July 31, 1862 (Friday): Longstreet Gives Up Plan to Divert the James River

Sandbags at Confederate Battery Dantzler (http://www.chesterstation.org/projects/dantzler.php)

HEADQUARTERS,
July 31, 1862.

General H. A. WISE,
Commanding, &c.:
    GENERAL: It is not worth while to continue the work on the dikes. I am quite satisfied we can accomplish nothing by it. I wish you would give notice to your neighbors that they must try and get their wheat crops in. If we should have to give up their grounds, we must have the wheat destroyed rather than allow it to fall into their hands. We have rumors that the enemy is drawing off his forces, but have not been able to learn anything definite.
    Very respectfully,


J. LONGSTREET,
Major-General, Commanding.


Official Records, Series I., Vol. 51, Part 2, Page 602.

The plan appears to have been to reduce the water level in the James River so low as to stop Union gunboats from passing up river to threaten Richmond.  Here Longstreet abandons the plan because rumors, which proved to be correct, said McClellan's forces were being drawn off from Richmond.  This was a very different project from the Dutch Gap Canal, which Union forces built later in the war in an attempt to bypass Parker's Battery and Battery Dantzler.