( 5) War Records, vol. xxix., Part I., p. 242.
( 6) Ibid., pp. 250, 428.
( 7) War Records, vol. xxix., Part I., p. 428.
( 8) A string tightly drawn around a bottle where the cut is desired to be made, and then rapidly drawn back and forth until the friction heats the glass, renders it easy to be separated by a sharp jar against the hand or some hard substance.
( 9) Three of these had belonged to Randolph's battery, lost at Winchester.—War Records, vol. xxix., Part I., p. 626.
(10) Ibid., pp. 613-616.
(11) War Records, vol. xxix., Part I., pp. 611, 616 (Lee's Report).
CHAPTER V Mine Run Campaign and Battle of Orange Grove, November, 1863—Winter Cantonment (1863-64) of Army of the Potomac at Culpeper Court- House, and its Reorganization—Grant Assigned to Command the Union Armies, and Preparation for Aggressive War
Though the roads were bad from frequent rains and much use, and November winds warned that winter was at hand to stop further field campaigning on an extended scale, and though all attempts to cross the Rapidan in the fine weather of the spring and summer had failed, yet, when the Army of the Potomac was again bivouacked at Culpeper, the public cry was heard—"On to Richmond!"
Lee's last campaign was looked upon in high quarters as a big bluff that should have been "called" by Meade while the Army of Northern Virginia was north of the Rappahannock. Meade, however, acted persistently and conscientiously on his own judgment, formed in the light of the best knowledge he could obtain. He would not stand driving, and was something of a bulldozer himself, and sometimes—said to have been caused by fits of dyspepsia—was unreasonably irascible, and displayed a most violent temper towards superiors and inferiors. Notwithstanding this, he never lost his equipoise or acted upon impulse alone, and he never permitted mere appearances to move him. Nor could his superiors induce him to act against his judgment as to a particular military situation. It will be remembered that he was urged to fight Lee north of the Potomac after Gettysburg. He was urged to bring on a battle before the departure of the Eleventh and Twelfth Corps for the West, and when Lee moved north on his flank his opportunity seemed to have come to fight a battle, but his fear of the same strategy displayed by the Confederate Army in the second Bull Run campaign against Pope induced him to be over-cautious, and to so concentrate his army as to avoid the possibility of its being beaten in detachments.