“Bridge Through the Chickahominy Swamp” by Alfred Waud depicts the landscape the Army of the Potomac would have to cross during its flanking movement (Library of Congress).

We have encountered Assistant Secretary of War Charles Dana before, most notably when he insisted on reading a telegram from William Sherman out loud in front of Meade. The telegram said that the Union would certainly win if Grant could make the Army of the Potomac do its part. Meade was not amused. The big news in his letter from June 12 is that the Army of the Potomac is about to disengage from Cold Harbor and make its great flanking movement around Lee and down to the James River.

I assume the “great women’s movement about dress” to which Meade refers has something to do with the Victorian Dress Reform movement, in which concerned people sought changes in women’s constrictive garments.

Assistant Secretary of War Charles Dana (Library of Congress).

In my last letter I gave you an account of a wicked and malicious falsehood which I found had been extensively circulated all through the North, and the first intimation of which was a reference to it in the Inquirer of the 2d inst. Since writing, I have received the enclosed message from the Secretary of War, to which I sent the accompanying note. I do not remember whether I ever told you that we were honored with the presence of Mr. Dana, the Assistant Secretary of War, who accompanies this army, as a kind of staff officer of the Secretary, and who keeps the Secretary advised by daily telegrams of the progress and condition of affairs. It is from Mr. Dana’s telegrams that Mr. Stanton’s despatches to General Dix are made up. This I learned accidentally, yesterday, in a conversation with Grant, in which I commented on some of Mr. Stanton’s despatches. Grant agreed fully with me in my views, and then told me he had never sent a despatch to Mr. Stanton since crossing the Rapidan, the few despatches he had sent being directed to General Halleck. I was glad to hear this, because it removed from my mind a prejudice I had imbibed, on the supposition that Mr. Stanton was quoting Grant, and arising from the fact I have mentioned, that in all Mr. Stanton’s despatches from Grant’s headquarters my name was never alluded to; for which I had held Grant responsible, without cause.

I believe I have saved you some annoyance by informing an officer, who applied to me in the name of Mrs. Judge Daly, of New York, to know if you would not unite in the great woman’s movement about dress, that, practically, you had been engaged in that movement ever since your marriage, and that at present your domestic duties were, from your large family, so absorbing, you really had no time to devote to public matters, even as important as the great woman’s movement.

To-day we commence a flank march, to unite with Butler on the James. If it is successful, as I think it will be, it will bring us to the last act of the Richmond drama, which I trust will have but few scenes in it, and will end fortunately and victoriously for us.

Both George and myself are quite well, though the heat, hard service, bad water, and swampy regions are beginning to tell on the health of the army.

I send you an excellent picture of Sedgwick.

And now a report from Theodore Lyman:

Ulysses S. Grant (Library of Congress).

General Grant has appeared with his moustache and beard trimmed close, giving him a very mild air—and indeed he is a mild man really. He is an odd combination; there is one good thing, at any rate—he is the concentration of all that is American. He talks bad grammar, but he talks it naturally, as much as to say, “I was so brought up and, if I try fine phrases, I shall only appear silly.” Then his writing, though very terse and well expressed, is full of horrible spelling. In fact, he has such an easy and straightforward way that you almost think that he must be right and you wrong, in these little matters of elegance. … At 3 p.m. tents were struck and we all rode to Despatch Station, where we turned up to the left and went as far as Moody’s house. . . . We halted in a field hard by and waited for the train, an operation that required much patience: for the waggons undertook to go over a sort of mill-dam, and tumbled down a bank and had many mishaps, so that they arrived only at ten. General Grant, however, had made a big fire, got a piece of board, lain down on it, with a bag under his head, and was fast asleep. At eleven, before getting to bed, we had news that Wilson’s cavalry had forced the passage of the Chickahominy at Long’s Bridge (the bridge was long since burnt) and that the pontoon was going down for the passage of the 5th Corps. Fain would I write more, but I am so stupid and sleepy that I am not equal to it.

Meade’s correspondence taken from The Life and Letters of George Gordon Meade, Major-General United States Army, Vol. 2, (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1913), pp. 203-4. Available via Google Books.

Theodore Lyman’s letter is from Meade’s Headquarters, 1863-1865: Letters of Colonel Theodore Lyman from the Wilderness to Appomattox, p. 156. Edited by George R. Agassiz. Boston, Massachusetts Historical Society, 1922. Available via Google Books.