Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 2.djvu/140

126 gave General Johnson his orders, just received from General Lee by Robert E. Lee, his son. General Lee had singular tenacity and persistency of mind. He had formed the plan the preceding winter to send Johnson and the Maryland Line across the Potomac in boats to release the prisoners at Point Lookout. That plan had been frustrated by the movements of Kilpatrick and Sheridan, and now he recurred to it as soon as there was a possibility of accomplishing it. He directed General Early to detach Johnson with orders to move around the north of Baltimore, burn the bridges on the railroads leading north and cut the wires; then, circling round, to break the communication between Washington and Baltimore; then move on Point Lookout and attack at daylight on the 12th of July, when an attack would be made from the water side by Capt. John Taylor Wood, who would run out of Wilmington and by Fortress Monroe in a Confederate gun-boat. When the prisoners, some 15,000, were released, Johnson was to assume command and march them to Bladensburg, where General Early was to wait for them, when Washington was to be carried, communication established across the Potomac, and Grant's army forced to release Richmond and come back to recover Washington.

Johnson showed the commanding general that the time allowed was entirely insufficient. It was then the 8th of July and he was ordered to be at Point Lookout on the morning of the 12th, three days and three nights to make a march of two hundred and fifty miles. Horse flesh couldn't do it. However, it was orders, and no more was to be said. The explanation was made to account for the inevitable result. The next morning at daylight he started, rode through Westminster to Reisterstown and Cockeysville, where he arrived on the morning of Sunday, July loth. At that point he detached Lieut.-Col. Harry Gilmor, who with the Second Maryland cavalry had been attached to his command on