But the wagons were only a small part of Grant's solicitude. His army was composed of about one hundred and thirty thousand men--equal to the population of a large city. To have marched this vast body on a holiday excursion from the Rapidan to the James, with no hostile foe to dispute its passage, would be regarded as a stupendous undertaking even for a skilful person. Wellington once observed that there were very few generals in Europe who could march an army of a hundred thousand men through Hyde Park gate without throwing them into confusion. But this vast army on its southern march was to be kept well in hand, and all its movements and positions known to one man. It was to be swung round, marched and countermarched, as a child handles a toy. It required a man of genius to control this cumbrous machine, independently of fighting battles with it. In the hands of an incompetent man, its very numbers would have been its greatest element of weakness. Not only was Grant directing the movements of this vast army, but he controlled another, hundreds of miles away, nearly as large, and a dozen more of minor magnitude. Civilians who have never witnessed the movements of an army on a large scale can have no adequate idea of the skill required to handle its columns; but it is patent to many of the knowing ones that some of our generals failed for the want of this very ability to move in harmony such vast bodies of men. I gaze with wonder and admiration at the ease and facility with which Grant carried in his mind the details of such a stupendous organization, and moved its parts as the mainspring moves all the wheels of a watch. A man with this ability alone is a miracle of power. It was the plan of the lieutenant general to flank the army of Lee, and place his forces between the rebels and Richmond, though the success of the campaign was by no means made to depend upon this movement. It would compel the Confederates to abandon their elaborate intrenchments, upon which they had labored for months, either to assault the moving column or to fall back upon the capital. Lee did not allow himself to be flanked, but, abandoning his works, attempted to cut through the national line, while it was yet involved in the intricacies of The Wilderness.