The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-12-08
LINCOLN AND MEADE.
Why Gen. Lees Army Was Not Captured Aft
er the Battle of Gettysburg.

lOu euuOr OIL Iut NOfMdlh (COUut NNdIGlke,
who has been an attache of Congress for the last
thirty years. During three years of the he
served the New York Tribune as Washington
and field correspondent and 1 often left the
quartermasters accounts to look out for them
selves and ran out and lent a hand.
STORY, bless you'll have none to tell you, he
now said, in the well-worn words of Canning.
Bug of course he had.
Lincoln is always in order" / suggested
Lincoln is a myth" put in the Secretary.
The American people will never know anything
about the real man.
Like most people" 1 said, she was both bet
ter and worse, weaker and stronger than he is
reputed to have been"
Il know what he thought about the battle of
Gettysburg, resumed Byington without MOTTO
ing the depression. but it wouldn't do to print
it. Though having newspaper Of my own that
is always hungry for gossip, have never ven.
tured to air it. Lincoln was very much alarmed
perhaps ! might say frightened during the
winter of 1928; you both know that He was
almost in despair, and he had such sensitive
nature that don't know but the worry would
have killed him if it hadn't been for his ability
to see the funny side of things. AS preliminary
to what Lincoln said, perhaps had better recall
the beat | got on the other newspapers in report
ing the battle of Gettysburg"
We agreed, and he sailed ahead. 1T was
the latter part of June, 1863 and got dispatch
from Cupeper Court-ho to hurry out there,
for our army was on the move. / went at once,
but the army had already started north at rapid
pace, trying to keep between the rebel army and
Washington. Hooker was i'll command. went
to the Headquarters of Meade, who was stationed
at Goose Creek. He told me there was going to
be battle, but my best way was to 60 back to
Washington, and hurry up to Harper's Ferry,
and there ] would head off the army and find the
Seventeenth Connecticut, whose quartermester
had one of my horses. l followed his directions,
and he gave Inc special pass taking me any
where.
when got to Harper's Ferry found Hook
er in fume. | soon learned that he had
| demanded have the Thousand inactive
men Bolivar Heights attached to his
army for the battle with Lee, and that Halleck
had refused Hooker resigned that afternoon,
and Lincoln commissioned Meade to command
the Army of the Potomac. The Seventeenth
Connecticut was still ahead of me. General
Bob Tyler, Of the Connecticut Brigade was
there, and he took my map and marked a red
ring around on 1t on the Pennsylvania line, and
| said: In few days there will be within that
circle one of the biggest fights the world ever
saw. Go around to Baltimore and head it off at
! York, Pa
Again followed directions l tried Balti-
more, but news came there that the rebels had
burnt the bridges and torn up the track.
finally went to Philadelphia and got to York by
way of Lancaster determined to be.the first re
porter the ground. The track was torn up,
| but l got minister to carry me twelve miles in
his wagon. j. E. B. Stuarts rebel cavalry had
| been to York, Quilted the provision stores and
| taken $40, 900 from the bank. Occasionally [
heard a gun go off in the southwest. L hired
buggy, telling the owner to charge it to the
Tribune. l never came back and drove in the
direction of the cannonading
81 drove about twelve miles, eneountering
some rebel cavalry on the way, and got to Han
over. There had been severe cavalry fight
there. The town had disorderly appearance;
people stayed close in their houses, and the
! debris of arms and Announcements lay along
the roads. The wounded gathered in a
church. Telegraph wires were broken and
| strewn around.
81 stopped at the hotel and asked the landlord
/ 4o1a
there is he said, pointing out little hunehback,
named Tone l asked him where his battery
was AT home. under the bed he said. The
wires are all cut, and there IS no use trying to
| telegraph After considerable parleying, / got
some men to 20 out on hand-car and fix the
wires, paying the men and making myself re-
sponsble for the value of the car Then the
battery was brought out and we got Baltimore,
| the operator promising me an absolute monopoly
| of the wire for two days.
Then hurried to the battle field some FIVE
miles off. Before reaching there l met General
| Howard and he told me of the first days fight
of Reynolds DEATH and many other things 1
found j. r. Sypher. whom l had engaged at
| Lancaster to follow me, and we sent off by our
private telegraph wire an account of the fight of
| the first two days. 1t was magnificent beat.
No other account got through that night and
between $50 and midnight the Tribune sold Co.
600 copies on the streets of the city
Tone kept getting the strange signal X T.
| K L. What the dickens does TX. l." meant
he asked. I'm afraid the rebs have tapped our
wire Finally he found out that it was the
War Department at Washington. we have got
Byngtons first dispatch, said Stanton, and it
is our first news. Send along more We are
listening For two days L sent exclusive
dispatches over my wire, giving all the
particulars of the great battle, while the
| Herald was running relays of horses. / tele-
graphed that the railroad was whole from Balti-
more to Hanover and the governUl1 ut sont out
trains for our wounded. The surgeon told me
| that that railroad saved General Sickess life
After the battle | got horse and hurried on
after the rebels, wondering that Meade did not
pursue They were all broken up and democrat
lied, the roadside strewn with sick and wounded
men, with dead horses and abandoned weapons.
| Next day l came up with Lees main army. 1t
was huddled together in horseshoe shaped
bend of the Potomac, in valley surrounded by
hills on one side and by the swollen and rushing
river on the other. 1t would have been easy to
bag them all Their fight was fatally inter
rupted. The pontoons they had crossed on
| were swept away and they had no means to re-
cross. BY friend who had accompa-
MED me, l sent back to Presldent
too previous dispatch, We've got Lees army
tight 1t can not escape' After waiting there
awhile, turned back to meet Meades army,
which supposed must 30 rapidly approaching
up the road. In vain looked and waited. 1t
did not heave in sight Finally an old man
came east from the valley where the rebels were
| encamped driving regular Virginia outht-a
| ramshackle of wagon a dying horse tied to it
| by tow strings, and in it, besides the native
driver a woman and children, each wearing ap.
parently single garment and all sitting in the
straw. He said Lee had encamped right around
his house down in the swale, and he had had to
quit it. He said he supposed the whole army
would be gobbled right where they lay. l
asked him what he would charge to
go and tell General Meade all about
the situation. He said he would do it.
| gave him 3d. which evidently seemed to
him big pile, and his funeral moved on
towards Gettysb burg l heard afterwards that
he called on Meade and gave the information.
Well, you know the rest Lees army stayed
right there four days, and then they stole a lum-
er-yard, and made RATS, and foated over the
river at their leisure.
II was in Washington when Meade came to
report after the battle of Gettysburg. l asked
! Gid Welles Secretarv of the NaNN ahnnt the