Brigadier General George G. Meade to Margaretta Sergeant Meade, March 14, 1862

CAMP AT HUNTER'S MILLS, VA., March 14, 1862.

To-day we have orders to be ready to leave at a moment's notice and prepare to go by water. This confirms my anticipation. The railroad to Alexandria will be in running order to-day, and I presume we will take the cars for that place, and from thence go by boat to some point down the river, not improbably Old Point Comfort. It appears to me that Norfolk is the most important point now, and that its attempted reduction cannot be much longer delayed. Of course, all this is surmise on my part, and is, moreover, confidential. All we know is that we are going somewhere pretty soon, and that we are on the eve of decided and critical events.

SOURCE: George Meade, The Life and Letters of George Gordon Meade, Vol. 1, p. 252