July 12, 1863
---Gen. Meade does not lauch an
all-out attack on Lee’s army, and on this night, after the Confederate
engineers have assembled a new pontoon bridge, Lee’s troops begin to cross the
Potomac.
---George Templeton Strong writes in
his journal of the latest war news and the reactions to the Draft:
Despatches in morning papers, though severally worthless, give
on the impression when takne collectively that Lee is getting safely across the
Potomac and back to Old Virginny’s shore,
bag and baggage, guns, plunder and all.
Whereupon the able editors begin to denounce Meade, their last new
Napoleon, as incapable and outgeneralled. . . . People forget that an army of
fifty thousand and upward cannot be bagged bodily unless its general be a Mack
or a Dupont. But I shall be disappointed
if the rebels get home without a clawing.
Then, Strong turns to more immediate
matters at home---the drawing of names for the Draft. Strong prophetically sees trouble brewing on
that front:
Draft has begun here and was in progress in Boston last
week. Demos [the masses] takes it
good-naturedly thus far, but we shall have trouble before we are through. The critical time will be when defaulting
conscripts are haled out of their houses, as many will be. That soulless politician, Seymour, will make
mischief if he dare. So will F’nandy
Wood, Brooks, Marble, and other reptiles.
May they only bring their traitorous necks within the cincture of a
legal halter! This draft will be the experimentum cruces to decide whether we
have a government among us.
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