Authors: Noah Andre Trudeau
Today’s marching orders for the Army of the Potomac kept most of its strength covering the South Mountain passes. Pleasonton’s cavalry and Sedgwick’s Sixth Corps completed the crossing of Hooker’s force to the northern bank of the Potomac, while George Meade’s Fifth Corps followed army headquarters from Poolesville to Frederick. The intermittent rainshowers of days past stopped by noon, and the sky began to clear.
Many of Meade’s men marveled at the countryside around them. “For miles in every direction this beautiful country was replete with cereal and vegetable products,” exclaimed a Massachusetts man. “Vast fields of wheat, oats, barley, etc., flourished and grew under the hands of the husbandman, and delighted the eyes of a hurrying, tramping army of men who had just left the barren fields of war-stricken Virginia.” A Michigan soldier in Strong Vincent’s brigade wrote in his diary, “Passed through the finest part of Maryland. Wheat ready for harvesting.”
Just outside Frederick, George Meade’s columns reached the near bank of the Monocacy River, which an officer in the 16th Michigan reckoned to be “about two hundred feet wide; water was about waist deep.” Recollections of the crossing varied. While staff officer John W. Ames described the men as being “in a gale of good spirits and laughter,” a foot soldier in the 44th New York remembered only that they all “got thoroughly wet.” For his part, Captain Francis Adams Donaldson of the 118th Pennsylvania was annoyed that no one had bothered to bridge the river. “This extreme haste,” he declared, “portend[s] an anxiety to reach the
‘rebellious,’ most gratifying to the powers that be at Washington if they are aware of it, but extremely ruffling to the temper of us dough bellies as we poor infantrymen are called by those chicken thieves, the cavalry. …
“Hooker has lost all command over the army,” Donaldson continued, “and I doubt very much indeed whether a successful battle can be fought under him.” The officer felt sorry for his corps commander, George Meade: “‘Old Four Eye,’ as General Meade is termed by the men,” Donaldson wrote, “appears to be a man universally despised in the Corps. He certainly cares little for the rank and file, and cries loud and deep are hurled at him, (for obeying instructions, as he must be doing), in marching us so tremendously.” Had Donaldson been able to register his complaint directly, he would have found George Meade equally unhappy. “I hear nothing whatever from headquarters,” Meade grumbled to his wife on June 25, “and am as much in the dark as to proposed plans here on the ground as you are in Philadelphia. This is what Joe Hooker thinks profound sagacity—keeping his corps commanders, who are to execute his plans, in total ignorance of them until they are developed in the execution of orders.”
The Fifth Corps commander was not one to underestimate Robert E. Lee. “That he has assumed the offensive and is going to strike a blow there can be no doubt,” Meade mused, “and that it will be a very formidable [blow] is equally certain.” Given the air of intrigue that was swirling around the Army of the Potomac during this campaign like a dust cloud along the line of march, Meade felt obliged to ease his wife’s mind with regard to another matter. “I see you are still troubled with visions of my being placed in command [of the army],” he wrote to her. “I thought that had all blown over, and I think it has, except in your imagination, and that of some others of my kind friends.”
This became a day of personal satisfaction for Richard S. Ewell. Lee’s Second Corps commander was traveling with Rodes’ and Johnson’s divisions, whose line of march brought them to Carlisle, Pennsylvania, a training site for the U.S. Cavalry before the war. It was here, more than twenty years earlier, that a Virginia boy just graduated from West Point had had his first posting. Ewell now established his headquarters at Carlisle Barracks, using the same building he had previously occupied as a second lieutenant in the United States Dragoons. When staff officer
Henry Kyd Douglas stopped in, Ewell was “in a talkative mood” and eager to reminisce about his youthful experiences.
For Colonel John H. S. Funk, commanding the 5th Virginia in the stonewall Brigade, this day was a run-on sentence punctuated only by little misspellings: “I have nothing of interest to write you since we have been in Pennsylvania,” he informed his mother, “we have fared verry well we are now in the richest part of the state the people through here hardly know that the war is going on but I think they will find it out before we leave we are within 20 miles of the state capital so you may [believe] the excitement is great some of the Duch that has seen our army corps pass think we will all be captured before we leave the state the Coper Heads seem glad to see us as we save them from being drafted, the girls are all Duch and in for the Union.” A North Carolina soldier under Rodes agreed with Funk on one point concerning the Pennsylvanians: “The war had not hurt them like it had us.”
The remaining third of Ewell’s Corps—Jubal Early’s division—was now closing on York, Pennsylvania. Uncertain as to the condition of the town’s defenses, Early prudently halted his march a few miles short of the place. Muddy roads and city defenses were not the only things slowing him down: in moving through the Gettysburg area, Early’s Louisiana troops had uncovered caches of whiskey and were none the better for it. “Many of them were drunk,” groused a brigade staff officer. His remedy was to load the worst offenders into the cooks’ wagons, “where they had a rough and disagreeable ride on the sharp sides and projecting legs of the pots and kettles, which sobered them speedily.”
Scouting reports and other intelligence suggested to Early that he would have little trouble taking York on Sunday, June 28. Anticipating an easy conquest, he rode over to the camp of John Gordon’s brigade and sought out its commander. He gave Gordon verbal orders to move out at dawn and strike for Wrightsville, where there was a large covered bridge across the Susquehanna River. Ewell’s instructions to Early had been to burn that span, but Early’s orders to Gordon modified the directive in one important aspect: Gordon was told to “get possession of [the bridge] … at both ends and hold it until I came up,” Early later recollected. The ambitious division commander believed that having a foothold on the eastern bank of the Susquehanna would provide significant tactical and strategic advantages—advantages that he was determined to realize.
In their march around Pennsylvania, Ewell’s troops encountered a number of civilians who proceeded to gesticulate to them in a way that seemed intended to convey some message. The gestures puzzled Jubal Early, who described them only as “mysterious signs.” A staff officer with one of Early’s brigades investigated the matter and learned that it was all one grand con. A pair of enterprising Yankees, he discovered, had kept pace ahead of Ewell’s advance and presented themselves to the Pennsylvanians as members of a pro-South secret society. For a mere five dollars a piece, they had offered to teach the frightened and gullible residents special hand signals that “would be respected by the Confederate Army. In this way, thousands of people were induced to pay their money for the privilege of being accounted as friends of the South,” Early’s man informed him.
Back at Carlisle, Richard Ewell’s reveries about the old days were interrupted by a visit from a delegation of ministers seeking permission to conduct church services on Sunday. After Ewell agreed, the clerics made one more petition. It was not unusual for them to offer prayers for the president in this time of crisis, they said; would Ewell object to their continuing this practice?
“Certainly not,” the Rebel general replied. “Pray for him. I’m sure he needs it.”
Joseph Hooker’s calculated request to resign was not a welcome development for Abraham Lincoln. The officer had powerful friends on the congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War who would be certain to make trouble for the administration. Lincoln had been hoping that his personal appeals to Hooker might help mend the rift. In truth, he liked Hooker’s spirit—the man had great ambitions, which could be the stuff of great victories—but it was clear from their telegraphic exchange that he and Halleck would never reconcile their differences. Because Lincoln was not prepared to dispense with Halleck’s services, he was left with two equally unhappy alternatives: he could refuse Hooker’s resignation and send him into battle with his self-doubts and suspicions intact, or he could accept it and risk the political and military consequences that would accompany an abrupt change in leadership.
As was his custom, Lincoln sought the advice of others. Given the explosive nature of this issue, he limited his discussions to just two advisers: Henry Halleck and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. Halleck, not
surprisingly, thought Hooker should go. Stanton agreed and suggested that either George Meade or John Sedgwick would be a good choice to replace him. Meade’s record was free of the intrigues that called into question the integrity of others eligible for the position, and the fact that he was a Pennsylvanian, Stanton believed, meant that he would be highly motivated now that Lee seemed poised to fight on that front. Sedgwick had possibilities as well, but he had been decidedly lukewarm when sounded out about the prospect. Lincoln let his confidants continue talking for a while and then called for a nonbinding vote.
“We were up bright and early on York street that morning,” recalled a Gettysburg resident, “but not a tent or Rebel was in sight.” People stood about in small groups wondering where the confederate soldiers had gone. Sarah Broadhead was told that a trio of Yankee scouts had poked into town just as the Rebels were leaving. The scouts, she learned, “report a large force of our soldiers near, making all feel much safer.”
This afternoon, a wayward Confederate chaplain, on his way to join Early’s command, rode innocently into town. Before he could quite comprehend his situation, he was taken prisoner by a furloughed union soldier. The cleric was divested of whatever interesting papers he had and then was “paroled and allowed to go home.” There were more visitors before nightfall, in the form of a squad of Federal cavalry. After being informed that there were Rebel infantry to the east, north, and west, the troopers hurriedly withdrew southward.
Jeb Stuart’s crossing of the Potomac was suitably dramatic. Having decided to use Rowser’s Ford, he sent Wade Hampton’s brigade ahead to secure it. Hampton had good news and bad to report. The good was that there were no Federal pickets along the northern bank, so the Confederate crossing would be unopposed. The bad was that the river was running two feet above normal. Men on horseback would be able to make it, but the caissons carrying powder for the horse batteries would be completely submerged.
A quick check confirmed that this was indeed the best place to ford the Potomac. Lacking any better option, Stuart ordered that the cannon powder be unpacked and hand-carried across the river by the mounted men. Then came the wagons and the artillery tubes. Fortune favored the
bold this night: not a man nor a single piece of equipment was lost. “By three o’clock on the morning of the 28th of June,” wrote one of Stuart’s staff officers, “we all stood wet and dripping on the Maryland shore.”
Once he reached the army headquarters now established at Frederick, Maryland, Joe Hooker realized that his offer to resign might actually be accepted by the president. He poured out a torrent of self-justification and self-defense to his surprised chief of staff, Daniel Butterfield. Recalled Butterfield,
He said that … it was a very … critical period in the campaign, one bearing an important influence upon the whole country, he said that if every available man could not be concentrated and used against Lee,… the consequences would be most disastrous; that he felt General Halleck did not give him that cordial assistance and co-operation which he had a right to expect; … that he had too much respect for the position of general of the army of the Potomac to continue to hold it when he was not allowed to exercise all its powers fully; that he would wait for history to do justice to him and his motives; but now he must look only to the good of the country.
This night also threw an obscuring mantle over the movements of two men, each of whom possessed information that would dramatically change the campaign. One was a lone figure on horseback, riding slowly and cautiously on a westerly course from Frederick. He expected to avoid Federal pickets and patrols but had a story ready if chance played otherwise. He also had the skills to carry off the deception: Henry T. Harrison was an actor by trade, though circumstances and opportunities had led him to seek adventure and earn welcome cash payments by serving as a “scout” in the Confederate service. At present he was on James Longstreet’s payroll, dispatched on a freelance assignment to pick up information about the Federal units opposing Lee’s raid. Endowed with the acute sense of timing so essential to his craft, the actor-turned-spy had deemed that the moment was right for him to make his appearance and report his findings. He was now bound for Longstreet’s headquarters.
The other anxious traveler this night was far less concerned with stealth, though secrecy was also foremost in his thoughts. Just a few hours earlier, Colonel James A. Hardie had been looking forward to
another evening in Washington, where he was posted on Henry Halleck’s War Department staff. His plans had changed abruptly when he was summoned to the department’s conference room to find his boss waiting for him with the secretary of war and the president. Hardie was told that he had been selected to carry the orders that would change the leadership of the Army of the Potomac. His protests swept aside by the urgency of the moment, he was hastily briefed, given the written orders and some cash for emergencies, and sent to the rail station, where a special locomotive was ready with its steam up. There was just enough time for him to slip into civilian clothes before the train pulled out.
The route ran toward Baltimore, then along a spur line that connected into Frederick. Hardie arrived in the latter town just after midnight. No one seemed to be in charge, so the officer banged on doors until he found a local willing (at a price) to provide him with a buggy and driver. Then, with only the sketchiest idea of where they were headed, Hardie and his new companion rattled off into the night.