George Meade, The Life and Letters of George Gordon Meade, Major-General United States Army
George Gordon Meade, Ed.

[297] army for more than twenty-seven years; had by his talents and energy steadily risen from the lowest commissioned grade to within two of the highest; and had gained his various promotions as a general officer, both in the volunteer and regular army, by his universally acknowledged skill and indomitable bravery on the field of battle. He had, at the most critical period of the war, while commanding the largest independent army in the service of the government, wrested its greatest victory from the ablest commander of the South. He had afterward commanded that same army under the very eye of General Grant, when, as the latter had said, ‘confronting the strongest and best appointed army of the South,’ led by the same renowned commander, who for the first time had been by him defeated.

No one, apparently, up to a certain point of time, had appreciated these facts more strongly than had General Grant, certainly no one could have recognized them in stronger language than he had used. In recommending General Meade for promotion while the war was still in progress, he had described him as one ‘who had more than met his most sanguine expectations’; whom he considered ‘one of the fittest officers for a large command he had come in contact with,’ and regarding whom he ‘defied any man to name a commander who would do more than he had done, with the same chances.’ And these were General Grant's pronounced opinions, to continue in his own words, ‘after a campaign the most protracted and covering more severely contested battles than any of which we have any account in history.’

In the brief campaign which took place immediately after these expressions of opinion by General Grant, which campaign ended with the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia, there had been no opportunity for any other general to show greater ability than General Meade had displayed, even assuming that another who possessed it had been present with the army; but whatever did occur in that campaign had only served to add increased lustre to the reputation of General Meade. Then, as if it had been ordained that this patriotic soldier should successfully fill every allotted sphere of duty, General Meade had just completed a trying and disagreeable tour of service in the civil administration and reconstruction of the South, which, for its firm, temperate, and wise course, will bear favorable comparison with any similar service, and which received the full approval of General Grant.

It is hard to conceive, therefore, in view of General Grant's recognition