I'm not sure that's right, Meade was at the front. If I recall correctly from Bruce Catton's Glory Road, Meade was the recipient of the telegraphed version, suggesting that the original had written version was not addressed to Meade, but to the overall commander in Washington for transmission to Meade and other subordinate commanders. That commander in Washington was "Old Brains" - MG Henry W. Halleck. It would be just like Halleck to simply pass the buck on to Meade.
BTW, Halleck was stationed in California during the Mexican War, and was one of the principal authors of the original California Constitution. He left the Army in the mid-1850s to practice law in San Francisco (Halleck St. is named for him) and was the owner of substantial property up in Marin (Rancho Nicasio - there’s still a hamlet by that name and the Nicasio Dam out near Red Hill Road which connects Petaluma to the Coast around Tomales Bay - perhaps you’ve spent some time there - as a teenager, I used to ride my bike out to the coast on that road, making a circuit that took me up past Bodega Bay and in through Graton and Sebastopol....)