The newly appointed general-in-chief of Union armies, Ulysses S. Grant, decided to make his headquarters with the Army of the Potomac rather than in an office in Washington, D.C. Leaving George G. Meade in charge of the details, Grant sent the army not after Richmond, as his predecessors had done, but after Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia. The resulting Overland Campaign in the spring of 1864 led to bloody battles at the Wilderness and Spotsylvania Court House. In spite of casualties in the tens of thousands, Grant continued to take the offensive. His cavalry commander, Philip H. Sheridan, wanted to do the same. While the fighting raged at Spotsylvania, he approached Meade regarding his function in the current campaign. The traditional role of cavalry was to “screen,” or obscure, the movements of its own army while gathering information on the strength and movements of the enemy. Sheridan, however, wanted his cavalry to strike out on its own, not simply to observ