Poolesville, July 3, A. M.
You ask me what I know of Meade, and to write something
comforting. I have seen a good deal of Meade at various times, and though I do not
think him a great man at all, I believe him to be brave and judicious, — he is
a soldier and a good man, and not an adventurer like , and I am sure the morale
of the Army, so far as the officers are concerned, will improve under him.1
Anything immediately comfortable in our affairs I don't see, but comfortable
times are not the ones that make a people great, — see what too much comfort
has reduced the Philadelphians to. Honestly, I dare scarcely wish that the war
should end speedily, — but I still feel more than ever as if their concern were
getting more and more brittle, and might go to pieces in a month, if we
could gain one or two successes: we know that one or two disasters, so far from
breaking us up, would only strengthen our determination to do our work
thoroughly. If there is any fight in the Army of the Potomac, I think Lee's
position not a very formidable one: I am more afraid now that we shall be
tempted to move up against him and that he will slip by our left into
Washington, — however, I know nothing of what is being done.
_______________
1 Major-General George G. Meade had just been
appointed to the command of the Army of the Potomac, vice Hooker
resigned, a position which he kept until the end of the war, though, in its
last year, acting immediately under the orders of General Grant, who was with
that army in the field.
SOURCE: Edward Waldo Emerson, Life and Letters of
Charles Russell Lowell, p. 271-2, 429
No comments:
Post a Comment