On the eighteenth was received the news of the removal of Joseph E. Johnston from the command of the Army of Tennessee. Wade Hampton, being at headquarters, heard Lee’s expression of opinion and wrote it to General Johnston.... “He expressed great regret that you had been removed and said that he had done all in his power to prevent it. He had said to Mr. Seddon that if you could not command the army we had no one who could.” Later came the tidings of Hood’s lost battle of Atlanta and all its train of slow disaster. On the twenty-fifth, news of Jubal Early’s victory at Winchester the day before was cheered to the echo. In the last days of the month came news of Stoneman and McCook’s raiding in Georgia and of the scattered fighting in Arkansas. North and South, away from the camps, there was flagging of spirit and sickness of soul. In the North the war was costing close upon four millions of dollars a day. Gold in July went to two hundred and eighty-five. The North gained now its fresh soldiers by bounties, and those heavy. All the northern tier of states, great as they were, untouched by invasion, and the ocean theirs—all the North winced and staggered now under the burden of the war. But the South—the South was past wincing. Bent to her knees, bowed like a caryatid, she fought on in her fixed position. At Petersburg, Grant meant to explode a great mine and to follow it, in the confusion, by a great and determined assault. Moreover, in order to weaken the opposition here and the more to distract and appall, he detached Hancock with twenty thousand men for a feint against Richmond. Hancock marched to Deep Bottom, where Butler, having ironclads on the river and a considerable force encamped on the northern bank, guarded two pontoon bridges across the James. Between this place and Richmond was Conner’s grey brigade and at Drewry’s Bluff, Willcox’s division. Moving with Hancock was Sheridan and six thousand horse. Lee, watchful, sent Kershaw’s division to join with Willcox and Conner and guard Richmond. Hancock crossed on the twenty-seventh, and that morning Kershaw came into collision with Sheridan, losing prisoners and two colours. Lee further detached W.H. F. Lee’s cavalry and Heth’s infantry. The alarm bell rang rapid and loud in Richmond and all the home defences went out to the lines. But Hancock, checked at Deep Bottom, only flourished before Richmond; on the twenty-ninth, indeed, drew back in part to the Petersburg lines, in order to take part in the great and general assault. When the thirtieth dawned, with Willcox, Kershaw, Heth, and the cavalry away, Lee was holding lines, ten miles from tip to tip, with not more than twenty thousand men.