready to fight on ground of his own choosing.
As soon as the news was received at the cavalry headquarters that the Federals had crossed the fords of the Rapidan, Stuart set out for his picket line. He conducted in person the advances of the infantry until the lines of the enemy were reached, and on May 6 and 7 the great Battle of the Wilderness raged furiously.
The cavalry did heavy work on the Confederate right. Gunner Neese, in his diary, tells an interesting anecdote of Stuart on the morning of the second day’s battle.
He says: “Our orders to hasten to the front this morning at daylight were pressing and urgent, and we had no time to prepare or eat breakfast, which greatly ruffled some of our drivers. When we drew near to the enemy’s line we awaited orders, and one of our drivers was still going through baby acts about something to eat and having no breakfast. Just then General Stuart and staff came along and halted a moment right in the road where we were and heard the grumbling and childish murmuring of our hungry man, and the general rode up to him and gave him two biscuits out of his own haversack.”
On the night of May 7, Grant began to move his army by the left flank to get between Lee and Richmond, but the movement was discovered at once and Fitz Lee’s cavalry was sent forward to delay the Federals until Longstreet’s infantry could come up. Fitz Lee’s men were at times dismounted, and they fought so stubbornly that Grant’s forces were held in check until the infantry by a rapid night march reached the entrenchments which had been hastily thrown up near Spotsylvania Courthouse.