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| General Butler's horse. |
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confirmatory of the first, in which I was informed that Lee had abandoned his works, and that Grant was pursuing.1
These telegrams strengthened me still further in the view that it was necessary to invest Richmond as closely as possible, and prepare to meet General Grant around the intrenchments above the city, to which point I supposed he was marching.
Oh, that the news contained in those despatches had been true!2
Believing the information to be true I sent a despatch at 7 P. M. to General Ames, who was watching the enemy at Petersburg,
enclosing “glorious news from Grant,” and asking him to guard against surprise and night attack, and to report to me frequently.3
Having sent away General Kautz with his cavalry, in obedience to “instructions,” I was much crippled in my movements for want of a sufficient cavalry force to cover my left flank, which was “in the air.”
1 See Appendix No. 48.
2 General Grant, in his report (page 7), gives a very different account of the operations of “yesterday” (the 12th), as will be seen by the following;--
The 9th, 10th, and 11th were spent in manoeuvring and fighting, without decisive results. . . . Early on the morning of the 2th a general attack was made on the enemy in position. The Second Corps, Major-General Hancock commanding, carried a salient of his line, capturing most of Johnson's division of Elwell's Corps and twenty pieces of artillery. But the resistance was so obstinate that the advantage gained did not prove decisive. The 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th, and 18th were consumed in manoeuvring and awaiting the arrival of reinforcements from Washington.
3 See Appendix No. 49.
A. M. Thayer and Co. 1892.
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