Meade's Army

Description

Lt. Col. Theodore Lyman served as Gen. George Gordon Meade's aide-de-camp from September 1863 until the end of the Civil War. Lyman was a Harvard-trained natural scientist who was exceptionally disciplined in recording the events, the players, and his surroundings during his wartime duty. His private notebooks document his keen observations. Published here for the first time, Meade's Army: The Private Notebooks of Lt. Col. Theodore Lyman contains anecdotes, concise vignettes of officers, and lively descriptions of military campaigns as witnessed by this key figure in the Northern war effort.Lyman may well be the finest chronicler of the day-to-day experiences of a staff officer in the Civil War, and his notebook entries have an immediacy, coming as close to real-time reporting as possible. As combat raged, Lyman penciled notations into his dispatch books, including exact times when Meade issued orders and when units deployed. He later transformed his notes into a coherent, historically accurate narrative, filling the account with personal and military details that few others were in a position to observe and including his sketches and hand-drawn maps showing the positions of the army after every significant movement.With Meade's Army, editor David W. Lowe has completed a task that should have been undertaken long ago: a proper and scholarly editing of Lyman's journals. The publication of this significant resource will give historians and students of the Civil War a clearer understanding of the last great campaigns of the Army of the Potomac and of the men who led it.

Sujets

• Histoire
• USA
• United States of America
• History of the Americas
• American Civil War
• États-Unis
• Guerre de Sécession

Informations

• Publié par: The Kent State University Press
• Date de parution: 20 janvier 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781612779607
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

M EADE’S A RMY
CIVIL WAR IN THE NORTH
Series Editor , Lesley J. Gordon, University of Akron
A DVISORY B OARD
William Blair, Pennsylvania State University
Peter S. Carmichael, West Virginia University
Stephen D. Engle, Florida Atlantic University
J. Matthew Gallman, University of Florida
Elizabeth Leonard, Colby College
Elizabeth Varon, Temple University
Joan Waugh, University of California Los Angeles
Meade’s Army
T HE P RIVATE N OTEBOOKS of L T . C OL . T HEODORE L YMAN

Edited by David W. Lowe
The Kent State University Press
Kent, Ohio
© 2007 by
The Kent State University Press,
Kent, Ohio 44242
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Catalog Card
Number 2006028372
ISBN : 978-0-87338-901-3
Manufactured in the United States of America
11  10  09  08  07        5  4  3  2  1
The Theodore Lyman Notebook, 1863–1865, and Lyman family papers and photographs are reprinted with permission of the Massachusetts Historical Society.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lyman, Theodore, 1833–1897.
Meade’s army : the private notebooks of Lt. Col. Theodore Lyman / edited by David W. Lowe.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13 : 978-0-87338-901-3 (hardcover : alk. paper) ∞
ISBN-10 : 0-87338-901-8 (hardcover : alk. paper) ∞
1. United States—History—Civil War, 1861–1865—Personal narratives.
2. Virginia—History—Civil War, 1861–1865—Personal narratives.
3. Lyman, Theodore, 1833–1897—Diaries.
4. United States. Army—Staffs—Diaries.
5. Meade, George Gordon, 1815–1872—Friends and associates.
6. United States. Army of the Potomac.
7. Virginia—History—Civil War, 1861–1865—Campaigns.
8. United States—History—Civil War, 1861–1865—Campaigns.
I. Lowe, David W., 1951–.
II. Title.
E 601.L978    2007
973.7′3092—dc22    2006028372
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication data are available.
For George B. Lowe Orange Combat Team, 5307th Composite Unit (Provisional) and Dave Richardson, combat correspondent Burma 1944
Lyman was a keen, discreet observer; and moreover, realizing to the full the importance of what was transpiring, he kept a careful private record of all he saw and heard—a record still in existence, and which will probably some day see the light. When it does—perhaps half a century hence—I do not hesitate now to put on record my belief that it will prove the most valuable, as well as the most graphic, of all the inside views of the memorable Virginia campaigns of 1863, 1864, and 1865 .
—C HARLES F RANCIS A DAMS J R., 1897
Sketch of Theodore Lyman by A. R. Waud. Theodore Lyman to Elizabeth Lyman, 5 August 1864. Lyman Family Papers. Massachusetts Historical Society .
Contents

Foreword by John Y. Simon
Acknowledgments
Editorial Note
Introduction: Something for the Cause
August 31, 1863–March 9, 1864
March 9–May 3, 1864
May 3–June 16, 1864
June 17–August 27, 1864
August 28–October 31, 1864
November 1–December 31, 1864
January 1–July 1, 1865
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Foreword

T HEODORE L YMAN COULD EASILY have avoided serving in the Civil War. Born into a fabulously wealthy family, he was educated privately and at Harvard, determined upon a scientific career, and when the war began was newly married and traveling in Europe. Although his father, while serving as mayor of Boston, had been involved in the rescue of William Lloyd Garrison from an angry mob, Lyman had little sympathy for Republicans, whom he believed responsible for the conflict. Yet he felt uncomfortable with a life of comfort and privilege when a wide array of family, friends, and classmates had engaged in battle and some had already died. Private wealth required public service.
As a prewar scientist studying starfish in Florida, Lyman had already met George Gordon Meade, who by the midpoint of the war became the commander of the North’s largest army and the celebrated victor of the Battle of Gettysburg. Meade and Lyman had become friends, so when Lyman asked for a staff position, Meade replied encouragingly. Although Lyman began the correspondence in 1862 from Europe, problems of communicating, returning from abroad, and settling his family in Brookline kept Lyman from actual service until late the following year.
Readers of Lyman’s letters to his wife and his journals can only regret the delay. Lyman brought to the headquarters of the Army of the Potomac a practice of detached observation quite unusual for the situation. Carefully trained in scientific procedure by the renowned Louis Agassiz, Lyman brought skills as a naturalist to wartime scenes. Family background also set him apart and led to a cool appraisal of excited men amid tumultuous events.
In 1922 George R. Agassiz published Meade’s Headquarters: Letters of Colonel Theodore Lyman from the Wilderness to Appomattox , a collection of letters to his wife that became a Civil War classic. Incisive and readable throughout, Lyman provides a vivid picture of one of the focal points of Union command. Meade’s Headquarters serves as counterpoint to a comparable account by Horace Porter, Campaigning with Grant , also remarkable for clarity of vision and sharpness of detail.
During the final year of the Civil War, Meade and Ulysses S. Grant had a peculiar relationship. Grant received command of all the Union armies in March 1864 with a presumption that he would coordinate operations from Washington. Although urged by Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman to remain with the western armies that he had previously commanded, Grant decided to leave Henry W. Halleck, his predecessor as general in chief, in Washington as chief of staff and to accompany the Army of the Potomac on the spring campaign without displacing Meade. Initially, Meade and his staff welcomed Grant’s decision. Meade now had the support of his commander amid a flurry of objections to his conduct of the Battle of Gettysburg, objections strengthened by the subsequent lackluster performance of his army. Lyman used every opportunity to train a careful eye on Grant, a man whose apparent simplicity concealed complexity of thought.
As a relationship that began auspiciously deteriorated during the Overland campaign against Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, Lyman’s observations prove especially valuable. Although a close friend and an increasingly valuable assistant to Meade, Lyman’s sharp eye did not overlook the faults of his commander. Meade’s touchiness and insistence on his own worth, his scorn for newspaper reporters, his tendency to give unintentional offence, his inability to dominate subordinates, and his basic lack of battlefield aggressiveness would eventually lead him to occupy the role of forgotten man at Appomattox. Lyman left the victorious armies in 1865 with his friendship with Meade intact and enhanced respect for Grant.
But the upward view is not all that is valuable in Lyman’s observations. He assessed the common soldier, and gradually some of his Boston Brahmin prejudices softened. Above all, he grew and matured amid the vicissitudes of military service. He presents a remarkable self-portrait as well as a view of battles and leaders.
Since 1922 Meade’s Headquarters has been all that readers expected to have of Lyman’s Civil War experience. Now David W. Lowe has uncovered private notebooks that Lyman maintained contemporaneously. Lowe presents the text faithfully and annotates with scholarly zeal. Agassiz occasionally tapped the notebooks for background in transcribing Lyman’s letters to his wife, but modern readers will find them fresh, original, and a valuable enhancement to a Civil War classic.
J OHN Y. S IMON Southern Illinois University Carbondale
Acknowledgements

I appreciate the encouragement and tutelage of Dr. Joseph L. Harsh throughout this project. I thank Peter Drummey, Massachusetts Historical Society librarian Stephen T. Riley, reference librarians Nicholas Graham and Kimberly Nusco, and their staff for making my research at MHS a pleasurable experience. J. David Bohl of Hull, Massachusetts, masterfully photographed Lyman’s sketch maps and illustrations. Colleague Bonnie Burns turned up relevant materials at the Harvard Map Collection and in the Harvard University Archives and critiqued early drafts of the transcription. My wife, Lynne, and her mother, Rosalyn White, undertook the final proofreading. I must acknowledge Zoe for patiently awaiting the long walks that were promised. Errors and omissions that remain are mine.
Editorial Note

T HE SWIFT PENCIL OF H ARPER’S special artist Alfred Waud captured Lt. Col. Theodore Lyman seated on a hardtack box, hunched over a sheet of paper with pen in hand, with balding head, sleeves rolled up, and a look of intense concentration. It must have been Lyman’s familiar pose at army headquarters, as he was an obsessive correspondent. Every few days he mailed long letters—each a gem of description—to his wife, Mimi. In 1922, Lyman’s nephew, George Russell Agassiz, collected these letters in Meade’s Headquarters 1863–1865: Letters of Colonel Theodore Lyman from the Wilderness to Appomattox , a book that has been a staple for historians writing about the Army of the Potomac. The letters, clear and concise as they were, were not Lyman’s magnum opus.
During his tenure at Meade’s headquarters, Lyman kept a series of private notebooks written for a most discriminating audience—himself—and therein he found his voice as a military historian. It seems strange that his notebooks languished so long unpublished in the collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society (MHS). Editor Agassiz quoted some 3,500 words from Lyman’s notebooks in Meade’s Headquarters , and I refer the reader to these passages to encourage comparison between the published letters and the notebooks. Although there is inevitable overlap in subject matter, there are many significant differences. The two volumes should be studied together.
In his letters to Mimi, Lyman often emphasized the humor or i