AUGUST 3, 1864:
Although President Lincoln has great faith in Ulysses S. Grant as his General, the terrible fiasco of the Crater and Jubal Early’s same-day destruction of Chambersburg PA have disturbed Lincoln profoundly. The President doubts he can win re-election in November, and though that would be a personal failure, losing the Presidency while the Union is at a military disadvantage would be an historical disaster. He sends Grant a telegram reminding Grant that he needs to exercise vigilance "every day, and hour, and force it" if he is to win the war before Lincoln leaves office.
Neither Lincoln nor his Confederate counterpart Jefferson Davis is aware that the Confederacy’s Spring of victories is about to end. General Philip Sheridan U.S.A. arrives in the Shenandoah Valley this day spoiling for a fight with Jubal Early C.S.A.; and much further away, General Gordon Granger U.S.A. finally takes the first step to seize control of Mobile (Alabama) Bay from the Confederacy by investing Fort Gaines, one of the harbor fortifications. The taking of Mobile had been on the Union drawing board for a long time, but it had been deferred in favor of the wasted Red River Campaign in Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas.
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