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Music I'm I'm I'm

I'm

I'm Rich. And I'm Tracy. Hello, y'all. Thanks for tuning in to the

podcast. As you guys will recall in the last episode, because of the collapse of his peripheral

strategy in the spring of 1864, which would allow Confederate reinforcements to be sent to Robert E. Lee from other parts of Virginia,

Ulysses S. Grant realized there was no use staying at Spotsylvania any longer. So he decided to

swing around Lee's right flank again, and as part of that, he tried to set a trap for Lee by using

Winfield Scott Hancock's second core, but that didn't work. And instead, Lee just fell

straight back to the North Anna River, which is about halfway between Spotsylvania and Richmond.

We said that Lee didn't expect a battle there along the North Anna River, since he thought

Grant would continue sliding the Army of the Potomac to the southeast, because Lee assumed that

Richmond was Grant's target. However, Lee was wrong because in reality, Richmond

itself wasn't Grant's target. Grant's real goal was the destruction of the Army of Northern Virginia.

Robert Lee misread Grant's intentions despite the fact that Lee's own goal was the destruction of the Army of the

Potomac. Well, in any event, as he contemplated the situation from his new headquarters at

Hanover Junction, Robert E. Lee believed his chances of striking a crushing blow against the

Yankees were getting better,

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