JULY 13, 1864:
The Battle of Harrisburg, Mississippi. Far away from the battle in his backyard, Abraham Lincoln gets
word of Confederate activity in Tupelo, Mississippi. General Nathan Bedford
Forrest C.S.A. and his 9,000 soldiers are engaging a 14,000-man force under
General Andrew Smith. Smith is tasked with protecting the railroad, part of
William Tecumseh Sherman’s supply line. Although Harrisburg ends up burning to
the ground, Forrest is not successful in cutting the railroad; he, in fact, suffers
one of his only two defeats in the war.
Even as the President gets this good news, he hears a bad
rumor, that General James Longstreet C.S.A.’s Corps is on its way to Washington
to reinforce Jubal Early. Lincoln fires off a telegram to General Grant. Grant
responds that Longstreet’s Corps has not moved (Longstreet himself is still out
of action, recovering from wounds).
Lincoln, a naturally curious man with a scientific and
inventive bent (he is the only President to hold a patent), is enamored of the
telegraph, and often sleeps in the telegraph office during major battles so he
can hear the news as it comes over the wires.
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