July 1: 9:40 a.m.
From the Army of the Potomac telegrams had arrived only intermittently. Since dawn they had slowed to a trickle. In the cipher room Lincoln still devoured each one.
He was very tired. The rapid invasion of the past week, which flung Confederate troops across middle Pennsylvania, had battered his nerves. So did the dreams. Both combined to heighten his customary fatigue to the point of torture.
Over the past week communication had been difficult. That demon Stuart had destroyed miles of telegraph line north of Washington. The Signal Corps worked feverishly to get messages through, but the Army and the War Department were out of communication hours at a time. When hours were very precious.
The last dispatch indicated General Meade was concentrating his forces. If Meade moved quickly enough, he could catch the rebels before Lee could gather in his widely separated units. Perhaps at long last they could destroy this army that should have been destroyed in May.
The Army of Northern Virginia had more lives than a cat. Not only at Chancellorsville should the Union have vanquished Lee. Seven Days, Second Bull Run, Antietam, Fredericksburg, they all could have been decisive Union victories with proper leadership. The bloody draw at Antietam especially rankled, when McClellan had a prostrate foe at his mercy.
Lincoln prayed Meade was up to the job. It defied belief that after two years of war only one Union commander produced real victory. Thank God for Sam Grant.
Perhaps he should have replaced Hooker with Grant. The impending victory at Vicksburg had been certain since early June. Grant could have arrived in Virginia before middle of the month, and had some time to become familiar with new subordinates and new troops.
But learning the lay of the land in the East, and learning Lee, would have taken actual campaigning. Lee would have pounced on any mistake born of unfamiliarity. Perhaps that was why he had left Grant where he was—for the time being.
Meade had to give the Union at least a draw. In the coming battle, on Northern soil, Lincoln would take the same result as Antietam: no defeat and a quick return by Lee to Virginia. As after Antietam, the public would accept repelling invasion as victory. Joined to the real victory at Vicksburg, Northern morale would revive.
Yet the harvest of death would continue. He had cast aside any illusion of a quick peace; the Confederacy would certainly still fight hard even after failing at Vicksburg and in Pennsylvania. The war would go on at least one more year. The number of dead and maimed could easily double before the slaughter ended.
He wanted so to sleep. He knew he should. But fear of the dream kept his eyes open.
Three nights running the horrible dream had jerked him awake. Three nights he had seen the flag of the United States blown from the hands of a retreating soldier. The shell burst quartered the flag. Advancing rebels picked up the pieces and wildly celebrated.
It was only a dream, he told himself. Brought on by the terrible tension of Lee’s great invasion. The dream would vanish once Meade repelled the rebels.
Lincoln knew Lee would be thwarted. That was Edwin’s implicit promise. Edwin had remained silent. Which meant all would be right.
Edwin and Lily, how he yearned to see them again. The silence meant he would not.