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and we have got rid of the idiot and have a quite intelligent nig, who actually keeps the spoons clean.
March 3, 1865
Our evanescent Chief-of-Staff, General Webb, has gone to Washington for a day or two, to see his wife.
He insisted, before he went, that the Rebs were not going to evacuate Petersburg at present, on any account.
“Ah!”
said General Meade, “Webb is an anti-evacuationist, because he wants to go to see his wife, and so wants to prove there isn't going to be any move at present.”
General Webb is a good piece of luck, as successor to General Humphreys.
He is very jolly and pleasant, while, at the same time, he is a thorough soldier, wide-awake, quick and attentive to detail.
In fact, I believe him much better for the place than Gen. H. from the very circumstance that he was such a very superior man, that General Meade would take him as a confidential adviser, whereas the General does much better without any adviser at all. My only objection to General Webb is that he continually has a way of suddenly laughing in a convulsive manner, by drawing in his breath, instead of letting it out — the which goes to my bones.
It is not too much to say that yesterday was a day without striking events, as it was characterized by a more or less steady rain, from the rising to the going down of the sun. I wrote you a letter, I entertained the chronic Duane, and I entertained — oh, I forgot to tell you about him. I entertained the officer from Roumania, the one whom General Meade could not make out because he had no map of Europe.
This Roumania, as I have ascertained by diligent study, is what we call Wallachia and Moldavia, and 