CAMP OPPOSITE
FREDERICKSBURG, VA., December 17, 1862.
I wrote to you yesterday, giving a short account of the
battle of the 13th, and my share of the same. You must, however, look to the
newspapers for the details, although as usual they seem to ignore the Pennsylvania
Reserves, except the New York Herald, which I understand says that we
ran scandalously at the first fire of the enemy. This is the harder, because I
saw the Herald correspondent on the field, and he might have known and
indeed did know better. What his object in thus falsifying facts was I cannot
imagine, but I would advise him not to show himself in our camp if he values
his skin, for the men could not be restrained from tarring and feathering him.
I believe I told you that yesterday I wrote to Burnside, officially informing
him I had received my appointment as major general. To-day I went to see him to
ascertain if there was any chance of my slipping away for a few days. He said
he would be glad to let me go, but that he proposed to give me the Fifth Corps,
now commanded by Butterfield. I told him, in that case I did not want to go. He
said the order would have been issued to-day, but that Hooker (in whose grand
division the Fifth is) objected to a change of commander in the midst of active
operations. I expressed great surprise at this, and referred to Hooker having
urged my assignment to his corps on the field of battle, and spoke of the
letter he had written to Halleck urging my promotion. Burnside said Hooker had
explicitly remarked his opposition was not personal to me, for he considered me
one of the most splendid soldiers in the army; but it was on the
principle of not changing commanders alone that he objected. Burnside finally
said he was going up to see Halleck, and unless he ascertained they were going
to send someone senior to me, he should put me there, and all that he regretted
now was that I had not been in command of it the other day. More than this I
could not ask.
I have received your letter by Clem. Barclay. Poor fellow,
he did not know till his arrival that his nephew (Dr. B.'s of the navy's son)
was killed in Chapman Biddle's regiment. This regiment behaved very well and
did good service. You will probably see Alexander Coxe in Philadelphia. I sent
him up to Washington with the bodies of Dehon and General Jackson, and told
him, after turning them over to their relatives, he might run up to
Philadelphia for a few days. He will tell you all about the fight.
SOURCE: George Meade, The Life and Letters of George
Gordon Meade, Vol. 1, p. 338-9
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