Near Prospect Hall on June 28, 1863, Union Gen. George Gordon Meade replaced Gen. Joseph "Fighting Joe" Hooker as commander of the Army of the Potomac. Meade accepted command reluctantly because he worried about changing leaders in the middle of a campaign and believed his longtime friend Gen. John F. Reynolds was more capable and more deserving of the assignment. In a letter to his wife, Meade recalled being awakened at 3:00 A.M. by an officer from Washington, first fearing he was to be relieved or arrested, then learning that Hooker had been relieved and that he had been assigned command. He wrote that as a soldier he could only accept and do his utmost to succeed, and that he was moving at once against Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee in hopes that Gen. Darius N. Couch could check Lee for a few days so that a battle would decide the fate of the country and the cause. At the time, the Union Army of the Potomac was camped near Frederick while Lee's army was scattered across Pennsylvania.