Between Grant and Lincoln there came to be perfect sympathy of thought and action. The men had in their nature (though not in their mental equipment) much in common. Grant carries his army through the spring of 1864, across the much fought over territory, marching and fighting from day to day towards the south-west. The effort is always to outflank Lee's right, getting in between him and his base at Richmond, but after each fight, Lee's army always bars the way. Marching out of the Wilderness after seven days' fierce struggle, Grant still finds the line of grey blocking his path to Richmond. The army of the Potomac had been marching and fighting without break for weeks. There had been but little sleep, and the food in the trains was often far out of the reach of the men in the fighting line. Men and officers were alike exhausted. While advantages had been gained at one point or another along the line, and while it was certain that the opposing army had also suffered severely, there had been no conclusive successes to inspirit the troops with the feeling that they were to seize victory out of the campaign. In emerging from the Wilderness, the head of the column reached the cross-roads the left fork of which led back to the Potomac and the right fork to Richmond or to Petersburg. In the previous campaigns, the army of the Potomac, after doing its share of plucky fighting and taking more than its share of discouragement, had at such a point been withdrawn for rest and recuperation. It was not an unnatural expectation that this course would be taken in the present campaign. The road to the right meant further fatigue and further continuous fighting for men who were already exhausted. In the leading brigade it was only the brigade commander and the adjutant who had knowledge of the instructions for the line of march. When, with a wave of the hand of the adjutant, the guidon flag of the brigade was carried to the right and the head of the column was set towards Richmond, a shout went up from the men marching behind the guidon. It was an utterance not of discouragement but of enthusiasm. Exhausting as the campaign had been, the men in the ranks preferred to fight it out then and to get through with it. Old soldiers as they were, they were able to understand the actual issue of the contest. Their plucky opponents were as exhausted as themselves and possibly even more exhausted. It was only through the hammering of Lee's diminishing army out of existence that the War could be brought to a close. The enthusiastic shout of satisfaction rolled through the long column reaching twenty miles back, as the news passed from brigade to brigade that the army was not to be withdrawn but was, as Grant's report to Lincoln was worded, "to fight it out on this line if it took all summer." When this report reached Lincoln, he felt that the selection of Grant as Lieutenant-General had been justified. He said: "We need this man. He fights."