CHAPTER V.
GETTYSBURGH TO THE WILDERNESS.
From the date of their return from the field of Chancellorsville to the 11th of June, the sharp shooters remained in camp near Falmouth engaged only in the usual routine duties of camp life. Drills, reviews and other parades of ceremony were of frequent occurrence, but nothing of moment took place to essentially vary the monotony of their lives. Occasionally a detail would be made from the company for a day or two of especial service at some portion of the picket line where the rebel sharp shooters had become unusually aggressive, but affairs in those parts generally soon became satisfactory, and the men would be ordered back to camp. These little episodes were eagerly welcomed by men tired again of the inactivity of their lives in permanent camp. During this time, however, important changes in the organization of the company took place. Capt. Seaton, who had never entirely recovered from the effects of his wound received at Malvern Hill, resigned on the 15th day of May, and E. W. Hindes was appointed and commissioned captain. C. D. Merriman was promoted to be first lieutenant and H. E. Kinsman second lieutenant, the two former to date from May 15, 1863, and the latter from May 26.
The non-commissioned officers were advanced to rank as follows:
| First Sergeant, | Lewis J. Allen. |
| Second Sergeant, | A. H. Cooper. |
| Third Sergeant, | Cassius Peck. |
| Fourth Sergeant, | Paul M. Thompson. |
| Fifth Sergeant, | Edward F. Stevens. |
| First Corporal, | Jacob S. Bailey. |
| Second Corporal, | L. D. Grover. |
| Third Corporal, | Chas. M. Jordan. |
| Fourth Corporal, | E. M. Hosmer. |
| Fifth Corporal, | Edward Trask. |
| Sixth Corporal, | W. H. Leach. |
| Seventh Corporal, | M. Cunningham. |
| Eighth Corporal, | Edward Lyman. |
The new officers had been connected with the company from its organization; they were all roll of honor men, straight up from the ranks, and were men of distinguished courage and skill, as they had demonstrated already on at least fifteen occasions upon which the Army of the Potomac had been engaged in pitched battles with the enemy, besides numberless minor engagements and skirmishes. Indeed, their lives might be said to have been passed, for the year and a half they had been in the field, in constant battle, and the same was true of every man in the company as well. The month of June was, however, destined to bring with it hard marches and stirring events.
Not content with the results of the Maryland campaign of 1862, which had resulted in a disastrous rebel defeat at Antietam, Lee, perhaps recognizing the historical fact that a power which allows itself to be placed entirely on the defensive is sure to be beaten in the end, determined to essay once more an invasion of the loyal states, and to transfer the seat of war, if possible, from the impoverished and suffering South, to the soil of populous and wealthy Pennsylvania.
His route was substantially the same one pursued by him the previous year, but not now, as on that occasion, was the severe fighting to take place on the soil of Virginia.
By skillful feints and rapid marches, he succeeded in placing his army north of the Potomac before the Union commander could strike a blow at him. Early in the month it was certain that Lee was about to take the field in some direction. Sick and wounded were sent to northern hospitals, all surplus baggage and stores were turned in, and the Union army, stripped of everything but what the men carried on their persons, was ready to follow or to confront him. On the 11th of June the sharp shooters broke camp at five o'clock P. M., and, for the third time, marched out from the ground that had been their home for nearly seven months. Twice before had they left the same place to fight desperate battles with the same enemy, and twice had they returned to it, defeated and despondent. Many a man, as the regiment marched out, wondered in his heart if such would be their fate again; but soldiers are optimists by nature and education; they soon learn that to fear and dread defeat is to invite it; that confidence begets confidence, and that the example of courage and cheerfulness is contagious. Not for a long time, therefore, did these gloomy thoughts possess their minds, and soon they were stepping out merrily to the sound of the bugle.
Other portions of the army had preceded them, and still others were starting by different roads; and as far as the eye could reach, as the columns passed over some height of land, could be seen the clouds of dust that, rising high in the air, betrayed the presence of marching men. Pressing rapidly northward, passing successively Hartwood church, Rappahannock Station, Catlet's Station, Manassas Junction, Centerville and Green Springs—all familiar as the scenes of past experience, and many of them sacred to the memory of dead comrades—they forded the Potomac at Edwards' Ferry on the 25th of June and reached the mouth of the Monocacy, having marched thirty-one miles on that day. Arriving at that point, tired and foot-sore, as may be imagined after such a march, they found an aide-de-camp ordered to conduct them to their allotted camp ground. He appeared to be one of those nice young men who were so often appointed to positions on the staff for their beauty or their fragrance, or for the general elegance of manners, rather than for their ability to be of any real service. This young person, with no apparent idea of where he wanted to go, marched them up and down and around and about, until the patience of Trepp, the Dutch lieutenant-colonel, was exhausted. Commanding halt, he turned to the bewildered aide and with phrases and objurgations not fitted for the polite ears of those who will read this book, concluded his lecture with "Now mine frent, dese men is tired and dey is to march no more dis day," then, turning to the regiment, he commanded, in tones that might have been heard at Washington, "Men, lie down!" and the sharp shooters camped just there. Leaving this place on the twenty-sixth, they marched to Point of Rocks, and on the twenty-seventh to Middletown. On the twenty-eighth they marched via Frederick and Walkersville and crossed the Catoctin Mountains at Turner Gap. On this day the corps commander, General Sickles, returned to his command after a short absence, and on the same day General Hooker, not being able to make his ideas of the campaign square with those of the department generals at Washington, was relieved, at his own request, and General Meade was appointed to the command. The army parted with Hooker without very much regret. They recognized his wonderful fighting qualities as a division or corps commander, and he was personally popular, but they had never quite forgiven him for Chancellorsville, where he took his army, beaten and well nigh crushed, back from an enemy numerically weaker than his own, while he had yet nearly forty thousand soldiers who had not been engaged in the action, and hardly under fire. It is safe to say that his army had no longer that degree of confidence in his ability to handle large armies, and to direct great battles, so essential to success. Of his successor the army only knew that he was a scholarly, polished gentleman, personally brave, and that as a brigade, division and corps commander he had made few mistakes. On the whole, his record was favorable and the men marched willingly under him, although the choice of the rank and file might possibly have been some other man.