Busy when out of the Department in collecting materials and
framing the skeleton outlines of my Annual Report. Shall be so occupied for a
few weeks to the neglect of my journal, which usually consumes a late evening
hour, after company has gone and other labors of the day are laid aside. But
the details of an annual report require personal labor and investigation which
I cannot delegate to another without revision and my own examination. This
takes all my time and really overtaxes me, with current duties.
There was little of interest to-day at the Cabinet. Seward,
Chase, and Stanton were absent. Stanton, I am told, has gone to Tennessee.
Lee with his army has disappeared from the front. It is
reported that he has torn up the rails and destroyed the bridges as he has
disappeared. Meade, we are told, is in pursuit, and the press and others give
him great credit for strategy; that is, he knows not what to do, and the papers
and correspondents don't know that fact, — this is strategy. He will not
overtake Lee if he wants to.
I met General Sickles at the President's to-day. When I went
in, the President was asking if Hancock did not select the battle-ground at
Gettysburg. Sickles said he did not, but that General Howard and perhaps
himself, were more entitled to that credit than any others. He then detailed
particulars, making himself, however, much more conspicuous than Howard, who
was really used as a set-off. The narrative was, in effect, that General Howard
had taken possession of the heights and occupied the Cemetery on Wednesday, the 1st. He, Sickles, arrived
later, between five and six p.m., and liked the position. General Meade arrived
on the ground soon after, and was for abandoning the position and falling back.
A council was called; Meade was earnest; Sickles left, but wrote Meade his
decided opinion in favor of maintaining the position, which was finally agreed
to against Meade's judgment.
Allowance must always be made for Sickles when he is
interested, but his representations confirm my impressions of Meade, who means
well, and, in his true position, that of a secondary commander, is more of a
man than Sickles represents him, — can obey orders and carry out orders better
than he can originate and give them, hesitates, defers to others, has not
strength, will, and self-reliance. My impressions in regard to the late
movement by Lee in front are strengthened. Meade's falling back was a weakness.
The movement on the part of Lee was a feint to cover his design of sending off
troops to some other point, — I think Chattanooga, — where the Rebels are
concentrating and the information received to-day that he is destroying the
roads as he retreats confirms my opinion. We shall soon learn whether this strategy
is Meade's or Lee's. It is now asserted that Meade retreated before one
division of Lee's army. This is probably a caricature rumor, and yet perhaps
not much exaggeration. Others do not listen to my conjecture that more troops
have gone to Chattanooga, yet it is strongly impressed upon me. The Rebels
can't afford to be defeated there. Jeff Davis has gone there, and there they
must make a stand.
SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles,
Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30,
1864, p. 472-3
