On October 8 General Lee, suspecting that McClellan was meditating some movement, ordered the cavalry to cross the Potomac and reconnoitre.
Oct. 9 Selecting 600 men from each of his brigades, with General Hampton, Colonels W. H. F. Lee and W. E. Jones in command, and accompanied by four horse-artillery guns, Stuart rendezvoused on the night of the 9th at Darkesville. As the day dawned he crossed the Potomac at McCoy’s Ford, drove in the Federal pickets, and broke up a signal station near Fairview.
Oct. 10 Marching due north, he reached Mercersburg at noon, and Chambersburg, forty-six miles from Darkesville, at 7 p.m. on October 10. Chambersburg, although a Federal supply depôt of some importance, was without a garrison, and here 275 sick and wounded were paroled, 500 horses requisitioned, the wires cut, and the railroad obstructed; while the machine shops, several trains of loaded cars, and a large quantity of small arms, ammunition, and clothing was destroyed.
Oct. 11 At nine the next morning the force marched in the direction of Gettysburg, moving round the Federal rear. Then, crossing the mountains, it turned south through Emmittsburg, passed the Monocacy near Frederick, and after a march of ninety miles since leaving Chambersburg reached Hyattstown at daylight on the 12th.
Oct.12 Here, on the road which formed McClellan’s line of communication with Washington, a few waggons were captured, and information came to hand that 4,000 or 5,000 Federal troops were near Poolesville, guarding the fords across the Potomac. Moving at a trot through the woods, the column, leaving Poolesville two or three miles to the left, made for the mouth of the Monocacy. About a mile and a half from that river an advanced guard of hostile cavalry, moving eastward, was encountered and driven in. Colonel Lee’s men were dismounted, a gun was brought into action, and under cover of this screen, posted on a high crest, the main body made a dash for White’s Ford. The point of passage, although guarded by about 100 Federal riflemen, was quickly seized, and Stuart’s whole force, together with the captured horses, had completed the crossing before the enemy, advancing in large force from the Monocacy, was in a position to interfere.
This brilliantly conducted expedition was as fruitful of results as the ride round McClellan’s army in the previous June. The information obtained was most important. Lee, besides being furnished with a sufficiently full report of the Federal dispositions, learned that no part of McClellan’s army had been detached to Washington, but that it was being reinforced from that quarter, and that therefore no over-sea expedition against Richmond was to be apprehended. Several hundred fine horses from the farms of Pennsylvania furnished excellent remounts for the Confederate troopers. Prominent officials were brought in as hostages for the safety of the Virginia citizens who had been thrown into Northern prisons. Only a few scouts were captured by the enemy, and not a man was killed. The distance marched by Stuart, from Darkesville to White’s Ford, was one hundred and twenty-six miles, of which the last eighty were covered without a halt. Crossing the Potomac at McCoy’s Ford about 6 a.m. on October 10, he had recrossed it at White’s Ford, between 1 and 2 p.m. on October 12; he was thus for fifty-six hours inside the enemy’s lines, and during the greater part of his march within thirty miles of McClellan’s headquarters near Harper’s Ferry.
It is often the case in war that a well-planned and boldly executed enterprise has a far greater effect than could possibly have been anticipated. Neither Lee nor Stuart looked for larger results from this raid than a certain amount of plunder and a good deal of intelligence. But skill and daring were crowned with a more ample reward than the attainment of the immediate object.
In the first place, the expedition, although there was little fighting, was most destructive to the Federal cavalry. McClellan had done all in his power to arrest the raiders. Directly the news came in that they had crossed the Potomac, troops were sent in every direction to cut off their retreat. Yet so eminently judicious were Stuart’s precautions, so intelligent the Maryland soldiers who acted as his guides, and so rapid his movements, that although constant reports were received by the Federal generals as to the progress and direction of his column, the information came always too late to serve any practical purpose, and his pursuers were never in time to bar his march. General Pleasanton, with such cavalry as could be spared from the picket line, marched seventy-eight miles in four-and-twenty hours, and General Averell’s brigade, quartered on the Upper Potomac, two hundred miles in four days. The severity of the marches told heavily on these commands, already worn out by hard work on the outposts; and so many of the horses broke down that a period of repose was absolutely necessary to refit them for the field. Until his cavalry should have recovered it was impossible for McClellan to invade Virginia.
In the second place, neither the Northern Government nor the Northern people could forget that this was the second time that McClellan had allowed Stuart to ride at will round the Army of the Potomac. Public confidence in the general-in-chief was greatly shaken; and a handle was given to his opponents in the ranks of the abolitionists, who, because he was a Democrat, and had much influence with the army, were already clamouring for his removal.
Oct. 26 The respite which Stuart had gained for Virginia was not, however, of long duration. On October 26, McClellan, having ascertained by means of a strong reconnaissance in force that the Confederate army was still in the vicinity of Winchester, commenced the passage of the Potomac. The principal point of crossing was near Berlin, and so soon as it became evident that the Federal line of operations lay east of the Blue Ridge, Lee ordered Longstreet to Culpeper Court House. Jackson, taking post on the road between Berryville and Charlestown, was to remain in the Valley.