The next day, the fifteenth of June, Rodes crossed to Williamsport in Maryland, Jenkins going forward to Chambersburg. Jubal Early with his division took the Shepherdstown road, threatening, from that vicinity, Harper’s Ferry. Edward Johnson and his division crossed at Shepherdstown and encamped near the field of Sharpsburg.
On the fifteenth, Longstreet and the First Corps left Culpeper, and marched along the eastern base of the Blue Ridge toward Ashby’s Gap. At the same time A. P. Hill and the Third Corps took the road for the Valley already traversed by Ewell and the Second. Stuart and the cavalry moved to cover Longstreet’s front. Fighting Joe Hooker had left the Rappahannock, but he yet hovered in Virginia, on the south side of the Potomac.
June seventeenth, June nineteenth, June twenty-first saw the second tilt of this month between Pleasanton and Stuart, the running cavalry fight through the Loudoun Valley, between the spurs of the Bull Run Mountains, by Middleburg and the little town of Aldie. The tournament was a brilliant one, with charge and counter-charge, ambuscade, surprise, wheelings here and wheelings there, pourings from dark mountain passes, thundering dashes through villages quivering with excitement, fighting from the saddle, fighting dismounted, incursions of blue infantry and artillery, hairbreadth escapes, clank and din and roll of drum, dust cloud and smoke cloud, mad passage of red-nostrilled, riderless horses, appeal of trumpet, rally and charge. It was a three-days’ fight to stir for many a year to come the blood of listening youth, but it was not a fortunate fight—not for the grey South! The honours of the joust itself were evenly enough divided. Stuart lost five hundred men, Pleasanton eight hundred. But before the trumpets rang Halt! the blue horsemen pushed the grey horsemen across the Loudoun Valley from Bull Run Mountains to Blue Ridge. In itself the position was well enough. Stuart, jocund as a summer morning, extricated with skill brigade after brigade, plunged with them into the dark passes, and, the fight drawn, presently marched on to the Potomac. But Pleasanton’s patrols, winding upward, came out upon the crest of Blue Ridge. Here they reined in their horses and gazed, open-mouthed. Far below, travelling westward, travelling northward were troops on the roads of the great Valley—troops and troops and troops; infantry, artillery, cavalry, wagon trains and wagon trains. The vedettes stared. “The Confederacy’s moving north! The Confederacy’s moving north!” They turned their horses and went at speed back to Pleasanton. Pleasanton sent at speed to Fighting Joe Hooker. Hooker at once pushed north to the Potomac, which he crossed, on the twenty-fifth, at Edwards’s Ferry.
CHAPTER X
THE BULLETIN
Miss Lucy opened the paper with trembling fingers. “‘A great cavalry fight at Brandy Station! General Lee’s telegram. Killed and wounded.’” Her three nieces came close to her. “It’s not a long bulletin.... Thank God, there’s no Cary!”
She brushed her hand across her eyes, and read on. “We have few particulars as yet. The fighting was severe and lasted all day. The loss on both sides is heavy. Our loss in officers was, as usual, very considerable. Among those killed we have heard the names of Colonel Hampton, brother of General Wade Hampton. Colonel John S. Green, of Rappahannock County, and Colonel Williams, of the Eighteenth North Carolina. The latter was married only one week ago. General W.H.F. Lee, son of General Lee, was shot through the thigh. Colonel Butler, of South Carolina, is reported to have lost a leg. From the meagre accounts we already have we are led to conclude that the fight of Tuesday was one of the heaviest cavalry battles that has occurred during the war, and perhaps the severest ever fought in this country.”
Molly drew a long breath. “Let’s turn the sheet, Aunt Lucy, and look for Vicksburg.”
“A moment!” said Judith. “I saw the word ‘artillery.’ What does it say about the horse artillery?”
“Just that it made a brilliant fight. A few casualties—there are the names.”
Judith bent over and read. “You always want to know about the horse artillery,” said Molly. “I want to know about everybody, too, but until you’ve heard about the artillery your eyes are wide and startled as a fawn’s. Is there somebody whom you like—”