Friday, June 30, 2017

Diary of Gideon Welles: Tuesday, July 21, 1863

A dispatch from General Grant makes mention of large captures of cattle coming east from Texas, and of munitions going south to Kirby Smith. General Sherman is following up Joe Johnston.

A dispatch from Admiral Porter says that he, in concert with General Grant, sent an expedition up the Yazoo and that it was a complete success. Grant in his dispatch makes no mention of, or allusion to, the Navy in this expedition, nor of any consultation with Admiral Porter, although without the naval force and naval cooperation nothing could have been accomplished.

LeRoy telegraphs that he, with his gunboats, followed Morgan, or kept on his flank five hundred miles up the Ohio River, encountered him when attempting to cross the river near Bluffington, and drove him back.

The aspect of things is more favorable and it is amusing to read the English papers and speeches anticipating, hoping, predicting disaster to the Union cause. It will be more amusing to read the comments on the reception of intelligence by the steamer which left soon after the 4th inst.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864, p. 379

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