Sunday, August 9,
1863.
General Crawford, commanding Pennsylvania Reserves, has
notified me that the sword which they desire to present me with is ready, and
asked me to allow an officer to go to Philadelphia to get it, and make the
necessary arrangements, which I have done; so this affair of long standing will
soon come off.
I note what you say reports as the secession talk of New York;
the same thing has been said in the Times, Tribune and Herald; but
I was ahead of all these gentlemen, as in the despatch I sent General Halleck,
urging to be permitted to advance, I told him that in my judgment, reasoning
from the past, and in view of the power hitherto exercised over the people of
the Confederacy, and the fertility of resources exhibited by them, I was of the
opinion delay would be more advantageous to the enemy than to us, and that Lee
would be reinforced more rapidly than I would be. Every day confirms me in this
view. Up to the present time they have taken from this army over twenty
regiments, between eight and ten thousand men, and as yet have sent only one
hundred and twenty miserable creatures, substitutes for drafted men, to a
Pennsylvania regiment; a dozen of whom it is already ascertained were
discharged from old regiments for physical disability; four of them had
delirium tremens the day they joined, and several have already deserted. Such
worthless material, as these men, are no addition to this army, but only a
clog, and if the draft is not heartily responded to, the Government had better
make up its mind to letting the South go. Don't misunderstand me; I am nothing
of a copperhead. I am for a vigorous prosecution of the war; but the war cannot
be prosecuted with any hope of success, not only without men, but a great many willing
men; men who have their hearts in the business and who are determined to
fight and to conquer, or die. I have had Warren made a major general, and
George's friend, Colonel Ganard, a brigadier.
SOURCE: George Meade, The Life and Letters of George
Gordon Meade, Vol. 2, p. 142-3
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