Memoirs of Colonel Mosby - Chapter XII



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CHAPTER XII 
STUART AND THE GETTYSBURG CAMPAIGN
   AFTER Chancellorsville, the armies resumed their positions on the 
Rappahannock. A brilliant but barren victory had been won, and the pickets 
on the opposite banks of the river again began to trade in coffee and 
tobacco. With the years of hardship and danger, war had not lost all of 
its romance, and the soldiers observed in their intercourse the courtesies 
of combatants as strictly as did the Crusaders.

   General Lee now determined to cross the Potomac and make a strategic 
offensive. His main object was really to create a diversion and conduct a 
great foraging expedition into Pennsylvania for the relief of Virginia and 
his fasting army - the South was almost exhausted. The movement would 
temporarily draw the enemy from Virginia, but he did not hope to dictate a 
peace north of the Potomac, nor could he have expected to maintain his 
army there without a line of communication and base of supply.

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   When Lee crossed the Potomac, he had no objective point. His army was 
now organized with three corps, under Longstreet, Ewell, and A. P. Hill - 
Stonewall Jackson had crossed the Great River. Stuart was his Chief of 
Cavalry.

   Early in June the movement that terminated in the unexpected encounter 
at Gettysburg began from Fredericksburg up the river. Previously the 
cavalry corps had been sent in advance to Culpeper County to prevent the 
enemy's cavalry from crossing the Rappahannock and to get the benefit of 
the grazing ground. Lee followed with Longstreet and Ewell. A. P. Hill's 
corps was left behind to amuse Hooker. Lee wanted to conceal his march so 
that he could cross the Blue Ridge and surprise Milroy in the Shenandoah 
Valley. Hooker's man in the balloon discovered that some camp grounds had 
been abandoned, so a reconnaissance was ordered to find out what it meant. 
But the force met with such resistance that Hooker concluded that Lee's 
whole army was there.

   To relieve the Administration of anxiety about invasion, Hooker 
telegraphed to Washington what the reconnoitring force reported - just 
what Lee wanted him to do. The impression was confirmed by pretended 
deserters, who said they belonged to 

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reinforcements that had just come to Lee. Deception is the ethics of war.

   On June 8, at Brandy Station in Culpeper County, there was a review of 
the cavalry. The spectators little imagined that the squadrons which 
appeared in the grand parade before the Commander-in-Chief would be in 
deadly combat on the same ground the next day -

   "Rider and horse - friend, foe - in one red burial blent." 

   Hooker knew that the Confederate cavalry was there and thought it was 
assembled for a raid across the Potomac. So he sent his cavalry corps up 
the river to intercept it. On June 6 he wrote Halleck: "As the 
accumulation of the heavy rebel force of cavalry about Culpeper may mean 
mischief, I am determined, if practicable, to break it up in its 
incipiency. I shall send all my cavalry against them, stiffened by about 
3000 infantry."

   Buford's division had already reached the railroad. He was instructed: 
"On arriving at Bealeton, should you find yourself with sufficient force, 
you will drive the enemy out of his camps near Culpeper Court House across 
the Rapidan, destroying the bridges at that point." The Rapidan is a 
tributary of the Rappahannock.

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   Hooker's instructions to Pleasanton show that his object was not to get 
information, but to prevent a cavalry raid across the Potomac. But, to 
cover up his defeat, Pleasanton afterwards claimed that he was only making 
a reconnaissance. A reconnaissance is made to discover the position and 
strength of an enemy. A sufficient force is applied to compel him to 
display himself, and, when that is done, the object is accomplished and 
the attacking force retires. No matter whether Pleasanton was making a 
real attack, or a reconnaissance, his expedition was a failure. If he had 
discovered the presence of Lee, with Longstreet and Ewell, he would have 
reported it to Hooker. He had been instructed that he would be absent four 
or five days, and to take along five days' rations, with pack mules and 
tents for the officers. Such preparations do not indicate that he was 
expected to cross the Rappahannock in the morning and recross in the 
evening.

   Stuart knew that the enemy's camps were over the river, and that their 
outposts were near. Confederate pickets lined the river with grand guards 
in support. On June 9, at daylight, the enemy began crossing at Beverly's 
and Kelly's fords - several miles apart, above and below the railroad 
bridge. The plan was for the two 

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divisions to unite at Brandy - four miles away - and then move on six 
miles to the Court House where the camps of Stuart's cavalry corps were 
supposed to be. The Unionists did not expect to meet anything near the 
river except pickets. Their error was in thinking the Confederate camps 
were ten miles away, and that there would be no collision in force before 
the columns united. The fact was that Stuart's headquarters were between 
Brandy and the river and near the camps of two brigades. Another brigade, 
Jones's, was a mile and a half from Beverly's Ford, where Buford's 
division crossed. Each of Pleasanton's divisions was supported by a 
brigade of infantry.

   Captain Grimsley's company was picketing at the bridge. Before daybreak 
a vidette informed him that he could hear troops crossing the railroad. 
The captain put his ear to the ground and, hearing the click of the 
artillery wheels passing over the iron rails, sent a courier with the 
information to Jones. Captain Gibson's company gallantly resisted the 
crossing at the ford. The leading regiment was the Eighth New York Cavalry 
under the command of a Mississippian, "Grimes" Davis. He had hardly 
reached the southern bank before he fell.

   The camps were aroused by the firing at the 

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fords, and there was saddling and mounting in hot haste. The Seventh 
Virginia Cavalry was the grand guard, and it is said that many rode into 
the fight bareback and without their boots. For some unexplained reason 
Jones's artillery was between his camps and the pickets on the river. As a 
general rule, it was in the wrong place, but on this occasion it happened 
to be in the right place. On account of the scarcity of grain, the horses 
had been turned out to graze, and there would have been no time to harness 
and hitch them before the enemy reached the camp. The Yankees were driving 
a body of Confederate cavalry back and just emerging through the woods, 
when some of the men ran a gun into the road, by hand, and opened fire on 
the column. The troops halted; the delay was fatal, and the guns were 
saved.

   As there was no precedent in war for an artillery camp so near an 
outpost Pleasanton naturally concluded that the Confederates knew he was 
coming and had prepared a masked battery to receive him; that he had run 
into an ambuscade. War is not a science, but an art. Pleasanton was 
surprised and halted - and lost. That he had miscalculated the resistance 
he would meet at the ford may be inferred from the dispatch he sent 

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Hooker at 7.40 A.M., "The enemy is in strong cavalry force here. We had a 
severe fight. They were aware of our movement and prepared."

   To prepare Halleck for a surprise after he had promised so much, Hooker 
telegraphed him, "Pleasanton reports that after an encounter with the 
rebel cavalry over the Beverly ford he has not been able to make head 
against it."

   At 2.30 P.M., as he had made no progress, Pleasanton telegraphed back, 
"I will recross this P.M." And so ended his expedition on which he had 
started to the Rapidan, on his so-called reconnaissance.

   When the firing was first heard at the fords, Stuart sent Robertson's 
brigade below, towards Kelly's, to hold Gregg's division in check on that 
road, and with Hampton's brigade went at a gallop to meet the force at 
Beverly's ford. Buford's division would soon have been driven over the 
river, but the news came that Gregg's division was in his rear. At first 
Stuart would not believe this, but in some way Robertson had allowed Gregg 
to pass him unobserved on another road. So, leaving W. H. F. Lee's 
brigade, which had just come up, on Buford's flank to hold him in check, 
Stuart turned and went to meet Gregg with Hampton's and Jones's brigades.

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   On the field around Brandy there was now the greatest mounted combat of 
the war - probably of any war. Gregg was driven back over the river, 
leaving behind him three guns and six battle flags. Buford and Pleasanton 
followed him back to their camps. Pleasanton had repeated the Austrian 
manoeuvre at Rivoli of having a double line of operations, and Stuart had 
done just what Bonaparte did there, when he was attacked in front and on 
his flanks and nearly surrounded - struck and defeated the columns in 
succession before they united.

   Stuart's great credit is the manner in which he screened the movements 
of Lee and got information of the enemy. Referring to this operation in 
his work on Cavalry, General Bernhardi said:

   The American War of Secession showed in a surprising manner what could 
be done in this respect. Stuart's screening of the left wheel of the 
Confederate army, after the battle of Chancellorsville, for instance, was 
a masterpiece, and the reconnaissance carried out by Mosby's scouts during 
the same period was equally brilliant.

   Early in the morning after Brandy, June 10, Ewell started to cross the 
Blue Ridge into the Shenandoah Valley. On June 13, Milroy, at Winchester, 
who had relied on Hooker to warn him of the 

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approach of an enemy from that direction, found himself surrounded. 
Pleasanton had not discovered that Lee, with two army corps, was in 
Culpeper; and Hooker thought that the whole of Lee's army was still on his 
front on the lower Rappahannock. There was so little suspicion of the 
impending blow in the Valley that on June 12 Hooker invited President 
Lincoln to come down and witness some practice with an incendiary shell. 
Lincoln accepted, but afterwards, instead of going, sent Hooker this 
dispatch, "Do you think it possible that 15,000 of Ewell's men can be at 
Winchester?"

   At first Hooker would not believe it, but he soon struck his tents and 
started to keep between Lee and Washington. To Schenck, at Baltimore, 
Lincoln, with characteristic humor, said, "Get Milroy from Winchester to 
Harper's Ferry, if possible. He will be gobbled up, if he is not already 
past salvation."

   After capturing the most of Milroy's force, Ewell moved on and crossed 
the Potomac on June 15. Lee, with Longstreet and A. P. Hill, followed him 
to the Valley and halted a week, while Stuart's cavalry moved east of the 
ridge as a curtain to conceal the operation. The hostile armies marched in 
concentric circles, Lee having 

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the initiative. When Lee moved, Hooker also moved so as always to cover 
Washington. Of course Lee must have expected that Hooker would maintain 
the same relative position and follow him after he had crossed the 
Potomac. The right of Hooker's army now rested on the river, where he had 
laid pontoons for crossing. Stuart was on his front to watch and report 
his movements to Lee. On June 15, Ewell, having crossed into Maryland, had 
sent his cavalry on to forage in Pennsylvania. At that time General Lee 
seems to have been undecided as to a plan of campaign, except to subsist 
on the enemy and draw him out of Virginia. On the nineteenth Lee wrote 
Ewell, who was about Hagerstown, that "should we be able to detain General 
Hooker's army from following you, you would be able to accomplish as much 
unmolested as the whole army could with General Hooker in its front. If 
your advance causes Hooker to cross the Potomac, or separate his army in 
any way, Longstreet can follow you."

   So Lee's crossing the Potomac was contingent on Hooker's following 
Ewell. All that Ewell then had to do was to collect supplies, for he met 
no resistance. Lee said nothing about A. P. Hill crossing the river. This 
letter proves 

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that he then had no objective, but a biographer, Long - his military 
secretary - asserted, in the face of the record, that Gettysburg was the 
objective when Lee started from Fredericksburg, and that he was surprised 
on hearing that Hooker had followed him over the Potomac. There was not a 
soldier or even a wagon-master in the army who was surprised to hear it. 
Lee seemed to be content to hold Hooker in Virginia, while Ewell was 
living on the Pennsylvania farmers, and his sending another corps across 
the Potomac depended on Hooker. So, when Lee concluded to follow Ewell, he 
must have been sure that Hooker was ready to cross.

   On June 22, Lee ordered Ewell, at Hagerstown, to move into 
Pennsylvania, and told him that whether the rest of the army followed or 
not depended on the supplies he found in the country. Lee said:

   I also directed General Stuart, should the enemy have so far retired 
from his front as to permit of the departure of a portion of the cavalry, 
to march with three brigades across the Potomac and place himself on your 
right and in communication with you, keep you advised of the movements of 
the enemy, and assist in collecting supplies for the army.

   Lee told Ewell that his best course would be towards the Susquehanna, 
that he must be 

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guided by circumstances, and, possibly, he might take Harrisburg. Lee had 
already written Stuart to leave two brigades to watch the enemy and take 
care of the flank and rear of the army and, with three brigades, to join 
Ewell, who was marching to the Susquehanna. Stuart was instructed to act 
as Ewell's Chief of Cavalry and to "collect all the supplies you can for 
the use of the army." As no enemy was following Ewell, and as there was 
none on his front, except militia, Stuart would really have had nothing 
but foraging to do, if he had joined Ewell, who, by this time, was sending 
back long trains loaded with provisions.

   Longstreet was then in Virginia, near Ashby's Gap in the Blue Ridge, 
and this order was sent through him and was subject to his approval. 
Longstreet forwarded the order, and in a letter to Stuart said:

   He speaks of your leaving via Hopewell Gap [in Bull Run Mountain] and 
passing by the rear of the enemy. I think that your passage of the Potomac 
by our rear [west of the Blue Ridge at Shepherdstown] at the present 
moment will, in a measure, disclose our plans. You had better not leave 
us, therefore, unless you take the proposed route in the rear of the enemy.

   Longstreet wrote to General Lee, on the twenty-second:

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   Yours of 4 o'clock this afternoon is received. I have forwarded your 
letter to General Stuart with the suggestion that he pass by the enemy's 
rear, if he thinks that he may get through. We have nothing of the enemy 
to-day.

   So it seems that General Lee suggested, and Longstreet urged, Stuart to 
pass by the enemy's rear. At that time Longstreet and A. P. Hill had not 
been ordered to follow Ewell. After the war Longstreet wrote an account of 
Gettysburg, in which he forgot his own orders to Stuart and charged him 
with disobeying his instructions. He said he ordered Stuart to march on 
his flank and to keep between him and the enemy; Lee's staff officers and 
biographers repeat the absurd story. They do not explain how Stuart could 
be with Ewell on the Susquehanna and, at the same time, on Longstreet's 
flank in Virginia. No precedent can be found for such a performance, 
except in the Arabian Nights.

   When Lee was in the Shenandoah Valley, he wrote twice to President 
Davis that Hooker's army was drawing close to the Potomac and had a 
pontoon across it, and that he thought he could throw Hooker over the 
river. Lee also wrote to Imboden, who was moving farther west, thanked him 
for the cattle and sheep he had sent to him, 

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and urged him to collect all he could. On June 23, 5 P.M., Lee wrote again 
to Stuart. He repeated the instructions about joining Ewell and authorized 
him to cross the Potomac west, at Shepherdstown, or east of the Blue 
Ridge, by the enemy's rear. "In either case," said General Lee, "after 
crossing the river you must move on and feel the right of Ewell's troops, 
collecting information, provisions, etc."

   Lee seemed to be more intent about gathering rations than anything 
else. There is not a word in either of his dispatches to Stuart about 
reporting the enemy's movements to him. Lee's biographers say there was. 
He would neither order nor expect Stuart to do an impossible thing, but he 
told him what instructions to give the commanders of the two cavalry 
brigades he would leave behind. Stuart did give each of the commanders 
minute instructions to report the movements of the enemy directly to Lee, 
and to follow on the flank and rear of the army when the enemy left 
Virginia. There was no complaint against Jones and Robertson, the brigade 
commanders, for not having performed this duty - conclusive evidence that 
they did.

   If Stuart had gone the western route by Shepherdstown, he would have 
had to cross and 

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recross the Blue Ridge and to march in a zigzag circuit to join Ewell. 
Thus he would have been a long way from the enemy and out of communication 
with Lee. Lee's movements did not depend on the cavalry he had ordered to 
join Ewell. Stuart chose the most direct route to the Susquehanna by the 
rear of the enemy. It afforded an opportunity, as Lee had instructed him, 
"to do them all the damage you can" and to "collect provisions"; he would 
break the communications with Washington and destroy Hooker's 
transportation. Such a blow would compel the latter, instead of following 
Lee, to retreat to his base and wait for repairs.

   The seven corps of Hooker's army were scattered through three counties 
in Virginia, with his right resting on the Potomac. The plan for Stuart to 
pass through Hooker's army was really a copy of the campaign of Marengo, 
when Bonaparte crossed the Alps and cut the Austrian communications in 
Italy. It was a bold enterprise - its safety lay in its audacity - the 
enemy would be caught unprepared, and at the same time it would protect 
Lee's communications by drawing off Hooker's cavalry in pursuit. It was 
known that the camps of the different corps were so far apart that a 
column of cavalry could easily pass between them.

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   I was at headquarters when Stuart wrote his last dispatch to Lee, 
informing him of the route he would go, and sat by him when he was writing 
it - in fact, I dictated a large part of it. I had just returned from a 
scout inside the enemies lines and brought the intelligence that induced 
Stuart to undertake to pass through them. I remember that Fitz Lee and 
Hampton came into the room while we were writing.

   I had arrived from this scout early on the morning of June 24, and 
found that Stuart had just received the orders to join Ewell with three 
brigades and had been given discretion to pass by the rear of the Union 
army. John Esten Cooke, the Ordnance Officer of the cavalry corps, was at 
headquarters. In his "Wearing of the Gray" (1867) he corroborated my 
statement about the effect on the campaign of the report I brought Stuart. 
He writes:

   General Stuart came, finally, to repose unlimited confidence in his 
(Mosby's) resources and relied implicitly upon him. The writer recalls an 
instance of this in June, 1863. General Stuart was then near Middleburg, 
watching the United States Army - then about to move toward Pennsylvania - 
but could get no accurate information from his scouts. Silent, puzzled, 
and doubtful, the General walked up and 

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down knitting his brows and reflecting. When the lithe figure of Mosby 
appeared, Stuart uttered an exclamation of relief and satisfaction. They 
were speedily in private conversation, and Mosby came out again to mount 
his quick gray mare and set out in a heavy storm for the Federal camps. On 
the next day he returned with information which put the entire cavalry in 
motion. He had penetrated General Hooker's camps, ascertained everything, 
and safely returned. This he had done in his gray uniform with his pistols 
in his belt, and I believe that it was on this occasion that he gave a 
characteristic evidence of his coolness.

   The adventure to which Cook refers occurred at the house of a citizen 
named Coleman, where I captured two cavalrymen who were sitting on their 
horses gathering cherries. This fact was confirmed by General Weld, of 
General Reynolds's staff, in his "War Diary." He said:

   We found out to-day that our guide was captured at Coleman's house 
yesterday. Coleman lives about two miles from here, and he has a lot of 
forage; our guide and quarter-master went there for it and were caught by 
a "Secesh" there said to be Mosby.(1)

(1. Mosby rode along with his two prisoners and unexpectedly came upon a 
body of enemy cavalry. He thereupon threatened the two soldiers with 
certain death, and rode with the enemy a considerable distance, at length 
turning into a lane and getting safely away, with his prisoners.)

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   Lee knew that while Stuart was passing between Hooker's army and 
Washington communication with him would be impossible. This was before the 
days of wireless! Lee must have relied for intelligence on the cavalry 
brigades he had with him, on his scouts, and his signal corps on the Blue 
Ridge. He had no other use for them. The cavalry commander said he 
frequently sent couriers to Lee with dispatches. I regret that Lee's 
report says that he expected Stuart to perform a miracle and keep in 
communication with him.

   Three of Lee's staff officers, Marshall, Long, and Taylor, have given 
accounts of the Gettysburg campaign that misrepresent the orders Stuart 
received and claim that Lee relied on him for intelligence. Now the 
letters of Lee to Ewell, directing him to move to the Susquehanna and to 
Stuart to join Ewell with three brigades, are copied in Lee's dispatch 
book in the handwriting of Colonel Charles Marshall, who also wrote Lee's 
reports. The implications of disobedience against Stuart in the reports 
are contradicted by these letters. The dispatch book was in Marshall's 
possession when he delivered a philippic on Lee's birthday (1896) in which 
he imputed disobedience of orders to Stuart and asserted that Lee depended 

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on him for information. He did not say what Lee expected the two cavalry 
brigades to do, nor did he say what they didn't do - he didn't mention 
them. The letter of 5 P.M., June 23, directing Stuart to go to Ewell on 
the Susquehanna and authorizing him to pass by the enemy's rear, is in the 
handwriting of Colonel Walter Taylor, Lee's Assistant Adjutant-General. He 
wrote an account of Gettysburg charging Stuart with disobedience in going 
to Ewell and not remaining with Lee and reporting the movements of the 
enemy to him, and blaming Stuart, as Marshall did, for the disaster at 
Gettysburg. Long falsified the record in the same way. Apparently they 
never dreamed that there would be a resurrection of Lee's dispatch book.

   On the authority of the staff officers, a historian wrote that Stuart 
left Lee without orders and went off on a wild-goose chase. I wrote and 
asked him if he thought that Ewell was a wild goose. The truth is Lee was 
so anxious for Stuart to cross the river ahead of Hooker that he wrote 
him, "I fear he will steal a march on us and get across the Potomac before 
we are aware."

   Yet his report says that he was astonished to hear, on June 28, at 
Chambersburg, that Hooker had crossed. The staff officers knew perfectly 

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well how the battle was precipitated, but they concealed it. They 
intentionally misrepresented it. Their animus towards Stuart is manifest. 
Taylor, in his narrative of his service with General Lee, did not even 
mention the great cavalry combat at Brandy, which his chief rode on the 
field to witness. Marshall and Long, to disparage Stuart, referred to the 
battle and used the same phrase, "he was roughly handled." Long, to 
deprive Stuart of the glory of his victory, said that a division of 
infantry came to his support. The record shows that General Lee kept his 
infantry concealed that day.

   Early on the morning of June 25, Stuart's column crossed the Bull Run, 
expecting to pass directly through Hooker's army and to reach the Potomac 
that evening. This could have been done easily on the day before. But on 
the morning of the twenty-fourth, A. P. Hill's corps, at Charles Town, 
moved to the Potomac in plain view of the Federal signal station on 
Maryland Heights. Longstreet, at Millwood, three times as far from the 
river as Hill, started at the same time, but he marched by Martinsburg and 
out of sight of the signal station, crossing at Williamsport. Hill had 
crossed the day before at Shepherdstown and waited for Longstreet. There 

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was no emergency to require this movement. Hooker was waiting on Lee and 
had not sent a single regiment over the river, although Ewell was foraging 
in Pennsylvania. The news of Hill's and Longstreet's crossing the river 
was immediately telegraphed to Hooker, and the next morning he set his 
army in motion for the pontoons. As his corps crossed the Potomac, they 
marched west for South Mountain and occupied the Gaps. Longstreet and Hill 
united in Maryland and spent two days with General Lee within a few miles 
of Hooker's camps. Hooker's signal stations were in full view on peaks, 
flapping their flags. Each of Lee's corps had a signal corps, and Lee had 
a number of scouts to send on the mountain to see Hooker's army on the 
other side. The truth is that Lee and Stuart got their information of the 
enemy through individual scouts and not by using the cavalry in a body. 
Lee says that one of these scouts brought him the information at 
Chambersburg that Hooker had crossed the Potomac. I have no doubt that Lee 
used any means he could to get intelligence of the enemy, for the 
simplicity of the bucolic ages was not a characteristic of the Confederate 
commander.

   The enemy crossed the Potomac in front of 

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the two cavalry brigades that were left to watch him. There is no doubt 
that the cavalry did their duty, and that Lee waited in Maryland for 
Hooker's army to get over the river. If A. P. Hill had only waited a day 
longer in his camps, Hooker would have stood still, and Stuart could 
easily have crossed the Potomac on the twenty-fifth. It would be a severe 
reflection on Lee and his generals to suppose that they spent two days so 
near an army of a hundred thousand men and didn't even suspect it. 
Hooker's army was crossing the river twenty-five miles below at the same 
time Lee was crossing. Stuart soon ran against Hooker's columns on the 
roads on which he had expected to march. But they had the right of way and 
kept on, while Stuart, after an artillery duel, had to make a detour 
around them and did not cross the river until the night of the twenty-
seventh. Thus Stuart was delayed two days, but he sent a dispatch 
informing Lee that Hooker was moving to the Potomac. The appearance of a 
body of cavalry on the flank of Hooker's army created great anxiety for 
his rear, and Pleasanton's cavalry corps was kept as a rear guard and was 
the last to cross on the pontoons on the night of the twenty-seventh.

   At the time Stuart was crossing the Potomac at 

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Seneca, Lee had reached Chambersburg. Ordinarily the Union cavalry should 
have been in front, harassing Lee's flank and rear, but up to the day of 
the battle Lee's communications were intact, and he had not lost a wagon 
or a straggler. The enemy's cavalry were in Hooker's rear, on the 
defensive, and they had no idea that Stuart was crossing the river between 
them and Washington.

   Stuart spent the night (June 27) in Maryland, capturing a lot of boats 
carrying supplies to the army on the canal, and on the twenty-eighth moved 
north and marched all night to join Ewell. During the day Stuart caught a 
supply train going to headquarters from Washington, and, as his orders 
required, he took the supplies along to Ewell. The presence of the 
Confederate cavalry between the army and Washington created a panic, which 
was increased by the report that there was another body south of the 
river. For several days communication with the Union army was cut, 
Washington was isolated, and Stuart's column attracted more attention than 
Lee's army in the Cumberland Valley.

   Meade took command of the Army of the Potomac on the afternoon of the 
twenty-eighth at Frederick City, and there was great commotion in his 
camps when the news came that Stuart 

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had their mules and provisions. The quartermaster-general wired to 
Ingalls, "Your communications are now in the hands of General Fitzhugh 
Lee's brigade."

   On June 27, the day that General Lee arrived at Chambersburg, the corps 
that Hooker had advanced to the Gaps in Maryland were withdrawn twenty 
miles to the east, and the Army of the Potomac was concentrated at 
Frederick City. As a result, Lee's communications were no longer even 
threatened. After crossing the river, Hooker had moved west, as he said, 
to strike Lee's rear, but the War Department interfered with the plan, and 
he asked to be relieved. Ewell was then marching to the Susquehanna, so 
Hooker's counter movement to Frederick was made to protect the Capital and 
Baltimore from any movement down the Susquehanna. Lee must have considered 
the probability of an operation against his rear, when he wrote President 
Davis, after he reached the Potomac, that he thought he could throw 
Hooker's army over the river, and that, as he did not have sufficient 
force to guard his communications, he would have to abandon them. But as 
he would live on the country, he did not have to guard a base of supply, 
and his communications were not vital.

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   Colonel Marshall, it seems to me in the light of the evidence, was 
unjust to his chief when he represented him to have been surprised and 
almost in a panic when he heard, at Chambersburg, on the night of the 
twenty-eighth, that Hooker had crossed the Potomac. He did not explain how 
Lee could have thought that the Northern army would remain in Virginia, 
while the Confederates were ravaging Pennsylvania, nor why he changed his 
plan of campaign to protect his communications.

   The first news of the enemy that Meade received after he assumed 
command was the following discouraging dispatch from Halleck:

   It is reported that your train of one hundred and fifty wagons has been 
captured by Fitzhugh Lee near Rockville. Unless cavalry is sent to guard 
your communications with Washington, they will be cut off. It is reported 
here that there is still a considerable rebel force south of the Potomac.

   General Lee had passed near and left behind him at Harper's Ferry a 
force of 11,000 that did not seem to disturb him as a menace to his 
communications, but on the twenty-eighth Meade withdrew these troops to 
guard his rear and the line of the Potomac. General Lee was then to the 
west, in the Cumberland Valley, but Meade 

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started off in the opposite direction on Stuart's trail. That did seem as 
hopeless as chasing a wild goose.

   Meade said to Halleck, "I can now only say that it appears to me I must 
move towards the Susquehanna, keeping Washington and Baltimore well-
covered, and, if the enemy is checked in his attempt, to cross the 
Susquehanna, or, if he turn towards Baltimore, to give him battle."

   Meade spent a day at Frederick and on the thirtieth started on his 
campaign. Lee was still at Chambersburg. His staff officers say that at 
that time Gettysburg was the objective point on which both Lee and Meade 
were marching, and that there was a race between them to occupy it first. 
Lee could easily have occupied Gettysburg while Meade was still at 
Frederick. Meade's communications were now broken, and for several days he 
was drifting. He sent off to the east two of his cavalry divisions and 
three army corps to intercept Stuart, so after two days' marching a large 
part of Meade's army was as far from Lee as it was at Frederick. If 
General Lee had known how Ewell and Stuart would attract Meade to the 
east, he would not have recalled Ewell so soon.

   On the night of the thirtieth Meade was still in a fog. He had not 
heard that Ewell had 

Page 227

withdrawn from the Susquehanna, so he wrote to Halleck, by a courier, that 
he would push farther east the next day to the Harrisburg railroad, and 
open communication with Baltimore. But at 11.30 P.M., on the thirtieth, a 
telegram was sent from Harrisburg to be forwarded by a messenger to Meade, 
telling him that Lee was falling back. Meade received this news on the 
morning of July 1, and he at once recalled the orders he had issued to 
push on towards the Susquehanna and determined to take a defensive 
position. He wrote Halleck of the change and that he would not advance 
farther, but would retire to the line of Pipe Creek and await an attack - 
which would have satisfied Lee. If Ewell had remained a day longer at 
Carlisle and Early at York, Meade would have moved to the Susquehanna, and 
there would have been no battle at Gettysburg. Halleck must have been 
surprised by Meade's dispatch, for he had told him at Frederick that his 
object was to find and fight Lee.

   After he got the news about Ewell, Meade issued a circular directing 
the corps commanders to hold the enemy in check, if attacked, and to 
retire to Pipe Creek. Reynolds, with the First Corps, was on his extreme 
left and had been directed to move early on July 1 on Gettysburg - merely 

Page 228

in observation. Meade wrote Reynolds that he had been ordered to 
Gettysburg before the news came that Ewell had withdrawn from the 
Susquehanna. But Reynolds started early, never received Meade's letter or 
the circular of recall, and was killed.

   On the night of the thirtieth Stuart arrived at Dover and learned that 
Early's division of Ewell's corps, which he expected to join at York, had 
marched west that morning. As he was ordered to report to Ewell, after a 
short rest Stuart moved on to Carlisle, where he knew Ewell had been. But 
he sent a staff officer on Early's track to report to General Lee, whom he 
found on the field of Gettysburg. Stuart reached Carlisle that night, but 
Ewell, with his cavalry and two divisions, had gone south. It was 
fortunate for Lee that Stuart did go to Carlisle.

   Couch had collected a force of about 15,000 at Harrisburg and had been 
ordered to coöperate with Meade and attack Lee's communications. Stuart 
met his advance at Carlisle, an artillery duel ensued, and it was thought 
by the Federalists that Ewell had returned. So the troops on the march 
from Harrisburg turned back, and the trains that were bringing their 
supplies from different points in the country were stampeded by the 

Page 229

firing. Stuart left that night for Gettysburg and arrived about noon the 
next day, in time to meet the two divisions of cavalry which had been away 
in pursuit of him. Couch's force started again from Harrisburg, but had to 
wait for rations. He did not get off until July 4, after the battle had 
been fought, and never overtook Lee's trains.

   Stuart's march of a column of cavalry around the Union army will be 
regarded, in the light of the record, as one of the greatest achievements 
in war, viewed either as an independent operation or raid, or in its 
strategic relation to the campaign. But all the advantage gained by it was 
neutralized by the indiscretion of a corps commander and was obscured by 
the great disaster to our arms for which it was in no way responsible.

   General Bernhardi wrote:

   I hold therefore that such circumstances render a disturbance of the 
rear communications of an army an important matter. It will often do the 
opponent more damage, and contribute more to a favorable decision of arms 
than the intervention of a few cavalry divisions in the decisive battle 
itself. One does not, of course, exclude the possibility of the other. 
General Stuart, in the campaign of Gettysburg, rode all around the hostile 
army, broke up its communications, drew hostile troops away from the 
decisive point, and yet was in place on the wing of the army on the day of 
the 

Page 230

battle. What this man performed with cavalry and the inestimable damage he 
inflicted on his opponent are worth studying. The fortune of war, which 
lay in might and in the nature of things, he could not turn.

   Such was Stuart's ride around McClellan; the two armies stood still as 
spectators.

   A raid is a predatory incursion, generally against the supplies and 
communications of an enemy. The object of a raid is to embarrass an enemy 
by striking a vulnerable point and destroying his subsistence. The 
operation should be in coöperation with, but independent of, an army. But 
Stuart's march was a combined movement with Ewell and not a raid. His 
objective was Ewell's flank on the Susquehanna. The spoil he captured was 
an incident, not the object, of the march. It was no more a raid than if 
he had crossed the Blue Ridge, as he was authorized by Lee, and travelled 
to join Ewell by a route on which he would have no opportunity for 
adventure. But General Lee's orders show that he was not indifferent 
either to the embarrassment of the enemy or to the spoil he might capture. 
Ewell already had an abundance of cavalry for ordinary outpost duty. It 
was the personality of Stuart that was needed - not cavalry.

   During this campaign, the operations of the 

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cavalry were coördinate with the movements of the army as a unit. On the 
evening of June 27, Lee arrived at Chambersburg, while Hill turned east 
and went on seven miles. This shows that General Lee did not intend to 
move farther north, but to concentrate in that vicinity. Ewell had reached 
Carlisle - thirty miles distant. So Lee wrote him on the evening of the 
twenty-seventh to return to Chambersburg and informed him that Hooker had 
crossed the Potomac. This dispatch is not in the war records. But it seems 
that Lee changed his mind and, at 7.30 A.M. on the twenty-eighth, in a 
second letter repeated the substance of what he wrote Ewell "last night", 
and directed him that, if he had not already started, he move south with 
his trains, but east of South Mountain. It is clear that Ewell's 
destination was Cashtown - a village at the eastern base of the mountain - 
eight miles west of Gettysburg. Discretion was given to him as to the 
roads he should travel. Ewell's and Early's reports say that Cashtown was 
the appointed rendezvous; Lee's that it was Gettysburg. Cashtown was 
occupied on June 28 by a part of Heth's division. In the next two days 
Hill moved with two divisions to that point. Ewell had detached Early's 
division to make a demonstration towards the Susquehanna. On 

Page 232

the way Gordon's brigade spent a night at Gettysburg, but it moved on and 
joined Early at York. If Gettysburg had been Lee's objective, he would 
have held it when he had it.

   Lee's report says that on the night of June 28 a spy came in and 
informed him that Hooker was following him. The news, the report says, was 
a surprise; that he had thought Hooker's army was in Virginia, that he had 
expected Stuart to give him notice when Hooker crossed the Potomac; and 
that he abandoned a campaign he had planned against Harrisburg, recalled 
Ewell, and ordered his army to concentrate at Gettysburg. As he had 
uninterrupted communication with the Potomac, Lee knew that the Union army 
must be east of the mountain.

   We accept as of poetical origin the legends of prehistoric Rome, which 
Livy transmitted; but it is as easy to believe the story of the rape of 
the Sabines, or that Horatius stood alone on the bridge over the Tiber 
against the army of the Gauls, as that Lee planned a campaign into 
Pennsylvania on the theory that his army could march to Harrisburg and 
Hooker's army would stay on the Potomac. If Lee had not known, when he was 
in Maryland, that Hooker was still on his front, he would have marched 
directly to Washington. If 

Page 233

his statement be true that the news brought by a spy arrested a campaign 
he had planned to Harrisburg, such an anticlimax would make the campaign a 
subject for a comic opera.

   If a spy had come from Frederick on June 28, he would have reported 
that Hooker's army was moving eastward toward Baltimore and was 
concentrated at Frederick. Colonel Marshall said:

   On the night of the 28th of June I was directed by General Lee to order 
General Ewell to move directly upon Harrisburg, and to inform him that 
General Longstreet would move the next morning (the 29th) to his support. 
General A. P. Hill was directed to move eastward to the Susquehanna, and 
crossing the river below Harrisburg, seize the railroad between Harper's 
Ferry and Philadelphia; it being supposed that such a movement would 
divert all reinforcements that otherwise might be coming to General Hooker 
to the defense of that city; and that there would be such alarm created by 
their movement that the Federal Government would be obliged to withdraw 
its army from Virginia and abandon any plan it might have for attack upon 
Richmond. I sent the orders about 10 o'clock at night to General Ewell and 
General Hill and had just returned to my tent when I was sent for by the 
Commanding General. I went to his tent and found him sitting with a man in 
citizen's dress, who, General Lee informed me, was a scout of General 

Page 234

Longstreet's who had just been brought to him. He told me that this scout 
had left the neighborhood of Frederick that morning and had brought 
information that the Federal army had crossed the Potomac, moving 
northward; and that the advance had reached Frederick and was moving 
westward towards the Mountains. The scout also informed General Lee that 
General Meade was then in command of the army; and also as to the 
movements of the enemy, which was the first information General Lee had 
received since he left Virginia. . . . While making this march the only 
information he possessed led him to believe that the army of the enemy was 
moving westward from Frederick to throw itself upon his line of 
communications with Virginia; and the object was, as I have stated, simply 
to arrest this supposed plan on the east side of the mountain. . . . By 
reason of the absence of the cavalry his own army, marching eastward from 
Chambersburg and southward from Carlisle, came unexpectedly on the Federal 
advance on the first day of July.

   Marshall said that Lee countermanded his orders to Ewell and Hill to 
move to the Susquehanna and ordered them to Gettysburg, in order to 
counteract a movement against his communications. He did not mention Lee's 
letter of 7.30 A.M., June 18, which contradicts the story of the spy at 
Chambersburg on the night of June 28. That letter shows that when it was 
written, Lee 

Page 235

thought that Hooker's army was still holding the Gaps in Maryland, and had 
not heard that it had been withdrawn to Frederick. Lee does not appear to 
have been uneasy about his communications. Instead of ordering Ewell to 
proceed to Harrisburg, he directed him to return to Cashtown. It is 
inconceivable that he could have ordered A. P. Hill to cross the 
Susquehanna and threaten Philadelphia, and at the same time should have 
ordered Early, at York, to come back to the Cumberland Valley. They would 
have passed each other marching in opposite directions. If the 7.30 A.M. 
letter should have been dated the twenty-ninth, as has been suggested, 
then neither of Lee's letters to Ewell could have reached him at Carlisle, 
as he would have left there before they arrived. Lee had written to Mr. 
Davis that he would have to abandon his communications; but if Hooker had 
moved west to intercept them, I am sure that General Lee would have 
imitated Napoleon at Austerlitz and marched to Washington.

   Lee's report on the Gettysburg campaign was published immediately and 
made a deep and almost indelible impression. It is really a lawyer's brief 
and shows the skill of the advocate in the art of suppression and 
suggestion. Stuart's 

Page 236

report, dated August 20, 1863, is a respectful answer, but it was buried 
in the confederate archives. General Lee made a more elaborate report, in 
January, 1864, which repeated the implications of the first in regard to 
the cavalry, but contradicted what it said about his orders for the 
concentration at Gettysburg. Of course, he knew his own orders as well in 
July as in January.

   Now the essence of the complaint against Stuart is that the cavalry - 
the eyes of an army - were improperly absent; that the Confederate army 
was ordered by Lee to Gettysburg, and, Colonel Marshall and Lee's 
Assistant Adjutant General, Colonel Walter Taylor, said, and the report 
implies, ran unexpectedly against the enemy. But the charge falls to the 
ground when Lee's second report admits that the army was not ordered to 
Gettysburg, and that the force that went there was only making a 
reconnaissance. However, the report does not say that there was any order 
for a reconnaissance, or any necessity for making one. Neither does it 
explain why Hill did not come back to Cashtown, nor why Lee followed him 
to Gettysburg. Hill's report says that on the thirtieth he sent a dispatch 
to General Lee, telling him that the enemy held Gettysburg. A collision, 
then, could not be 

Page 237

unexpected - if he went there. If, as Lee's report says, the spy brought 
news on the twenty-eighth that the Union army was at Frederick, it could 
not have been expected to stand still; nor a surprise to learn that it was 
moving north.

   But there is even less color to the truth or justice in the complaint, 
when it is known that the story that a spy diverted the army from 
Harrisburg is a fable, and that Hill and Heth went off without orders and 
without Lee's knowledge on a raid and precipitated a battle. There is a 
satisfactory explanation for Stuart's absence that day, but a man who has 
to make an explanation is always at a disadvantage.

   Colonel Taylor does not seem to have known where Lee's headquarters 
were on the morning of July 1, for he said that A. P. Hill had a 
conference at Cashtown with General Lee before he started. If so, Lee was 
responsible for the blunder. Hill's and Heth's reports say that they left 
Cashtown at 5 A.M., and soon ran against the enemy. Lee's headquarters 
were then ten miles distant west of the mountain at Greenwood. There was 
no long distance 'phone over which he might talk with Hill. That morning 
Lee wrote to Imboden, in his rear, and said, "My headquarters for the 
present will be at Cashtown, east of the mountain." 

Page 238

This letter is copied in his dispatch book in the handwriting of Colonel 
Marshall, who wrote Lee's report which states that Lee at Chambersburg, 
after the spy came in, ordered the army to Gettysburg and was unprepared 
for battle when the armies met, placing the blame on Stuart. Yet this 
dispatch shows that on the morning of July 1 the army had not been ordered 
to Gettysburg. Lee would not have had his headquarters at one place and 
his army eight miles off at another. Lee started during the day for 
Cashtown, as he told Imboden he would, and, when crossing the mountain, 
was surprised to hear the ominous sound of battle. He passed through 
Cashtown at full speed and never saw the place again. His surprise was not 
at the enemy being at Gettysburg, but that a part of his army was there. 
It is remarkable that Colonel Taylor, who was in close relations with 
General Lee, did not even mention a projected movement to Harrisburg that 
was arrested by a spy.

   Lee's report omits all reference to Ewell's march in advance of the 
army to the Susquehanna and the order to Stuart to leave the army in 
Virginia and join him. As it complains that by the route he chose around 
the Union army communication with him was broken, it is natural to 
conclude 

Page 239

from this statement. that Stuart disobeyed orders to keep in communication 
with Lee. The report speaks of Ewell's entering Maryland and says that 
Longstreet and Hill followed and that the columns were reunited at 
Hagerstown. The inference is that the three corps united at that place and 
that Stuart was directed to join them in Maryland. The fact is that Ewell 
was then some days in advance in Pennsylvania and that the three corps 
united on the field of Gettysburg.

   Stuart, says the report, was left to guard the passes, observe the 
movements of the enemy, and harass and impede him if he attempted to cross 
the Potomac. "In that event (Hooker's crossing) he was directed to move 
into Maryland, crossing the Potomac east or west of the Blue Ridge, as in 
his judgment should be best, and take position on the right of our column 
as it advanced."

   Stuart's crossing the Potomac did not depend on Hooker's crossing, and 
he had no such instructions. Lee's orders to Stuart, which I repeat, were, 
"In either case after crossing the river (whether you go by the eastern or 
western route) you must move on and feel the right of Ewell's troops, 
collecting information, provisions, etc." The report states a part of the 
truth in saying that Stuart had the discretion to cross the Potomac 

Page 240

east or west of the Blue Ridge, but it omits the whole truth and that he 
also had authority to pass by the enemy's rear. That was the only route he 
could go if he crossed east of the Ridge. As the report complains of the 
Union army being interposed and preventing communication with him by the 
route he went, the inference is that Stuart violated orders in passing by 
the enemy's rear. Stuart had no orders, as stated in the report, about 
guarding the Gaps, impeding the enemy, and reporting his movements, nor to 
watch Hooker in Virginia and forage for Ewell on the Susquehanna. Such an 
expectation implies a belief that Stuart possessed a supernatural genius.

   The report speaks of Stuart's efforts to impede the progress of the 
Northern army. He made no such efforts - he had no such orders - it 
impeded him. The report makes no mention of the use that Lee and 
Longstreet made of the two cavalry brigades which Stuart left with them. 
They must have done their duty, for there was no complaint that they did 
not.

   To return to Lee at Chambersburg. On the night of the twenty-seventh he 
had written to Ewell at Carlisle that Hooker had crossed the Potomac and 
was in the Middletown Valley at the east end of the Gaps, and directed him 
to 

Page 241

return to Chambersburg. It was time to concentrate the army. But Lee 
changed his mind, and, at 7.30 A.M. on the twenty-eighth he again wrote 
Ewell, repeating what he had told him in the "last night" letter about 
Hooker, but directed him to move south by the pike and east of the 
mountain He did not mention Meade, who had not then been placed in 
command. The letter is indefinite as to the point of concentration - that 
was evidently a precaution in the event of its capture. Such an important 
dispatch would be sent by a staff officer so that he might explain it 
orally, and, as they were in the enemy's country, he would have a cavalry 
escort. Ewell sent a copy of this dispatch, by a staff officer, to Early, 
thirty-six miles away at York. It could not have been written after the 
night of the twenty-seventh. Early said that he received it on the evening 
of the twenty-ninth and started the next morning to unite with Ewell west 
of the mountain, but during the day he met a courier with a dispatch from 
Ewell, informing him of the change of destination. This statement proves 
that Ewell at Carlisle received two letters from Lee. Although he sent a 
copy of Lee's first order to Early, in his report Ewell only referred to 
the second order under which he marched with Rodes's 

Page 242

division for Cashtown. Edward Johnson's division left Carlisle for 
Chambersburg on the morning of the twenty-ninth, before the second order 
arrived, and marched to Green Village - twenty miles - that day.

   Lee's dispatch of the night of the twenty-seventh could not have 
reached Carlisle before the evening of the twenty-eighth. If it had been 
written on the night of the twenty-eighth, it could not have reached Ewell 
before he got to Harrisburg. The trains probably started back that night 
before Edward Johnson left, as they were passing Chambersburg at midnight 
on the twenty-ninth. They probably halted in the heat of the day as was 
the custom, to rest and feed the animals. Lee directed Ewell, if he 
received the second order in time, to move south with the trains by the 
eastern route. So it is clear that Early's and Johnson's divisions marched 
in accordance with the order of the twenty-seventh, which Ewell did not 
mention.

   Early said he met Ewell that evening (June 30) with Rodes's division 
near Heidlersburg. Rodes told him that Cashtown was to be the point of 
concentration and that he was to march there the next morning. On July 1 
Ewell had started, with Rodes's and Early's divisions, on the road 

Page 243

to Cashtown, when he received a note from Hill that turned him off to 
Gettysburg. Ewell left Carlisle with Rodes's division on the thirtieth, 
after he had received Lee's second letter changing his destination Ewell 
said, "I was starting on the twenty-ninth for that place (Harrisburg) when 
ordered by the General Commanding to join the main body at Cashtown, near 
Gettysburg." Although two of his divisions marched under the first order, 
Ewell's report speaks only of the second order. He is clearly inaccurate 
in saying that the second order to move south to Cashtown was the cause of 
his halting at Carlisle. He had already been halted by the first order. On 
this lapse of the pen is based the quibble that the date (June 27) of 
Lee's letter to Ewell is wrong, and Edward Johnson's division had started 
back to Chambersburg. The time of the marching of Ewell's three divisions 
accords with the dates of the two letters, and proves that before the spy 
is alleged to have appeared - the night of the twenty-eighth - Lee had 
sent orders to Ewell to return to Chambersburg, and that he afterwards 
directed him to Cashtown. In these letters he told Ewell where Hooker's, 
not Meade's, army was. Again, Lee's report says that as the spy had 
informed him on the night of the twenty-eighth that the head of 

Page 244

Hooker's column had reached the South Mountain, which was a menace to his 
communications, he resolved to concentrate at Gettysburg, east of the 
mountain, to prevent his further progress and that he issued orders 
accordingly.

   But Lee, on the night of the twenty-seventh and morning of the twenty-
eighth, had directed the army to return. As he ordered Ewell back to 
Chambersburg on the night of the twenty-seventh and then to Cashtown on 
the morning of the twenty-eighth, the statement that he was preparing to 
move on to Harrisburg when the spy came in on the night of the twenty-
eighth and brought news that Hooker was in pursuit cannot stand the test 
of reason. If the order to Ewell to return had been issued after the spy 
is alleged to have come in, it would not have overtaken Ewell before he 
got to Harrisburg. Nor could the order to concentrate at Cashtown have 
been the consequence of news brought by the alleged spy, as it had been 
issued before it is said that the spy came. If Gettysburg had been Lee's 
objective, he could easily have occupied it on the twenty-ninth, before 
Meade left Frederick. As Lee's Chambersburg letter contradicts his report, 
his biographers did not mention it.

   Lee's second report speaks of two cavalry 

Page 245

brigades being in Virginia to guard the Gaps, and says that as soon as it 
was known that the enemy was in Maryland, orders were sent them to join 
the army. They were not put there to guard the Gaps, for the Gaps did not 
need a guard. Their instructions were to watch and report the movements of 
the enemy to General Lee and to follow on the flank of the army when the 
enemy moved from their front. On the night of June 27 Hooker's rear guard 
crossed the river, and on the twenty-ninth the two cavalry brigades 
crossed the Blue Ridge and arrived at Chambersburg on the night of July 2. 
If an order was sent for them after the spy came in, as the report says, 
it could not have reached them on the twenty-ninth in Loudoun County, 
Virginia, before they started. They marched in accordance with Stuart's 
orders.

   The allegation is that the Confederate army was surprised at Gettysburg 
on account of the absence of the cavalry. The gist of the complaint is 
that Gettysburg was Lee's objective, as his first report says; that the 
leading divisions of Hill's corps ran unexpectedly against the enemy 
there; and that he had to fight a battle under duress to save his trains. 
The trains were then in the Cashtown Pass, and Longstreet's corps and 
Imboden's command were at the western 

Page 246

end of it, while Lee, with two corps, was at the other end. Now the party 
surprised is, as a rule the party attacked. But in the three days' 
fighting around Gettysburg, Lee's army was the assailant all the time and 
got the better of it on the first and second days. If Lee had selected 
Gettysburg as a battleground, it is strange that he should apologize for 
fighting there. General Lee was surprised by A. P. Hill - not by the 
enemy. It is a curious thing that Lee's report should have shielded A. P. 
Hill and Heth, who broke up his plan of campaign. It is not claimed that 
Lee needed cavalry in the battle, but before the battle, to bring him 
intelligence. How he suffered in this respect his report does not 
indicate, but it says that the spy told him where the enemy were on the 
night of the twenty-eighth when Meade's army was fifty miles away at 
Frederick. If this was the case, Lee had ample time to concentrate at 
Gettysburg. If he had this information, it is immaterial how he got it. 
Nobody can show that Lee did anything or left anything undone for want of 
information that cavalry could have given him.

   Stuart was absent from the battlefield on the first day because he was 
away doing his duty under orders, and two divisions of Meade's cavalry 
were in pursuit of him. Lee and Longstreet were 

Page 247

absent from the field on that day because they did not expect a battle at 
Gettysburg, and did not have foreknowledge of what Hill and Heth were 
going to do. While the spy that is alleged to have appeared on the stage 
at night and to have changed the program of invasion is an invention for 
dramatic effect, a spy did appear in a commonplace way two days 
afterwards, when the army was on the march to Cashtown. He brought 
interesting but unimportant news.

   Colonel Freemantle, an English officer and a guest at Longstreet's 
headquarters, said in his diary:

   June 30th, Tuesday. . . . We marched from Chambersburg six miles on the 
road toward Gettysburg. In the evening General Longstreet told me that he 
had just received intelligence that Hooker had been disrated and Meade was 
appointed in his place.

   In another item Freemantle alluded to a spy. So it was on the 
thirtieth, after Lee had left Chambersburg, and not on the twenty-eighth 
of June, that a spy reported. Longstreet had a picture of the spy in his 
book, and under it was inscribed that he brought the first news that Meade 
was in command. The report makes news brought by a spy the cause of what 
had occurred before it was brought.

Page 248

   Marshall said that the spy appeared at headquarters on the night of the 
twenty-eighth and told of the change of commanders, and he also said how 
much surprised Lee was to hear that Hooker had crossed the Potomac, and 
that he spoke of returning to Virginia. Now it is between fifty and sixty 
miles from Frederick City, where Meade took command of the army on the 
afternoon of that day (June 28), to Chambersburg. The order for the change 
was kept a secret until it was published that evening. Every road, path, 
and gap was closely picketed. The spirit in "Manfred" that rode on the 
wind and left the hurricane behind might have made the trip in that time, 
but no mortal could have done it. In this use of a spy, the author of the 
report imitated a Greek dramatist who brought down a god from the clouds 
to assist in the catastrophe of his tragedies.

   Lee's report says that the spy informed him that the Union army had 
reached South Mountain. It was there when Lee was in Maryland. But if the 
spy had just come out of Hooker's lines, as Marshall said, and told of the 
change in commanders, he would also have told that the army had been 
withdrawn from the mountain on the twenty-seventh and had marched east to 

Page 249

Frederick City. Lee's letter to Ewell speaks of Hooker's army, which shows 
that he had not heard of any change of commanders when it was written - 
and there had not been - and he does not mention Meade. The tale of the 
spy must take its place with Banquo's ghost and other theatrical fictions.

   On June 30, Heth, with his division, was at Cashtown and sent 
Pettigrew, with his brigade, to Gettysburg to get a lot of shoes that were 
said to be there. When Pettigrew got in sight of the place, he saw a body 
of cavalry coming in; so he returned and reported to Heth - who proposed 
to go there the next morning. The cavalry was Buford's division, which 
kept close to Meade's left flank. At 5 A.M. on July 1, Hill, with Heth's 
and Pender's divisions and artillery, left camp for Gettysburg in the same 
spirit of adventure that took Earl Percy to hunt the deer at Chevy Chase. 
They evidently intended a raid and to return to camp and meet Lee that 
evening. All of the impedimenta were left behind. General Lee would be at 
Cashtown that day, and the army would be concentrated by evening. Lee said 
that he had no idea of taking the offensive. Heth's leading brigade, 
Archer's, soon ran against Buford's pickets; the latter fought his cavalry 

Page 250

dismounted and checked Heth until Reynolds arrived. Reynolds had left his 
camp early that morning for Gettysburg before Meade's order had come to 
retire to Pipe Creek. Heth's report reads:

   It may not be improper to remark that at this time - nine o'clock on 
the morning of July 1st - I was ignorant what force was at or near 
Gettysburg, and supposed it consisted of cavalry, most probably supported 
by a brigade or two of infantry. . . . Archer and Davis were now directed 
to advance, the object being to feel the enemy, to make a forced 
reconnaissance and determine in what force they were - whether or not he 
was massing his forces on Gettysburg. Heavy columns of the enemy were soon 
encountered. . . . General Davis was unable to hold his position.

   Archer's brigade was soon shattered, and he and a large portion of his 
brigade were captured. If Heth had any curiosity about the enemy being 
there in force, he and Hill ought now to have been satisfied and should 
have retired - that is, if they were only seeking information. But 
Pender's division was now put in to support Heth's and was faring no 
better. Hill would have been driven back to Cashtown, but Ewell, without 
orders, came to his relief and won the day. Early's division gave the 
final stroke as he did at Bull 

Page 251

Run. Hill said that his division was so exhausted that it could not join 
in pursuit of the enemy. Yet he called the affair, which had lasted nearly 
a whole day, a reconnaissance just to conceal his blunder.

   After the war, Heth published an article in which he said nothing about 
their making a reconnaissance, but that they went for shoes. He claimed 
that he and Hill were surprised and said it was on account of the want of 
cavalry, yet both said they knew the enemy was there. The want of cavalry 
might have been a good reason for not going there - it was a poor one for 
going. Heth did not pretend that he and Hill had orders to go to 
Gettysburg, nor was there any necessity for their going. All that the army 
had to do was to live on the country and wait for the enemy at Cashtown 
Pass - as Lee intended to do.

   The truth is that General Lee was so compromised by his corps 
commanders that he stayed on the field and fought the battle on a point of 
honor. To withdraw would have had the appearance of defeat and have given 
the moral effect of a victory to the enemy. A shallow criticism has 
objected that Lee repeated Hooker's operation with his cavalry at 
Chancellorsville. Both Lee and Hooker did right; both retained sufficient 

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cavalry with the main body for observation and outpost duty. The 
difference in the conditions was that Lee sent Stuart to join Ewell, and 
the damage he would do on the way would be simply incidental to the march. 
Hooker's object in detaching his cavalry, on the other hand, was to 
destroy Lee's supplies and communications. With his superior numbers 
Hooker had a right to calculate on defeating Lee, and, in that event, his 
cavalry would bar Lee's retreat as Grant's did at Appomattox.

   That the inventions of the staff officers have been accepted by 
historians as true is the most remarkable thing in literary history since 
the Chatterton forgeries. But the history of the world is a record of 
judgments reversed.

   I have told in brief the story of Gettysburg, of the way in which 
defeat befell the great Confederate commander, and have criticised the 
report which has his signature, but which it is well known was written by 
another. It does as great injustice to Lee as to Stuart. Lee may have had 
so much confidence in the writer that he signed it without reading it, or, 
if it was read to him, he was in the mental condition of the dying 
gladiator in the Coliseum - his mind

   "Was with his heart, and that was far away." 

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   Stuart was the protagonist in the great drama, and no other actor 
performed his part so well. In a late work by Colonel Furse, of the 
English army, we read:

   Stuart was a genial man of gay spirits and energetic habits, popular 
with his men and trusted by his superiors as no other officer in the 
Confederate army. His authority was exercised mildly but firmly; no man in 
the South was better qualified to mould the wild element he controlled 
into soldiers. His raids made him a lasting name and his daring exploits 
will ever find a record alongside the deeds of the most famous cavalry 
leaders. He was mortally wounded in an encounter with Sheridan's cavalry 
at Yellow Tavern, May, 1864, and died a few days afterward.

   I will add that after General Lee lost Stuart he had no cavalry corps 
and no Chief of Cavalry. No one was there who could bend the bow of 
Ulysses.

"And these are deeds which should not pass away 
 And names that must not wither, though the earth 
 Forgets her empire with a just decay." 

   [The defence of Stuart's conduct in the Gettysburg campaign occupied 
Mosby's study and thought over a considerable period of years. His 
championship of his beloved chief resulted in various controversies, to 
some of which acrimonious 

Page 254

may be truthfully applied, as well as in considerable writing and 
publication on the subject. The account given in these pages was his final 
work and seems to answer all criticisms which have been aimed at his 
conclusions. The following letter to Mrs. Stuart explains, in a measure, 
some of his work on the Gettysburg campaign and the discussions which 
followed.]

Washington, D.C., 
June 9, 1915. 

Mrs. General J. E. B. Stuart: 
Dear Mrs. Stuart: 

   I have received your letter in reply to mine inquiring if you had any 
unpublished correspondence left by General Stuart which I might use in my 
Memoirs of the war which I am preparing. I return McClellan's letter which 
is dated March 22nd, 1899.(1) He claims credit for having first published, 
in reply to Colonel Marshall, General Lee's and Longstreet's orders to 
General Stuart which authorized him to go the route in rear of Hooker's 
army in the Gettysburg campaign. Governor Stuart and you know that this is 
not true. . . . In the winter of 1886-87 I was in Washington settling my 
accounts as Consul at Hong Kong. Longstreet about that time had an article 
in the Century charging General Stuart with disobedience of orders; and 
Long's "Memoirs of Lee" also appeared about the 

(1. Major H. B. McClellan, author of "The Life and Campaigns of General 
Stuart", Boston and Richmond, 1885.)

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same time with a similar charge. As I knew the inside history of the 
transaction and that the charge was false, I went to the office where the 
Confederate archives were kept and got permission to examine them. The 
three volumes of the Gettysburg records had not then been published. 
Colonel Scott gave me a large envelope that had the reports and 
correspondence of the campaign on printed slips. Very soon I discovered 
Lee's and Longstreet's instructions to Stuart to do the very thing that he 
did. I was delighted and so expressed myself to Colonel Scott. He was 
surprised that McClellan had made no use of them and told me that 
McClellan had spent several days in his office and that he had given him 
the same envelope and papers that he had given me. I told Mr. Henry 
Stuart, whom I met at the National Hotel, all about my discovery and that 
I should reply to Longstreet and publish this evidence to contradict him 
and Long. I also wrote to Mr. Wm. A. Stuart and to McClellan of my 
discovery and told them that I should reply to Longstreet. Mr. Stuart 
advised me to publish what I had discovered. These documents with a 
communication from me appeared in the Century about May or June, 1887. See 
"Battles and Leaders." . . . In 1896 Colonel Charles Marshall delivered a 
violent philippic on General Lee's birthday against General Stuart. He 
imputed to Stuart's disobedience all the blame for the Gettysburg 
disaster. I replied to Marshall's attack in a syndicated article which was 
published in Richmond and Boston and again published Lee's and 
Longstreet's instructions to Stuart. With this article 

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I also published for the first time Lee's letter to Ewell written from 
Chambersburg on June 28th, 1863 which exploded the mythical story of the 
spy on which Marshall had built his fabric of fiction. Some time after my 
article appeared, in reply to Marshall, McClellan also published a reply 
to him with the documents which I had published nine years before in the 
Century. . . . But McClellan, like Lee's biographers, was silent about the 
Chambersburg letter. That it contradicts Lee's report, which Marshall 
wrote, is admitted by Stuart's critics; but to avoid the effect of it they 
say the date in the records is wrong. The only evidence they produce is 
that the report written a month afterward is not consistent with the 
letter. That was the reason I published the letter. But I have 
demonstrated that the time that a copy of it was received by Early from 
Ewell and the marching of Ewell's divisions in accordance with it confirm 
the correctness of the date. McClellan says that Marshall had not dared to 
answer him; and I can say that although I was the first to attack him he 
never dared to answer me. He also speaks of John C. Ropes, of Boston, 
having written him that his answer was conclusive. But Mr. Ropes had read 
my article in the Boston Herald and had written me the same thing a month 
before McClellan's appeared. Some years before I had read a review by 
Ropes of McClellan's "Life of Stuart", in which he seemed to be very 
friendly to Stuart, but he said that McClellan had made a very 
unsatisfactory defense of him on the Gettysburg campaign. I then wrote to 
Ropes and sent him Belford's 

Page 257

Magazine (October-November, 1891) with an article of mine that had 
Stuart's orders from Lee and Longstreet. Ropes wrote me that my article 
had changed his opinion, and that in the next volume of his history his 
views would conform to mine. Unfortunately he died before the volume was 
finished. So you see how unfounded McClellan's claim of precedence is. His 
book, as I told Mr. Henry Stuart nearly thirty years ago, does General 
Stuart great injustice. It deprives him of the credit of the ride around 
McClellan - I heard Fitz Lee urge General Stuart not to go on - it defends 
Fitz Lee against the just criticism of Stuart's report for his 
disobedience of orders that saved Pope's army from ruin and came near 
getting Stuart and myself captured; and it represents the great cavalry 
combat and victory at Brandy as "a successful reconnaissance" by 
Pleasanton, which means that he voluntarily recrossed the Rappahannock 
after he had accomplished his object and not because he was defeated. . . .

Very truly yours, 
(Signed) Jno. S. Mosby.