And the usually indefatigable Josiah Gorgas, chief of Confederate ordnance, sat down on July 28 and wrote a diary entry whose anguish echoes across the years: Events have succeeded one another with disastrous rapidity. One brief month ago we were apparently at the point of success. Lee was in Pennsylvania, threatening Harrisburgh, and even Philadelphia. Vicksburgh seemed to laugh all Grant’s efforts to scorn. . . . Port Hudson had beaten off Banks’ force. . . . Now the picture is just as sombre as it was bright then. . . . It seems incredible that human power could effect such a change in so
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