honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for
which they gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here
highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that
this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that
government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not
perish from the earth.

Abraham Lincoln

November 19, 1863]

There was disappointment that Meade had not shown more energy after
Gettysburg in the pursuit of Lee's army and that some attempt, at least,
had not been made to interfere with the retreat across the Potomac.
Military critics have in fact pointed out that Meade had laid himself
open to criticism in the management of the battle itself. At the time of
the repulse of Pickett's charge, Meade had available at the left and in
rear of his centre the sixth corps which had hardly been engaged on the
previous two days, and which included some of the best fighting material
in the army. It has been pointed out more than once that if that corps
had been thrown in at once with a countercharge upon the heels of the
retreating divisions of Longstreet, Lee's right must have been curled up
and overwhelmed. If this had happened, Lee's army would have been so
seriously shattered that its power for future service would have been
inconsiderable. Meade was accepted as a good working general but the
occasion demanded something more forcible in the way of leadership and,
early in 1864, Lincoln sends for the man who by his success in the West
had won the hopeful confidence of the President and the people.

Before this appointment of General-in-chief was given to General Grant,
and he came to the East to take charge of the armies in Virginia, he had
brought to a successful conclusion a dramatic campaign, of which
Chattanooga was the centre. In September, 1863, General Rosecrans, who
had occupied Chattanooga, was defeated some twenty miles to the south on
the field of Chickamauga, a defeat which was the result of too much
confidence on the part of the Federal commander, who in pressing his
advance had unwisely separated the great divisions of his army, and of
excellent skill and enterprise on the part of the Confederate commander,
General Bragg. If the troops of Rosecrans had not been veterans, and if
the right wing had not been under the immediate command of so sturdy and
unconquered a veteran as General Thomas, the defeat might have become a