[342]
a small affair-only five hundred men lost, and very likely the story is much exaggerated.
In ordinary circumstances the event would be of no influence, but as the main campaign has produced no decisive results yet, the public mind has developed an extraordinary sensitiveness, and this disaster will weigh far more than it ought.1
Why didn't you come down with the general on Sunday?
The general at first proposed to put either Sheridan or Meade in charge of the campaign in the Valley; next he sent word to leave Hunter in command if he had already taken the field, but to put Sheridan over the Sixth corps and the cavalry, and now Halleck has telegraphed to him to suggest that Sheridan had better be put in command of the whole, but no reply has been received.
It is dreadful to say that, with the large force assembled for this campaign, there is not a reasonable certainty as to what will be its result.
Sheridan says that cavalry is of no great value on the James River, because the country is so broken, and on the south side so swampy, that it cannot be used with effect.
He suggests that another division be brought up to act from this direction.
I fall back on my faith in Providence.
That will bring us out if human devices fail. ...
It was in pursuance of
Sheridan's suggestion that my division of cavalry was also ordered from the
James to
Washington on August 4th, and a few days later to the
Valley of Virginia.
On August 29th
Dana, who had accompanied me in my march through
Washington, wrote to me as follows:
... Affairs generally seem to be in a much better condition than when you were here.
Farragut's success at Mobile
