Enraged by the defeat of their mad schemes, the conspirators drew together now to depose Davis and set up a military dictatorship. CHAPTER XL IN SIGHT OF VICTORY When Grant crossed the Rapidan with his army of one hundred forty-one thousand one hundred and sixty men Lee faced him with sixty-four thousand. The problem of saving Richmond from the tremendous force under the personal command of the most successful general of the North was not the only danger which threatened the Confederate Capital. Butler was pressing from the Peninsula with forty thousand men along the line of McClellan's old march, supported again by the navy. Jefferson Davis knew the task before Lee to be a gigantic one yet he did not believe that Grant would succeed in reaching Richmond. The moment the Federal general crossed the Rapidan and threw his army into the tangled forest of the Wilderness, Lee sprang from the jungles at his throat. Battle followed battle in swift and terrible succession. At Cold Harbor thirty days later the climax came. Grant lost ten thousand men in twenty minutes. The Northern general had set out to hammer Lee to death by steady, remorseless pounding. At the end of a month he had lost more than sixty thousand men and Lee's army was as strong as when the fight began. Grant's campaign to take Richmond was the bloodiest and most tragic failure in the history of war. The North in bitter anguish demanded his removal from command. Lincoln stubbornly refused to interfere with his bulldog fighter. He sent him word to hold on and chew and choke. As Grant in his whirl of blood approached the old battle grounds of McClellan, Davis rode out daily to confer with Lee. He was never more cheerful--never surer of the safety of his Capital. His faith in God and the certainty that he would in the end give victory to a cause so just and holy grew in strength with the report from each glorious field. No doubt of the right or justice of his cause ever entered his mind. Day and night he repeated the lines of his favorite hymn: "I'll strengthen thee, help thee and cause thee to stand, Upheld by my righteous omnipotent hand." Again and again he said to his wife half in soliloquy, half in exalted prayer: "We can conquer a peace against the world in arms and keep the rights of freemen if we are worthy of the privilege!" The spirit which animated the patriotic soldiers who followed their commander in this bloody campaign was in every way as high as that which inspired their President. Jennie spent an hour each day ministering to the sick prisoners who had returned from the North and were unable to go further than Richmond. It was her service of love for Jimmie's friends and comrades. A poor fellow was dying of the want he had endured in prison. He lifted his dimmed eyes to hers: "Will you write to my wife for me, Miss?" "Yes--yes--I will." "And give her my love--" He paused for breath and fumbled in his pocket.