by Diana Loski

General George G. Meade (1815-1872) would have preferred not to become the commander of the Army of the Potomac just three days before the Battle of Gettysburg.   However, duty prevailed and Meade took the position – and led the Union troops to victory on the farmlands of Pennsylvania.  An intrepid commander, his temper was, at times, easily aroused.  The following vignettes portray the general in some of his more incendiary moments:

Meade was present on Cemetery Ridge during the horrific cannonade that preceded Pickett’s Charge on July 3, 1863.  Major Thomas Osborn, an artillery commander of the Eleventh Corps, acting on the orders of General Hunt, was replying in kind on Cemetery Hill, as nearly the entire Union line was engaged at that time, when General Meade suddenly appeared.  Osborn recalled: “While this fire on Cemetery Hill was at its very height General Meade rode into the batteries at great speed…As he came within hearing he shouted, ‘Where is Major Osborn?’…As he came near me, I answered him.  He then shouted, apparently greatly excited, ‘what are you drawing ammunition from the train for?’ I said that some of the ammunition chests were giving out.  He then said, ‘Don’t you know that it is in violation of general orders and the army regulations to use up all your ammunition in a battle?’  I replied that I had given no thought and that General Hunt had directed me to draw what I might require from the ordnance train.  He then said, ‘What do you expect to do here?’  I replied that I was expected to hold the hill, and that I expected to do so, if the infantry would stand by me.  To this he retorted, ‘You cannot hold your men here.’  I replied, ‘I will stay here, General, and so will my men.’  He then rode off with as great a speed as he had come.” ¹  

One Union soldier, a few months earlier, recalled Meade in one of his “choleric” moods.  After the retreat from the Army of the Potomac from Chancellorsville, while Joe Hooker still commanded the Union forces, George Meade commanded the Federal Fifth Corps.  All were exhausted and demoralized, from the lowliest private to the generals of high rank.  “While the general was sitting with General Warren at one of the camp-fires,” a Union soldier remembered, “ a poor jaded, mud-bedraggled infantryman came straggling and stumbling along the roadside, scarcely able, in his wet and wearied condition, to bear up under his burden of musket and equipments.  As he staggered past the camp-fire, he struck, by the merest accident, against General Meade, who jumped immediately to his feet, drew his sabre, and made a lunge at the innocent offender, which sent him staggering to the ground.  There he lay motionless as if dead.  At once Meade began to upbraid himself for his hasty temper, and seemed filled with remorse for what he had done.  Whereat General Warren made efforts to calm his fears by telling him it was probably not as serious as he supposed, and thereupon began to make investigation of the nature of the injury done to the prostrate veteran.  To General Meade’s great gratification, it was found that while his sabre had cut through the man’s clothing, it had only grazed his side without drawing blood, but so completely worn out had the soldier become through the exactions of the recent campaign that matter dominated mind, and he lay in a double sense.”  In other words, the exhausted soldier just fell asleep on the ground, right then and there.²

After Meade had left Osborn during the cannonade on July 3, he later rode back to check on the progress of the artillery defenses.  He rode up to an Ohio battery, with “ a single orderly…The boys were all at white heat and in a state of frenzy because the ammunition called for had not come.”  Meade dismounted and noticed that the men were grabbing scattered shells that had not exploded to use for their cannon until more ammunition arrived.  “ He was in fatigue dress and wore no shoulder straps ,” remembered one soldier, “ and none of them recognized him.  They thought he was some ordnance officer, and finally, when he turned his horse over to his orderly and proceeded to carry the shells himself, they did not resent his supervision.  As a rule the shells were heavier than the General expected, and he did not compare in efficiency with the stalwart artillerymen rushing about with the recklessness and energy of madmen.

“John Snicker was one of the best men in the battery, but was rough in speech and action.  Seeing, as he supposed, a lieutenant or captain from the outside stooping to pick up a shell, he pushed the officer aside with the remark, ‘Get out of this, old Ginger Fingers!  Your mind’s willin’ but your body’s weak, and you are in the way.’”³

General Meade, amused, immediately complied.  General Warren, whom the men recognized, then rode up to speak to the commander and “ the cat was out of the bag.”⁴

General Meade was 47 years old at the time of the Battle of Gettysburg, so he naturally did not have the stamina of the artillerymen, most of whom were at least half his age, and who were used to the heavy labor.⁵

In addition to the nickname “Ginger Fingers”, Meade was also called “Old Baldy” (due to his lack of hair) and the “Goggle-Eyed Old Snapping Turtle” – due in part to his temper, which was documented in the aforementioned campfire chronicle. 

John Snicker was mortified when he realized to whom he had addressed his brusque remark.  He later confided that he was glad he hadn’t acted on his first impulse, which was when he almost “ kicked the General ” instead.⁶

Major Osborn respected Meade and later wrote, “Meade was as brave personally as any of the officers mentioned, but he was a passionate man and excitable.”⁷

Given the circumstances at Gettysburg and throughout the year 1863, it was understandable that the pivotal battle in Pennsylvania would arouse a great deal of excitement for the commander who had been in charge for not even one week when called to the high command.

Sources:  Billings, John D.  Hard Tack and Coffee .  Boston: George M. Smith & Co., 1887 (reprint, 1982, Time Life Books).  “Old Ginger Fingers".  The Gettysburg Compiler, 27 Dec., 1898.  Rollins, Richard, ed.  Pickett’s Charge! Eyewitness Accounts .  Redondo Beach, CA: Rank and File Publications, 1994.

End Notes: 

1.  Rollins, p. 114. 

2.  Billings, p. 349. 

3.  Gettysburg Compiler, 27 Dec., 1898. 

4.  Ibid.  

5.  Meade was born on New Year’s Eve, December 31, 1815, so he was still 47 years old at Gettysburg.  He was nearly nine years younger than Robert E. Lee, who was born on January 19, 1807.  Lee was 56 at   the Battle of Gettysburg.

6.  Gettysburg Compiler, 27 Dec., 1898.

7.  Rollins, p 114.