The Fourth of July passed quietly, both armies holding their positions, but General Lee was sending his trains away; and on the morning of the fifth General Meade found that the Rebel Army had disappeared—the same thing that had happened to McClellan at Antietam. General Lee retreated rapidly by the shortest route to Williamsport on the Potomac, where he found his pontoon bridges destroyed and the river so high from recent rains as to be unfordable. General Meade pursued leisurely by a much longer route. This gave the Rebels at least four days' time to take up a strong position and fortify it, when they discovered that they could not cross the Potomac.
The Fifth Corps left Gettysburg on the afternoon of the fifth of July and moved by way of Emmitsburg and Middletown across the South Mountain range at Fox's Gap to Williamsport, where it arrived about the eleventh. Part of this route was familiar to us, as we had gone over it the previous year. General Meade directed a strong reconnaissance to be made on the morning of the fourteenth, which developed the fact that the enemy had slipped across the Potomac during the previous night. The authorities at Washington were angry at the escape of the enemy without another battle; and the army, whose hopes had been raised to a high pitch by their victory at Gettysburg, grumbled audibly. General Meade wrote to General Halleck asking to be relieved of the command of the Army of the Potomac, but his request was not granted. Military critics claim that in allowing Lee to escape from Gettysburg and again at Williamsport, General Meade missed the greatest opportunity of the war to rout the Rebel Army and end the struggle nearly two years sooner.
My horse, which had become a great pet, grew fat while traveling through the rich farming lands of Maryland and Pennsylvania, where there was an abundance of the finest clover and corn. On night marches I often snatched a little sleep along the road by leaning forward in the saddle, resting my head on his neck and encircling it with my arms. Sometimes I fell asleep sitting up straight in the saddle when slowly jogging along, until awakened by a low branch of a roadside tree brushing my face or knocking off my cap. At such times the horse seemed to be asleep also, and moved along mechanically.
The people in this section treated the soldiers kindly; some women baked bread and biscuits to give away; others sold us bread, butter, eggs and pies at most reasonable prices. And how good that bread tasted! I remember reporting for orders at brigade headquarters camp one evening when the officers were having supper and overhearing the General remark that he would like to marry the woman who baked the bread he was eating, no matter what her looks might be. In some of the small villages and farmhouses the natives understood but little English and spoke only Pennsylvania Dutch.
General Meade put the army in motion on the fifteenth of July for Harper's Ferry, where we crossed the Potomac, and I had an opportunity to see John Brown's Fort. Some of the troops crossed at Berlin, about six miles below. We marched east of the Blue Ridge, over much of the same road McClellan had traveled the previous fall, while the Rebels passed down the Shenandoah Valley, guarding all the passes. At Manassas Gap the Confederates were overtaken and an attempt was made to bring on an engagement, which resulted in a lively skirmish until darkness came on, but next morning the enemy had disappeared. We resumed our march leisurely, by way of Warrenton, and about the sixth of August went into permanent camp at Beverly Ford on the Rappahannock, drawing our supplies from Culpeper on the Orange and Alexandria railroad.
While on this march, near Centreville, we noticed a horse in a field some distance off the road. His condition was deplorable, he hobbled most painfully, and I suppose the greater part of the army had seen him in passing, but no one cared to have such a lame and sorry-looking animal. One of my men was curious enough to go out into the field to look at him, and discovered that his foot was wedged fast into an empty tomato can; and when that was removed he was no longer lame. The horse was cleaned and fed and became a useful extra riding-horse. He was known by the name of "Centreville."
About this time we read in the papers about serious riots in New York city called the "Draft Riots." Congress had passed an act to enroll all available citizens of the loyal states for military duty, to enable the states to furnish their quota, when called upon for additional troops by the Government. Names were to be drawn by lottery, and each man so drawn was to serve in the army or furnish an acceptable substitute. This had to be done; all the two-year volunteers had been discharged and, after the defeats at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, there were few voluntary enlistments. The regulars were unable to obtain any recruits to fill up their skeleton regiments, owing to county and town bounties offered for volunteers. The riots in New York had been controlled for the time being, but there was much uneasiness in the city as to what would occur when the actual drawing of names began, for the Government needed soldiers and was bound to enforce the draft. It was therefore decided to send the two small brigades of regulars and a few volunteer regiments to New York city to report there for duty to General John A. Dix, commanding the Department of the East.
Accordingly on August thirteenth the troops destined for New York city, under the command of General R. B. Ayres, left their camps for Alexandria, some of the soldiers going on freight-cars from Culpeper, while others marched with the supply train to Alexandria. On our arrival there, after issuing rations, I was ordered to turn over all Government property to the depot commissary, make out transfers and take receipts for it for Lieutenant Greeley. It cost me a severe pang to part with my horse Tommy, to whom I had become much attached. He was so gentle that often after a hard march when he was unsaddled and fed he would lie on the grass and I would lie down with him, resting my head on his neck and we would both go to sleep.
My little staff of assistants was dispersed and sent to their companies; and so was I, but not to do duty with them, only to be accounted for. I was still brigade commissary sergeant and was to be at Lieutenant Greeley's call when needed. We had to wait for transportation in Alexandria, where my regiment was on a block in a private street. We stacked arms in the street, and in the daytime sat on the curbstone under the shade trees or loafed about the neighborhood. We did our cooking by little fires in the street and at night lay down on the brick sidewalks in front of the houses. This we did for two nights. Fortunately it did not rain. In the house before which my company was stationed there were some ladies who had a piano and they sang secession songs after dark; and we retaliated by singing all the Union songs we knew. They kept their blinds closed and we saw none but negro servants enter or leave the house while we were there. On the third day we marched to the wharf and embarked on a freight steamer—the worst old tub I was ever on! As usual, we were crowded and I preferred to remain on deck and camped near one of the masts. This steamer was a very slow propeller. The weather was fine and we got along fairly well down the Potomac and the Chesapeake Bay, until we passed the Capes and entered the Atlantic, when we discovered that she was a high-roller and hadn't ballast enough. Soon more than half of the command was seasick. The ship had no bulwarks, only an open pipe railing through which it would be quite easy to roll over-board. As I was not seasick I remained on deck, taking the precaution to tie myself to the mast in the night-time. We were a long time getting to New York, where we arrived in the middle of the day and landed at a dock at the foot of Canal Street.
Parts of our brigades, who were on faster boats, had arrived on the preceding day. The command was scattered throughout the city; some regiments encamped in Battery Park; others in Washington, Union, Madison and Tompkins Squares. Some companies were stationed on the upper part of Fourth Avenue along the New Haven Railroad tracks and elsewhere. My regiment and another encamped on the block bounded by Fifth and Sixth Avenues, Forty-eighth and Forty-ninth Streets. This block was vacant except for a row of four-story buildings on the Sixth Avenue side, still standing. The block had been filled in and graded fairly level a few feet above the street, and had a picket fence on the other three sides. There were few houses in the neighborhood; close by, on Fifth Avenue, were the foundations of St. Patrick's Cathedral which had just been begun. The nearest horse-car line was on Sixth Avenue, where we noticed an occasional car, smaller than the others and painted yellow, bearing a sign in large letters, on either side of the car, which read: "Colored people allowed in this car."