Brigadier General George G. Meade to Margaretta Sergeant Meade, October 20, 1862

CAMP NEAR SHARPSBURG, MD., October 20, 1862.

Our last advices from the enemy are that he is falling back from Winchester, but every hour and day bring their different report, and perhaps this afternoon we will hear he is advancing to cross the river. For my part I wish he would stay and meet us, for if he falls toward Richmond we shall be compelled to follow him, and it is getting too late to campaign in the northern part of Virginia, in consequence of the bad condition of the roads as soon as it begins to rain; whereas if he will only stay about Winchester, we can in one or two days' march come up with him. Everyone who returns to camp says that McClellan's position is most precarious, and that if he does not advance soon and do something brilliant, he will be superseded. At the same time they do not, or will not, send from Washington the supplies absolutely necessary for us to have before we can move. I have hundreds of men in my command without shoes, going barefooted, and I can't get a shoe for a man or beast. I had to send money to-day to Frederick to buy shoes, to have my horses shod, which article the Government is bound to furnish me with, and yet they won't send them. Our artillery horses and train animals have been literally starving, and have been suffering for the want of forage, and our men for the want of clothing, and yet we can't get these things.

SOURCE: George Meade, The Life and Letters of George Gordon Meade, Vol. 1, p. 320