General Meade was certainly correct in his report.
General Meade says he had feared this raid for some time, as, with the limited force of cavalry at his command and the great extent of country to be watched, he had always considered
Coggin's Point an unsuitable point for the cattle herd, it being liable to capture at any time by a coup de main of the enemy in force.
Now, I thought it was a beef raid, and all the time it was a ‘coup de main.’
I have heard of them, but here I was face to face with one ‘in force.’
General Grant telegraphed
General Meade from
Harper's Ferry, at 9 A. M. on the 18th, that if the enemy made so rich a haul as the cattle herd, that he would be likely to strike far to the south or southeast to get back with it, and that their cavalry should recover what was lost ,or else, in the absence of so much of the enemy's cavalry, that they should strike the
Weldon road.
General Meade reports to
General Grant on the 16th, at 10:30 P. M., that
Kautz reports the enemy retired as soon as he got the cattle, and that he was in pursuit on the Prince George Courthouse road, and
Davies on the
Jerusalem road, but that
Hampton's force was so far superior to their's and he had so much the start of him that he could do no more than harass us. Well, I will testify that he did harass us. I did not (at one time) see how we could get out of the trouble.
From this on everybody began to make reports, and they seemed to think that we would certainly attack Port Powhatan on the river
James.
They did not know how anxious we were to get away from that river.
