Advance Movements

The Army of Northern Virginia, led by the matchless commander, Robert E. Lee, was flushed with victory during the spring and early summer of 1863. With the exception of the drawn battle of Antietam and a few others of lesser note, this army had been generally successful, their most noted victories being the first and last of the two years' warfare Bull Run and Chancellorsville. On the other hand, the Army of the Potomac, led successively by McDowell, McClellan, Pope, Burnside, and Hooker, had, under its many masters, met with one discouragement after another; and while no one could doubt its patriotism and its valor, the history of its two years' experience showed but few bright pages to cheer the heart of the war-broken soldier and to inspire the hopes of an anxious public. The more disheartening was this when contrasted with the almost unbroken success of the Union arms in the Mississippi Valley.

The most disastrous defeat they had suffered since Bull Run was at Chancellorsville in May

of this year. at Chancellorsville was a loss rather than a gain, owing to the death of the brilliant, meteoric, Napoleonic Stonewall Jackson. Better could the South have spared the victory and thousands of common soldiers than this dashing, successful leader. Nevertheless, southern hopes were high after Chancellorsville, and public opinion was unanimous in demanding an invasion of the North. Lee decided, therefore, to move northward, cross Mason and Dixon's line, and to make Harrisburg, the capital of Pennsylvania, the objective point. It was hoped that Philadelphia would also fall into the hands of the Confederate army. Leaving General Stewart with ten thousand cavalry to watch Hooker and prevent his following in pursuit, Lee crossed the Potomac early in June, and concentrated his army at Hagerstown, Maryland. Everything now seemed to promise a successful invasion of the Keystone State. Lee's army was divided into three corps, commanded respectively by Generals Longstreet, Ewell, and A. P. Hill. As they came near Chambersburg, Lee decided to ap

Yet the Confederate victory

proach Harrisburg with the main portion of the army by way of the Cumberland Valley through Chambersburg, Carlisle, and Bridgeport, while he sent General Early with a division of Ewell's corps across the South Mountain and ordered him to move upon Harrisburg by way of the Susquehanna Valley, passing through Gettysburg and York, and crossing the Susquehanna River at Columbia. The towns along both routes were to be assessed for large sums of money, and payment enforced by threats to burn the towns, if they refused.

As the close of June approached, and the Confederate army was scattered over the Cumberland Valley with Early's division thirty miles east of Gettysburg, a scout brought General Lee the startling news that Stewart had failed to detain Hooker south of the Potomac River, that the Army of the Potomac was now in Maryland and in hot pursuit of the southern invaders of northern soil. Lee was quick to perceive the necessity of abandoning, at least for the time, his proposed invasion of the North, and of turning back to encounter his deadly foe on the field of battle.

General Hooker was no longer commander of the Army of the Potomac. He had requested of General Halleck, the commanderin-chief with headquarters at Washington, the use of ten thousand men stationed on Maryland Heights above Harper's Ferry under General French. Halleck, who lacked the military wisdom to grasp the situation, and whose dislike for Hooker was an open secret, refused the request. Hooker instantly resigned the command, and General George G. Meade, one of the ablest of the corps commanders, was appointed in his stead.

The two great armies were now scattered through Maryland and southern Pennsylvania. They were moving each toward the other, and every one saw that there was soon to be a clash of arms more terrific, no doubt, than they had yet experienced in their two years' strife; but at what point the shock of battle would occur no one could tell. Lee had ordered Longstreet and Hill to cross the South Mountain eastward from Chambersburg, and Ewell to return southwestward from York. Their natural meeting-place would be the

vicinity of Gettysburg. Meantime Meade, whose headquarters were at Taneytown, Maryland, had ordered a general movement of the Union army toward Harrisburg, the object being to encounter Lee as soon as it was possible to meet him. He had sent General Buford with four thousand cavalry to meet and hold in check the advance guard of the Confederate columns, and Buford, on the evening of June 30, passed through the little city of Gettysburg and spent the night a mile west of it between Oak Hill and Seminary Ridge. This was the only portion of the two armies that occupied the coming battle-ground at dawn of the first morning of that fatal July, and Buford is credited with having first chosen this site as a suitable battle-ground.1

The First Day's Battle

On Wednesday morning, the 1st of July, the forces of the two commanders were still scattered, the extremes being more than forty miles apart. General Sickles with the sixth corps of

1 Count of Paris, "History of the Civil War," Vol. III. p. 545.