=173. Facing a Powerful Army.= General Lee then went back across the Potomac, never to invade the North again. From then onward, little was done until, in 1864, General Grant took command of all the Union forces. Then followed three great battles--the "Wilderness," so called because it was fought in a thick forest of tangled underbrush lying in Virginia just south of the upper portion of the Rapidan; Spottsylvania, fought near the Spottsylvania courthouse a little farther southward, and Cold Harbor, fought a few miles northeast of Richmond. [Sidenote: =Lee's troops wearing out=] General Lee's troops were wearing out. There were no more men to take the places of those killed and wounded. Food and clothing became scarce, and other supplies were hard to get. General Lee was now made commander in chief over all the Confederate armies. He immediately put Joseph E. Johnston back in command of his old army in the West, but it was too late. [Sidenote: =Sheridan blocks the way=] Lee decided in 1865 that Richmond must be given up. He wanted to take his army to Danville, Virginia, on the way to join the army of General Joseph E. Johnston, in North Carolina, but at Appomattox his troops met General Sheridan's cavalry. [Illustration: SCENE OF WAR AROUND WASHINGTON AND RICHMOND] [Sidenote: =Terms of surrender=] =174. The Confederacy Was Lost.= General Lee received a letter from General Grant asking him to surrender. The two generals met at a farmhouse and agreed upon terms. Grant gave the officers and men permission to take their horses home "to do their spring plowing." The next morning Lee, surrounded by his sorrowing men, mounted his horse, Traveler, and rode slowly away to his home in Richmond. The other Confederate armies surrendered one by one. [Illustration: ROBERT EDWARD LEE _From a portrait painted by Browne, now in the Westmoreland Club, Richmond, Virginia_] [Sidenote: =President of Washington College=] [Sidenote: =Dies in 1870=] After the war General Lee was elected president of Washington College at Lexington, Virginia, now Washington and Lee University. He greatly enjoyed his work of building up the young manhood of the South. He died at Lexington in 1870. A monument to the memory of this great man has been erected at Richmond, and another at Lexington. SUGGESTIONS INTENDED TO HELP THE PUPIL