Grant sustained heavy casualties in the Battle of the Wilderness, perhaps 8,000 men killed, wounded, or missing. Two days afterward, when they were ordered to break camp, the men of the Army of the Potomac expected that Grant—like Joe Hooker, Ambrose Burnside, and others—would order them to recross the Rapidan, heading for Washington, D.C. This pattern had been deeply etched in their memories. But at a crucial point in that morning’s march, the sergeants and battalion leaders pointed south, rather than north. At that moment, the men of the Army of the Potomac knew that the battle, and the campaign, was to continue. When Grant and his staff came riding by, they cheered him heartily.