Folks think Grant & Lee slugged it out for years –wrong –they first fought each other at the Battle of the Wilderness in May of 1864. Grant took a severe mauling (nearly 20,000 casualties in a two day fight during which only nighttime and forest fires saved his army from being unhinged completely out of position) and AOP was expected to fall back –in the usual way –on the supply base across the Rapidan. In what had to’ve been a nasty shock to Lee, he didn’t; instead he issued a statement saying he “…proposed to fight it out along this line if it takes all summer.” Lee would be surrendering the ANV to “Butcher” Grant less than a year later. Grant was not only hard, but fast.