Brigadier General George Gordon Meade to John Sergeant Meade, October 23, 1862

CAMP NEAR SHARPSBURG, October 23, 1862.

We are in hourly expectation of marching orders. We have been detained here by the failure of the Government to push forward reinforcements and supplies. You will hardly believe me when I tell you that as early as the 7th of this month a telegram was sent to Washington informing the Clothing Department that my division wanted three thousand pairs of shoes, and that up to this date not a single pair has yet been received (a large number of my men are barefooted) and it is the same thing with blankets, overcoats, etc., also with ammunition and forage. What the cause of this unpardonable delay is I can not say, but certain it is, that some one is to blame, and that it is hard the army should be censured for inaction, when the most necessary supplies for their movement are withheld, or at least not promptly forwarded when called for.

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