Brigadier General George G. Meade to Margaretta Sergeant Meade, August 24, 1862

WARRENTON, VA., August 24, 1862.

I have not written you for several days, and now have only time to tell you in a few words that I am here all right and how I got here. On the 22d we were ordered up to a ford, said to be ten or twelve miles from Fredericksburg, and where it was thought the enemy might cross and threaten Pope's left flank. We started at ten P. M., the night dark and stormy; we lost the road, and after traveling all night, were at daylight only four miles on our journey. We started again, and before proceeding far, we got an order to keep on to a higher ford, so that by night, after one of the hottest days I almost ever experienced, we reached this ford, twenty-seven miles distant, and only six miles from Pope's main army at the crossing of the Rappahannock. The next morning we were ordered up to the Rappahannock Station, and on arriving, heard the news of the enemy's having crossed above and turned Pope's right flank; of Siegel's fight, in which poor Bohlen was killed; found the enemy had been making an effort to force the passage of the Rappahannock over the railroad bridge, but had been repulsed by our artillery; that Pope was obliged to fall back from the Rappahannock, and was then moving off, and we had to follow him. This movement has been successfully performed, thanks, not to Mr. Pope's genius, but to an unlooked-for interposition of Providence in the shape of a rain which has so swollen the Rappahannock that it is not fordable at the usual places; so that they cannot cross, as they intended, on both sides of him, to cut him off. He is not yet out of the scrape, though every day's delay is in his favor, as poor McClellan's army is being rushed up here to his rescue.

I presume the enemy will not let us be quiet here. They have a large force in front of us, and are evidently determined to break through Pope and drive us out of Virginia, when they will follow into Maryland and perhaps Pennsylvania. I am sorry to say, from the manner in which matters have been mismanaged, that their chances of success are quite good. Whether I shall get back with the army to Washington, or go to Richmond, to live on bread and water, or go to my long and final account, are questions that the future only can solve. I am well, which, considering the night and hot sun marches we have just accomplished, is saying a good deal. I am also in good spirits, which is saying a good deal more.

SOURCE: George Meade, The Life and Letters of George Gordon Meade, Vol. 1, p. 305-6