my left. The enemy was, when first seen, in two lines of battle, with arms stacked. Within less than 1,000 yards of this large force a second piece of artillery, with its support, consisting of infantry, was captured while attempting to get into position. The gun was taken to the rear. "A portion of the Sixth Michigan Cavalry, seeing only that portion of the enemy behind the earth-works, charged. This charge, led by Major Weber, was the most gallant ever made. At a trot he passed up the hill, received the fire from the whole line, and the next moment rode through and over the earth-works, passed to the right, sabring rebels along the entire line, and returned with a loss of thirty killed, wounded, and missing, including the gallant Major Weber, killed. "I directed General Custer to send forward one regiment as skirmishers. They were repulsed before support could be sent them, and driven back, closely followed by the rebels, until checked by the First Michigan and a squadron of the Eighth New York. "A large number of the enemy's wounded were left upon the field in charge of their own surgeons. "We captured two guns, three battleflags, and upward of 1,500 prisoners." While Lee was advancing through Virginia, General Hooker was falling back with his army from Fredericksburg to cover Washington. When the former crossed the Potomac, the latter followed, still interposing between the enemy and the capital. On the 28th of June, General Hooker was suddenly relieved of the command of the Army of the Potomac, and General Meade appointed to succeed him. The preliminary movements of the Army of the Potomac while under General Hooker are well narrated in this extract from Mr. Everett's address at the consecration of the national cemetery at Gettysburg, November 19th: "Unable to force the passage of the Rappahannock, where General Hooker, notwithstanding the reverse at Chancellorsville in May, was strongly posted, the Confederate general resorted to strategy. He had two objects in view. The first was by a rapid movement northward, and by manoeuvring with a portion of his army on the east side of the Blue Ridge, to tempt Hooker from his base of operations, thus leading him to uncover the approaches to Washington, to throw it open to a raid by Stuart's cavalry, and enable Lee himself to cross the Potomac in the neighborhood of Poolesville, and thus fall upon the capital. This plan of operations was wholly frustrated. The design. of the rebel general was promptly discovered by General Hooker, and moving himself with great rapidity from Fredericksburg, he preserved unbroken the inner line, and stationed the various corps of his army at all the points protecting the approach to Washington, from Centreville up to Leesburg. From this vantage ground the rebel general in vain attempted to draw him. In the mean time, by the vigorous operations of Pleasanton's cavalry, the cavalry of Stuart, though greatly superior in numbers, was so crippled as to be disabled from performing the part assigned it in the campaign. In this manner General Lee's first object, viz., the defeat of Hooker's army on the south of the Potomac and a direct march on Washington, was baffled. The second part of the Confederate plan, and which is supposed to have been undertaken in opposition to the views of General Lee, was to turn the demonstration northward into a real invasion of Maryland and Pennsylvania, in the hope that, in this way, General Hooker would be drawn to a distance from the capital; that some opportunity would occur of taking him at disadvantage, and, after defeating his army, of making a descent upon Baltimore and Washington. This part of General Lee's plan, which was substantially the repetition of that of 1862, was not less signally defeated, with what honor to the arms of the Union the heights on which we are this day assembled will forever at sumed by the rebel general in his unavailing attempts to outmanœuvre General Hooker. Although General Lee broke up from Fredericksburg on the 3d of June, it was not till the 24th that the main body of his army entered Maryland, and instead of crossing the Potomac, as he had intended, east of the Blue Ridge, he was compelled to do it at Shepherdstown and Williamsport, thus materially deranging his entire plan of campaign north of the river. Stuart, who had been sent with his cavalry to the east of the Blue Ridge, to guard the passes of the mountains, to mask the movements of Lee and to harass the Union general in crossing the river, having been very severely handled by Pleasanton at Beverly Ford, Aldie, and Upperville, instead of being able to retard General Hooker's advance, was driven himself away from his connection with the army of Lee, and cut off for a fortnight from all communication with it; a circumstance to which General Lee, in his report, alludes more than once, with evident displeasure. Let us now rapidly glance at the incidents of the eventful campaign. "A detachment from Ewell's corps, under Jenkins, had penetrated, on the 15th of June, as far as Chambersburg. This movement was intended at first merely as a demonstration, and as a marauding expedition for supplies. It had, however, the salutary effect of alarming the country, and vigorous preparations here in Pennsylvania and in the sister States were made to repel the "Much time had been uselessly con- inroad. After two days passed at test. Chambersburg, Jenkins, anxious for his communications with Ewell, fell back with his plunder to Hagerstown. Here he remained for several days, and having swept the recesses of Cumberland Valley, came down upon the eastern flank of the South Mountain and pushed his marauding parties as far as Waynesboro'. On the 22d the remainder of Ewell's corps crossed the river and moved up the valley. They were followed on the 24th by Longstreet and Hill, who crossed at Williamsport and Shepherdstown, and pushing up the valley encamped at Chambersburg on the 27th. In this way the whole rebel army, estimated at 90,000 infantry, upward of 10,000 cavalry, and 4,000 or 5,000 artillery, making a total of 105,000 of all arms, was concentrated in Pennsylvania. 66 Up to this time, no report of Hooker's movements had been received by General Lee, who, having been deprived of his cavalry, had no means of obtaining information. Rightly judging, however, that no time would be lost by the Union army in the pursuit, in order to detain it on the eastern side of the mountains in Maryland and Pennsylvania, and thus preserve his communications by the way of Williamsport, he had, before his own arrival at Chambersburg, directed Ewell to send detachments from his corps to Carlisle and York. The latter detachment, under Early, passed through this place on the 26th of June. You need not, fellowcitizens of Gettysburg, that I should recall to you those moments of alarm and distress, precursors as they were of the more trying scenes which were so soon to follow. "As soon as General Hooker perceived that the advance of the Confederates into the Cumberland Valley was not a mere feint to draw him away from Washington, he moved himself rapidly in pursuit. Attempts, as we have seen, were made to harass and retard his passage across the Potomac. These attempts were not only altogether unsuccessful, but so unskilfully made as to place the entire Federal army between the cavalry of Stuart and the army of Lee. While the latter was massed in the Cumberland Valley, Stuart was east of the mountains, with Hooker's army between, and Gregg's cavalry in close pursuit. Stuart was accordingly compelled to force a march northward, which was destitute of all strategical character, and which deprived his chief of all means of obtaining intelligence. "No time, as we have seen, had been lost by General Hooker in the pursuit of Lee. The day after the rebel army entered Maryland, the Union army crossed the Potomac at Edward's Ferry, and by the 28th lay between Harper's Ferry and Frederick. The force of the enemy on that day was partly at Chambersburg, and partly moving on the Cashtown road, in the direction of Gettysburg, while the detachments from Ewell's corps, of which mention has been made, had reached the Susquehanna opposite Harrisburg and Columbia. That a great battle must soon be fought no one could doubt; but in the apparent, and perhaps real, absence of plan on the part of Lee, it was impossible to foretell the precise scene of the encounter. Wherever fought, consequences the most momentous hung upon the result. 'In this critical and anxious state of affairs, General Hooker was relieved, and General Meade was summoned to the chief command of the army." General Meade thus relates the movements of the Army of the Potomac from the time he assumed its command to its victory at Gettysburg and the retreat of the enemy: move with 7,000 men to occupy Frederick and the line of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and the balance of his force, estimated at 4,000, to remove and escort the public property to Washing ton. "On the 29th the army was put in motion, and on the evening of that day was in position, its left at Emmettsburg and its right at New Windsor. Buford's division of cavalry was on the left flank, with its advance at Gettysburg. Kilpatrick's division was in front at Hanover, where he encountered this day General Stuart's Confederate cavalry, which had crossed the Potomac at Seneca Creek, and passing our right flank was making its way toward Carlisle, having escaped Gregg's division, which was delayed in taking its position on the 'On the 28th of June," he says, "I received orders from the President, placing me in command of the army. The situation of affairs was briefly as follows: The Confederate army, commanded by General R. E. Lee, estimat-right flank by the occupation of the ed at over 100,000 strong, all arms, had roads by columns of infantry. crossed the Potomac River, and advanced up the Cumberland Valley. Reliable intelligence placed his advance (Ewell's corps) on the Susquehanna, between Harrisburg and Columbia. Longstreet's corps was at Chambersburg, and Hill's corps between that place and Cashtown. "The 28th of June was spent in ascertaining the position and strength of the different corps of the army, but principally in bringing up cavalry, which had been covering the rear of the army in its passage over the Potomac, and to which a large increase had just been made from the force previously attached to the defences of Washington. Orders were given on that day to inake General French, commanding at Harper's Ferry, "On the 30th, the right flank of the army was moved up to Manchester, the left still being at Emmettsburg, in the vicinity of which place three corpsthe first, eleventh, and third-were collected, under orders of Major-General Reynolds. Reynolds. General Buford having reported from Gettysburg the appearance of the enemy on the Cashtown road, in some force, General Reynolds was directed to occupy Gettysburg. On reaching that place on the 1st of July, General Reynolds found Buford's cavalry warmly engaged with the enemy, who had debouched his infantry through the mountains on the Cashtown road, but was being held in check in a most gallant manner by General Buford's cavalry. |