He besought Grant not to stay in Washington, but to come back to the Mississippi Valley, "the seat of coming empire, and from the West where [when?] our task is done, we will make short work of Charleston and Richmond and the impoverished coast of the Atlantic." But Grant was wiser. He felt that the duty to which his new commission called him was to try conclusions with General Lee, the most illustrious and successful of the Confederate commanders, whom he had not yet encountered and vanquished. His new rank gave him an authority and prestige which would enable him, he trusted, to overcome the discouragements and discontents of the noble Army of the Potomac, and wield its unified force with victorious might. He knew, moreover, that the government and the people trusted him and would sustain him, as they trusted and would sustain no other, in a fresh and final attempt to destroy the Army of Northern Virginia, upon which the hopes of the Confederacy were staked. Not so much ambition as duty determined him to make his headquarters with the Army of the Potomac. CHAPTER XIII THE WILDERNESS AND SPOTTSYLVANIA Wherever Grant had control in the West, and in all his counsels, his distinct purpose was to mass the Union forces and not scatter them, and to get at the enemy. With what ideas and intention he began the new task he set forth definitely in his report made in July, 1865. "From an early period in the rebellion, I had been impressed with the idea that the active and continuous operations of all the troops that could be brought into the field, regardless of season and weather, were necessary to a speedy termination of the war.... I therefore determined, first, to use the greatest number of troops practicable against the armed force of the enemy, preventing him from using the same force at different seasons against first one and then another of our armies, and the possibility of repose for refitting and producing necessary supplies for carrying on resistance; second, to hammer continuously against the armed force of the enemy and his resources, until by mere attrition, if in no other way, there should be nothing left to him but an equal submission with the loyal sections of our common country to the Constitution and laws of the land."