USA > Pennsylvania > Martial deeds of Pennsylvania, Vol. 1 > Part 14
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For nearly six weeks the Union army remained upon the north bank of the Potomac. On the 19th of October, General Stuart, of the rebel army, with 1800 horsemen, under command of Generals Hampton, Lee, and Jones, and four pieces of flying artillery, crossed the Potomac at McCoy's, between Williamsport and Hancock, and headed for Pennsylvania. As he struck the national road he learned that General Cox, with six Ohio regi- ments and two batteries, had just passed in the direction of Cum- berland. Pushing forward he passed through Mercersburg at noon, and arrived before Chambersburg after dark. Determining not to wait until morning to attack, he sent in a flag of truce demanding its surrender. He found the town defenceless, and immediately entered; 275 Union sick and wounded soldiers were found in hospital and paroled. The troopers were busy gathering horses ; but with this exception, the night was passed in quiet. On the following morning the column was early astir, Hampton, who led, taking the road towards Gettysburg. Before departing, the rear guard notified the citizens living in the neighborhood of the warehouses to remove their families, as they were about to fire all public property. In one of these was a large amount of ammunition, captured from General Longstreet's train, but which was for the most part worthless. There were also stored some Government shoes and clothing, and muskets. At eleven o'clock the station-house, round-house, and machine shops of the railroad, and the warehouses near, were fired, and the last of the rebels took their departure. Fire companies were quickly brought out, but it was dangerous to approach. In a little time a terrible explosion told that the flames had reached the powder, and for
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hours shells were exploding incessantly. After crossing the South Mountain, the rebel column turned back eight or ten miles in the direction of Hagerstown, and then entered Maryland by way of Emmittsburg. Before reaching Frederick, it crossed the Monocacy, passed at night through Liberty, New Market, and Monravia, cutting the line of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad at the latter place, intercepted at Hyattstown a portion of McClel- lan's wagon train, and after a sharp skirmish near Poolsville, escaped across the Potomac at White's Ford, incurring scarcely any loss, and carrying off all his booty.
Some incidents of the rebel stay at Chambersburg were pleasantly narrated by Mr. Alexander McClure, in an article contributed at the time to the Chambersburg Repository, which paper he then edited. It was evening, and in the midst of a drenching rain, that they came. After going out with two others, Messrs. Kennedy and Kimmell, on behalf of the citizens, to respond to the demand of the rebels for the surrender of the town, and informing them that there was no military force there to oppose them, Mr. McClure hastened to his own home. "It was now midnight," he says, "and I sat on the porch observing their movements. They had my best cornfield beside them, and their horses fared well. In a little while one entered the yard, came up to me, and after a profound bow, politely asked for a few coals to start a fire. I supplied him, and informed him as blandly as possible where he would find wood conveniently, as I had dim visions of camp-fires made of my palings. I was thanked in return, and the mild-mannered villain proceeded at once to strip the fence and kindle fires. Soon after, a squad came and asked permission to get some water. I piloted them to the pump, and again received a profusion of thanks.
" Communication having thus been opened between us, squads followed each other closely for water, but each called and asked permission before getting it, and promptly left the yard. I was somewhat bewildered at this uniform courtesy, and supposed it but a prelude to a general movement upon everything catable in the morning. It was not a grateful reflection that my beautiful mountain trout, from twelve to twenty inches long, sporting in the spring, would probably grace the rebel breakfast table; that
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the blooded calves in the yard beside them would most likely go with the trout; and the dwarf pears had, I felt assured, abundant promise of early relief from their golden burdens.
" About one o'clock, half a dozen officers came to the door and asked to have some coffee made for them, offering to pay liberally for it in Confederate scrip. After concluding a treaty with them on behalf of the colored servants, coffee was promised them, and they then asked for a little bread with it. They were wet and shivering, and seeing a bright, open wood-fire in the library, they asked permission to enter and warm themselves until their coffee should be ready, assuring me that under no circumstances should anything in the house be disturbed by their men. I had no alternative but to accept them as my guests until it might please them to depart, and I did so with as good grace as possible. Once seated around the fire, all reserve seemed forgotten on their part, and they opened a general conversation on politics, the war, the different battles, the merits of generals in both armies, etc. They spoke with entire freedom upon every subject but their movement into Chambersburg. Most of them were men of more than ordinary intelligence and culture, and their demeanor was in all respects eminently courteous. I took a cup of coffee with them, and have seldom seen anything more keenly relished. They said they had not tasted coffee for weeks before, and then they had paid from six to ten dollars per pound for it. When they were through, they asked whether there was any coffee left, and finding that there was some, they proposed to bring some more officers and a few privates who were prostrated by exposure to get what was left. They were, of course, as welcome as those present, and on they came in squads of five or more, until every grain of browned coffee was exhausted. They then asked for tea, and that was served to some twenty more.
" In the meantime, the officers who had first entered the house had filled their pipes from the box of Killickinick on the mantel -after being assured that smoking was not offensive-and we had another hour of free talk on matters generally. When told that I was a decided Republican, they thanked me for being candid; but when, in reply to their inquiries, I told them that I cordially sustained the President's Emancipation Proclamation,
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they betrayed a little nervousness, but did not for a moment forget their propriety. They admitted it to be the most serious danger that had yet threatened them, but they were all hopeful that it would not be sustained in the North with sufficient unanimity to enforce it. ... They all declared themselves heartily sick of the war, but determined never to be reunited with the North. At four o'clock in the morning the wel- come blast of the bugle was heard, and they rose hurriedly to depart. Thanking me for the hospitality they had re- ceived, we parted, mutually expressing the hope that should we ever meet again, it would be under more pleasant circum- stances."
The year 1862 proved one of endless activity. The camps at Harrisburg, at Pittsburg, and in the neighborhood of Philadelphia were kept constantly alive with troops, preparing for the field, and reminded one of hives at swarming time. From the middle of April, 1861, to the close of the year 1862, a period of a little more than twenty months, there were recruited and organized, 111 regiments for a service of three years, including eleven regi- ments of cavalry and three of artillery; twenty-five regiments for three months, seventeen volunteer regiments for nine months, fifteen of drafted militia, and twenty-five of militia called out for the emergency-a grand aggregate of 193 regiments, embracing in their ranks over 200,000 men. In the work of bringing out so vast a body from the peaceful avocations of life, to swell the ranks of the National armies, there was exhibited a patriotism and a firmness unsurpassed. Mothers encouraged their sons to enlist, and sisters wrought industri- ously in preparing the outfit of the departing ones, exempli- fying the stern heroism of that matron of old who brought forth the shield, and giving it her son, bade him return with it, or on it. Nor was it a stoical resolve that actuated them. The tenderest emotions were stirred, and it was not without the most bitter pangs that loved ones were seen directing their footsteps to the field. They were daily remem- bered at the hearthstone, and followed by the prayers of purest and holiest affection.
A voice heard above the stirring appeals of the Executive of
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the Commonwealth, or of the Nation, a voice more potent than that of the rostrum, or the promptings of honor on the field of strife, moved all hearts. The song of Bryant in his thrilling strain, Our Country's Call, which seemed more aptly addressed to Pennsylvania, from its physical figuration, than to any other State, expressed the sentiment which inspired and moved the gathering hosts :
" Lay down the axe; fling by the spade ; Leave in its track the toiling plough ; The rifle and the bayonet blade
For arms like yours are fitter now.
And let the hands that ply the pen Quit the light task, and learn to wield The horseman's crooked brand, and rein The charger on the battle-field.
"Our country calls ; away ! away ! To where the blood-stream blots the green ; Strike to defend the gentlest sway That Time in all his course has seen. See, from a thousand coverts-see, Spring the armed foes that haunt her track; "And ye who throng beside the deep
They rush to smite her down, and we Must beat the banded traitors back.
" Ho! sturdy as the oak ye cleave, And moved as soon to fear and flight, Men of the glade and forest, leave Your woodcraft for the field of fight. The arms that wield the axe must pour An iron tempest on the foe ; His serried ranks shall reel before The arm that lays the panther low.
" And ye who breast the mountain storm By grassy steep or highland lake,
Come, for the land ye love, to form A bulwark that no foe can break.
Stand like your own grey cliffs that mock The whirlwind, stand to her defence : The blast as soon shall move the rock, As rushing squadrons bear you thence.
And ye whose homes are by her grand, Swift rivers, rising far away, Come from the depths of her green land As mighty in your march as they ; As terrible as when the rains
Have swelled them over bank and bourne, With sudden floods to drown the plains, . And sweep along the woods uptorn.
Her ports and hamlets of the strand, In number like the waves that leap Ou his long murmuring marge of sand, Come, like that deep, when, o'er his brim, He rises all his floods to pour,
And flings the proudest barks that swim A helpless wreck against the shore.
" Few, few were they whose swords of old Won the fair land in which we dwell; But we are many, we who hold The grini resolve to guard it well. Strike for that broad and goodly land, Blow after blow, till men shall see That Might and Right move hand in hand, And glorious must their triumph be."
'OUNT
CHAPTER VII.
PRELIMINARIES TO THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG UNDER HOOKER.
O part of Virginia, which in the late war was every- where ploughed by battle, has more stirring asso- ciations, than that bordering upon the Rappahan- nock. At the head of navigation, upon the right bank of this stream, is Fredericksburg, and a dozen miles above this, on the same side, but a little back from the river, is Chancellorsville. For nearly a year, from October, 1862, to June, 1863, the two contending armies, that of the Potomac, and that of Northern Virginia, had lain stretched out upon the opposite banks, warily watching cach other, but principally concentrated about the town of Fredericksburg. Twice during that time the Army of the Potomac had crossed and offered battle, first under General Burnside at Fredericksburg, on the 13th of December, 1862, a most inclement season, and again under General Hooker, at Chancellorsville, on the 2d and 3d of May. In both of these engagements, that army had been repulsed, and had returned decimated and dispirited to its old camps.
In the latter battle, the rebel army had achieved a victory with only a part of its ordinary strength, heavy columns, upwards of 40,000 men, having been sent away under some of its most trusted Generals, Longstreet, Hill, Picket, Hood, Garnett, Ander- son, Jenkins, and Pettigrew, to operate against the Union troops south of the James, principally at Little Washington, North Caro- lina, and at Suffolk, Virginia, with the design of regaining all that coast. Failing in carrying either of those places either by assault or by direct approaches, the siege of the latter, which had been conducted by Longstreet in person, had been raised on the very day that the most desperate fighting was in progress at
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Chancellorsville. . The new rebel department which had been erected in that locality, and over which General Longstreet had been placed, was broken up, and the troops thus released were hurried away to join General Lee upon the Rappahannock.
Elated by two great victories, and made confident by the large accessions of strength he was receiving, the rebel chieftain at once began to meditate a systematic invasion of the North. In this he was seconded by the Government at Richmond. If a perma- nent lodgment could be made on Northern soil, great advantages were promised, and the hope, from the beginning cherished, of transferring the theatre of war to that section, would be realized ; the great network of railroads concentring at Harrisburg could be broken up; the supply of coal from the anthracite regions of Pennsylvania, the almost sole reliance for the entire navy of the Union, could be deranged ; the casting of heavy guns for both the army and navy, at Pittsburg, could be impeded; and foreign Governments, seeing the vitality displayed, might thereby be induced to recognize the new power as a nation. Doubtless political considerations at home also urged on the leaders to this enterprise. But greater than all these, the rebel President had learned that Vicksburg must fall before the victorious armies of Grant, and he hoped by a brilliant campaign on Northern soil to break the crushing weight of the blow thus impending from the West.
An invasion seemed to promise some if not all of these advan- tages. Having gained victories so easily upon the Rappahannock, General Lee argued that he could gain them with equal case upon the Susquehanna. Turning to the Union army, now commanded by General Hooker, he saw in its condition ample matter of encouragement. It was dispirited by defeat. There was a want of harmony among its Generals, and especially between its Com- mander and the General-in-chief of all the armies, Halleck. Besides, the time of about 40,000 nine-months' men had expired. and the places which they had left vacant had not been filled. But there was one untoward circumstance, the importance of which, in his overweening self-confidence, he had failed to recog- nize. On that evening in May, at Chancellorsville, when with the force of an avalanche his massed columns had been precipi-
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tated upon the Union army, Stonewall Jackson, that thunderbolt in war, who had led his legions victorious in almost every battle, had fallen, mortally wounded, and was borne forever from the theatre of mortal strife.
In his confidence the whole army and the entire South shared. and on the morning of the 3d of June, just one month from the close of the Battle of Chancellorsville, Lee put his columns in motion for a campaign in the North. He, however, skilfully masked his movements, leaving Hill's corps to occupy his old camps upon the immediate Union front, upon the Rappahannock, and to hold, apparently with his accustomed strength, the in- trenchments along all the heights, and sending clouds of cavalry to hover upon his right flank. He also exercised unceasing vigil- ance to prevent any one from crossing the river who could carry intelligence of his purposes into the Union lines, and all of Hooker's scouts who had been sent across to ascertain what movements were in progress were seized, not one of them returning.
But nothing could escape the keen eye of Hooker. The most insignificant change of camp was noted, and its interpretation divined. As early as the 28th of May, he telegraphed to Secre- tary Stanton: "It has been impossible for me to give any information concerning the movements of the enemy at all satis- factory. I have had several men over the river, but, as they do not return, I conclude that they have been captured. The enemy's camps are as numerous and as well filled as ever. It was reported to me this morning, by General Gregg, that the enemy's cavalry had made their appearance in the vicinity of Warrenton, on the strength of which I have ordered on to that line Buford's division, to drive them across the river and to keep them there. If necessary, I will send up additional forces. .. . In the event a forward movement should be contemplated by the enemy, and he should have been reinforced by the army from Charleston, I am in doubt as to the direction he will take, but probably the one of last year, however desperate it may appear-desperate if his force should be no greater than we have reason to suppose. The enemy has always shown an unwillingness to attack fortified positions ; still, you may rest assured that important movements
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are being made, and, in my opinion, it is necessary for every one to be watchful. The enemy has all his cavalry force, five brig- ades, collected at Culpeper and Jefferson. This would indicate a movement in the direction of the Orange and Alexandria Rail- road, and this it is my duty to look after."
We see in this dispatch already prefigured in the mind of Hooker the probable course which the rebel army would take. Intimations continued to come to him from various sources strengthening this opinion. A Savannah paper had published an outline of the contemplated invasion, which had reached the Northern press. The movement of rebel troops northward was also discovered and reported to him from a signal station in the First corps.
To enable the rebel army to move with assurance of success, its commander had been allowed to draw every available man. taking the columns from before Suffolk, from North Carolina, from Virginia in the direction of Tennessee, and from the rebel Capital. A like concentration was not attempted on the Union side. Dix was at Fortress Monroe, Peck at Suffolk, Foster in North Caro- lina, Heintzelman in the Department of Washington, Schenck at Baltimore, Tyler at Harper's Ferry, and Milroy at Winchester. Over the troops in these several districts, General Hooker had no control, and when a detachment from one of them near Harper's Ferry received an order from him, its commander refused to obey it, as did General Slough at Alexandria, when a brigade of the Pennsylvania Reserve corps was ordered up to the front. Against this isolation Hooker remonstrated repeatedly. In concluding an important dispatch of the 5th of June, he said : "In view of these contemplated movements of the enemy, I cannot too forci- bly impress upon the mind of his Excellency, the President, the necessity of having one commander for all the troops whose operations can have an influence on those of Lee's army. Under the present system all independent commanders are in ignorance of the movements of the others-at least such is my situation. I trust that I may not be considered in the way to this arrange- ment, as it is a position I do not desire, and only suggest it as I feel the necessity for concert, as well as vigor of action." But his appeal was not heeded, whether from lack of confidence in his 11
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ability to direct operations on so large a scale, or whether it was deemed better to have minor movements under the control of the head of the army at Washington, is not apparent.
In the midst of his efforts to harmonize counsels, and cen- tralize the Union forces, intimations thickened from all sides tending to the one conclusion, that Lee's army had been largely reinforced, and that it was secretly moving on an important cam- paign, either of invasion, or to turn the right flank of the Union army. Should he find the former supposition to be correct, Gen- eral Hooker, in the communication quoted from above, desired permission to cross the Rappahannock, and fall upon the isolated portion left in his front. The reply of Mr. Lincoln is charac- teristic, and illustrates remarkably the clearness of his concep- tions, and the homely but pointed similes with which he enforced them : "Yours of to-day," he says, "was received an hour ago. So much of professional military skill is requisite to answer it that I have turned the task over to General Halleck. He promises to perform it with his utmost care. I have but one idea which I think worth suggesting to you, and that is, in case you find Lee coming to the north of the Rappahannock, I would by no means cross to the south of it. If he should leave a rear force at Fredericksburg tempting you to fall upon it, it would fight in intrenchments, and have you at a disadvantage, and so, man for man, worst you at that point, while his main force would be getting an advantage of you northward. In one word, I would not take any risk of being entangled upon the river, like an ox jumped half over a fence and liable to be torn by dogs front and rear, without a fair chance to gore one way or kick the other. If Lee would come to my side of the river, I would keep on the same side and fight him, or act on the defensive according as might be my estimate of his strength relatively to my own. But these are mere suggestions, which I desire to be controlled by the judgment of yourself and General Halleck."
The opinion of Mr. Lincoln, expressed in his quaint but forci- ble way, must be acknowledged remarkably just, and withal is so modestly propounded that it cannot fail to commend itself to the most violent advocate of the opposing view. A small force in the intrenchments, upon those frowning heights which had
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been before attacked with such disastrous results, would have been equal to a much larger one in the attacking column.
That he might, however, discover what was really behind the works on his front, the Sixth corps was ordered down to Frank- lin's crossing of the Rappahannock a little below Fredericksburg, on the morning of the 6th of June, and a portion of it, under command of General Howe, was thrown across. A strong demon- stration showed that the enemy was in heavy force in front, and that the heights, for a distance of twenty miles, were still firmly held, Hill's entire corps of 30,000 men being present. But that he might seem to threaten the rebel rear and retain his troops as long as possible, Hooker kept the Sixth corps in position at the river, with the Fifth at Banks' and United States Fords, and as late as the 12th threw across two pontoon bridges as if to pass over. Lee, in his official report, says: "General Hill disposed his forces to resist their advance, but as they seemed intended for the purpose of observation rather than attack, the movements in progress were not arrested."
Determined to be satisfied of the real position of the rebel infantry, Pleasanton, who commanded the cavalry, was ordered to cross the Rappahannock at the fords above, at daylight on the morning of the 9th, with a strong column, stiffened by 3000 infantry, and attack the enemy's cavalry camp,-supposed to be located in the direction of Culpeper. A severe battle ensued in the neighborhood of Brandy station, in which the enemy was roughly handled. But the rebel infantry coming to the rescue, Pleasanton was obliged to withdraw. From information obtained and official papers captured, it was learned that the enemy's cavalry, which, by accessions from the Shenandoah Valley and from North Carolina, now numbered 12,000 men, and had, the day before, been reviewed by General Lee, was on the following morning, the 10th, to have started on a raid into Maryland and Pennsylvania.
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