JULY 23, 1864:
General Jubal Early C.S.A. has returned to the
Shenandoah Valley, and engages Union troops under General David Hunter near
Kernstown. Abraham Lincoln, well aware that Hunter had previously retreated out
of the Valley without offering battle to Early, and that Washington, D.C. had
been invested as a result, sends Hunter a terse and acerbic telegram:
Are you able to take
care of the enemy when he turns back upon you, as he probably will on finding
that Wright has left?
Hunter takes great umbrage at his Commander-in-Chief’s
implied criticism of his competence and asks to be relieved of command. But
before Lincoln even sees Hunter’s own request, he orders Hunter replaced. Ulysses
S. Grant makes him a “desk general.”
Hunter stews in his own juice pushing papers for the rest of the war.
