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Updated: June 2, 2025
The Federal forces had been driven from the ground north and west of Gettysburg, but it was seen now that the troops thus defeated constituted only a small portion of General Meade's army, and Lee had no means of ascertaining, with any degree of certainty, that the main body was not near at hand.
We two then mounted and joined him, while our staff-officers followed, intermingling with those of the general-in-chief as the cavalcade took its way to McLean's house near by, and where General Lee had arrived some time before, in consequence of a message from General Grant consenting to the interview asked for by Lee through Meade's front that morning the consent having been carried by Colonel Babcock.
I tried to make General Meade's position as nearly as possible what it would have been if I had been in Washington or any other place away from his command. I therefore gave all orders for the movements of the Army of the Potomac to Meade to have them executed.
When all was ready the signal gun was fired, and almost simultaneously one hundred and fifty guns belched forth upon the enemy's works, which challenge was readily accepted by Meade's cannoneers, and two hundred shrieking shells made answer to the Confederate's salute.
Then we're going to turn our talking machines loose." From the top of the low cliff came Tom Meade's drawling voice: "Oh, I say, friends!" Startled, all below glanced quickly upward. "There seems to be trouble down there," Tom suggested. "There sure is," nodded one of the armed men with the automobile party. "Now, it's too glorious a day to spoil it with fighting," Reade went on.
On the 19th I received a copy of War Department Special Order No. 239, Adjutant-General's office, of May 18th, ordering a grand review, by the President and cabinet, of all the armies then near Washington; General Meade's to occur on Tuesday, May 23d, mine on Wednesday, the 24th; and on the 20th I made the necessary orders for my part. The day was beautiful, and the pageant was superb.
These victories, coming together as they did and on the 4th of July, made the national anniversary seem more than ever a day of rejoicing and of hope to the whole people. We did not get the news of Grant's victory quite so soon as that of Meade's, but it came to us at Cincinnati in a way to excite peculiar enthusiasm.
He met him with General John Gibbon and two aides a few yards from the door, and making his brief report learned as he moved away that there was some trouble on the left wing. Meade coming out with Hancock, they mounted and rode away in haste, too late to correct General Sickles' unfortunate decision to improve General Meade's battle-line.
Soon after taking command of our corps, the famous charge upon Fredericksburgh Heights was made, in which both the corps and its commander acquired lasting renown. General Sedgwick was especially commended by General Meade for the manner in which he handled his corps at Rappahannock Station, and, in General Meade's absence, he was several times in command of the army.
The idea as here outlined was contrary to Meade's convictions, for though at different times since he commanded the Army of the Potomac considerable bodies of the cavalry had been massed for some special occasion, yet he had never agreed to the plan as a permanency, and could not be bent to it now.
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