CAMP NEAR SHARPSBURG, September
27,1862.
I have received your letters of the 20th and 23d. In the
latter you had received my
pencil note of the 18th, and were aware of my success and promotion, which
I must say you take in the most humble manner and pretty much as if it were no
more than you expected. In regard to my newspaper fame, I agree with you, that
when wounded I was over-advertised; but this time not a single paper yet
has announced that on the battle-field I was selected to command a corps
d'armee, in place of Hooker, which fact, after all, is the greatest feather
in my cap. Hooker has received his reward, having been appointed a brigadier
general in the regular army, in place of Mansfield, killed in battle.
I don't think I ever told you about Master John1
at Bull Run, on the first day's fighting. He came on a part of the field, with
my spare horse and some cigars for me. On arriving where the balls were flying,
John's courage oozed out, and he declined proceeding any farther, but gave the
cigars to an orderly to bring to me in the advance. On his return, the orderly
could not find him, and I never saw anything of John or the horse till we got
to Arlington Heights, when he presented himself and said that he heard I was
cut off and a prisoner, and he had gone to Alexandria to save the horse for the
family. I charged him with, and he frankly acknowledged his cowardice. I
sent for a file of men, intending to have him drummed out of camp as a coward;
but he begged so piteously I let him off, and since then he has behaved pretty
well. Still, no reliance is to be placed on him at the very moment when his
services are most needed, and I intend to let him go as soon as I can get some
one to take his place.
__________
1 General Meade's body-servant.
SOURCE: George Meade, The Life and Letters of George
Gordon Meade, Vol. 1, p. 314
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