15pp    To Frank W Ballard Esq No 100 Broadway, New York

 

 

Washington D.C. March 27^th 1864

 

Dear Ballard

                        Yours of yesterday is just received. I am sorry that Fremont intends to run as a separate candidate as it endagers the success of the Union ticket. Events are passing very rapidly however and many political changes will take place in the next three months. I have no hesitation in saying that in my opinion Genl. Banks is to be our next President. As you say there is little choice between him and L.

 

            The article in the Tribune disturbed my equanimity very little. Before referring to it I wish to remark that I enclose the proceedings of Court Martial in the case of Lieut. Potter. The passages marked I think will excite your unmitigated disgust. This man is sent back to the Army to associate with gentlemen on an equal footing.

 

            And now as regards the article in question / It may be very true that if Genl Meade is a competent officer I am incompetent for we differ widely in our theory of war, he being always in favor of a timid defensive policy and I of a bold attacking one.

 

            Most officers of the Army upon leaving West Point previous to this war confined their military studies to the tactics of the arm of service to which they were assigned. Very, very few interested themselves as to grand tactics, strategy and the duties of General officers for the simple reason that such was the slow rate of promotion that no one expected to attain even the rank of Colonel under sev enty. It is true they studied a few chapters at West Point in relation to these subjects but never expecting to put the information thus gained in practice they attached comparatively little importance to the information knowledge thus hastily acquired. All the best books on military subjects come from France and are very expensive owing to the immense number of copperplate engravings necessary to illustrate the / different phases of each battle. The works of a single writer (Jomini) alone can hardly be bought under $90.00 and a respectable military Library cost between $300 and $400 a large sum to come out of a Lieutenants pay. For these reasons very few Officers of the Army have made a speciality of the higher branches of the Science of War. Nor are there many officers who have kept up such an intimate knowledge of the French language as to read without great labor military works written in that language. Now I read both French and Spanish with ease and fluency and whatever may have been my sins of omission or commission in this war I cannot be accused of not having made every exertion to fit myself for the position of a General Officer. Years before the war commenced I was engaged in translating the works of the great Military writer Jomini with a view to their publication I have taken the trouble to condense the most valuable information on the Science of War / into three volumes, from the most celebrated English French and German authors and so valuable have these notes been considered by those who have seen them that I have been repeatedly and earnestly requested to have th revise and print them.

 

            My own record when truly written will be found fully equal to that of General Meade and I have yet to see the man who has brought any accusation of a wrong movement or a wrong maneuvre against me in any battle. But it may be supposed that I lose all coolness and self reliance in action. At the battle of near Gainesville Va in Popes campaign when suddenly surprised by Stonewall Jacksons Army in the road (after having been officially informed that that army was at Centerville) I did not run away or counsel a retreat. When asked what we ought to do I said storm the enemys batteries and storm them we did and we succeeded in killing and wounding 1000 men including Generals Trimble Taleferro and Ewell the latter of losing his leg.

 

            Again at the battle of South Mountain where we fought a vastly superior force under Longstreet himself which force was entrenched behind a natural parapet of rocks the lines were only about forty paces apart. I was on horseback the whole time in the front line 

 

          By quietly ceasing to fire upon the enemy I drew them from their covert to charge us under the impression we were giving way. When they were within 15 paces I gave the order to commence firing in a clear loud voice & my whole line rose up and poured in such a destructive volley that the enemy were swept away like chaff They soon gave up the contest and yielded the field.

 

            I have made a map of the first days operations of the first d First Corps at the battle of Gettysburg and I shall be most happy to send you a copy with the request that you will submit it to Genl. Fremont and the most eminent educated Military critics in New York and I will cheerfully abide their judgment as to whether my maneuvres were correct.

 

            I held the right of McClellans the entire Army Army with 36 pieces of Artillery at Antietam and the left at Fredericsburg against A. P. Hills & Jacksons troops & Stewart's Cavalry Batteries. My conduct and maneuvres on that occasion were especially commended by Genl Reynolds. Genl Meade / appeared to think I had come in command of a Corps for the first time at Gettysburg. The fact is I had been assigned by Genl Reynolds to command his Corps some two weeks previously the latter officer commanding the Right wing of the Army

 

            I could if necessary give many examples to show the difficult and dangerous operations confided to me by Genl Reynolds who detested my politics but appreciated my military services.

 

            It is somewhat singular that Genl. Meade having put me aside for incompetency and put Newton at the head of the 1^st Corps, French at the head of the 3^d Corps Sykes at the head of the 5^th Corps (for these were all Meades appointments and not the President's) should have had them all removed and sent West as incompetent. It might lead some people to distrust his judgment

 

            It is a sufficient answer to the / statement that I could not be trusted to command a Corps while a battle was raging to say that I did command it at Gettysburg during the most terrible struggle of the War and that all the maneuvres were successful and resulted in heavy loss to the enemy.

            The fact is Genl Meade has never been on terms of social intercourse with me and knows very little about me. All the information he has had in relation to me has come from men his particular friends the pro slavery McClellan clique the who desired in the beginning to settle the matter national difficulty by hanging Greely and Sumner on the same tree. A small ring of these gentlemen met daily to settle the affairs of the Nation, and one of them when I first joined the Army, requested another General officer who ranked me to hurry on as quick as possible as he could not bear to be under my command for a single hour. Another expressed the aimiable desire / to have all the colored people in the North collected together and presented to the south as a present. It was this clique who fought against me and who latterly became more embittered on the ground that I had impeded their promotion. In fact Meade whose self sufficiency is awful and whose arrogance to his subordinates is unparalleled had made a vow to crush me the first opportunity that occurred. After displacing me he was utterly unable to put his finger upon any false movement I had made and of course was obliged to alledge incompetency as a reason.

 

            Genl Meade first came into notice by his unfortunate charge made at Fredericsburg, and the subsequent dispute between him & Genl Franklin as to who was to blame on that occasion. The public thus learned there was such a man as Meade. Shortly after this he devoted himself to obtaining the good will of the Corps Commanders and when the President spent several days in camp Genl Meade was most devoted and constant in his attentions. He was rewarded at last if reward it be, by being appointed commander of the Army of the Potomac then within three days march of Gettysburg.

 

            Under pretence of stopping to learn all about the movements of the different Corps and the machinery of the Army he was strongly disposed to / to sit down stop all movements and cogitate for a few days, but being strongly urged to move the Corps at once as the enemy were gaining important advantages and might take Harrisburg he at last consented to let the plan march which Hooker had conceived ordered go on. Being haunted with the ridiculous idea prompted by Ewells raid on York that the rebels intended to cross the bridge over the Susquehanna at Wrightsville he began to send troops in that direction and to spread out his Corps in a fan shaped order one portion of his line if the scatteration could be called a line facing the Susquehanna and the other the West, a kind of defensive arrangement against Ewell on one side and the remainder of the rebel Army on the other. Ewell afraid Meade would intervene by forced marches between him / and the remainder of the rebel Army hastened to fall back toward Gettysburg upon which point A. P. Hill and Longstreet were marching. It thus appears that the whole of the enemys forces were concentrating on Gettysburg. On the 1^st July A. P. Hills Corps came in contact with the First Corps under Genl Reynolds and the battle commenced to the West of the town. Soon after Ewell arrived from York and formed line on the North side of the town 2 Divisions of the 11^th Corps of our Army forming line to oppose him. Genl Reynolds was killed almost at the beginning of the battle and the command of the 1^st Corps fell to me. Genl Meade all this time was at Taneytown some 12 miles off from the battle field. He learned of Genl Reynolds death at 12.M. and was strongly importuned to go up ride to the front but refused to do so. There was no fighting anywhere else and no emeny anywhere else but he would / not go there nor would he send his Chief of Staff but finally he concluded to send Genl Hancock. At Taneytown Genl Meade issued a ridiculous circular placing it in the power of any Corps Commander at will to fall back on Pope Creek in which case the whole Army were also to retreat behind the palladium of this feeble shallow stream.

 

            The evidence before the Congressional Committee implicates Genl Meade in the most serious manner. It is shown he did not consider Gettysburg a proper place to fight, that the ground was chosen and dispositions for battle were made by an inferior officer that when the victory was fully and fairly won and the most indubitable proofs were given him of the demoralization of the enemy he refused to pursue although Slocum reported himself that he would soon be ready in a few hours with fresh supplies of ammunition and provisions for that purpose. It can be shown if it has not been that he refused to allow our batteries to fire on the rebels while they were retreating for fear they might turn & fight us again. But worse than all /

 

          the rest is the testimony that shows that the charging column of the enemy on the 3^d of July which was so gallantly repulsed by the batteries on the crest of the hill and the by my Division forming on its flank, was utterly cut to pieces. These troops had been acting as the supports to the 125 guns which had been playing on our lines so fearfully. There was thus no body to guard the guns. Genl Meades attention was called to the fact and he was advised to capture them at once, with the 6 Corps then nearly on the flank of the line of guns. He delayed reconnoitred and hemmed and hawed over it so long that at last it became too late, for the enemy recovered from his stupor and sent troops to withdraw them.

 

            Among the incidents which was brought to Genl Meades notice as evidence of the utter disorder and / demoralisation of the rebel forces was the fact that two wounded Generals Trimble and Kemper had sent to Meades Head Qrs for an ambulance to bring them into our lines. It was argued that if the enemy were so used up that they did not even attempt to bring in their wounded Generals that they would be an easy prey to our arms The evidence of the feeble foolish conduct of Meade at Williamsport ought not perhaps for the honor of our Arms to be made public.

 

            You are at liberty to make use of these facts if you choose. Perhaps the best way to put any defence of myself if you think one is proper and necessary and the attack upon Meade in separate articles as not coming from the same person. You may rest assured all these are facts supported by testimony which / if Meade is continued in command will soon be made public

 

            The Tribune contends seems to think we have no right to attack Meade as it endangers his popularity with the Army but it admits abusive attacks upon other officers and in support of Meade & ought to allow them the power of answering such assaults.

 

            The Article in the Tribune may be copied into numerous papers elsewhere

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