As Hancock's corps was holding Hopewell and Thoroughfare gaps, the road that Stuart determined to go was through Glasscock's gap (a few miles south of Thoroughfare) via Haymarket, through Loudoun to Seneca ford on the Potomac. The part assigned to me was to cross the Bull Run at night by the bridle path I had so frequently travelled, and, uniting with Stuart near Gum Spring in Loudoun, take command of his advance guard. Hooker's headquarters were still at Fairfax station, with his army spread out like a fan over Loudoun, Prince William and Fairfax counties, his left being at Thoroughfare, his right at Leesburg, with his centre at Aldie, and Pleasanton's cavalry in front of it. Stuart's plan, of course, contemplated his crossing of the river in advance of Hooker or Lee, and opening communication with Ewell as soon as he was over. During our interview Gen. Hampton and Fitz Lee came into the room, and soon afterward Stuart started a courier off to Gen. Lee. I have been informed by one of his staff that he rode over to Berryville that day to have a personal interview with the commanding general. Before we parted, he told me that Gen. Lee was very apprehensive that Hooker would steal a march and get into Maryland ahead of him, and asked me to go and find out if any portion of his army was crossing the river. Although I had been almost continuously in the saddle for three days and nights, I agreed to return inside of Hooker's lines. With only two men I crossed the Bull Run again that night, and early the next morning was riding in full Confederate uniform through the Union army.
I soon sent Stuart a despatch that I was certain Hooker's army was not in motion. Proceeding some distance down the pike with my single companion, we had stopped to talk with a citizen, when four lieutenants belonging to the 3d corps, that was camped near by, walked up to us. There was a drizzling rain, and we had waterproofs thrown over our shoulders. As they were in full view of their camps, they had no suspicion of danger and were without arms. After talking with them for some minutes, they were stunned by a demand for their surrender. I sent them back under guard of one man, with another despatch to Stuart. I then rode on alone down into Fairfax, where I met some of my old acquaintances, who thought when they first saw me that it was my ghost.
Having learned all about the situation of Hooker's army, I started back. I stopped at the house of John I. Coleman to inquire the shortest way to the pike. It was the first time he ever saw me, and, although I showed him my gray uniform and star, he thought I was trying to play a Yankee trick on him, and refused to tell me anything. While we were talking, I heard a noise behind me. Turning around, I saw two mounted men approaching us. When within about fifty yards, they stopped, and began picking cherries from a tree. I drew my pistol, but kept it under my gum cloth, and rode up to them. They never suspected that I was an enemy. I asked them where they were from; they answered that they were on duty with Reynolds' corps that was camped near by at Guilford. They had no arms; so, of course, had to surrender. When Coleman saw this affair, he was more convinced than ever that I was a Yankee dressed up in gray. I had to get to the pike the best way I could. So I tied the heads of my prisoners' horses together with their halters, to keep them from running away, and went on.
It was near sunset when I came in sight of the pike, about four miles below Aldie. There was a wagon train a mile or so in length passing on the road, with a strong cavalry guard, that was carrying supplies to the troops above. I was anxious to get to Stuart that night, and knew that if I waited for the train to pass, it would be dark, and I could not find the mountain path. So I drew my pistol, held it under cover, and told my prisoners that if they spoke a word they would be dead men. I then rode, with them by my side, through a gap in the fence into the pike, right among the Union cavalry. We could not cross over at that point, as the fence on the other side of the road was too high for our horses to leap. We went along for 200 yards, with my prisoners, through the wagon train and cavalry escort, until we got to a road leading away from the pike. Here we turned off. The gum cloth I had over my shoulders to protect me from the rain, as it did not cover one-third of my body, did not conceal the uniform I wore. I had ridden through the ranks of a column of Union cavalry in broad daylight, with two prisoners, and my elbow had actually struck against one as I passed. In doing so I had acted on the maxim of Danton—Audace, toujours audace. Finding that I could not reach the mountain before night, and fearing to go to sleep in the woods alone with my prisoners, I took their paroles and sent them back to their friends. Of course, I kept their horses. Early the next morning I was again at Stuart's headquarters.[12]
CHAPTER XIII.
Stuart had now received his final instructions from General Lee, authorizing him to move into Maryland, around the rear of the enemy and between him and Washington. He was likewise instructed to do them all the damage he could on his way. With his transportation destroyed and communications broken, Hooker would be seriously embarrassed in pursuing General Lee, or probably forced to fall back for supplies, or to defend the capital against this demonstration. In the meantime, while Hooker was thus delayed, the Confederates would have been levying contributions on the farmers in Pennsylvania. His original plan, which was bold in conception and perfectly practicable in execution, was thwarted by an event which he could not control. It was obvious now that Hooker would not initiate any movement, but would confine himself to covering the capital and observing his adversary. It was equally plain that when the Confederate army made a move west of the Blue Ridge, Hooker would make a corresponding one on the east. It was, therefore, all important for the success of Stuart's movement that the status quo of the two armies should be preserved until he could get through Hooker's army to the river, when it would be too late for Hooker to take any step to defeat it. The distance was not more than twenty miles to the Potomac from the point where he would enter Hooker's lines; and this could be got over between sunrise and sundown, as he intended to march in three parallel columns. He knew the country well, and the position of each corps; and it would have been easy enough for him to flank them. Before Pleasanton could have got ready to follow the blazing meteor, it would have been out of sight. The three brigades that were to accompany Stuart were quietly withdrawn from Pleasanton's front on the evening of June 24, and marched in a southerly direction to their rendezvous at Salem. Those of Jones and Robertson were put in the position they had held about Middleburg, and, of course, were charged with the ordinary duty of cavalry on a post of observation. As Gen. Stuart says in his report, "Robertson's and Jones's brigades, under command of the former, were left in observation of the enemy, on the usual front (about Middleburg), with full instructions as to following of the enemy, in case of withdrawal, and joining our main army." An order to a cavalry officer to observe an enemy, of course implies that he is to report what he sees; otherwise, there is no use in his observing. Stuart left behind a force of over 3000 cavalry, which was amply sufficient for every purpose. By daybreak, on the morning of the 25th, his column debouched through Glassock's Gap, in the Bull Run, and proceeded towards Haymarket. At the same time I started across by the route I had been travelling for a week, to connect with him at the appointed place. We had stopped at a spring on the mountain side to make our breakfast on some sutlers' stores that had been saved from our captives. Two men had been sent forward on a picket; but they had scarcely got a hundred yards before a volley was fired; and the bullets whistled all around us. We sprang upon our horses; but, as the men did not return, we knew that they must have been killed or captured. General Meade, whose camps were near by, had prepared an ambuscade a second time for me, but I had escaped. (I wonder if he would have called this bushwhacking.) We made a detour around them, and hurried on to join Stuart; as we could hear his cannon about Haymarket. It seems that when Stuart got there, he found the roads on which he intended to march that day occupied by Hancock's corps, that had broken up camp that morning, and was moving towards the Potomac. When I got to the Little River Pike, about eight miles below Aldie, which was to be our point of junction, instead of meeting him we struck the head of Hancock's column. His divisions were marching on every road. I spent the day and night riding about among them, and with great difficulty extricated myself from the dilemma in which I was placed. I could not find out where Stuart was, nor he where I was; for Hancock was between us. So I retraced my steps and went on to Pennsylvania through the Shenandoah Valley, passing General Robertson's command, that was quietly resting in Ashby's and Snicker's Gaps, in the Blue Ridge, after the enemy retired on the 26th. Pleasanton that day had moved by his flank, across General Robertson's front, to Leesburg, to cover the crossing of Hooker's army. Why he should have halted and remained idle three days in the gaps of the Blue Ridge in Virginia after both armies had marched into Pennsylvania is a mystery that has never been satisfactorily explained. If there were any sound military reasons for his staying there three days, there were equally as sound ones for his not leaving at all. His proper position was on General Lee's flank, next to the enemy, in order to protect his rear and to keep him informed of their movement.
If General Robertson had then in obedience to General Lee's and Stuart's instructions, promptly followed the enemy along the base of South Mountain through Boonesboro, the Confederate cavalry might easily have reached Gettysburg in advance of the Federal troops. In this event, there would not have been the accidental collision of armies. General Lee would have fought a defensive battle, and Gettysburg might have been to Southern hearts something more than "a glorious field of grief." Even as it was, Stuart's movement around his rear had so confused General Meade, that his army was more scattered than ours, and two of his corps in the first day's fight, were caught in delicto and crushed. He was looking for Lee on the Susquehanna, when in fact he was concentrating on Gettysburg.
On account of Hancock's unexpected movement, Stuart had been compelled to make a wider circuit than he had intended, and did not cross the Potomac until the night of the twenty-seventh, the day after Hooker got over. He thence moved northerly towards the Susquehanna, to put himself on Ewell's flank in accordance with the instructions of General Lee. But owing to the derangement of his plans by the advance of the Union army, without General Robertson having given him notice of it, Ewell had been recalled, and Stuart did not join the army until July the second, at Gettysburg, when the battle was raging. But Robertson's command had not even then come up. This movement of Stuart's around the rear of Hooker's army has been condemned by General Long, the military secretary and biographer of General Lee, as having been undertaken either "from misapprehension of his instructions, or love of the éclat of a bold raid" (which, of course, implies disobedience of orders);[13] and General Longstreet says that as he was leaving the Blue Ridge, he instructed Stuart to follow him down the Valley, and cross the Potomac at Shepherdstown, but that Stuart replied that he had discretionary powers from General Lee where to cross the Potomac.
When this charge was made against Stuart, both the critics were viewing his movement in the light of the disaster to our arms at Gettysburg, and it was more agreeable to put the blame of it on a dead man than a living one. General Long, who had access to the Confederate archives, may plead the blindness with which he is afflicted as an excuse for his error, and I have no doubt that General Longstreet has forgotten that his own letter to Stuart contradicts his statement.
Gen. Lee made two reports of this campaign; one written in July, 1863, a few weeks after the battle; and a more detailed one in January, 1864. There is a slight color of truth in the imputation cast upon Stuart that Gen. Lee intended to censure him in his report. But this is owing to a false interpretation given to it by persons who have construed a single sentence literally, and not in connection with others that qualify and explain it.[14] Gen. Lee does say: "It was expected that as soon as the Federal army should cross the Potomac, Gen. Stuart would give notice of its movements, and nothing having been heard from him since our entrance into Maryland, it was inferred that the enemy had not yet left Virginia. Orders were therefore issued to move on Harrisburg." Now if all that Gen. Lee says in his report about Stuart's cavalry is read, together as a whole, it is apparent that in the sentence above quoted, he uses Stuart's name not in a personal sense, but descriptive of his cavalry corps, for in another place he says that Stuart had been directed to divide his cavalry, leaving a portion to watch the enemy in front of the mountain passes in Virginia, and "with the remainder to cross into Maryland and place himself on the right of Gen. Ewell," who was marching on Harrisburg.[15]