While Grant imagined at first that he would oust Meade, he needed to win over the goodwill of the skeptical Army of the Potomac and didn’t want to appear high-handed. Many people had warned Grant he would be surrounded by backbiting jealousy in the East. “I have just come from the West,” Grant noted, “and if I removed a deserving Eastern man from the position of army commander, my motives might be misunderstood, and the effect be bad upon the spirits of the troops.”
