This was the man, and this the situation, which Grant had to encounter; and he sounded with a new significance the old cry, "On to Richmond!" He agreed with those who came before him that the rebel capital must be taken, and he intended to take it, not by a series of chess-board movements, retiring when the enemy checkmated him, but by "persistent hammering." He assigned to strategy its real value; but strategy had been tried by the cunningest men in the army, and it had failed. Lee was clear-headed, quick, cool, brave, adroit. He made blunders, but so seldom that it was hardly worth while to wait for one. Strategy, as I, Bernard Galligasken, understand it, is simply the taking advantage of the enemy's mistakes and weak points, without exposing yourself in a similar manner. Suppose two generals, in command of opposing armies, to be absolutely perfect strategists, and each incapable of making a mistake. With the forces equal in numbers, pluck, and endurance, the first general taking position could hold it, in theory, to the end of time. A reënforcement or a mistake alone can change the conditions, and give the victory to either. If Lee would kindly make a bad blunder, it would be easy to whip him; but he profited by his own blunders as well as by those of his enemy. If Grant would obligingly leave a weak point, Lee could drive him out of Virginia. Strategy and tactics were splendid qualities in Mexico, where the officers of the two armies had been graduated from different military institutions. There strategy overcame all odds, confounding the Mexicans with its brilliant results. On the battle-fields of Virginia, West Point fought on both sides, and the difference in weight and mobility of brain gained victories. Grant had solved this problem of strategy out of his own and the experience of the unfortunate generals of the army of the Potomac. He believed in strategy as fully and firmly as any general; but the sad spectacle of the splendid army whose movements he was to direct in the closing campaign, marching back, beaten, but undismayed, from Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and Chickahominy, assured him that strategy alone could not cut the gordian knot of rebel power. After the fierce battles of Chattanooga, where skill and science had done their perfect work, Grant was smoking his cigar at his headquarters in Nashville, in company with Quartermaster General Meigs and General W.F. Smith, who had greatly distinguished himself in the engineering operations of the campaign just closed. Smith was pacing the room, absorbed in his own thoughts, and lost to everything around him. "What are you thinking about, Baldy?" asked Meigs, breaking the silence which had continued for some time. General Smith was so intensely engaged in his meditations, that he did not notice the question, and made no reply. "Baldy is studying strategy," added Meigs, turning to Grant with a laugh.