Sunday, 7th.—Our attempted exploit of capturing or destroying the enemy's train having thus miscarried, we resumed the chase, taking the Chambersburg pike. In thus turning our backs upon Gettysburg, whither we supposed we were bound, we might naturally wonder "what next?" That this supposition was correct, witness the following order:
(Pine Grove), July 7th, (6th), 1863.
In compliance with Division Orders this command will take up line of march for Gettysburg forthwith.
This Brigade will take the advance—regiments in the following order:—7th, 8th, 56th, 52nd, 23rd.
* * * * *
By order of
J. C. Smith,
Brigadier-General Commanding.
We followed the Chambersburg pike as far as Greenwood where we turned to the left down a road leading southerly. The remains of a caisson and a forge which had been knocked to pieces so as to be unserviceable to the finder, and unused rifle shells scattered along the road indicated the haste of the retreat of the enemy. To facilitate their escape they had moved in two columns, one by the road, the other through the adjoining fields, where the ripe grain for long distances lay trampled for the breadth of the line.
About 4 p.m., we came to a halt in a grove just out of the little village of Altodale, (erroneously called Funcktown by Col. Varian of the 8th and Col. Trafford of the 71st in their published reports of the campaign), having accomplished a distance of some fourteen miles from Cashtown. Here we realized more keenly than we had yet done that we were coming upon classic ground. Through the grove flowed a brawling brook named the Little Antietam. The waters which there soothed our travel-bruised feet and refreshed our weary limbs were destined to bathe the historic field where the patriot army hurled back the first rebel invasion. But the neighborhood is itself memorable for a prior transaction, connected with one of the most pregnant events in the history of the country. Near the place of our bivouac, John E. Cook, one of the unfortunate confederates of John Brown of Harper's Ferry, was arrested. Cook, it will be remembered, escaped from Harper's Ferry by taking to the mountains of Maryland on foot; and after having reached a spot where he expected to find sympathizing friends, was treacherously seized by one Logan, and sent back to a Virginia gallows. This execrated wretch now lives, poor and despised by his neighbors, in this village of Altodale. But it is pleasant to be able to say that his wife, as if an atoning angel, opened her doors, (Logan was absent on a distant journey at the time), and showed to our men—they being ignorant of who their entertainer was—a generous hospitality. She fed the hungry and nursed the sick with christian charity.
On this Tuesday morning the entire rebel army reached Hagerstown; and at the same moment General Meade set on foot from Gettysburg a flank movement by way of Middletown.