It was a mere question of arithmetic to calculate how long they could hold out while that rate of depletion was going on.

Of course long before their army would be thus reduced to nothing the army which we had in the field would have been able to capture theirs.

Then too I knew from the great number of desertions, that the men who had fought so bravely, so gallantly and so long for the cause which they believed in--and as earnestly, I take it, as our men believed in the cause for which they were fighting--had lost hope and become despondent.

Many of them were making application to be sent North where they might get employment until the war was over, when they could return to their Southern homes.
For these and other reasons I was naturally very impatient for the time to come when I could commence the spring campaign, which I thoroughly believed would close the war.
There were two considerations I had to observe, however, and which detained me.

One was the fact that the winter had been one of heavy rains, and the roads were impassable for artillery and teams.