289 Series I Volume XL-III Serial 82 - Richmond, Petersburg Part III
Page 289 | Chapter LII. CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. - UNION. |
HEADQUARTERS CAVALRY CORPS,
Signal Station, July 16, 1864-7 a.m. (Received 8.45 a.m.)General KAUTZ:
(Care General Butler.)
The expedition is suspended. You need not move.
P. H. SHERIDAN,
Major-General.
JULY 17, 1864-11.25 a.m.
Lieutenant-General GRANT,
City Point, Va.:
In your dispatch* of yesterday to General Sherman I find the following, to wit: "I shall make a desperate effort to get a position here which will hold the enemy without the necessity of so many men." Pressed as we are, by lapse of time, I am glad to hear you say this, and yet I do hope you may find a way that the effort shall not be desperate in the sense of great loss of life.
A. LINCOLN.
CITY POINT, VA., July 17, 1864-1 p.m.
Major-General HALLECK,
Washington, D. C.:
If Early stops in the Valley, or before returning to Richmond, with a view of going north again, I do not believe he will go to Maryland, but will attempt to go through Western Virginia to Ohio, possibly taking Pittsburg by the way. I think Pennsylvania and Ohio ought to have their citizens organized for a sudden emergency. With the great number of discharged veterans now in the North this class of troops will be of great service in repelling invasion, or at least checking it. I think I will order back to Washington all regiments whose terms of service will expire before the 20th of August. This will give quite a force round which to rally new troops.
U. S. GRANT,
Lieutenant-General.
WASHINGTON, July 17, 1864-2 p.m.
Lieutenant-General GRANT,
City Point, Va.:
Your instructions in regard to the return of the Sixth and Nineteenth Corps, and the pursuit by General Hunter, have been transmitted to the latter and to General Wright. General Hunter reports only about 12,000 men for the field, and says: "I do not think the present force on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad more than one-third sufficient for its defense." You will remember that the 100-days' men in West Virginia, at Washington and at Baltimore, begin to go out in about two weeks, and that neither of the Northern States furnished a single man under the President's call to defend Washington and Baltimore. Moreover, the regiments of the Reserve (or Invalid) Corps, called from the West
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*See Vol. XXXVIII, Part V., p.149.
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19 R R-VOL XL, PT III
Page 289 | Chapter LII. CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. - UNION. |