CAMP OPPOSITE
FREDERICKSBURG, December 31, 1862.
Your kind letter, dated Christmas, was received yesterday,
and I am very much obliged to you for your affectionate remembrance of me. You
say truly, we have a great deal to be thankful for, and when we consider the
distress and mourning that is around us, our hearts ought to be filled with
gratitude for the mercy that has been extended.
John1 is very much pleased at George's2
being here, and takes great interest in all that relates to him. George has
taken a great fancy to a little black mare I have, belonging to the Government,
which he has given me various hints he thought I might buy and present to him,
and in this little scheme to diminish my finances to the tune of one hundred
and twenty dollars, he has the hearty co-operation of Master John, who
regularly informs me every morning he thinks the boy ought to have the black
mare.
I have sent George's name to the President for appointment
as one of my aides, with the rank of captain.
To-day is my wedding and birthday. To-day I enter on the
forty-seventh year of my life and the twenty-third of my wedded existence. I
had hoped to spend this day with your dear mother and my darling children, but
my promotion to the Fifth Corps and the number of generals that have been sent
to testify before the Porter and McDowell courts have prevented my getting
away. Should it be decided the army is to go into winter quarters, I may yet
have a chance, though I hardly have much hope.
__________
1 General Meade's body-servant.
2 Son of General Meade.
SOURCE: George Meade, The Life and Letters of George
Gordon Meade, Vol. 1, p. 343-4
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