CITY POINT, VA., July 14, 1864.
Major-General HALLECK,
Washington, D.C.:
It would seem from dispatches just received from Mr. Dana,
Assistant Secretary of War, that the enemy are leaving Maryland. If so, Hunter
should follow him as rapidly as the jaded condition of his men will admit. The
Sixth and Nineteenth Corps should be got here without any delay, so that they
may be used before the return of the troops sent into the Valley by the enemy.
Hunter moving up the Valley will either hold a large force of the enemy or he
will be enabled to reach Gordonsville and Charlottesville. The utter
destruction of the road at and between these two places will be of immense
value to us. I do not intend this as an order to bring Wright back while he is
in pursuit of the enemy with any prospect of punishing him, but to secure his
return at the earliest possible moment after he ceases to be absolutely
necessary where he is.
Colonel Comstock, who takes this, can explain to you fully
the situation here. The enemy have the
Weldon road completed, but are very cautious about bringing cars through on it.
I shall endeavor to have it badly destroyed, and for a long distance, within a
few days. I understand from a refugee that they have twenty-five miles of track
yet to lay to complete the Danville road. If the enemy has left Maryland, as I
suppose he has, he should have upon his heels veterans, militiamen, men on
horseback, and everything that can be got to follow to eat out Virginia clear
and clean as far as they go, so that crows flying over it for the balance of
this season will have to carry their provender with them.
U.S. GRANT,
Lieutenant-General.
SOURCE: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of
the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Volume
37, Part 2 (Serial No. 88), p. 300-1
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