Lincoln's Lieutenants Quotes

“Mead had not been invited to the surrender at the McLean house, but he determined to meet his opposite number before the armies parted. On April 10 he rode through the now-peaceful lines to meet his engineer corps comrade from the old army. "What are you doing with all that gray in your bead!" Lee exclaimed. "That you have a great deal to do with!" Meade replied.”
― Stephen W. Sears, Lincoln's Lieutenants: The High Command of the Army of the Potomac

“Complaint was made, then and since, that Meade failed to coordinate his attacks, that he was not up to managing these offensive operations. But Cold Harbor was a stark demonstration that by 1864, whether coordinated or not, no frontal assault on the entrenched Army of Northern Virginia could possibly succeed. And at Cold Harbor Meade recognized that fact before Grant did.”
― Stephen W. Sears, Lincoln's Lieutenants: The High Command of the Army of the Potomac

“Meade was more careful and calculating of the odds than Grant . . . and, too, he had the benefit of two years' experience fighting against Robert E. Lee. He took the tactical initiative by translating Emory Upton's feat at Rappahannock bridgehead back in November to seek a similar success against the Spotsylvania salient, as ordered by Grant for May 10. Upton's planning was timely, but not enough time was allotted to position a proper support fire; a day's delay might have awarded a victory to Upton's innovation. It was much the same for the hurried May 12 offensive - there was no time to plan a deliberate exploitation of whatever break might be made in the Confederate lines. This was a very large army with an entrenched high command, and Meade struggled to move it at Grant's arbitrary pace. On May18 (as John Gibbon pointed out the enemy was read, waiting, even anxious for the Yankees to attack, and Grant impatiently ordered this forlorn hope anyway.”
― Stephen W. Sears, Lincoln's Lieutenants: The High Command of the Army of the Potomac

“To widespread surprise (including Barlow’s), the opening assault on the Mule Shoe that May 12 succeeded brilliantly.”
― Stephen W. Sears, Lincoln's Lieutenants: The High Command of the Army of the Potomac

“Edwin Stanton made a point of shutting off inquiry into the Kilpatrick-Dahlgren affair. At war’s end he called on Francis Lieber, keeper of the captured Confederate archives, for the papers found on Dahlgren’s body. On December 1, 1865, these papers were delivered to Stanton at the War Department . . . and never seen again.”
― Stephen W. Sears, Lincoln's Lieutenants: The High Command of the Army of the Potomac

“Meade had personal and professional respect for five of his seven corps commanders—Reynolds, Hancock, Sykes (now heading the Fifth Corps), Sedgwick, and Slocum. After Chancellorsville he had doubts about Otis Howard. About Dan Sickles he had grave doubts.”
― Stephen W. Sears, Lincoln's Lieutenants: The High Command of the Army of the Potomac

“Hardie was told to make it clear: Meade was not offered the job—he was ordered to it.”
― Stephen W. Sears, Lincoln's Lieutenants: The High Command of the Army of the Potomac

“The President says if Hooker had been killed by the shot which knocked over the pillar that stunned him, we should have been successful.”
― Stephen W. Sears, Lincoln's Lieutenants: The High Command of the Army of the Potomac