Colonel Charles Russell Lowell to Josephine Shaw, July 7, 1863

Camp On Seneca Creek, July 7, 1863.

Don't you wish that your Colonel was one who belonged to the Army of the Potomac? He does, I'm sure. We haven't seen the papers since Sunday, but we have scraps of news by telegraph and by messengers, and, as far as we can learn, Lee is in full retreat and Meade in hot pursuit: they say even that the pontoons at Shepardstown (if there were any there) have been destroyed by a column from Frederick: if so, we are likely to make the defeat a rout. Beyond the natural rejoicing at so great a victory to our arms, the circumstances under which this fight was won make it doubly acceptable: a defeat would have forced the Administration to take back McClellan, and, as a citizen, I should have regarded that as very unfortunate, — a victory under Hooker might have been almost as bad as a defeat.

But Meade is a good man and a modest man, — his head will not be turned, — and furthermore, he having been so short a time in command, I think that, while due credit is given to him for skilful disposition and for pluck, we may yet without injustice attribute something more to Fortune, and much more to the Army itself, than we should have been disposed to, had Meade's command been even a week older. How do you adapt this victory to your theory, — do you give up the theory, or do you expound the victory as an indication that we have been sufficiently humiliated, have mended our ways and are now all right? I hope people in general will not take the latter view, for it seems to me that this is only the beginning of our real danger, and that it is going to be more difficult to use victories than to bear defeats. Oh, I can't help often wishing that the times were not quite so much out of joint. Will and I were counting over the “satisfactory” people of our acquaintance, the other day, and very few they were: it seems to me that this change in public affairs has entirely changed my standard, and that men whom two years ago I should have almost accepted as satisfactory, now show lamentably deficient: men do not yet seem to have risen with the occasion, and the perpetual perception of this is uncomfortable.

SOURCE: Edward Waldo Emerson, Life and Letters of Charles Russell Lowell, p. 273-5