[250] rapidity as to leave General Meade for a time in almost complete darkness as to his enemy's whereabouts and ultimate purpose. He was unwilling, therefore, through undue precipitation, to take any chances of repeating the appalling Federal blunders and disasters of the preceding year on this very ground.
The war records make it perfectly clear now that General Meade lost a great opportunity in this short campaign, for it appears that General Lee was far inferior in strength to the Union army. The very boldness of his movements was calculated to conceal his numerical weakness. But with the meagre knowledge Meade possessed of Lee's movements he was undoubtedly justified in a line of action which had the appearance of timidity. If General Pope, in the campaign of 1862, also several days in ignorance of his enemy's whereabouts and intentions, had followed the wise policy of General Meade and fallen back behind Bull Run, there safely awaiting the development of General Lee's purpose, it is unquestionable that he could have received the Confederate attack on his own ground with a force nearly double his enemy, for in that campaign Lee was on the offensive in dead earnest. The result would, doubtless, have been very much more favorable to the Federal cause, as well as to General Pope's personal fortunes.
