CAMP OPPOSITE
FREDERICKSBURG, June 3, 1862.
Everything is very quiet in this vicinity; all reports of
the approach of the enemy seem to have subsided. The news of the attempt to
break through McClellan's line is looked upon as favorable, inasmuch as the
attacking party, having the selection of time and place, could and should have concentrated
superior numbers; their failure to succeed proves either their weakness or our
superior prowess.1 I have no doubt McClellan has been most urgently
demanding reinforcements, and that he looked with the greatest anxiety for
McDowell's support. Indeed, his movement on Hanover Court House plainly
indicated his expectation and desire to hasten the opening of communication
with McDowell. I must do the latter the justice to say that he has all along
seen the false position he was in, and has been most anxious to join McClellan,
and was as much annoyed as any one when he was ordered to return to Banks's
aid. The evacuation of Corinth is unintelligible to me, unless the approach of
the gunboats towards Memphis and the destruction of the bridge on the Mobile
and Corinth Road by Colonel Ellicott, proved to Beauregard that his
communications were in danger and starvation threatened him.
I see an order just published, placing all the troops east
of the Fredericksburg and Richmond Railroad, and those at Old Point, again
under McClellan's command. This is a retrograde step in the right direction,
and will enable him to control our movements and those of General Dix (who goes
to Fortress Monroe), and make them harmonize with his own. If McDowell can only
defeat and capture Jackson, and return here in time to advance on Richmond, Dix
go up the James or Appomattox River and seize Petersburg, we will have them in
a pretty tight place, and one victory in our favor would settle the campaign.
As it is, scattered and divided, no one can tell what will happen or what
combinations occur.
__________
1 Battle of Fair Oaks or Seven Pines, Va., May 31
to June 1, 1862.
SOURCE: George Meade, The Life and Letters of George
Gordon Meade, Vol. 1, p. 271
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