Meade
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Meade. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
meed, George Gordon (1815-1872), an American soldier. He was born at Cadiz, Spain. He was educated at West Point . He served in the Seminole War in Florida and on Scott's staff in Mexico. He was an engineer of ability. He assisted in the location of the Alabama, Florida, and Georgia Railway, and took part in surveying the northern boundary of Maine. He was employed by the government in the construction of lighthouses and in a geodetic survey of the Great Lakes . He entered the Civil War with the rank of brigadier-general of volunteers and came out a major-general of the regular army in command of the Army of the Potomac. He took part in the peninsular campaign, and was in the battle of Manassas, South Mountain, Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville. He was in command at the memorable battle of Gettysburg. An equestrian statue of the able soldier has been erected on the battlefield. At the time of his death, which occurred in Philadelphia, he was in command of the department of the Atlantic.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
GEORGE GORDON, an American military officer; born in Cadiz, Spain, where his father was United States naval agent, Dec. 31, 1815; was graduated at the United States Military Academy in 1835; served for a time against the Seminole Indians and in the Mexican War. In 1861 he obtained a brigade of volunteers, and during the Peninsular campaign received a severe gunshot wound. He distinguished himself at Antietam and at Fredericksburg, and was promoted Major-General in November, 1862. In June, 1863, he was placed in command of the Army of the Potomac, superseding Gen. JOSEPH HOOKER (q. v.) on the night of the 27th. A week later the battles of Gettysburg had been fought under his command, and Lee's effort to carry the war into the country N. of the Potomac had been defeated. Meade became Brigadier-General in the regular army on July 3, and Major-General in 1864. After the war he commanded various military departments till his death, in Philadelphia, Nov. 6, 1872.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The bare facts in both entries hold up: Meade was born at Cadiz in 1815, took command of the Army of the Potomac on the night of June 27, 1863, three days before Gettysburg, and died in Philadelphia in 1872. What has moved is his standing. For decades after Aiton's and Collier's wrote, Meade was treated as a competent caretaker who let Lee escape across the Potomac after Gettysburg -- a charge Lincoln made at the time -- and he was overshadowed by Grant, under whom he served for the last year of the war without ever being replaced. Recent biographers have pushed back, crediting him with the defensive handling of the Gettysburg ground; the equestrian statue on Cemetery Ridge that Aiton's mentions still stands, and a second Meade memorial was dedicated in Washington in 1927, six years after Collier's went to press.
Written for this edition, 2026.