Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Major-General George G. Meade to Margaretta Sergeant Mead, August 9, 1863


Sunday, August 9, 1863.

General Crawford, commanding Pennsylvania Reserves, has notified me that the sword which they desire to present me with is ready, and asked me to allow an officer to go to Philadelphia to get it, and make the necessary arrangements, which I have done; so this affair of long standing will soon come off.

I note what you say reports as the secession talk of New York; the same thing has been said in the Times, Tribune and Herald; but I was ahead of all these gentlemen, as in the despatch I sent General Halleck, urging to be permitted to advance, I told him that in my judgment, reasoning from the past, and in view of the power hitherto exercised over the people of the Confederacy, and the fertility of resources exhibited by them, I was of the opinion delay would be more advantageous to the enemy than to us, and that Lee would be reinforced more rapidly than I would be. Every day confirms me in this view. Up to the present time they have taken from this army over twenty regiments, between eight and ten thousand men, and as yet have sent only one hundred and twenty miserable creatures, substitutes for drafted men, to a Pennsylvania regiment; a dozen of whom it is already ascertained were discharged from old regiments for physical disability; four of them had delirium tremens the day they joined, and several have already deserted. Such worthless material, as these men, are no addition to this army, but only a clog, and if the draft is not heartily responded to, the Government had better make up its mind to letting the South go. Don't misunderstand me; I am nothing of a copperhead. I am for a vigorous prosecution of the war; but the war cannot be prosecuted with any hope of success, not only without men, but a great many willing men; men who have their hearts in the business and who are determined to fight and to conquer, or die. I have had Warren made a major general, and George's friend, Colonel Ganard, a brigadier.

SOURCE: George Meade, The Life and Letters of George Gordon Meade, Vol. 2, p. 142-3

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