- 13 Jul 2021 13:12
#15180819
July 14, Tuesday
As a dismal dawn approaches, Lee receives word that nearly all of Ewell’s corps has reached the sodden soil of Virginia. But at Falling Waters, where Lee is keeping an anxious watch, Longstreet’s corps has just started across the pontoon bridge, while Hill’s is still some distance away. A Federal attack now could destroy the Army of Northern Virginia. Yet even though Federal cavalry has discovered as early as three in the morning that the Confederates are on the move, no attack comes. Longstreet’s corps crosses the river, followed by most of Hill’s. Heth’s division, bringing up the rear, is approaching the bridge shortly after 11 am, when firing erupts close by. Buford and Kilpatrick’s Federal cavalry are now hot on Lee’s trail. The most determined assault is led by a regiment in Custer’s brigade commanded by Major Peter Weber, who charge General Heth’s division. Within three or four minutes, many of the Michigan troopers, including Weber, lie dead. Soon more Federals enter the fray, driving the Confederates back toward the river. In the process, General Pettigrew, commander of Heth’s rearguard and one of Lee’s most promising officers, is mortally wounded, and nearly 1,500 grayclad infantrymen are taken prisoner. But the defenders have bought time for Lee’s escape. Before long, Lee is watching the last of his troops cross the Potomac. As Buford’s pursuing horsemen start down the bluff to the river, Lee orders the bridge cut loose. Lee’s Confederate army is south of the Potomac now and Meade’s crestfallen troops trudge through the empty Confederate defenses. Lee has escaped to fight again.
In Washington, President Lincoln cannot contain his despair. “We had them in our grasp,” he tells his secretary, John Hay. “We had only to stretch forth our hands and they were ours. And nothing I could say or do could make the army move.” In a letter he does not sign or send, Lincoln writes to Meade, “ ... I am very—very—grateful to you for the magnificent success you gave the cause of the country at Gettysburg; and I am sorry now to be the author of the slightest pain to you. But I was in such deep distress myself that I could not restrain some expression of it.... Your golden opportunity is gone, and I am distressed immeasureably [sic] because of it.”
After riding all night and through the day—including fighting a skirmish at Camp Dennison, Ohio—Morgan finally calls a halt when they reach Williamsburg late in the afternoon, some two dozen miles beyond Cincinnati, having covered no less than ninety miles in the past day and a half.
Minor skirmishing occurs at Falling Waters and Harpers Ferry, West Virginia; Williamsport, Maryland; Elk River Bridge in middle Tennessee; and Iuka, Mississippi. Farther down the coast Confederates carry out a sortie from Battery Wagner on Morris Island near Charleston, South Carolina.
Federal naval forces take Fort Powhatan on the James River. The Union now controls the James up to Chaffin’s and Drewry’s bluffs, Virginia.
The draft riots rage on in New York as the mobs continue to loot and destroy.
For the Confederates, Major General W.H.C. Whiting is named to command the Department of North Carolina.
President Davis, struck with numerous defeats, writes to Senator R.W. Johnson, “In proportion as our difficulties increase, so must we all cling together, judge charitably of each other, and strive to bear and forbear, however great may be the sacrifice and bitter the trial....”
As a dismal dawn approaches, Lee receives word that nearly all of Ewell’s corps has reached the sodden soil of Virginia. But at Falling Waters, where Lee is keeping an anxious watch, Longstreet’s corps has just started across the pontoon bridge, while Hill’s is still some distance away. A Federal attack now could destroy the Army of Northern Virginia. Yet even though Federal cavalry has discovered as early as three in the morning that the Confederates are on the move, no attack comes. Longstreet’s corps crosses the river, followed by most of Hill’s. Heth’s division, bringing up the rear, is approaching the bridge shortly after 11 am, when firing erupts close by. Buford and Kilpatrick’s Federal cavalry are now hot on Lee’s trail. The most determined assault is led by a regiment in Custer’s brigade commanded by Major Peter Weber, who charge General Heth’s division. Within three or four minutes, many of the Michigan troopers, including Weber, lie dead. Soon more Federals enter the fray, driving the Confederates back toward the river. In the process, General Pettigrew, commander of Heth’s rearguard and one of Lee’s most promising officers, is mortally wounded, and nearly 1,500 grayclad infantrymen are taken prisoner. But the defenders have bought time for Lee’s escape. Before long, Lee is watching the last of his troops cross the Potomac. As Buford’s pursuing horsemen start down the bluff to the river, Lee orders the bridge cut loose. Lee’s Confederate army is south of the Potomac now and Meade’s crestfallen troops trudge through the empty Confederate defenses. Lee has escaped to fight again.
In Washington, President Lincoln cannot contain his despair. “We had them in our grasp,” he tells his secretary, John Hay. “We had only to stretch forth our hands and they were ours. And nothing I could say or do could make the army move.” In a letter he does not sign or send, Lincoln writes to Meade, “ ... I am very—very—grateful to you for the magnificent success you gave the cause of the country at Gettysburg; and I am sorry now to be the author of the slightest pain to you. But I was in such deep distress myself that I could not restrain some expression of it.... Your golden opportunity is gone, and I am distressed immeasureably [sic] because of it.”
After riding all night and through the day—including fighting a skirmish at Camp Dennison, Ohio—Morgan finally calls a halt when they reach Williamsburg late in the afternoon, some two dozen miles beyond Cincinnati, having covered no less than ninety miles in the past day and a half.
Minor skirmishing occurs at Falling Waters and Harpers Ferry, West Virginia; Williamsport, Maryland; Elk River Bridge in middle Tennessee; and Iuka, Mississippi. Farther down the coast Confederates carry out a sortie from Battery Wagner on Morris Island near Charleston, South Carolina.
Federal naval forces take Fort Powhatan on the James River. The Union now controls the James up to Chaffin’s and Drewry’s bluffs, Virginia.
The draft riots rage on in New York as the mobs continue to loot and destroy.
For the Confederates, Major General W.H.C. Whiting is named to command the Department of North Carolina.
President Davis, struck with numerous defeats, writes to Senator R.W. Johnson, “In proportion as our difficulties increase, so must we all cling together, judge charitably of each other, and strive to bear and forbear, however great may be the sacrifice and bitter the trial....”
Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without.
—Edmund Burke
—Edmund Burke