Hallowed Ground - James M. McPherson [36]
When news reached Washington of Vicksburg's surrender to Grant on the Fourth of July, and of other Union victories in Tennessee and Louisiana, Lincoln was jubilant. “If General Meade can complete his work by the literal or substantial destruction of Lee's army,” said the Union president on July 7, “the rebellion will be over.” Lincoln hovered around the War Department telegraph office “anxious and impatient” for news from Meade. But the Union commander and his men were exhausted from lack of sleep and endless slogging through quagmires called roads. The Confederate earthworks at Williamsport were formidable, even though Lee had only 45,000 tired men to defend them while reinforcements had brought Meade's strength back up to 85,000. Meade's famous temper grew short as messages from Halleck pressed him to attack. Lincoln's temper also grew short. When Meade finally telegraphed on July 12 that he intended “to attack them tomorrow, unless something intervenes,” Lincoln commented acidly, “They will be ready to fight a magnificent battle when there is no enemy to fight.”
Events proved Lincoln right. Meade delayed another day, and when the Army of the Potomac went forward on July 14 they found nothing but a rear guard. The dropping river had enabled the enemy to vanish across a patched-together bridge and a nearby ford during the night. “Great God!” exclaimed Lincoln when he heard this news. “We had them in our grasp. We had only to stretch forth our hands and they were ours. Our army held the war in the hollow of their hand and would not close it.”
Lincoln may have been right about that—or he may not have been. A Union assault might have succeeded—with heavy casualties—or it might not have. In either case, destruction of Lee's veteran army was far from a certainty. When Meade learned of Lincoln's dissatisfaction, he offered his resignation. This was a serious matter. Despite his caution and slowness, Meade had won public acclaim for his victory at Gettysburg. Lincoln could hardly afford to fire him two weeks after the battle. So he refused to accept the resignation, and sat down to write Meade a soothing letter.
As the president's pen scratched across the paper, however, the letter became anything but soothing. Gettysburg was a “magnificent success” for which Lincoln was “very—very—grateful to you.” But, “my dear General,” the president continued, “I do not believe 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.” As Lincoln reread these words, he realized that the letter would scarcely mollify Meade's feelings. So he filed it away in his papers and never sent it.
The war did continue for another twenty-one months. Whether it would have ended if Meade had “closed upon” Lee at Williamsport is anybody's guess. In any event, people in the North immediately saw Gettysburg as a turning point in their favor. “VICTORY! WATERLOO ECLIPSED!” blazoned the headline in a Philadelphia newspaper. In New York a lawyer wrote in his diary that “the results of this victory are priceless. The charm of Robert Lee's invincibility is broken. The Army of the Potomac has at last found a general that can handle it, and has stood nobly up to its terrible work in spite of its long disheartening list of hard-fought failures. Copperheads are palsied and dumb for the moment at least. Government is strengthened four-fold at home and abroad.”
In London the news of Gettysburg and Vicksburg drove the final nail into the coffin of Confederate hopes for European diplomatic recognition. “The disasters