Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 38.djvu/239

 the Virginia & Tennessee Railroad, but there tickle fortune deserted him.

On May 20th, General Grant wrote to General Halleck:

"The enemy are evidently greatly relying for supplies on such as are brought over the branch road running through Staunton. On the whole, therefore, I think it would be better for General Hunter to move in that direction, reach Staunton and Gordonsville or Charlottesville, if he does not meet too much opposition. If he can hold at bay a force equal to his own he will be doing good services."

And in another communication to Halleck, which will be noticed more particularly hereafter, General Grant instructs General Hunter as follows: "If compelled to fall back you will retreat in front of the enemy toward the main crossings of the Potomac, so as to cover Washington, and not be squeezed out to one side so as to make it necessary to fall back into West Virginia to save your army."

But alas! General Hunter did meet with "too much opposition" in the ominous form of Jubal A. Early—a very serious person, with an invincible repugnance to all shams and frauds—and he failed utterly to overcome that opposition, and he was "squeezed out to one side" and did find it necessary "to fall back into West Virginia to save his army," and his discomfiture was so complete and his failure so utter, that General Grant dispatched to General Meade as follows: "The only word I would send General Hunter would be verbal, and simply let him know where we are, and tell him to save his army in the way he thinks best, either by getting into his own department or by joining us."

Nearly six months later, while indulging in melancholy retrospect, General Hunter writes to General Grant, on December 6, 1864: "When I relieved Sigel I found his command very much disorganized and demoralized from his recent defeat at New Market, and three Generals with it—Sigel, Stahl and Sullivan—not worth one cent; in fact, very much in my way * * *. I dashed into Lynchburg and should certainly have taken it if it had not been for the stupidity and conceit of that fellow Avirill, who had joined me at Staunton."

Amiable person, this Major-General Hunter, and magnanimous