Brigadier General George G. Meade to Margaretta Sergeant Meade, November 22, 1862

CAMP NEAR STAFFORD COURT HOUSE, VA., November 22, 1862.

It rained very hard all day yesterday, rendering the roads in this vicinity nearly impassable. The railroad from Acquia Creek to Fredericksburg will take ten days or two weeks to put in order, if it can be done in that time. In the meantime, we have to haul all our supplies from the landing at Acquia Creek, ten miles distant, over roads which are barely passable with half-loaded wagons, and which in a short time, from the great number of trains passing over them, will become impassable. Hence we have out, since we have been here, the greater portion of our command, trying to make the roads passable by corduroying them — a work of labor and time. I do not see how we can advance from the Rappahannock unless the weather should turn cold and freeze the ground. In view of these obstacles, it is most trying to read the balderdash in the public journals about being in Richmond in ten days. I question if we can get in the neighborhood of Richmond this winter, on this line. I have no doubt the attempt is to be made and an effort to force us on, but I predict, unless we have a cold spell, freezing the ground, that we will break down, lose all our animals, experience great suffering from want of supplies, and if the enemy are at all energetic, meet with a check, if not disaster. All this comes from taking the wrong line of operations, the James River being the true and only practicable line of approach to Richmond. But I have always maintained that Richmond need not and should not be attacked at all; that the proper mode to reduce it is to take possession of the great lines of railroad leading to it from the South and Southwest, cut these and stop any supplies going there, and their army will be compelled to evacuate it and meet us on the ground we can select ourselves. The blind infatuation of the authorities at Washington, sustained, I regret to say, by Halleck, who as a soldier ought to know better, will not permit the proper course to be adopted, and we shall have to take the consequences. Perhaps the difficulty of moving may become so great and apparent that we will be compelled to go into winter quarters here, but this will be resisted to the last by the sages at Washington. I could not get to General Burnside's headquarters either yesterday or the day before, although his camp is only six miles from mine, but the condition of the roads, and the rise in a creek between us, effectually cut off all communications.

SOURCE: George Meade, The Life and Letters of George Gordon Meade, Vol. 1, p. 330-1