CAMP AT HUNTER'S MILLS,
VA., March 11, 1862.
I send you a few hasty lines to tell you where we are, and
to relieve the anxiety which you will doubtless have from the reports in the
papers. Yesterday at 11 A. M. we received orders to march. At 1 P. M. we got
off, and marched fifteen miles, arriving at this point about 8 P. M. The whole
army has advanced, and we are on the extreme right, distant about twelve miles
from Centreville. We presumed when starting yesterday that we would have a
brush in a day or two with the enemy. But this morning we hear that McDowell's
Division, that advanced on Centreville, finding it was evacuated, and hearing
that they had evacuated Manassas, continued on and is now in possession of
their lately vaunted impregnable stronghold. Thus the prospects of another Bull
Run battle are dissipated — unless they have, as the French say, only reculer
pour mieux sauter.
We hear to-day of the disastrous naval conflict at Newport
News.1 This is a very bad business, and shows the superior
enterprise of our enemies. There is no reason we should not have had the Cumberland
iron-clad, as the Merrimac has been prepared by them. The loss of
two such vessels as the Cumberland and the Congress, two of our
finest frigates, is a very serious blow, not only to our material interests,
but to our pride and naval forces.
I have not time to write you much beyond the fact that I am
well. I have been in the saddle all day, posting troops and pickets, and making
all the preparations to meet the enemy, though, from the reports in existence
and believed, there is not much probability of his showing himself about here.
__________
1 Destruction of the gun-boats Cumberland and
Congress by the Confederate iron-clad Merrimac.
SOURCE: George Meade, The Life and Letters of George
Gordon Meade, Vol. 1, p. 251
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