replied by an offer to resign his command. This Mr. Lincoln did not
accept. Yet he was too sorely pained not to give vent to words which in
fact if not in form conveyed severe censure. He was also displeased
because Meade, in general orders, spoke of "driving the invaders from
our soil;" as if the whole country was not "_our soil_"! Under the
influence of so much provocation, he wrote to General Meade a letter
reproduced from the manuscript by Messrs. Nicolay and Hay. It is true
that on cooler reflection he refrained from sending this missive, but it
is in itself sufficiently interesting to deserve reading:--"I have just
seen your dispatch to General Halleck, asking to be relieved of your
command because of a supposed censure of mine. I am very grateful to you
for the magnificent success you gave the cause of the country at
Gettysburg; and I am sorry now to be the author of the slightest pain to
you. But I was in such deep distress myself that I could not restrain
some expression of it. I have been oppressed nearly ever since the
battle of Gettysburg by what appeared to be evidences that yourself and
General Couch and General Smith were not seeking a collision with the
enemy, but were trying to get him across the river without another
battle. What these evidences were, if you please, I hope to tell you at
some time when we shall both feel better. The case, summarily stated, is
this: You fought and beat the enemy at Gettysburg; and, of course, to
say the least, his loss was as great as yours. He retreated; and you did
not, as it seemed to me, pressingly pursue him; but a flood in the river
detained him till, by slow degrees, you were again upon him. You had at
least twenty thousand veteran troops directly with you, and as many more
raw ones within supporting distance, all in addition to those who fought
with you at Gettysburg, while it was not possible that he had received a
single recruit; and yet you stood and let the flood run down, bridges be
built, and the enemy move away at his leisure without attacking him. And
Couch and Smith,--the latter left Carlisle in time, upon all ordinary