CAMP NEAR FALMOUTH, VA.,
April 20, 1863.
I can see by the public journals that the navy are in the
affair at Charleston about to imitate the bad example of the army by squabbling
among themselves after a battle with greater energy than they display fighting
the enemy. DuPont will undoubtedly have to bear the brunt of the failure at
Charleston, but as I see the Tribune most warmly and energetically
espouses his cause, I presume he is all safe. I never had any idea the
ironclads would be able to do much more than they did. They are simply able to
stand fire, but have no more offensive power, indeed not as much as ordinary
vessels of war.
I see Seymour has been sent by Hunter to endeavor to have
countermanded the order sending the ironclads to the Mississippi. This order,
if ever given, was in my judgment very injudicious, for these vessels will be
of no use on that river in reducing the works of Vicksburg and Port Hudson. The
only service they can be put to there would be to patrol the river between the
two places, and prevent supplies to the rebels from the Red River Country.
Yesterday the Richmond papers announced the fall of Suffolk,
and we were all pretty blue; but this morning we have a telegram from General
Peck reporting that he has stormed and carried a battery of six guns that the
enemy had built, and had captured a portion of an Alabama regiment that was
defending it. This is great news, not so much for the actual amount of the
success, as for the facts — first, that it is the reverse of what the rebels had
reported, and, second, because it is the first time in this war that our troops
have carried a battery in position at the point of the bayonet, an example, I
trust, will be speedily and often imitated by us.
Day before yesterday, I was astonished at receiving a very
beautiful bouquet of flowers, which had attached to it a card on which was
written, “With the compliments of Mrs. A. Lincoln.” At first I was very much
tickled, and my vanity insinuated that my fine appearance had taken Mrs.
L’s eye and that my fortune was made. This delusion, however, was speedily
dissolved by the orderly who brought the bouquet inquiring the road to General
Griffin's and Sykes's quarters, when I ascertained that all the principal
generals had been similarly honored.
I understand George1 joined his regiment up the
river, the day after he arrived. He went up in a violent storm.
___________
1 Son of General Meade.
SOURCE: George Meade, The Life and Letters of George
Gordon Meade, Vol. 1, p. 367-8
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