Headquarters
Army Of The Potomac, December 7, 1863.
I am yet on the anxious bench; not one word has been vouchsafed me from
Washington. To-day I have sent in my official report, in which I have told the
plain truth, acknowledged the movement was a failure, but claimed the causes
were not in my plans, but in the want of support and co-operation on the part
of subordinates.1 I don't know whether my report will be published,
but if it is, it will make a sensation, and undoubtedly result in some official
investigation. I have received a very kind letter from Cortlandt Parker
(written before he had received yours), in which he sympathizes with me in the
failure, but says he is satisfied I have done right, and that I have not lost
the confidence of intelligent people, and he hopes I will not resign, but hold
on till the last. I have also received a very kind and complimentary letter
from Gibbon, saying he had as much confidence as ever in my ability to command,
and that military men would sustain me. I telegraphed General Halleck that I
desired to visit Washington, but his reply was couched in such terms that,
though it gave me permission to go, clearly intimated that my presence was not
desired, so far as he was concerned. I have in consequence not gone, and now
shall not go unless they send for me.
I see the Herald is constantly harping on the assertion that
Gettysburg was fought by the corps commanders and the common soldiers, and that
no generalship was displayed. I suppose after awhile it will be discovered I
was not at Gettysburg at all.
_______________
1 Official Records, serial No. 48, p. 8.
SOURCE: George Meade, The Life and Letters of George
Gordon Meade, Vol. 2, p. 160
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