A year after Gettysburg, General Meade reflected on his great victory in a letter to his wife. From The Life and Letters of George Gordon Meade … (page 210):
HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE POTOMAC, July 3. 1864.
We are not doing much at present; the great heat and the dust, together with the exhausted condition of the men, imposed a quiet on us which the enemy does not seem disposed to disturb.
1864 sheet music
To-day is the anniversary of the last day’s fight at Gettysburg. As I reflect on that eventful period, and all that has elapsed since, I have reason to be satisfied with my course, and cause to be most thankful. The longer this war continues the more will Gettysburg and its results be appreciated. Colonel de Chanal, who is still with me, says he studied the battle, with maps at Pau, but had no idea that on its anniversary he should be the guest of the victorious commander. He says that in Europe it was looked on as a great battle.
It is said that Washington is very unhealthy, and that many of our wounded are dying there. It is strange; the health of the army never was better – we have no sickness at all. But if we are kept here, I presume, as the summer advances, we must expect considerable sickness.
The July 1,2,3 thing usually wakes me up every year, so it’s not surprising that General Meade would be very aware of the anniversary. I was surprised that his antagonist in the battle, Robert Lee, was on the cover of the July 2, 1864 issue of Harper’s Weekly, which was pretty much pro-Union, pro-war, and pro-Lincoln. The paper gave the Confederate grudging admiration as “unquestionably a consummate master of the art of war. That superiority, indeed, was acquired at the expense and under the patronage of the Government he is now endeavoring to destroy; but this does not alter the fact.” Harper’s might have been trying to explain how General Grant and over 100,000 Union troops couldn’t beat Lee and his army after two months of an intense campaign, but the timing seems ironic on the anniversary of one of Lee’s big defeats.
You can see the image and read the bio at Son of the South
“An incident of Gettysburg – the last thought of a dying father” (Frank Leslie’s 1-2-1864)
