Headquarters Army Of Potomac
November 15,
1863
Yesterday the General made a start at six A.M. for
Washington, taking with him Major Biddle, Captain Meade, and Captain Mitchell,
and suppose he will perhaps get back to-morrow. A little before one o'clock
came a telegraph that four officers of the "Ghords" were coming in
the train, and that we were to send an officer, with ten men, also four led
horses, to bring them up. So Major Barstow asked if I would go, whereat, there
being nothing to do, I said I would. It is about eight miles to Bealton, the
nearest place the railroad runs to, and, by making haste a little, we got there
by two o'clock, and the train came a few minutes after. And there, sure enough,
were four gents, much braided and striped, who were the parties in question:
viz., Lieutenant-Colonel Earle, and Lord Castle Cuff (Grenadier Guards),
Captain Peel and Captain Stephenson (Scotch Fusiliers). This was the best lot
of Bulls I have seen for a long time. The nobile Lord is, I should say, about
sixteen, and, with his cap off, is as perfect a specimen of a Pat as you ever
saw; but he is manly, and not so green as many I have seen of double his age.
Colonel Earle is extremely quiet and well mannered, and was down here in
Burnside's time. Captain Stephenson is in the beefy style, and Captain Peel
(son of Sir Robert) is of the black order; but both have free use of their legs
and tongues, a remarkable phenomenon in a Bull. We put them on horses, where
they were well at home, except they would persist in trying to rise to the trot
in a McClellan saddle, which is next to impossible. We had to cross the river,
close to the railroad, where I showed them the work they took last Saturday; at
which they remarked: “Oh! Ah! A nasty place, a very nasty place!” Then
we rode to Headquarters, just in time to avoid a heavy rain, which continued
much of the night. To-day we have lain quiet; but this evening we took them
over to see Captain Sleeper, 9th Massachusetts Battery. The Colonel was very
inquisitive about artillery, whereupon the enthusiastic Sleeper had a newly
contrived shell, which was loaded, suddenly brought into the tent! The great
improvement in the shell seemed to be that it was bound to go off, somehow; so
that there was a marked nervousness about him of the Guards, as the Captain poked
and twisted the projectile, to illustrate its manifold virtues! . . .
SOURCE: George R. Agassiz, Editor, Meade’s
Headquarters, 1863-1865: Letters of Colonel Theodore Lyman from the Wilderness
to Appomattox, p. 48-9
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