General Meade, after the great victory at Gettysburg, was again face to
face with General Lee shortly afterwards at Williamsport, and even the
former’s warmest friends agree that he might have won in another battle,
but he took no action. He was not a “pushing” man like Grant. It
was this negligence on the part of Meade that lost him the rank of
Lieutenant-General, conferred upon General Sheridan.
A friend of Meade’s, speaking to President Lincoln and intimating that
Meade should have, after that battle, been made Commander-in-Chief of
the Union Armies, received this reply from Lincoln:
“Now, don’t misunderstand me about General Meade. I am profoundly
grateful down to the bottom of my boots for what he did at Gettysburg,
but I think that if I had been General Meade I would have fought another
battle.”