I can only say that I have “sweltered” to-day — that is the
word; not only has it been remarkably broiling, but this region is so beclouded
with dust and smoke of burning forests, and so unrelieved by any green grass,
or water, that the heat is doubled. We have had no drop of rain for twenty
days, and but a stray shower for over a month. It is hardly necessary to say
that neither army is what it was: the loss of a large proportion of the best
officers, the nervous prostration of the men, the immense destruction of life,
all tend to injure the morale and discipline and skill of both parties. As to
the next step, I do not know; Grant is as calm and as apparently sure as ever.
I have got from the region of fighting now, to the realm of lying idle, and it
will not be so easy to fill a daily sheet. General Meade asked me to show the
Gauls somewhat about; so I clapped them on their two horses, which they had
from General Grant, and took them by easy stages to General Wright near by. The
good General was comfortably in the woods. I say comfortably, because
everything is relative. I mean he had his tents pitched and had iced water, two
important elements. He speaks no French — De Chanal no English — so they smiled
sweetly at each other. Old D. C. ought to be ashamed of himself. He married an
American wife, but, like a true Gaul, utterly refused to learn a word of
English. It is ever a part of a Frenchman's religion to speak no language but
his own. Little grasshopper Guzman chirped away and made up for two. Then Colonel
Kent rode out with us, as a matter of politeness (for I knew that part of the
line as well as he), and we showed them how our men made breastworks of rails,
logs, and earth; how they lived and cooked; and all sorts of things. After
which I took them out towards the picket line and showed them the country, and
a tract of dense, young pines, through which our men advanced in double lines —
a feat which I can never understand, but which is performed nevertheless. By
this time, both distinguished foreigners being powdered a. la marquise, I
took them home, only showing them, before coming in, one more thing, only too
characteristic of our war — the peculiar graves of our soldiers, marked each by
a piece of cracker-box, with the man's name in pencil, or hastily cut with a
knife. I recollect sitting on the high bank of the Rapid Ann, at Germanna Ford,
and watching the 5th and 6th Corps as they marched up from the pontoon bridges;
and I remember thinking how strange it would be if each man who was destined to
fall in the campaign had some large badge on! There would have been Generals
Sedgwick, Wadsworth, and Rice, and what crowds of subordinate officers and of
privates, all marching gaily along, unconscious, happily, of their fate.
SOURCE: George R. Agassiz, Editor, Meade’s
Headquarters, 1863-1865: Letters of Colonel Theodore Lyman from the Wilderness
to Appomattox, p. 178-80
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