12 Stewart 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. When Lee crossed the Potomac, he had no objective point. His army was now organized with three corps, under Longstreet, Yule, and A.P. Hill. Stonewall Jackson had crossed the Great River. Stewart 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 Yule. 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 Millroy in the Shenandoah Valley. Hooker's men in the balloon discovered that some campgrounds 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 reconnoitering force reported, just what Lee wanted him to do. The impression was confirmed by pretended deserters who said they belonged to 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. Commander in Horse Friend Foe in one red burial blint. 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 insipiency. I shall send all my cavalry against them, stiffened by about three thousand infantry. Buford's division had already reached the railroad. He was instructed, On arriving at Bielton should you find yourself with sufficient force you will drive the enemy out of his camps near Culpeper Courthouse across the Rappadan, destroying the bridges at that point. The Rappadan is a tributary of the Rappahannock. Commander'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 in 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 packed 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. Stewart 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 divisions to unite at Brandy four miles away, and then move on six miles to the courthouse where the camps of Stewart'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 Stewart'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 vedette 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 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 massed 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 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 set Robertson's brigade below, towards Kelly's, to hold Greg's division in check on that road, and with Hampton's brigade went out 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 Greg's division was in his rear. At first Stuart would not believe this, but in some way Robertson had allowed Greg to pass him on observed on another road. So, leaving WHF Lee's brigade, which had just come up, on Buford's flank to hold him in check, Stuart turned and went to meet Greg with Hampton's and Jones's brigades. On the field around Brandy there was now the greatest mounted combat of the war, probably of any war. Greg 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 maneuver 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 Bernardi 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 scouts during the same period was equally brilliant. Early in the morning after Brandy, June 10, Yule 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 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 fifteen thousand of Yule'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 shank at Baltimore, Lincoln, with characteristic humor, said, Get Milroy from Winchester to Harpers Ferry, if possible. He will be gobbled up if he has not already passed salvation. After capturing the most of Milroy's force, Yule moved on and crossed the Potomac on June 15. Lee, with Longstreet and A.P. Hill, followed him to the valley and hauled it a week, while Stewart's cavalry moved east of the ridge as a curtain to conceal the operation. The hostile armies marched in concentric circles, Lee having 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. Stewart was on his front to watch and report his movements to Lee. On June 15, Yule, 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 Yule, 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 Yule. All that Yule 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 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 the 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 Yule was living on the Pennsylvania farmers, and his sending another corps across the Potomac depended on Hooker. So when Lee concluded to follow Yule, he must have been sure that Hooker was ready to cross. On June 22 Lee ordered Yule 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 Stewart, 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 Yule that his best course would be towards the Susquehanna, that he must be guided by circumstances and possibly he might take Harrisburg. Lee had already written Stewart 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 Yule, who was marching to the Susquehanna. Stewart was instructed to act as Yule's chief of cavalry and to collect all the supplies you can for the use of the army. As no enemy was following Yule and as there were none in his front, except militia, Stewart would really have had nothing but foraging to do, if he had joined Yule, 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 Stewart 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. But 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. Yours of four o'clock this afternoon is received. I have forwarded your letter to General Stewart 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, to pass by the enemy's rear. At that time Longstreet and AP 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 Stewart, and charged him with disobeying his instructions. He said he ordered Stewart 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 Stewart 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 him Bowden, who was moving farther west, thanked him for the cattle and sheep he had sent to him, and urged him to collect all he could. On June 23, 5 p.m., Lee wrote again to Stewart. 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 was not a word in either of his dispatches to Stewart about reporting the enemy's movements to him. Lee's biographers say there was. He would neither order nor expect Stewart to do an impossible thing, but he told him what instructions to give the commanders of the two cavalry brigades he would leave behind. Stewart 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 Stewart had gone the western route by Shepherdstown he would have had to cross and recross the Blue Ridge, and to march in a zigzag circuit to reach 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. Stewart 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 Stewart 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. I was at headquarters when Stewart wrote his last dispatch to Lee, forming 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 enemy's lines and brought the intelligence that induced Stewart to undertake to pass through them. I remember that Fitzley 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 Stewart had just received the orders to join Yule with three brigades and had been given discretion to pass by the rear of the Union Army. John Eston Cook, 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 to Stewart. He writes, General Stewart 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 Stewart 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 down, knitting his brows and reflecting. When the live figure of Mosby appeared, Stewart 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 today 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 quartermaster went there for it and were caught by a saseche there said to be Mosby. Footnote. 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. And a footnote. 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 their 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, Marshal Long and Taylor, have given accounts of the Gettysburg Campaign that misrepresent the orders Stuart received and claimed 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 Marshal, 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 Marshal'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 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 Marshal 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 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 commander 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 bullrun, 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 core, at Charlestown, 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 Shepardstown and waited for Longstreet. There 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 core 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 core had a signal core, 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 Stewart 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 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 AP Hill had only waited a day longer in his camps, Hooker would have stood still, and Stewart could have easily 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. Stewart 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 Stewart, 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 Stewart 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 Stewart was crossing the Potomac at 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 Stewart was crossing the river between them and Washington. Stewart spent the night, June twenty-seven, in Maryland, capturing a lot of boats carrying supplies to the army on the canal, and on the twenty-eighth move north and marched all night to join Ewell. During the day Stewart 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 Stewart'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 Stewart had their mules and provisions. The quartermaster general wired to Engels, your communications are now in the hands of General Fitzhugh Lee's brigade. On June twenty-seven, 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. 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 28th, 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.  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 eleven thousand that did not seem to disturb him as a menace to his communications, but on the 28th 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 started off in the opposite direction on Stewart'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 turned toward Baltimore to give him battle. Meade spent a day at Frederick and on the thirtieth started on his campaign. Lee was still the 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 at 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 Stewart, 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 Stewart 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 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 communications 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 had 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 a wait and attack, which would have satisfied Lee. If Ewell had remained a day longer at Carlyle 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 commander 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 an 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 Carlyle, 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 at Gettysburg. Stuart reached Carlyle that night, but Ewell, with his cavalry and two divisions, had gone south. It was fortunate for Lee that Stuart did go to Carlyle. Couch had collected a force of about fifteen thousand at Harrisburg, and had been ordered to cooperate with Meade and attack Lee's communications. Stuart met his advance at Carlyle, 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 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. Stuart'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 Bernardi 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 battle. Not 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. This is the end of the first half of this chapter. Second half of Chapter 12, Mosby's Memoirs. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This recording is by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina. Mosby's Memoirs by Colonel John Singleton Mosby Chapter 12, Second Part Stuart and the Gettysburg Campaign 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 cooperation with, but independent of, an army. But Stuart's march was a combined movement with Yule and not a raid. His objective was Yule'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 traveled to join Yule by a route on which he would have had 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. Yule 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 cavalry were coordinate with the movements of the army as a unit. On the evening of June 27th 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. Yule had reached Carlyle, thirty miles distant, so Lee wrote him on the evening of the 27th 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 28th in a second letter repeated the substance of what he wrote Yule last night and directed him that if he had not already started he moved south with his trains but east of South Mountain. It is clear that Yule's destination was Cashtown, a village at the eastern base of the mountain, eight miles west of Gettysburg. Yule was given to him as to the roads he should travel. Yule's and Erle's reports say that Cashtown was the appointed rendezvous. Lee's that it was Gettysburg. Cashtown was occupied on June 28th by a part of Heth's division. In the next two days he'll moved with two divisions to that point. Yule had detached Erle's division to make a demonstration towards the Susquehanna. On the way Gordon's brigade spent a night at Gettysburg, but it moved on and joined Erle 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 Yule, 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 his statement be true that the news brought by a spy arrested a campaign he had planned to Harrisburg, such an anti-climax 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 Yule 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, seized the railroad between Harpers 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 ten o'clock at night, to General Yule 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 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 Mead 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 countermented his orders to Yule 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 28, which contradicts the story of the spy Chambersburg on the night of June 28. That letter shows that when it was written, Lee thought that Hooker's army was still holding the gaps in Maryland, and had not heard that it had been withdrawn to Frederick. He does not appear to have been uneasy about his communications. Instead of ordering Yule 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 29th, as has been suggested, then neither of Lee's letters to Yule 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 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 adjunct 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 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 just to send 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 AP Hill had a conference at Cashtown with General Lee before he started. If so, Lee was responsible for the blunder. Hills 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 him Bowden in his rear and said, �My headquarters for the present will be at Cashtown, east of the mountain.� 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 him Bowden 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 from this statement that Stuart disobeyed orders to keep in communication with Lee. The report speaks of Ewell's entering Maryland and says that Long Street and Hill followed and that the columns were re-united 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, observed the movements of the enemy, and harassed 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's 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 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 27th he had written to Ewell at Carlyle that Hooker had crossed the Potomac and was in the Middletown Valley at the east end of the gaps, and directed him to return to Chambersburg. It was time to concentrate the army. But Lee changed his mind, and at 7.30 a.m. on the 28th 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 Mead, 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 Ewell, 36 miles away at York. It could not have been written after the night of the 27th. Ewell said that he received it on the evening of the 29th, 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 and Carlisle received two letters from Lee. Although he sent a copy of Lee's first order to Ewell, in his report Ewell only referred to the second order under which he marched with Rhodes Division for Cashtown. It were Johnson's division left Carlisle for Chambersburg on the morning of the 29th, before the second order arrived, and marched to Green Village twenty miles that day. Lee's dispatch of the night of the 27th could not have reached Carlisle before the evening of the 28th. If it had been written on the night of the 28th 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 29th. 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 Earleys and Johnson's divisions marched in accordance with the order of the 27th, which Ewell did not mention. Earleys said that he met Ewell that evening, June 30, with Rhodes Division near Heidler's Burke. Rhodes 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 Rhodes and Earleys Division, on the road to Cashtown, when he received a note from Hill that turned him off to Gettysburg. Ewell left Carlyle with Rhodes's division on the 30th, after he had received Lee's second letter, changing his destination. Ewell said, I was starting on the 29th 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 Carlyle. 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 28th, 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 28th, that the head of Hooker's column had reached the South Mountain, which was a menace to his communications, he resolved to concentrate at Gettysburg, east of the mountains, to prevent his further progress, and that he issued orders accordingly. But Lee, on the night of the 27th and morning of the 28th, had directed the army to return. As he ordered Ewell back to Chambersburg on the night of the 27th, and then to Cashtown on the morning of the 28th, the statement that he was preparing to move on to Harrisburg when the spy came in on the night of the 28th, 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 29th, before Mead left Frederick. As Lee's Chambersburg letter contradicts his report, his biographers did not mention it. Lee's second report speaks of two cavalry 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 to 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 29th 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 29th, in Loudon 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 in Bowden's command were at the western 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 battle-ground it is strange that he should apologize for fighting there. General Lee was surprised by AP Hill, not by the enemy. It is a curious thing that Lee's report should have shielded AP 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 was 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 the 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 absent from the field on that day because they did not expect a battle at Gettysburg, and did not have fore knowledge 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 common-place way two days afterwards when the army was on the march to Cashstown. He brought interesting but unimportant news. Colonel Fremantle, an English officer and a guest at Longstreet's headquarters, said in his diary, June thirtieth, Tuesday, he marched from Chambersburg six miles on the road towards 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 Fremantle 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 had 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. 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 surprise 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 twenty-eighth, 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 Frederick City. Lee's letter to Yule 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 30th Heth, with his division, was at Cashtown, and sent Pettigrew with his brigade to Gettysburg to get a lot of shoes that was said to be there. When Pettigrew got inside 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 1st, 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 to 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, archers, soon ran against Buford's pickets. The latter fought his cavalry 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 of 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. His 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 Cachtown, but Ewell, without orders, came to his relief and won the day. Early's division gave the final stroke as he did at Bull 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 Kettysburg. 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 Cachtown 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 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 could 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 Grants 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 criticized 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 Colosseum. His mind was with his heart, and that was far away. Stuart was the protagonist in the great drama, and no other actor performed his part so well. In a late work by Colonel First 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 mold 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 afterwards. 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, may be truthfully applied, as well as inconsiderable writing and publication on the subject. The account given in these pages was his final work and seems to answer all criticisms which had 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 have 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 22, 1899. Major H. B. McClellan, author of The Life and Campaigns of General Stuart, Boston and Richmond, 1885. 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 Longstreet's Memoirs of Lee also appeared about the 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. William 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. 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 I also published for the first time Lee's letter to Ewell, written from Chambersburg on June 28, 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, were silent about the Chambersburg letter. That a 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 Ewell, and the marching of Ewell's divisions in accordance with it, confirmed 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 Bedford's Magazine, October to 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 grade injustice? It deprives him of the credit of the ride around McClellan. I heard Fitz Lee urged 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'd accomplished his object, and not because he was defeated. Very truly yours, signed John S. Mosby. End of chapter. Chapter 13 of Mosby's Memoirs This recording is by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina. Mosby's Memoirs by Colonel John Singleton Mosby Chapter 13 The Year After Gettysburg The period between the Battle of Gettysburg and the arrival of Sheridan in Shenandoah Valley in August 1864 was one of incessant activity on the part of Mosby's command. Scouts, raids, and pitch-fattles followed each other in rapid succession. Mosby destroyed, supply trains, broke up the means of conveying intelligence, thus isolating troops from their base, and confused plans by capturing dispatches, while at the same time compelling the use of large numbers of the enemy's troops to protect Washington and the Potomac. Attracted by the chance of booty and desire for adventure, without the irksome duties of camp life, brave and dashing spirits were drawn to Mosby's battalion until the fifteen men with whom he had started his partisan warfare became five companies, regularly mustered into the Confederate service. The main events of these months are told in the following reports, which Colonel Mosby made to his superiors. Unlike the formal report of the war records, these records are permeated by the zeal and enthusiasm for his partisan warfare to which was due in large measure Mosby's striking success. The spirit of the man, his boundless energy, and the unbridled zest with which he made war on his country's foes are reflected in every line of his official story. Report Mosby Disturbed July 1863 I sent you in charge of Sergeant Beatty, one hundred and forty-one prisoners that we captured from the enemy during their march through this county. I also sent off forty-five several days ago. Included in the number, one Major, one Captain, and two Lieutenants. I also captured one hundred and twenty-five horses and mules, twelve wagons, only three of which I was able to destroy, fifty sets of fine harness, arms, etc., etc. Report Mosby Disturbed, Falkier County, Virginia, August 4, 1863 I sent over in charge of Sergeant Beatty about thirty prisoners captured on an expedition into Fairfax, from which I have just returned. Most of them were taken at pageants near Alexandria. I also captured about thirty wagons, brought off about seventy horses and mules, having only ten men with me. We lost a good many on the way back, as we were compelled to travel narrow, unfrequented paths. Among the captures were three Suttler's wagons. At Fairfax Courthouse a few nights ago I captured twenty-nine loaded Suttler's wagons, about one hundred prisoners and one hundred and forty horses. I had brought all off safely near Aldi, where I fell in with a large force of the enemy's cavalry, who recaptured them. The enemy had several hundred. I had only twenty-seven men. We killed and captured several. My loss, one wounded, and captured. On Tuesday, August 11, I captured a train of nineteen wagons near Anondale, in Fairfax County. We secured the teams in a considerable portion of the most valuable stores, consisting of saddles, bridles, harness, etc. We took about twenty-five prisoners. On the morning of August 24, with about thirty men, I reached a point, Anondale, immediately on the enemy's line of communication. Leaving the whole command, except three men who accompanied me, in the woods, concealed, I proceeded on a reconnaissance along the railroad to ascertain if there were any bridges unguarded. I discovered there were three. I returned to the command just as a drove of horses where the cavalry escort of about fifty men were passing. These I determined to attack, and to wait until night to burn the bridges. I ordered Lieutenant Turner to take half of the men and charge them in front, while with the remainder I attacked the rear. In the meantime the enemy had been joined by another party making their number about sixty-three. When I overtook them they had dismounted at Gooding's tavern to water their horses. My men went at them with a yell that terrified the Yankees and scattered them in all directions. A few taking shelter under cover of the houses opened fire upon us. They were soon silenced, however. At the very moment when I had succeeded in routing them I was compelled to retire from the fight, having been shot through the side and thigh. My men, not understanding it, followed me which gave time to the Yankees to escape to the woods. But for this accident the whole party would have been captured. As soon as I perceived this I ordered the men to go back, which a portion of them did, just as Lieutenant Turner, who had met and routed another force above, came gallantly charging up. Over one hundred horses fell into our possession, though a good many were lost in bringing them out at night. Also twelve prisoners, arms, etc. I learned that six of the enemy were killed. In this affair my loss was two killed and three wounded. I afterwards directed Lieutenant Turner to burn the bridges. He succeeded in burning one. During my absence from the command Lieutenant Turner attacked an outpost of the enemy near Waterloo, killing two and capturing four men and twenty-seven horses. About September 15 he captured three wagons, twenty horses, seven prisoners, and a large amount of settler's goods near Warrenton Junction. On the 20th and 21st instant I conducted an expedition along the enemy's line of communication in which important information obtained was forwarded to the Army headquarters, and I succeeded in capturing nine prisoners and twenty-one fine horses and mules. On the 27th and 28th instant I made a reconnaissance in the vicinity of Alexandria, capturing Colonel Delaney, aid to the bogus governor Pierpont. Several horses, and burning the railroad bridge across Cameron's Run, which was immediately under cover of the guns of two forts. The military value of the species of warfare I have waged is not measured by the number of prisoners and material of war captured from the enemy, but by the heavy detail it has already compelled him to make, and which I hope to make him increase in order to guard his communications, and to that extent diminish his aggressive strength. Endorsements. Headquarters Cavalry Corps October 5, 1863. Respectfully forwarded, and recommend that Major Mosby be promoted another grade in recognition of his valuable services. The capture of these prominent Union officials, as well as the destruction of bridges, trains, etc., was the subject of special instructions which he is faithfully carrying out. Signed J. E. B. Stewart, Major General. Headquarters, November 17, 1863. Respectfully forwarded. Major Mosby is entitled to great credit for his boldness and skill in his operations against the enemy. He keeps them in constant apprehension and inflicts repeated injuries. I have hoped that he would have been able to raise his command sufficiently for the command of a lieutenant colonel and to have it regularly mustered into the service. I am not aware that it numbers over four companies. Signed R. E. Lee, General. Letter to Mrs. Mosby. Falkier County, October 1, 1863. My dearest Pauline. Just returned from a raid. I went down in the suburbs of Alexandria and burned a railroad bridge in a quarter of a mile of two forts and directly in range of their batteries. Also captured Colonel Delaney, aide to Governor Pierpont. Delaney lives in Alexandria, has a son in my command who was with me at the time. It was quite an amusing scene, the interview between Colonel Delaney and his son. Just as we were about leaving, the colonel sarcastically remarked to his son that he had an old pair of shoes he had better take, as he reckoned they were darn scarce in the Confederacy, whereupon the son, holding up his leg, which was encased in a fine pair of cavalry boots just captured from a settler, asked the old man what he thought of that. I am now fixing my triggers for several good things which, if they succeed, will make a noise. Old Mrs. Shacklet is going to Baltimore next week, and I shall send for some things for you all. In Richmond I got some torpedoes, which have just arrived, and my next trip I shall try to blow up a railroad train. Went to see the Secretary of War. He spoke in the highest terms of the services of my command. Said he read all my official reports. Also saw Old General Lee. He was very kind to me, and expressed the greatest satisfaction at the conduct of my command. Report Mosby to Stewart. October 19, 1863 On Thursday, 15th, came down into Fairfax, where I have been operating ever since in the enemy's rear. I have captured over one hundred horses and mules, several wagons loaded with valuable stores, and between seventy-five and one hundred prisoners, arms, equipment, et cetera. Among the prisoners were three captains and one lieutenant. I had a sharp skirmish yesterday with double my number of cavalry near Anondale, in which I routed them, capturing the captain commanding and six or seven men and horses. I have so far sustained no loss. It has been my object to detain the troops that are occupying Fairfax by annoying their communications and preventing them from operating in front. I contemplate attacking a cavalry camp at Falls Church tomorrow night. Report Mosby to Stewart. November 6, 1863 I returned yesterday from a scout in the neighborhood of Catlett's. I was accompanied by Captain Smith and two men of my command.  Kilpatrick's division, now reported unfit for duty, lies around Weaverville. I sent you four cavalry on Wednesday captured by my scouts. Report Mosby to Stewart. November 22, 1863 Since rendering my report of the fifth instant, we have captured about seventy-five of the enemy's cavalry, over one hundred horses and mules, six wagons, a considerable number of arms, equipments, et cetera. It would be too tedious to mention in detail the various affairs in which these captures have been made, but I would omit the performance of a pleasant duty if I failed to bring to your notice the bold onset of Captain Smith when, with only about forty men, he dashed into the enemy's camp of one hundred fifty cavalry near Warrenton, killed some eight or ten, wounded a number, brought off nine prisoners, twenty-seven horses, arms, equipments, et cetera. In various other affairs several of the enemy have been killed and wounded. I have sustained no loss. Mosby to Stewart. January 4, 1864 I have the honour to report that during the month of December there were captured by this command over one hundred horses and mules and about one hundred prisoners. A considerable number of the enemy have also been killed and wounded. It would be too tedious to mention the various occasions in which we have met the enemy, but there is one which justice to a brave officer demands to be noticed. On the morning of January 1st, I received information that a body of the enemy's cavalry were in Upperville. If being the day on which my command was to assemble, I directed Captain William R. Smith to take command of the men while I went directly toward Upperville to ascertain the movements of the enemy. In the meantime the enemy had gone on toward Rectortown, and I pursued, but came up just as Captain Smith with about thirty-five men had attacked and routed them, seventy-five strong, killing, wounding, and capturing fifty-seven. Endorsements Headquarters Cavalry Corps, February 13, 1864 Respectfully forwarded. A subsequent report of subsequent operations has been already sent in, this having been mislaid. Major Mosby continues his distinguished services in the enemy's rear, relieving our people of the depredations of the enemy in a great measure. Signed J. E. B. Stewart, Major General. February 15, 1864 A characteristic report from Colonel Mosby, who has become so familiar with brave deeds as to consider them too tedious to treat, unless when necessary to reflect glory on his gallant comrades. Captain Smith's was a brilliant and most successful affair. Signed J. A. Seddon, Secretary of War. Part Mosby to Stewart. February 1, 1864 On Wednesday, January 6, having previously reconnoitred in person the position of the enemy, I directed Lieutenant Turner, with a detachment of about thirty men, to attack an outpost of the enemy in the vicinity of Warrington, which he did successfully, routing a superior force of the enemy, killing and wounding several, and capturing eighteen prisoners and forty-two forces, with arms, equipment, etc. On Saturday, January 9, having learned through Frank Stringfellow, Stewart's scout, that Cole's Maryland cavalry was encamping on Loudon Heights, with no supports but infantry, which was about one half mile off, I left Upperville with about one hundred men in hopes of being able to completely surprise his camp by a night attack. By marching my command by file along a narrow path, I succeeded in gaining a position in the rear of the enemy between their camp and the ferry. On reaching this point, without creating any alarm, I deemed that the crisis had passed and the capture of the enemy a certainty. I had exact information up to dark of that evening of the number of the enemy, which was between one hundred and seventy-five and two hundred, the position of their headquarters, etc. Then within two hundred yards of the camp, I sent Stringfellow on ahead, with about ten men to capture Major Cole and Staff, whose headquarters were in a house about one hundred yards from their camp, while I halted to close up my command. The camp was buried in a profound sleep, there was not a centinal awake. All my plans were on the eve of consummation, when suddenly the party sent with Stringfellow came dashing over the hill toward the camp, yelling and shooting. They had made no attempt to secure Cole. Mistaking them for the enemy, I ordered my men to charge. In the meantime the enemy had taken the alarm and received us with a volley from the carbines, a severe fight ensued in which they were driven from their camp, but, taking refuge in the surrounding houses, kept up a desultery firing. Confusion and delay having ensued from the derangement of my plans, consequent on the alarm given to the enemy, rendered it hazardous to continue in my position as reinforcements were near the enemy. Accordingly I ordered the men to retire, which was done in good order, bringing off six prisoners and between fifty and sixty horses. My loss was severe. More so in the worth than the number of the slain it was four killed, seven wounded, of whom four have since died, and one captured. A published list of the enemy's loss gives it five killed and thirteen wounded. Among those who fell on this occasion were Captain William R. Smith and Lieutenant Turner, two of the noblest and bravest officers of this army, who thus sealed a life of devotion and of sacrifice to the cause they loved. The numerous other affairs with the enemy, between seventy-five and a hundred horses and mules, have been captured. About forty men killed, wounded, and captured. A party of this command also threw one of the enemy's trains off the track, causing a great smash up. INDORCEMENT HEADQUARTERS CAVALRY CORE February 9, 1864. Respectfully forwarded. The conduct of Major Mosby is warmly commended to the notice of the commanding-general. His sleepless vigilance and unceasing activity have done the enemy great damage. He keeps a large force of the enemy's cavalry continually employed in fairfax and the vain effort to suppress his in-roads. His exploits are not surpassed in daring and enterprise by those of Petit Guerre in any age. Unswerving devotion to duty, self-abnegation, and unflinching courage, with a quick perception and appreciation of the opportunity, are the characteristics of this officer. Since I first knew him in 1861 he has never once alluded to his own rank or promotion. Thus far it has come by the force of his own merit. While self-consciousness of having done his duty well is the Patriot soldier's best reward, yet the evidence of the appreciation of his country is a powerful incentive to renewed effort, which should not be undervalued by those who have risen to the highest point of military and civic eminence. That evidence is promotion. If Major Mosby has not won it, no more can daring deeds assay to do it. Signed J. E. B. Stewart, Major General. One of those wounded in a fight at Dranesville, February 22nd, was Baron von Masao, who later became the Chief of Cavalry in the Imperial German Army. Von Masao was the son of the Chamberlain to the King of Prussia, and came to America to see some fighting. He offered his services to General Stewart, who sent him to Mosby. In the Dranesville fight Mosby's command charged a California regiment from two directions and routed it. The Baron was fighting with the rest when he aspired Captain Reid of the Californians. Von Masao made a rush at Reid, as if he were about to chop his head off with his sword. The Prussian clung to the sword in a fight instead of using a revolver, as did the rest of Mosby's men. Captain Reid was caught so that he could not defend himself and made a motion which the Baron interpreted as a sign of surrender. The latter signed for Reid to go to the rear and rode on into the melee. As he turned his back, Reid drew a revolver and shot him. At almost the same instant Captain Chapman, who had seen the incident and divined the Californians' intention to shoot, drew his revolver and shot Captain Reid. Reid was instantly killed, and Von Masao was so seriously injured that he was never able to rejoin Mosby's command. Report Mosby to Lieutenant Colonel Taylor, Assistant Adjutant General. September 11, 1864 On March 10th, with a detachment of about forty men, I defeated a superior force of the enemy's cavalry near Greenwich, severely wounding three and capturing nine prisoners, ten horses, arms, etc. On the same day Lieutenant A. E. Richards, with another detachment of about thirty men, surprised an outpost of the enemy near Charlestown, killed the major commanding and a lieutenant, several privates, and brought off twenty-one prisoners with their horses, arms, etc. In neither engagement did my command sustain any loss. During the months of March and April but few opportunities were offered for making any successful attacks on the enemy, the continual annoyances to which they had been subjected during the winter, causing them to exert great vigilance in guarding against surprises and interruptions of their communications. During most of these months I was myself engaged in scouting to the enemy's rear for Major General Stewart, and collecting information which was regularly transmitted to his headquarters, concerning the movements, numbers, and distribution of the enemy's forces, both east and west of the Blue Ridge. During this time my men were mostly employed in collecting forage from the country bordering on the Potomac. About April 15 Captain Richards routed a marauding party of the enemy's cavalry at Waterford, calling and wounding five or six and bringing off six or eight prisoners, fifteen horses, arms, etc. About April 25 I attacked an outpost near Hunter's Mills in Fairfax, capturing five prisoners and eighteen horses. The prisoners and horses were sent back under charge of Lieutenant Hunter while I went off on a scout in another direction. The enemy pursued and captured the lieutenant and six of the horses. About May 1 with a party of ten men I captured eight of Siegel's wagons near Bunker Hill in the valley, but was only able to bring off the horses attached, thirty-four in number, and about twenty prisoners. The horses and prisoners were sent back, while with another detachment of twenty men who had joined me I proceeded to Martinsburg, which place we entered that night, while occupied by several hundred federal troops, and brought off fifteen horses and several prisoners. Returning to my command I learned that General Grant had crossed the Rappadan. With about forty men I moved down the north bank of the Rappahannock to assail his communications wherever opened and sent two other detachments, under Captain's Richards and Chapman, to embarrass Siegel as much as possible. Captain Richards had a skirmish near Winchester in which several of them were killed and wounded. Captain Chapman attacked a wagon train, which was heavily guarded, near Strasburg, capturing about thirty prisoners with an equal number of horses, etc. Near Bell Plain in King George I captured an ambulance train and brought off about seventy-five horses and mules and forty prisoners, etc. A few days after I made a second attempt near the same place, but discovered that my late attack had caused them to detach such a heavy force to guard their trains and line of communication that another successful attack on them was impracticable. About May 10 I attacked a cavalry outpost in the vicinity of Front Royal, capturing one captain and fifteen men and seventy-five horses, and sustained no loss. About May 20, with about one hundred fifty men, I moved to the vicinity of Strasburg with a view of capturing the wagon trains of Colonel Hunter, who had then moved up the valley. When the train appeared I discovered that it was guarded by about six hundred infantry and one hundred cavalry. A slight skirmish ensued between their cavalry and a part of my command, in which their cavalry was routed with a loss of eight prisoners and horses, beside several killed, but falling back on their infantry, my men in turn fell back with a loss of one killed. While we did not capture the train, one great object had been accomplished, the detachment of a heavy force to guard their communications. After the above affair only one wagon train ever went up to Hunter, which was still more heavily guarded. He then gave up his line of communication. After the withdrawal of the enemy's forces from Northern Virginia for several weeks but few opportunities were offered for any successful incursions upon them. Many enterprises on a small scale were, however, undertaken by detachments of the command, of which no note has been taken. About June twenty I moved into Fairfax and routed a body of cavalry near Centerville, killing and wounding six or eight and capturing thirty-one prisoners, securing their horses, etc. A few days afterwards we took Duffield's depot on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, secured about fifty prisoners, including two lieutenants and a large number of stores. The train had passed a few minutes before we reached the place. On my way there I had left Lieutenant Nelson, commanding Company A, at Charlestown, for the purpose of intercepting and notifying me of any approach in my rear from Harper's Ferry. As I had anticipated, a body of cavalry, largely superior in numbers to his force, moved out from that point. Lieutenant Nelson gallantly charged and routed them, killing and wounding several and taking nineteen prisoners and twenty-seven horses. We sustained no loss on this expedition. On July four, hearing of General Early's movement down the valley, I moved with my command east of the Blue Ridge for the purpose of cooperating with him and crossed the Potomac at Point of Rocks, driving out the garrison, two hundred fifty men, strongly fortified, and securing several prisoners and horses. As I supposed it to be General Early's intention to invest Maryland Heights, I thought the best service I could render would be to sever all communications both by railroad and telegraph between that point in Washington, which I did, keeping it suspended for two days. As this was the first occasion on which I had used artillery, the magnitude of the invasion was greatly exaggerated by the fears of the enemy and panic and alarm spread through their territory. I desire especially to bring to the notice of the commanding general the unsurpassed gallantry displayed by Captain Richards, commanding First Squadron. Our crossing was opposed by a body of infantry stationed on the Maryland shore. Dismounting a number of sharpshooters, whom I directed to wade the river above the point held by the enemy, I superintended in person the placing of my piece of artillery in position at the same time directing Captain Richards, whenever the enemy had been dislodged by the sharpshooters and artillery, to charge across the river in order to affect their capture. The enemy were soon routed, and Captain Richards charged over, but before he could overtake them they had retreated across the canal, pulling up the bridge in their rear. My order had not, of course, contemplated their pursuit into their fortifications, but the destruction of the bridge was no obstacle to his impetuous fallar, and hastily dismounting and throwing down a few planks on the sills he charged across under a heavy fire from a redoubt. The enemy fled panic-stricken, leaving in our possession their camp equippage, etc. On the morning of July 6, while still in camp near the Potomac, information was received that a considerable force of cavalry was at Leesburg. I immediately hastened to meet them. At Leesburg I learned that they had gone toward Aldi, and I accordingly moved on the road to Ball's Mill in order to intercept them returning to their camp in Fairfax, which I succeeded in doing, meeting them at Mount Zion Church, and completely routing them, with a loss of about eighty of their officers and men left dead and severely wounded on the field, besides fifty-seven prisoners. Their loss includes a captain and lieutenant killed, and one lieutenant severely wounded, the major commanding, and two lieutenant's prisoners. We also secured all their horses, arms, etc. My loss was one killed and six wounded, none dangerously. After this affair the enemy never ventured in two months after the experiment of another raid through that portion of our district. A few days afterwards I again crossed the Potomac in cooperation with General Early and moved through Poolsville, Maryland for the purpose of capturing a body of cavalry in camp near Seneca. They retreated, however, before we reached there, leaving all their camp equippage in a considerable amount of stores. We also captured thirty head of beef cattle. I think General Early fell back from before Washington. I recrossed the Potomac near Seneca, moving thence to the Little River Pike in order to protect him from any movement up the south side of the river. The enemy moved through Leesburg in pursuit of General Early and occupied Ashby's and Snickers' gaps. I distributed my command so as to most effectually protect the country. These detachments, under Captains Richards and Chapman and lieutenants Glasscock, Nelson, and Hatcher, while they kept the enemy confined to the main thoroughfares and restrained their ravages, killed and captured about three hundred, securing their horses, etc. My own attention was principally directed to ascertaining the numbers and movements of the enemy and forwarding the information to General Early, who was then in the Valley. At the time of the second invasion of Maryland by General Early I moved my command to the Potomac, crossed over three companies at Cheeks and Nolan's Fords, while the remaining portion were kept in reserve on this side with the artillery, which was posted on the South Bank to keep open the Fords, keeping one company under Lieutenant Williams near the Ford on the North Bank. Two were sent under Lieutenant Nelson to Addamstown on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, for the purpose of intercepting the trains from Baltimore, destroying their communications, etc. Apprehending a movement up the river from a considerable body of cavalry, which I knew to be stationed below, I remained with a portion of the command guarding the Fords. Lieutenant Nelson reached the road a few minutes too late to capture the train, but destroyed two telegraph lines. On his return he met a force of the enemy's cavalry near Monocacy, which was charged and routed by the gallant Lieutenant Hatcher, who took about fifteen men and horses besides killing and wounding several. We recrossed the river in the evening, bringing about seventy-five horses and between twenty and thirty prisoners. Our loss? Too missing. The battle at Mount Zion attracted great attention at the time, especially in the North, and made the already redoubtable figure of Mosby an altogether awe-inspiring one. The capture of major forbs, Colonel Lowell's fighting major, was also an important incident in Mosby's life, as here began the lifelong friendship between the two families. The story of the battle was well told in the official report of Colonel Charles R. Lowell, Jr., 2 Massachusetts Cavalry. The report reads as follows. Near Falls Church, Virginia, July 8, 1864. I have the honor to report Major Forbes' scout as completely as as yet possible. I have not talked with Lieutenant Cools or Captain Stone, who is badly wounded, but send what I learned on the ground. Major Forbes left here with one hundred fifty men, one hundred second Massachusetts Cavalry, fifty-thirteenth New York Cavalry, Monday P.M. Tuesday A.M. went through Aldi and found all quiet toward the gaps. Tuesday P.M. went by Ball's Mill to Leesburg. Heard of Mosby's raid at Point of Rocks and learned that he had sent four or five wagons of plunder through Leesburg under a guard of about sixty men, the afternoon before. Heard nothing of any other force this side of the ridge. We returned that night to the south of Goose Creek, as directed, and on Wednesday A.M. went again by Ball's Mill to Leesburg. Still heard nothing of Mosby or any force. From what I learned from citizens I think Mosby passed between Leesburg and the Potomac some time on Tuesday, crossed Goose Creek, and moved westward toward Aldi on Wednesday. Learned of Major Forbes' second visit to Leesburg and laid in ambush for him at Ball's Mill. Major Forbes returned from Leesburg by Sender's Mill, four miles above, came down by Aldi, and halted for two or three hours about one-and-a-half miles east on the Little River Pike. When Mosby learned this, he moved south and struck the Pike about one-and-a-quarter miles east of the Major's position, being hidden till he had reached about half a mile west on that Pike. Major Forbes was duly notified by his advance guard, mounted his men and moved them from the north to the south of the Pike. As the rear was crossing Mosby fired one shell from his twelve-pounder, which burst entirely too high. As Major Forbes formed on the south his advance guard, which had dismounted and fired as Mosby came up, fell back, still keeping a little north of the Pike, and took an excellent position somewhat on the flank. Up to this time, I think, all the dispositions were admirable. Major Forbes' two squadrons were formed, his third squadron in rearguard not formed, but nearly so, and no confusion. Mosby's men, who were not in any order, but were down the road in a nick, had just reached the fence corner some two hundred and twenty-five yards off, and a few had dismounted, under a fire from the advance guard, to take down the fence. When two panels of the fence were down, the men trotted through for about seventy-five yards, and came gradually down to a walk, and almost halted. Major Forbes' first platoon was ordered to fire with carbines. Here was the first mistake. It created confusion among the horses, and the squadron in the rear added to it by adding a few pistol shots. Had the order been given to draw sabers in charge, the rebels would never have got their gun off. But I think Major Forbes, seeing how uneasy his horses were at the firing, must have intended to dismount some of his men. At any rate he attempted to move the first squadron by the right flank. The rebels saw their chance, gave a yell, and our men in the confusion of the moment broke. The two rear squadrons went off in confusion. Attempts were made, with some success, to rally parts of the first squadron in the next field, and again near Little River Church one mile off. Captain Stone was wounded here, and I believe all the non-commissioned officers of A and L companies present were wounded or killed. There was little gained. I have only to report a perfect route, and a chase for five to seven miles. We lost Major Forbes, Lieutenant Amory, and Mr. Humphries, Chaplain, from Second Massachusetts, and Lieutenant Burns, 13th New York Cavalry, prisoners all unhurt. Captain Stone, 2nd Massachusetts, and Lieutenant Schuyler, 13th New York, were very badly wounded. Lieutenant Kuhl's alone came safely to camp. Of men we lost, killed outright, seven. 2nd Massachusetts, five, 13th New York. Wounded, we brought in twenty-seven, and left ten too bad to move. I fear of the wounded at least twelve will die. About forty others have come to camp half-mounted, and most be reported to have forty-four prisoners. Quite a number you will see, still unaccounted for. Some of them are probably wounded, and some still on their way to camp, and others will be made prisoners. Most be went up toward Upperville, with his prisoners, and his dead and wounded about midnight Wednesday. I reached the ground about eleven-thirty a.m. and remained in plain sight for about three hours, then searched through all the woods and moved to Centerville, where I again waited an hour in hope some stragglers would join us. We only picked up half a dozen, however. The soldiers and citizens all speak in high terms of the gallantry of the officers. Major Forbes especially remained in the first field till every man had left it, emptied his revolver, and in the second field where Company A tried to stand, he disabled one man with a sabre and lunged through Colonel Mosby's coat. His horse was then killed and fell on his leg, pinning him till he was compelled to surrender. More than one hundred horses were taken. Acutriments, arms, etc. will also be missing. I cannot yet give the precise number. Mosby's force is variously estimated at from one seventy-five to two hundred. Mrs. Davis and her daughter putting it at two fifty to three hundred men. I think he had probably about two hundred. What his loss is, I cannot say, as he picked up all his dead and wounded and took them off in the night. The Union people in Aldi report that he took them in five wagons. A wounded sergeant reports hearing the names of three or four spoken of as killed, one mortally wounded man was left on the ground. Mosby actually lost seven men wounded. His force was about one hundred seventy-five men. I think the chance was an excellent one to whip Mosby and take his gun. I have no doubt Major Forbes thought so too, as the wounded men say there was not enough difference in number to talk about.