George Meade, The Life and Letters of George Gordon Meade, Major-General United States Army
George Gordon Meade, Ed.

What can a government or country expect of a service that is treated in this manner? Understand me, I have no personal feeling in the matter, for I would not be colonel of the rifles if they offered it to me. But there are many captains who have been twenty years in the service of the Government, doing their duty in all climates and at all times faithfully and promptly, whose claims to simple promotion are thrown aside, and individuals placed over their heads to command them whom, under other circumstances, they would not associate. Now, I do not object to seeing civilians put in the service, and had Mr. Polk appointed the senior grades from the army and the captains, no one would have objected to filling up the subalterns with citizens, and then the regiment might have been expected to be efficient, as the important grades would be filled by individuals supposed to know something of their duties. But as it is, it will take years to make the regiment of any use, as officers as well as men will have to learn their duties. Such is the treatment we receive, and yet we are caviled at if one resigns in disgust.

We have nothing new. All are getting tired of waiting here for boats to send our supplies up the river. There was no preparation made for carrying the war into the enemy's country, and we must wait quietly till it is made. The volunteers have all arrived, except those from Texas, who are coming in daily; but they are not all we want. We must have pork and beans to feed them, and means of carrying the pork and beans and baggage to the points from whence we advance, and from those points into the interior.

Speaking of the conduct of the Administration, and its desire to throw the blame of failure, had it occurred, upon General Taylor, I would observe that General Taylor had not received one line from the War Department from the early part of January, when it sent him orders to advance, up to this date; and the January communication simply required him to advance to the Rio Grande and take up a position there, which he was to hold. It is true, last summer, he was authorized to call upon the Governors of Mississippi and Alabama for troops, if he required them, but in his last communication of January he was confined to Texas in his call. Now you must know General Taylor is opposed, from experience and a knowledge of their inefficiency, to the use of volunteers, and felt confident that until war was absolutely commenced, it would be better not to have them, and knew, after he got on the ground, that they could not be here in time; and facts have proved so, as none arrived for a month