Camp At Aldie, Va., June 23, 1863.
Yesterday General Pleasanton drove the enemy's cavalry
across what is called the Loudoun Valley, or the valley formed by the South
Mountain and Bull Run Mountains. He did not find any infantry in Loudoun
Valley, and reports Lee's army about Winchester, in the Valley of the
Shenandoah, and that A. P. Hill, whom we left at Fredericksburg, is coming up
the valley to join Lee. When Hill joins Lee, he will have a large army,
numerically much superior to ours, and he will then, I presume, develop his
plans.
I have seen a paper now and then, and have been greatly
amused at the evident fears of the good people of the North, and the utter want
of proper spirit in the measures proposed to be taken. I did think at first
that the rebels crossing the line would result in benefit to our cause, by
arousing the people to a sense of the necessity of raising men to fill their
armies to defend the frontier, and that the Government would take advantage of
the excitement to insist on the execution of the enrollment bill; but when I
see the President calling out six months' men, and see the troops at
Harrisburg refusing to be mustered in for fear they may be kept six months in
service, I give up in despair. I hope it will turn out better, and we have been
disappointed so many times when we had reason to look for success, it may be,
now that we are preparing for a reverse, we may suddenly find ourselves in
luck.
This is a beautiful country where I am now encamped. It is
right on the Bull Run Mountains, which, though not very high, yet are sufficiently
so to give effect to the scenery and purify the air. Charles F. Mercer lived in
Aldie; President Monroe's estate was here, and the mansion of the old Berkeley
family, showing that in old times it was the abode of the aristocracy. It is a
great contrast to the arid region around Fredericksburg that we left.
SOURCE: George Meade, The Life and Letters of George
Gordon Meade, Vol. 1, p. 386-7
