[564]Telegram.
No definite information can be obtained from prisoners taken this morning, but they represent enemy still in strong force in our front under General Gillmore. I may not be able to spare Ransom's brigade immediately.
Telegram.
No definite information can be obtained from prisoners taken this morning, but they represent enemy still in strong force in our front, under General Gillmore. Shall I send Ransom's brigade as requested? General Johnson says it cannot be spared.
Telegram.
I am just from the front; reconnoissance in force of this morning shows it might be dangerous to send away Ransom's brigade, constituting over one-third available infantry force now here. We must elect at present between Bottom's Bridge and railroad communication between Petersburg and Richmond.
Headquarters, Department N. C. and so. Va., June 3d, 1864.General,—That there may not be hereafter any possible misapprehension of the part I am called upon to act in the momentous events which are transpiring, and which I cannot but watch with the most intense interest and solicitude, I send you herewith copies of the telegrams which have been exchanged between General Lee and myself since the 1st inst., at 4 P. M. You will not doubt of my readiness and anxiety to co-operate with General Lee in any manner that may be deemed most conducive towards the crushing of the foe in his front. I shall be found ready and willing, at all times, to obey any orders the War Department may judge fit and proper to give on the subject; but I cannot, under existing circumstances, advise the withdrawal of more troops from this vicinity. Already thirteen thousand out of twenty thousand infantry have been sent to the north side of the James River since the battle of Drury's Bluff, and with the forces remaining, unless taken temporarily and for an immediate encounter with the enemy, it might become impossible to prevent the latter from destroying the communications between Richmond and Petersburg; nay, from capturing Petersburg, which could not be re-taken without great sacrifice of life. If Ransom's brigade, numbering over one-third of the present available force in Johnson's division, were withdrawn from here, it would become necessary to abandon our lines in front of Bermuda Hundreds Neck, to assume a strategic
Genl. Braxton Bragg, Comdg., etc., Richmond, Va.:
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[564]
1883. Harper. New York.
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