7.5.2012 LINCOLN: HOW EASY TO JUDGE..HOW GOOD NOT TO

under the enormous strain of worry about 2 armies poised for decisive battle, the president's health began to suffer. he had a nightmare about tad, who had accompanied his mother on a shopping trip to philadelphia. his 'ugly deram' feature the pistol he had permitted the boy to have-'big enough to snap caps- but no cartridges or powder'-and he wired mary; 'think you better put tad's pistol away'. a visitor found the president's face told a story of anxiety and weariness, noting 'the drooping eyelids, looking almost swollen; the dark bags beneath the eyes; the deep marks about the large and expressive mouth'. (note: l at this time was nearly beside himself due to the almost complete lack of military success by the north now more than two years into the civil war...)

then, on july 4, finally came the news that l had so long awaited. staying close to the telegraph office in the war department, he learned of a great and bloody battle that had been fought during the three previous days at gettysburg, pennsylavaia. though details were lacking, it appeared that lee had been defeated and was retreating. jubilantly the president issued a press release from the war department announcing this 'great success to the cause of the union' and urging  'that on this day, He whose will, not ours. should ever be done, be everywhere remembered and reverenced with profoundest gratitude'. three days later secretary welles received a dispatch from admiral david dixon porter announcing the fall of vicksburg and rushed to the white house with the news. his face beaming with joy, l cought welles's hand and, throwing his arm around him, exclaimed; 'what can we do for the secretary of the navy for this glorious intelligence;...i cannot, in words, tell you my joy over this result. it is great, mr. welles, it is great!'

...in the east, meade had to fight just one more battle to destroy lee's army, which was trapped between the advancing army of the potomac and the potomac river, swollen with summer rains.

but meade did not advance swiftly and, after a council of war with his senior generals, postponed an attack. lee escaped into virginia. never was l so disappointed and so FURIOUS:

-'if i had gone up there, i could have whipped them myself..
-our army held the war in the hollow of their hand and they would not close it...'
-l took special offense at a dispatch of meade's praising his army for 'driving the invader from our soil'..
-l insisted, 'the whole country is our soil..
-he feared that meade's purpose was not to defeat lee but 'to get the enemy across the river again without a further collision'.
-his anger did not fade quickly.
-weeks later he expressed deep mortification that lee's army had not been destroyed.
-'meade and his army had expended their skill and toil and blood up to the ripe harvest, he grieved, and then allowed it to go to waste'.
-from the depths of his unhappiness he wrote a bitter letter to meade, expressing gratitude for his 'magnificent usccess' at gettysburg but lamenting:
-''my dear general, i do not beleive you appreciate the magnitude of the misfortune involved in lee's escape. he was within your easy grasp, and to have closed upon him would, in connection with our other late successes, have ended the war. as it is, the war will be prolonged indefinitely...your golden opportunity is gone, and i am distressed immeasurably because of it'.
-then..characteristically, he did not sign or send the letter.

AS HE COOLED DOWN, he came to recognize that
-he was EXPECTING TOO MUCH of meade.
-at the time the battle of gettysburg began, meade had been in command of the army of the potomac for only 4 days
-and he was working with new and untried subordinates.
-his army had suffered enormous losses during the three days of battle
-and some of its ablest and most aggressive generals were dead or wounded.
-meade himself was exhausted. as he wrote his wife on july 8..
-'now over 10 days, i
have not changed my clothes
have not had a regular night's rest
and many nights not a wink of sleep
and for several days did not even wash my face and hands
no regular food
and all the time in a great state of mental anxiety....
-it was asking too much of him to attack robert e. lee.

l withheld his letter-though he permitted halleck to wire that the escape of lee's army had 'created great dissatisfaction in the mind of the president'. meade promptly submitted his resignation, and halleck was forced to backtrack, saying that his telegram'was not intended as a cnsure, but as a stimulus to an active pursuit'.

by this time l had recovered his equanimity and could speak of meade 'as a brave and skillful officer, and a true man', who was responsible for the success at gettysburg. indeed the president's spirits were so high that he composed a doggerel (comic or burlesque, usually loose or irregular in measure), 'Gen. Lees invasion of the North written by himself', which he gave to john hay:

in eighteen sixty three, with pomp,
and mighty swell,
Me and Jeff's Confederacy, went
forth to sack Phil-del,
the Yankees they got arter us, and
giv us particular hell, and we skedaddled back again,
and didn't sack Phil-del.