Till Gettysburg, Lee had toyed with the Army of the Potomac--not because the rank and file of that army was at fault, and not mainly because of its generals' inability, but mostly because of political interference with its operations. The great and revered President Lincoln, with all his powers, was not a military man. No more was Secretary Stanton. They secured the best military aid they could. From an early period General Halleck--"Old Brains," men called him because of his immense military information--was their constant adviser; and though he was a scholar rather than a genius, he could doubtless have saved them many an error had they heeded his counsel instead of civilian clamor. How impressively did not the Civil War teach that fine military scholarship alone, while it may greatly add to a general's efficiency, cannot make a true military leader! Compare Halleck with Grant or Sherman! The Creoles of Louisiana considered their Beauregard the _ne plus ultra_ military genius of the South. One of them was once asked his opinion of General Lee. He replied in his broken English: "O, Gen Lee a ve'y good gen'l, ve'y good gen'l indeed; Gen Beaugar speak ve'y fav'ble of Gen Lee." So, at last, did Halleck speak "ve'y fav'ble" of Grant. But Gettysburg convinced Lee that he could toy with the Potomac army no longer, and this was more than ever impossible after Grant took command. Then Greek met Greek, and the death grapple began. At the Wilderness, at Spottsylvania, and most mercilessly of all at Cold Harbor, Grant drove his colossal battering-ram against Lee's gray wall, only to find it solid as Gibraltar. This struggle tested both commanders' mettle to the utmost. At the end of the hammering campaign, after losing men enough to form an army as large as Lee's, Grant's van was full twice as far from Richmond as McClellan's had been two years before. Not once was Lee flanked, duped, or surprised. As always hitherto, so now, his darling mode of defence was offence,--to fight,--Grant's every blow being met with another before it hit. Only once were Lee's lines forced straight back to stay. Even then, at the Spottsylvania "bloody angle," the ground he lost hardly sufficed to graveyard the Union men killed in getting it. In swinging round to Petersburg, and again at the springing of the Petersburg Mine, Grant thought himself sure to make enormous gains; but Lee's insight into his purposes, and lightning celerity in checkmating these, foiled both movements, giving the mine operation, moreover, the effect of a deadly boomerang.