Grant Takes Command by Bruce Catton

Author:Bruce Catton
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9781504024211
Publisher: Open Road Media

Early and his Confederates were at this moment nearer to Staunton, the road down the valley, the Potomac crossings and Washington itself than Hunter was, and Early was not the man to overlook such an advantage. When Hunter began to retreat Early pressed hard against his rear guard and sent his cavalry over the Blue Ridge to get across Hunter’s route to the northeastern end of the valley. Hunter was short of supplies and ammunition and concluded that he could not afford to fight his way through and regain the direct road back to the place he had started from, the area which above everything else he was supposed to protect. When he retreated from Lynchburg his hand was forced, and he could do no better than go west into the mountains, heading for the Gauley River valley and Charleston, saving his army but taking it entirely out of action for three mortal weeks. Early watched his rear guard disappear beyond the western mountain passes and then swung down the Shenandoah Valley toward the Potomac along the old Stonewall Jackson road, looking for a Stonewall Jackson adventure.19

That sort of adventure might be hard to get, times having changed since 1862, but Lee had very little choice. He had sent Early west to save Lynchburg and the valley, and he shared the view Grant had expounded to Lincoln some months earlier—that a soldier who is supposed to defend something can often do it better by advancing than by standing still. As long as Early was operating on or near the Potomac no Federal army was going to interfere with the supply lines in the Staunton-Charlottesville-Lynchburg area. This question of supplies was becoming a heavy weight on Lee’s mind, and on June 26 he explained his thinking in a letter to President Davis, saying that if Early moved down the valley he would probably draw Hunter after him:

If circumstances favor, I should also recommend his crossing the Potomac. I think I can maintain our lines here against General Grant.…

I am less uneasy about holding our position than about our ability to procure supplies for the army. I fear the latter difficulty may oblige me to attack General Grant in his entrenchments, which I should not hesitate to do but for the loss it will inevitably entail. A want of success would in my opinion be almost fatal, and this causes me to hesitate in the hope that some relief may be procured without running such great hazard.20

What Lee was saying was that Grant’s basic strategy—to constrict the lifelines until the Confederates had to come out from behind earthworks and attack him—was beginning to work. Lee had seen this danger all along. Jubal Early said that some time before this Lee told him: “We must destroy this army of Grant’s before he gets to James river. If he gets there it will become a siege, and then it will be a mere question of time.” In the same way Lee had warned Hill

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