The campaign had now endured for almost exactly one month. During that time Grant had lost about 60,000 men and 3,000 officers. Lee's loss has been estimated at about 18,000 men, with a proportionate number of officers. The campaign in the field was now practically over, and it remained for Grant to settle his army before Richmond and Petersburg as a besieging force. The object of the campaign in the field, as we have seen, and as General Grant has himself declared, was to crush Lee's army if possible, and failing that to cripple it for defense before his own siege of the Confederate capital should begin. He had succeeded, though at enormous cost to himself, in reducing the numerical strength of his adversary by about one third. Such reduction was undoubtedly less than he had hoped for, but at any rate it was something to the good, so far as his operations were concerned, and it left him in better case for the beginning of that siege during which, as he well knew, he could limitlessly reinforce himself while his adversary had no reserves anywhere to draw upon, even sufficiently to make good those daily losses which defensive operations of necessity involve. After a week of waiting in indecision Grant determined upon his plan of future operations. He decided that to assail Richmond from the north or east was rendered hopelessly impracticable by the demonstrated alertness of Lee in always interposing the Army of Northern Virginia between the Army of the Potomac and its objective. Halleck proposed from Washington that Grant should place himself on the north and east of the Confederate capital, and conduct siege operations from those directions, thus carrying out that traditional and paralyzing policy which had prevailed during the whole of Halleck's term of command, of keeping the Army of the Potomac always interposed between Lee and Washington. If Halleck had been still Grant's superior in command, there is no doubt that he would have insisted to the end upon this plan of operations, dictated as it always had been by an overweening anxiety lest some Confederate force should succeed in entering the Federal capital city. Grant was a man of very different type. He was not given to fearful imaginings. He saw no reason why those in charge of Washington city--fortified and armed to the teeth as that city was--should not themselves defend the capital against any force that Lee might spare from in front of the Army of the Potomac, so long as that army should continue its operations against the Confederate general with vigor, determination and ceaseless activity. He decided, therefore, to transfer his army from the northern to the southern side of the James river, to seize upon Petersburg, if that should prove possible, to invest that town, if it could not be taken by assault, and by continued movements to the left to cut off Lee's communications.