Headquarters Army Of Potomac
October 4, '63
We have sad cases come here sometimes. Yesterday there was a
poor farmer, that filled me with admiration. He had travelled a thousand miles from
his place in Indiana to get the body of his only son, killed in our cavalry skirmish
of the 13th September. “I am most wore out,” said he, “runnin' round; but the
ambulance has gone over to that piece of woods, after him. And that old hoss,
that was his; the one he was sitting on, when he was shot; she ain't
worth more than fifty dollars, but I wouldn't take a thousand for her, and I am
going to take her home to Indiana.” So you see that bullets fired here may hit
poor folks away in the West. To-day is a Sunday, which is marked by General
"Seth" shutting up shop and obstinately refusing to talk with sundry
officers who deem it a good leisure day to go over and consult on their private
interests. “Sir!” says “Seth” (who cuts off his words and lisps them, and
swallows them, and has the true Yankee accent into the bargain), “Sir! The
Pres'dent of these 'Nited States has issued a procl'mation, saying nothing
should be done Sundays; and Gen'l Merklellan did the same, and so did Gen'l
Hooker; and you wanter talk business, you've got er come week days.” “The
Father of the Army” is also much exercised with people who want leaves of
absence. “Now here's a feller,” he cries (“feller” means officer), “here's a
feller that wants to go because he wants to git married; and here's another who
wants to go because he has just been married; and here's a feller asks
for three days to go to Washington and buy a pair of spectacles!”
Notwithstanding his trials, he gets quite stout on it, and preserves the same
unruffled countenance.
SOURCE: George R. Agassiz, Editor, Meade’s
Headquarters, 1863-1865: Letters of Colonel Theodore Lyman from the Wilderness
to Appomattox, p. 28
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