Why General Lee and his army were allowed to cross the Potomac unmolested, we do not attempt to explain; nor do we condemn the determination of General Meade not to give battle. When men of such well-known military ability and bravery as General Sedgwick advise against a movement, it may be well to hesitate; yet it will doubtless be the verdict of history, that the hesitancy of General Meade at this time was his great mistake.
A hard march on the 15th brought the Sixth corps to Boonsboro, where our Second division encamped on precisely the same ground that we had occupied on the 31st of October last. Neill's brigade made the march at a breakneck pace, leaving the Vermonters far to the rear, who declared that the recent associations of the former with the cavalry had transformed them into a flying brigade. While resting here, a large body of rebel prisoners was marched past. They were mostly those who had been captured by Kilpatrick's men at Falling Waters. The rebels were hungry and destitute of rations. Our men at once divided their rations of hard bread and coffee with them, who, officers and all, declared that it was the best meal they had enjoyed for several days, and expressed themselves greatly pleased with the generosity of their guardians.
Notwithstanding our glorious success at Gettysburgh, and the good news from the west, we were now hearing news that made our hearts sick, and caused the cheeks of the New York soldiers to burn for the disgrace of their native State. It was a source of the deepest mortification to the brave New Yorkers, to feel that their own State and the great metropolis had been outraged by the most disgraceful riot that had ever stained the annals of any State or city in the Union, all for the purpose of overawing the government in its efforts to subdue the rebellion. Our companions from other States, with the generosity that characterizes soldiers, never derided us with this disgrace, but alluded to the riot as an uprising of foreigners, who had for the moment overpowered the native element. Even the fact that the governor of that great State had, in the midst of these terrible scenes, addressed the miscreants as his "friends," was alluded to with a delicacy that won our hearts.
It was one of the pleasant indications of a union of hearts as well as of States, that the soldiers of our sister States looked upon these riots in the light of a general calamity, rather than a disgrace to a particular State.
Crossing the South Mountain range, from Boonsboro to Middletown, the Sixth corps reached Petersville, three or four miles north of Berlin, where the army was to cross the Potomac. Here, nearly the whole army was crowded into a space of not more than three miles, all waiting for the orders to cross. The men were universally eager to push forward, and the necessary delay caused by crossing the men and material of so large an army seemed to them a wearisome expenditure of time. While waiting here, the Second division was honored by the presence of several ladies, wives of officers of different regiments, who had been waiting in Washington an opportunity of visiting their husbands, and had met them here. As a memento of this brief visit, the Seventy-seventh New York received from the wife of the surgeon the gift of a pair of beautiful guidons, which the regiment boasted were unequaled in the army. The design was a white cross, the badge of our division, upon a ground of deep blue silk. In the center of the cross were wrought the figures "77." These beautiful guidons were carried by the regiment until its final discharge from the service, when, with the old banner, the tattered national flag, and the magnificent new flag which was presented afterward by the ladies of Saratoga, they were presented to the State of New York, on the Fourth of July, 1865, in the presence of General Grant and a great concourse of illustrious men.
On Sunday, the 19th, the Sixth corps crossed the pontoon bridge to Virginia, the bands playing "O carry me back." As usual, while the corps was crossing a bridge or passing a difficult place, General Sedgwick stood at the farther end of the bridge preventing confusion and hurrying up teams which might obstruct the way. We climbed the rocky defile, and, at four o'clock, found ourselves well on the Virginia side of the Potomac. On our march we passed through the little village of Lovettsville, and, much to the surprise of all, the doors and windows of the dwellings were filled with ladies, whose hair and dresses were decked with ribbons of red, white and blue, and scores of Union flags waved a welcome to our soldiers. Such a sight had not greeted us before in Dixie, and it was most refreshing to witness such a demonstration of loyalty in Virginia.
The corps encamped about ten miles from the river, near a beautiful clear stream of water, which was very soon filled with bathers. Here orders came for each regiment in the army to send, to the State in which the regiment was raised, a certain number of commissioned officers and enlisted men for recruiting duty.
The march on the 20th was slow and through groves and pleasant meadows. Twelve miles were made, and we halted for the night and the next day. Wednesday we passed through Union town and Snickersville, reaching the base of Cobbler's mountain, a high spur from the Blue Ridge, not far from Ashby's Gap. Thursday the Sixth corps proceeded to Ashby's Gap, and, halting there for a few hours in a most delightful valley, again started southward. Vines of the trailing blackberry covered the ground, and the delicious fruit grew in such profusion that the men enjoyed a continual feast. Never had we, in our wanderings in the south, found such an abundance of fruit, and the effect upon the health of the men was marvelous. By the time that we reached Warrenton the occupation of the surgeons was almost gone. At no time, perhaps, in the history of the Army of the Potomac, did the medical reports exhibit a more general state of health than during our stay in the vicinity of Warrenton.
Thus, marching along at the foot of Blue Ridge, now turning aside to enter some mountain pass, and again proceeding on the general course, the army, on the 25th of July, reached the vicinity of Warrenton, our Sixth corps occupying a line from Warrenton to Waterloo, the scene of some of the early engagements of General Pope's army at the first rebel invasion. The First division was stationed in and about Warrenton; the Jersey brigade being provost guard of the town, where the gentlemanly conduct of the men, and the strict order preserved in the town, won for them the good opinions of the town's people, as well as of army officers. The Third division was in the rear of the other two divisions, and guarding the flank. The Second division encamped about an old Baptist church, which, inclosed by a thick growth of trees, large and small, had been, before the war, the only house of worship for miles around. No paint had ever stained its seats or casings, and no steeple from its roof had ever pointed toward heaven. The pulpit, the white folks' seats and the black folks' seats, were all in ruins now. The Rappahannock river was but a half a mile distant, and the Seventy-seventh and Fifth Vermont were sent to perform picket duty along its banks. On the following day the camps of the two regiments were moved to the vicinity of the river, in front of the remainder of the division, and we were ordered to perform picket duty while the division remained in its present camp. The camp of the Fifth Vermont was established a fourth of a mile from that of the Seventy-seventh, its lines joining ours on the left. On the bank of the river just below our camp, was the residence of Mr. Hart and a grist-mill; hence the place was called "Hart's Mills."