Headquarters Army Of Potomac
December 10, '63
All the officers are inclined to be petulant and touchy, for
they think that winter quarters are coming and are all stretching out for “leaves,”
which they know only a part can get. Major Biddle becomes quite irate over the
subject. “Now there is General Webb has a ten-day leave,” says B. petulantly; “every
corps is to give one general a ten-day leave. I don't want any little ten-day
leave; I want a decent leave; a sixty-day leave. I have been two years and a
half in this army, and never had but seven days’ leave, except once when I was
sick; and it isn't any fun to be sick. If we are going into winter quarters,
one third of this army can do what is necessary, just as well as the whole; and
they might as well be liberal to us. It is too bad! really too bad!” Such
discoveries of patriotic services as the officers now make, to back up their
applications, are miraculous. They have all been in service since the First
Bull Run (the Genesis of the Potomac Army); they have all been wounded six
times; they have never been absent a single day; their wives are very sick;
their mothers are not expected to live; and they can easily bring back fifty
volunteers with them, to fill up their regiment! All of which General Williams
receives with the blandest smile, as if he had never before heard of so strong
a case, and promises to refer it to General Meade, which indeed he does.
Meanwhile the rattling of axes is heard on all sides, and villages of little
log huts, with canvas roofs, spring into existence in a single night. General
Ingalls asked if the troops could have permission to build huts: to which the
Major-General commanding replied, with charming non-committal. “Build huts;
certainly; why not? They can move from huts as well as from tents, can't they?”
I observe the papers continue to discuss the succession of the General. He
himself thinks he will be relieved, but I doubt it. If for no other reason,
because it is hard to find anyone for the post. General Sedgwick would, I
think, refuse; General Warren is very young, and is, besides, under a cloud
about his movement on our left. General Sickles, people would say, is too much
of a Bowery boy. Generals French, Newton, and Sykes are out of the question.
General Humphreys has no influence strong enough to put him up. Any subordinate
general would have to be of great note to be lifted thus high; there is no such
one. I think they would not try a western general, after Pope's experience. The
only one I can think of is Hancock, for a long while laid up by his Gettysburg
wound, and not yet in the field. He belongs in this army, is popular, and has
an excellent name. The New York Herald insists on General Pleasonton,
which is an original idea. I heard of an officer who asserted that he
had seen the order putting him in command; a rather unlikely assertion.
SOURCE: George R. Agassiz, Editor, Meade’s
Headquarters, 1863-1865: Letters of Colonel Theodore Lyman from the Wilderness
to Appomattox, p. 59-60
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