Headquarters, Army Of Potomac
January 23, 1864
Yesterday came General Humphreys, to my great content. His
son, with Worth and myself, rode down to bid him welcome. Such a sea of mud
round Brandy Station was enough to engulf the most hardy. There is no platform
to get on; nothing but the driest spot in the mud. You should have seen the
countenances of the unfortunate officers' wives, as they surveyed, from the
height of the platform, this broad expanse of pap! Then the husband would
appear, in great excitement, and encourage them to descend, which they presently
would do, and dab across to an ambulance, seeming mutely to say, that this
wasn't quite what they expected. The neat General (who left in hard weather)
was entirely aghast, and said, in painful accents, “What! must I get down there?
Oh, the deuce!” I do believe that officers will next be trying to bring
down grand pianos. You needn't talk of coming here with “small hoops.” I have
too much respect for you to allow the shadow of such an idea. As Frank Palfrey
sensibly observed: “I think I should consider some time before I brought my
wife to a mud-hill.” . . . The whole
country, besides the mud, is now ornamented with stumps, dead horses and mules,
deserted camps, and thousands upon thousands of crows. The deserted camps (than
which nothing more desolate) come from the fact that several divisions have
lately changed position. General Meade has been seriously ill at home; but we
have a telegraph that he is much better, and I have forwarded him, for his edification,
a variety of letters, opened by me at General Williams's request.
SOURCE: George R. Agassiz, Editor, Meade’s
Headquarters, 1863-1865: Letters of Colonel Theodore Lyman from the Wilderness
to Appomattox, p. 64-5
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