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His son wrote a book collecting his correspondance. It is called "LIFE AND LETTERS OF GENERAL MEADE"
I am reading about the decision to withhold McDowells troops. Currently historians support that move. Here is what the General had to say:
"Camp near Alexandria, April 4, 1862.
Everything here has been changed. Just as we were on the eve of embarking, orders came to proceed by land to Manassas and beyond. The meaning of this change of movement no one knows. Some say it is due to the fears of the President for Washington; others that it is a traverse McDowell is working to get away from
McClellan and go it on his own hook. I believe both causes have conspired to bring it about; but whatever the cause, it is gross injustice to McClellan to interrupt and interfere with his plans without consulting
him. He has gone down to Old Point in the firm belief and dependence that McDowell and his corps of forty thousand men would go where he wanted them to go, instead of which he suddenly hears, or will hear, that they have gone, under the orders of some one else, in an entirely different direction. How any man can be expected to carry on a campaign when such interferences and derangement of plans are perpetrated, surpasses my comprehension
The book is available from gutenberg.org in PDF for free.
MG Elkin
3rd/(2nd Cav)/XVIth Corps
AotT
_________________ I have come to you from the West, where we have always seen the backs of our enemies. . . . Let us look before us, and not behind
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