General Hooker’s poor performance in the Battle of Chancellorsville proved his undoing, and President Lincoln was again forced to find a replacement to lead the Army of the Potomac. The choice fell on a career officer named George Gordon Meade. To his credit, Meade demonstrated conspicuous courage in the Battle of Gettysburg, which occurred just two days after he assumed command. However, he, too, lacked the aggressive spirit that Lincoln knew was necessary to achieve a Northern victory and preserve the Union. Meade soon found himself under the watchful and authoritative eye of the new Union general-in-chief, Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant, who established his headquarters with Meade’s army—and saluted Meade’s command abilities in his postwar memoir.