Headquarters Army Of Potomac
Sunday evening, May 22,
18641
I don't know when I have felt so peaceful — everything goes
by contrast. We are camped, this lovely evening, in a great clover field, close
to a large, old-fashioned house, built of bricks brought from England in
ante-revolutionary times. The band is playing “Ever of Thee I'm Fondly Dreaming”
— so true and appropriate — and I have
just returned from a long talk with two ultra-Secessionist ladies who live in
the house. Don't be horrified! You would pity them to see them. One, an old
lady, lost her only son at Antietam; the other, a comparatively young person,
is plainly soon to augment the race of Rebels. Poor creature! Our cavalry raced
through here yesterday and scared her almost to death. Her eyes were red with
crying, and it was long before she fully appreciated the fact that General
Meade would not order her to instant death. To-night she has two
sentries over her property and is lost in surprise. Have I not thence obtained
the following supplies: five eggs, a pitcher of milk, two loaves of corn bread,
and a basket of lettuce — all of which I duly paid for. I feel well to-night on
other accounts. If reports from the front speak true, we have made Lee let go
his hold and fall back some miles. If true, it is a point gained and a respite
from fighting. Hancock had got away down by Milford. Warren had crossed at
Guinea Bridge and was marching to strike the telegraph road, on which the 6th
Corps was already moving in his rear. The 9th Corps would cross at Guinea
Bridge, last, and follow nearly after the 2d Corps.
We started ourselves not before noon, and crossed the shaky
little bridge over the Po-Ny (as I suppose it should be called), and so we kept
on towards Madison's Ordinary, crossing, a little before, the Ta, a nice,
large, clear brook. An “Ordinary” in Virginia seems to be what we should call a
fancy variety store, back in the country. Madison's is a wooden building, just
at cross-roads, and was all shut, barred, and deserted; and, strange to say,
had not been broken open. On the grass were strewn a quantity of old orders,
which people had sent by their negroes, to get — well, to get every conceivable
thing. I saved one or two, as curiosities, wherein people ask for quarts of
molasses, hymn-books, blue cotton, and Jaynes's pills! The 5th Corps was
passing along, as we stood there. After a while we went across the country, by
a wood road, to the church you will see south of Mrs. Tyler's. Close to
Madison's Ordinary was one of those breastworks by which this country is now
intersected. A revival of the Roman castrum, with which the troops of
both sides protect their exposed points every night. This particular one was
made by the heavy artillery, whose greenness I have already spoken of. When
they put it up the enemy threw some shells. Whereupon an officer rode back in
all haste to General Hancock, and said: “General, our breastwork is only
bullet-proof and the Rebels are shelling us!” “Killed anybody?” asked the calm
commander. “Not yet, sir,” quoth the officer. “Well, you can tell them to take
it comfortably. The Rebels often throw shells, and I am sure I cannot prevent
them.” We passed, on the wood road, some of the finest oak woods I have seen;
nothing could be finer than the foliage, for the size, fairness, and rich,
polished green of the leaves. The soil, notwithstanding, is extremely sandy and
peculiarly unfavorable to a good sod. At the church (do I call it Salem? I am
too lazy to hunt after my map; no, it is New Bethel), the 9th Corps was
marching past, and Burnside was sitting, like a comfortable abbot, in one of
the pews, surrounded by his buckish Staff whose appearance is the reverse of
clerical. Nothing can be queerer (rather touching, somehow or other) than to
see half a dozen men, of unmistakable New York bon ton, arrayed in
soldier clothes, midst this desolated country. I am glad to see that such men
have the energy to be here. They are brave and willing, though, like your hub,
their military education has been rather neglected.
And this leads me to remark that it is a crying mistake to
think, as many do, that an aide is a sort of mounted messenger — an orderly in
shoulder-straps. An aide should be a first-rate military man; and, at
least, a man of more than average intelligence and education. It is very
difficult, particularly in this kind of country, to deliver an order verbally,
in a proper and intelligent way; then you must be able to report positions and
relative directions, also roads, etc.; and in these matters you at once see how
deficient some men are, and how others have a natural turn for them. To be a
good officer requires a good man. Not one man in ten thousand is fit to command
a brigade; he should be one who would be marked anywhere as a person (in that
respect) of superior talent. Of good corps commanders I do not suppose there
are ten in this country, after our three-years' war. Of army commanders, two or
three. When we had seen enough of the 9th Corps and had found out that Hancock
had mistaken Birney's line of battle (down by Milford) for that of the enemy, —
whereat there was a laugh on the chivalric H., — we departed for the Tyler
house. In one of Burnside's regiments are a lot of Indian sharpshooters, some
full, some half-breeds. They looked as if they would like to be out of the
scrape, and I don't blame them. . . .
_______________
1 “Gen. Meade said to me at breakfast: ‘I am
afraid the rebellion cannot be crushed this summer!’” —Lyman's Journal.
SOURCE: George R. Agassiz, Editor, Meade’s
Headquarters, 1863-1865: Letters of Colonel Theodore Lyman from the Wilderness
to Appomattox, p. 118-21
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