[75]
a great ball of the 2d Corps.
The General has gone to it; also General Humphreys.
None of the Staff were invited, save George Meade, to the huge indignation of the said Staff and my great amusement.
Headquarters Army of Potomac February 24, 1864
. . . I went yesterday to a review of the 2d Corps gotten up in honor of Governor Sprague.
It was some seven or eight miles away, near Stevensburg, so that it was quite a ride even to get there.
General Meade, though he had been out till three in the morning at the ball, started at eleven, with the whole Staff, including General Pleasonton and his aides, the which made a dusty cavalcade.
First we went to the Corps Headquarters, where we were confronted by the apparition of two young ladies in extemporaneous riding habits, mounted on frowsy cavalry horses and prepared to accompany.
General Meade greeted them with politeness, for they were some relations of somebody, and we set forth.
The review was on a large flat (usually very wet, but now quite dry, yet rather rough for the purpose) and consisted of the Corps and Kilpatrick's division of cavalry.
When they were all ready, we rode down the lines, to my great terror, for I thought the womenkind, of whom there were half a dozen, would break their necks; for there were two or three ditches, and we went at a canter higglety-pigglety.
However, by the best of luck they all got along safe and we took our place to see the troops march past.
We made a funny crowd: there were the aforesaid ladies; sundry of whom kept chattering like magpies; then the Hon. Senator Wilkinson of Minnesota, in a suit of faded black and a second-hand felt that some officer had lent him. The Honorable rode bravely about, 