Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Major-General George G. Meade to Margaretta Sergeant Meade, April 20, 1865

Headquarters Army Of The Potomac, April 20, 1865.

I am glad you were so prompt in putting your house in mourning for the loss of the President, and I am also glad to see the press in Philadelphia take so much notice of you.

Lyman,1 much to my sorrow and regret, leaves me to-day, he considering the destruction of Lee's army as justifying his return home. Lyman is such a good fellow, and has been so intimately connected personally with me, that I feel his separation as the loss of an old and valued friend.

I have had for the last two days as guest at my headquarters Mr. Charles J. Faulkner, late Minister to France. He is on his way to Richmond, to assist in bringing back Virginia to the Union. He acknowledges the Confederacy destroyed, is in favor of a convention of the people to rescind the ordinance of secession, abolish slavery, and ask to be received into the Union. This is in my judgment the best course to be pursued. Mr. Faulkner goes from here to Richmond. We also had yesterday the arrival of a Confederate officer from Danville, who reported the rumored surrender of Johnston, and the flight of Jeff. Davis to the region beyond the Mississippi, from whence I have no doubt he will go into Mexico, and thence to Europe.
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1 Theodore Lyman, aide-de-camp to General Meade.

SOURCE: George Meade, The Life and Letters of George Gordon Meade, Vol. 2, p. 274

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