Zzzgrant's plans broken up.
The result shows
Early's sagacity.
On the 30th of July, while
McCausland was at
Chambersburg,
Grant exploded the mine under
Lee's lines at
Petersburg, and on that day
Sheridan had joined him there with his cavalry.
‘The explosion,’ says
Grant ‘was a stupendous failure,’ and he lost 10,000 men in the vain endeavor; but the next day he ordered
Meade to take a corps of infantry and the cavalry and to proceed August 1st, before
Lee could get back to the Weldon railroad, and destroy fifteen miles of that important line.
‘But misfortune,’ says
Grant, ‘never comes singly.’
He learned that afternoon, July 1st, of
Early's movements on the
Potomac, and he says: ‘I rescinded my orders for the division to go out and destroy the Weldon railroad and directed them to embark for
Washington city.’
Thus was
Early's draft on
Grant's lines again honored, the pressure on
Lee to that extent relieved, the second invasion terminated as successful as the first, and now we shall see
Grant himself and an army larger than all of
Lee's hurrying to look after the irrepressible, redoubtable, and ubiquitous
Early.
Grant had been greatly stirred up by
Early's movements, and
Hunter infinitely mystified, just as
Early calculated they would be. On the 4th of August
Grant jumped upon the train for
City Point, took a steamer, and posted direct through
Washington to
Monocacy.
There he found
Hunter, who had started to
Richmond and landed at
White Sulphur Springs, the
Ohio river, and finally at
Monocacy.
He asked
Hunter an embarrassing question: ‘Where is the enemy?’
He replied that he did not know, and was so embarrassed with orders from
Washington that he had lost all trace of the enemy.
Grant told him that
Sheridan was in
Washington with one cavalry division and another on the way, and suggested that he (
Hunter) should make headquarters, at
Cumberland,
Baltimore, or
[
303]
elsewhere and give
Sheridan command in the
Valley.
Hunter asked to be relieved, to the equal relief of his foot-sore excursionists.
The upshot was that
Sheridan was placed in command.