Our Mail Dispatch
Headquarters Army of the Potomac
Thursday night March 30 8 PM
Special Correspondence of the Inquirer

Headquarters army of the Potomac
Thursday night March 30 9 PM
Of course, who can call to mind any late movement of this army when it did not rain? And today has been as pitiless as fate. From early morning until late at night when continuous stream, ceasing to fall in heavy showers only to pour down in an exhaustless deluge. Drenching everybody, because everybody was out of doors. Soldiers lying in lines of battle hugged their breastworks and essayed a frail shelter of pine boughs. It was all of no utility. They were all to a man drenched, line and field officers alike. General officers had Tent flies, and for a while flattered themselves they might escape. They hope! They were drenched, all of them. Specials riding up and down the lines flashing fishing for items in the Dreary waste of water found the rain a speedy and completely conquered and complete conqueror over every style of waterproof yet invented. They were drenched, All of them, and, remembering the personal experience of the day, thoroughly and uncomfortably drenched.

Everybody was uncomfortable: everybody had an intense disgust for the weather. Looking up to the leaden- looking sky everybody wondered if the elements were particularly intimate friends of the rebellion that they will always pour water on us when we go out to crush it, in the hopes of dampening are ardor. Whatever the effect on our ardor, bodies are decidedly damp. The poets have grown eloquent over the rain, Their rhapsodies on the subject are very readable in a comfortably furnished room, but here in the field, with the poetic rain beating on our faces, dripping down our backs, and pouring into our boots, how we should throw the book from us, and ponder how any man could be so as to right such stuff, and other men are as stupid as to read them and, worse than all, admire them.
And the rain is something more and worse than simply uncomfortable. It is an element of the situation in the military sense. How far General Grant will be compelled to modify his plans and consequence of this rain of the rate, and exactly what influence it has exerted today over the destinies of Nations, nobody but General Grant knows. But we all know that

And the rain is something more and worse than simply uncomfortable. It is an element of the situation in a military sense. How far General Grant will be compelled to modify his plans and consequence of this reign of the rate, and exactly what influence it has exerted today over the destinies of nations, nobody but General Grant knows. But we all know that

The roads

must be possible for artillery to allow of extended military movements, and we all know the roads in this section of our tonight impossible for any thing but a very long legged And strong horse, or an experienced Army mule, whose long experience in floundering might enable him to somehow wriggle through the mud ocean we are in. Anything on wheels is entirely useless. Ambulances, gun carriages, caissons, the signal headquarters wagons are all stationary, Mud bound. The heavy wagons, the supply trains, heavily loaded with rations and forage, could no more move two miles tonight than they could have the lake could travel to the moon. The roads, Then, are impassable; not difficult, not deep, not muddy, but tonight impassable.
The suddenness of the transformation has been wonderful. Last night the country was solid. The Vaughan road was in splendid condition, like some old country road in the peaceful north, where army trains never come to cut and harrow the land.
This, then, is our condition tonight – – Mud bound, The wind gives promise of fair weather tomorrow, and the whole aspect of the country may be materially altered by tomorrow night.

The Movements Today

Have been so shrouded in mud, so submerged in water, that it is difficult to say there has been any. The second division of the second corps, General Hays, being the pivot of the army movement, has remained stationary during the day

The movements today have been so shrouded in mist, so submerged in water, that it is difficult to say there has been any. The second division of the second court, General Jesus, being the pivot of the army moving, has remain stationary during the day on the line assumed last night, the right being at Dabney Mills, General Mont with the third division, has been advancing slightly advanced – – General miles with the first division rather more; this is the fifth core Stillmore, the movement as a whole having developed itself into a ground left wheel.

As yet, the enemy steadily retires before us. All the ground lease so seriously congested here to four, has been giving up without a shot. The line of hatchers run Endo Dabneys Mill of Dabney Mills, both of which have cost us hundreds of men, and neither of which we gained at the time we suffered the loss, we have now acquired without the loss of a man,For the loss of the fifth car yesterday, was experienced on the Boyd Road. All this proves a radical change in these tactics, a change that can only be accounted for by assuming that he no longer feels himself strong enough to contest with Grant, except from behind an elaborate system of fortifications.

We have today come within range of the heavy guns in his works, and as a consequence there has been considerable cannonading on the left, the significance and results of which will reach you from other sources, as you will also as well also the affair of last night in the Ninth Corps front.

I along the sixth and 24th core front, as well as the second, the day has been quiet. The great battle was not fraud, the decisive point not yet reached. That it will be within three days is almost certain in our favor is almost certain and that when it comes it will be entirely in our favor no none doubt. The hand of fate is on this rebellion, the hour of the its extinction is at hand, and we think here we are standing on the ground selected for its burial place. General grant has appointed a day for the funeral for his funeral, and the nation may be sure that he will have the corpse ready when the day comes.

E. Crapsey
The Philadelphia Inquirer April 3, 1865
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