Headquarters Army of The Potomac, September 16, 1864.
Enclosed is a receipt of Adams & Co.’s Express for a small
box containing the beautiful pistol presented to me by the New York
Metropolitan Fair, which I send home for safe-keeping.
Yesterday General Grant took his departure, and to-day my
ill luck has brought a rebel cavalry raid, in which they dashed into our lines
and succeeded in driving off about two thousand head of cattle that had been,
contrary to my judgment, sent down the James River for grazing, to a point just
inside our cavalry pickets, and where they were exposed at any moment to be run
off, as they have been by a coup-de-main. Grant's absence, and the usual
friendly spirit of the press, will undoubtedly attribute this loss to my
negligence, and I really had as much to do with it as you had, except that I
had called attention to the danger of having the cattle there. The cattle were
not under my control, or that of my commissary, but under a commissary serving
on Grant's staff.
I have this evening a letter from Mr. Cropsey, asking
permission to return to the army. I do not altogether like its tone or spirit,
but shall not take any other notice of it than to send him a pass.
SOURCE: George Meade, The Life and Letters of George
Gordon Meade, Vol. 2, p. 228
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