1863.--Escape of Lee into Virginia.--Reasons.--Cavalry Advance into the Valley _via_ Harper's Ferry, and Fight.--Riot in New York and other Northern Cities.--Again Across the Potomac on "Sacred Soil." --Blackberries and Discipline.--Mails.--Battle of Manassas Gap.-- Mosby Again, and His Bands.--Author's Birthday.--Kilpatrick's Gunboat Expedition on the Rappahannock.--Cavalry Captures Navy.--Complimented by Superiors.--General Advance of the Army.--Third Cavalry Battle at Brandy Station.--Stuart's Cavalry Worsted at Culpepper Court House. --Sharp Artillery Practice at Raccoon Ford, on the Rapidan.--Special Duties and Special Dangers.--Good Living Along the Hazel and Robertson Rivers.--Important Reconnoissance and Raid.--Hard Fighting and Narrow Escape.--Needed Rest Received.--The Paymaster.--Rebel Plan of Attack Foiled by a Citizen Informer.--Suspicious Activity on Our Front.
This sudden and masterly movement of the Rebels was a cutting surprise to General Meade, and a source of mortification and chagrin to all. Gloriously successful as we had been, it was evident that hesitation and indecision had greatly detracted from our laurels. We had won a world-renowned victory, but we had failed to reap all the legitimate fruits which our situation placed within our reach.
General Lee had been terribly punished, but his escape was quite marvellous. One writer says: "When his shattered columns commenced their retreat from Gettysburg, few of his officers can have imagined that they would ever reach Virginia with their artillery and most of their trains." And though their trains were severely handled and greatly injured, yet the old Rebel army of Northern Virginia, with nearly all its artillery, made its exit from soil too sacred to freedom for a Rebel victory. Their losses, however, had been immense, and they were only too glad to escape in a manner very unlike the audacious way in which they had advanced but a few weeks previous into the Northern States.
It now became the policy of our leader to follow the fugitives as closely as the changed circumstances of affairs would permit, and to give the Rebels no rest, while he endeavored to press them determinedly, and watched them by means of scouts and signal-stations with a jealous eye. "There is, however, a limit to the endurance which men and horses are capable of, and, beyond this, the overtaxed powers give way, and exhausted nature claims her rights. Few there are, except those who have had experience, who know how much privation the brave soldier and his general suffer in the toils of the field, on the rapid march, the hasty bivouac, the broken slumbers, the wakeful watchings, and the scanty fare." It must be remembered, also, that our army had made many forced marches, describing in its route a line somewhat resembling the circumference of a great circle, as a careful survey of the map of movements will show; while the route of the enemy, who had several days the start of us, was more like the diameter of that circle. Our cavalry had not only fought and defeated the Rebel cavalry on many sanguinary fields, but it had met the serried lines of their infantry also, as at Gettysburg, where the brave Farnsworth fell. Owing to this fatigue of our forces, our pursuit of the enemy was not as vigorous, it would seem in a cursory glance, as it should have been.