THE REBEL INVASION.
The battle of Chancellorsville resulted, as we have seen, in a substantial reverse to the Army of the Potomac. The Unionists did, indeed, capture many rebel prisoners and standards, and munitions of war, besides covering themselves with glory by their dauntless courage, and their heroic achievements. But the generalship of Lee, and the desperate fighting of the rebels, ultimately resulted in checking the advance of the Union army. This advantage, however, as we shall presently see, was soon lost to the Confederates at the great battle of Gettysburg, fought in the early part of the following month of July. General Lee, meantime, projected a descent upon the rich soil of Pennsylvania, hoping to replenish his wasted stores, and to smite the North with panic. His policy in this respect was very bold, and in some sense it was successful. He commenced his movement on the 3rd of June, advancing in the direction of Culpepper Court-House. The troops were led by General Longstreet, General Hood, and General Ewell. General A. P. Hill was left in command of the rebel forces confronting General Hooker at Chancellorsville. By the 9th of June, the design of Lee became apparent to General Hooker, who put his army in motion on the 14th, on parallel lines with the rebel advance, and arrived by forced marches on the banks of the Potomac. The intense heat of the weather, and the rapid march of the army, was extremely exhausting. Hundreds of men fell daily in the ranks, overcome by the severe task imposed upon them, and many lives were thus lost.
At Culpepper the rebel advance formed a junction with General Stuart’s cavalry; and thence the whole force advanced up the valley of the Shenandoah, in the direction of Winchester. A reconnoissance made toward Culpepper by the Union General Buford, on the 9th of June, resulted in an engagement, in which the Federals lost upwards of three hundred and fifty men, including Colonel B. F. Davis, who had led the cavalry force from Harper’s Ferry, at the time of its surrender in 1862. The enemy’s loss was somewhat larger. Other skirmishes marked the rebel advance. Great excitement resulted from it in Pennsylvania, and generally throughout the North, and measures to check the rebels and to drive them back, were immediately taken by the Government and General Hooker. On the evening of the 14th, and the morning of the 15th, a large body of rebel troops crossed the Potomac in the vicinity of Nolan’s Ford, and moved on Hagerstown, which was evacuated by our troops on the 15th. At nine P. M. on that day, the rebel advance guard entered Chambersburg. On the 16th the rebel advance, consisting mainly of cavalry, was at Chambersburg and Scotland. The forces assembled for the protection of the State were at Shippensburg, Pennsylvania.
Two new military departments were organized by the Secretary-of-War on the 9th of June:—that of the Monongahela, and that of the Susquehanna. The former comprised parts of Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Ohio; the latter comprised the whole eastern part of the State of Pennsylvania. Major-General W. T. H. Brooks commanded the one; Major-General D. N. Couch commanded the other. He established his headquarters at Harrisburg, and there took command of the militia, which were called out from the several States, by the President, on the 15th of June. From this date until the battle of Gettysburg, July 3rd, the current of events was marked by frequent alarms, by many disturbances, and continual excitement. Mosby’s guerrillas at this time again appeared in Loudon county, and committed many depredations. The town of McConnelsburg, Pennsylvania, was overrun and pillaged by the rebels on the 19th, and all the bridges on the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, between Harper’s Ferry and Cumberland, which are a hundred miles apart, were destroyed. Hagerstown and Frederick were pillaged, and the rebels took possession of Winchester and Martinsburg. A large portion of the beautiful town of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, was laid in ashes by the incendiary fires of a relentless foe, in retaliation for the devastation wrought by General Hunter in the Valley of the Shenandoah. The alarm occasioned by all these movements, caused the militia of several states to be called out, and sent to the protection of Pennsylvania. Troops were also raised in that State to the number of twenty-five thousand. The cities of Harrisburg, Baltimore, Pittsburg, and Philadelphia, were fortified. Many of the inhabitants of these cities and of other points that were threatened by the rebels, becoming panic-stricken, fled northward.
A contemporary account thus describes the state of feeling at Harrisburg at this juncture:
“The morning broke upon a populace all astir, who had been called out of bed by the ‘beat of the alarm drum,’ the blast of the bugle and the clanging of bells. The streets were lively with men, who were either returning from a night’s work on the fortifications, or going over to relieve those who were toiling there. As the sun rose higher the excitement gathered head. All along the streets were omnibuses, wagons, and wheelbarrows, taking in trunks and valuables, and rushing them down to the depot, to be shipped out of rebel range. The stores, the female seminaries, and almost every private residence, were busy all the forenoon in swelling the mountain of freight that lay at the depot. Every horse was impressed into service, and every porter groaned beneath the weight of his responsibilities.
“The scene at noon at the depots was indescribable, if not disgraceful. A sweltering mass of humanity thronged the platform, all furious to escape from the doomed city.
“At the bridge and across the river the scene was equally exciting. All through the day, a steady stream of people on foot and in wagons, young and old, black and white, was pouring across it from the Cumberland valley, bearing with them their household goods, and all manner of goods and stock. Endless trains, laden with flour, grain, and merchandise, hourly emerged from the valley, and thundered across the bridge and through the city. Miles of retreating baggage-wagons, filled with calves and sheep tied together, and great old-fashioned furnace wagons, loaded with tons of trunks and boxes, defiled in continuous procession down the pike and across the river, raising a dust that marked the outline of the road as far as the eye could see.”
Among the lesser engagements of this period a spirited cavalry engagement near Aldie is worthy of note. At 3 o’clock on the 17th of June, a division of the Union cavalry encountered a rebel force, consisting of General Fitzhugh Lee’s cavalry brigade and a battery of artillery, about one mile from Aldie, on the road to Unionstown. As soon as General Lee was apprised of the approach of the National troops he made preparations to oppose their advance, and to maintain his position. The rebel Captains Boston and White, with a command of thirty men, were sent forward as sharpshooters, but not receiving any support they were compelled to fall back before the first charge of the advancing Unionists. Close behind the rebel advance the Fifth and the Third Virginia cavalry were stationed; and as the National troops charged upon them a fierce hand-to-hand encounter took place, and in the course of the fight many rebel prisoners were captured. After a brave resistance the rebels were overcome, and the order was given to fall back. Seventy-seven privates were taken prisoners, together with the following officers:—Major Carrington of the Third Virginia regiment; Captain E. B. Boston of the Fifth Virginia; Captain F. R. Winser and Captain Jones of the Third Virginia; and Captain L. B. White; Lieutenant Boston; Lieutenant Turnell; and Lieutenant Douglass of the Fifth Virginia. The loss upon the Union side was very trifling; the men fought with the greatest bravery. It was dark before the fight was finally at an end, light artillery firing being kept up on both sides, without any material injury to either; and when night fell it saw the Union troops entirely victorious, and the rebels slowly retiring.