repeating the invasion of 1862; the prestige to be given the Confederate arms abroad; the supposed demoralization of the Potomac army by the defeats at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville; the further depletion of that army by the approaching expiry of the nine months' and the two years' (New York) enlistments; the opportunity of feeding his men for a while from the fertile fields of Maryland and Pennsylvania, together with some fair chances of at least considerable initial success, to be effected by his fast-marching, indefatigable infantry.

It does not fall within the scope of this narrative to describe the manœuvres by which the Confederate chieftain, between the 3d and the 15th of June, contrived so to place his army that Hooker was compelled to abandon the line of the Rappahannock and fall back to cover Washington. It was on the 15th that the Second Corps, under its new commander, left the camps near Falmouth which it had occupied with one brief intermission since the November preceding, and took the route for Acquia Creek, covering the rear of the army. On this and on the succeeding day the intense heat and the thick dust made the march most oppressive and exhausting to troops so long in camp. It was under such conditions that Hancock's remarkable power of holding his men together told to the greatest effect. With our Northern soldiers nothing was of more importance to their efficiency than steadiness upon the

road. The Confederates, indeed, seemed to combine the instincts which made great freedom on the march, even to the point of wholesale straggling, compatible with tenacity in fight; but of the Union army it may truly be said that troops which were allowed to dawdle and dribble on the road were preparing themselves to be beaten in fight. The movement that had been entered upon was to prove at times one of severe trial, often to the limit of human endurance; but all that could be done by good judgment, firm temper, and a staff always out on the road, was done to spare the troops as much as possible, while bringing them into camp in good order at night. On the 21st the corps moved to Thoroughfare Gap, passing directly over the great historical battlefield of Bull Run. On the 25th the corps moved from Thoroughfare Gap to the Potomac, re-enforced by a body of troops which was destined to take a conspicuous part in all the future labors and dangers of the Second Corps, from the approaching struggle on the slopes of Gettysburg to the final triumph of Appomattox. This was the brigade commanded by Hancock's classmate, General Alexander Hays, consisting of the Thirty-ninth, One Hundred and Eleventh, One Hundred and Twenty-fifth, and One Hundred and Twenty-sixth New York.*

* The corps had, during the month then passing, been reduced by the expiry of the term of enlistment of a two years' regiment, the Thirty-fourth, from the same State.

Just as our troops were leaving Thoroughfare Gap an incident occurred which was importantly to affect the personnel of the corps. General Joshua T. Owen having been placed in arrest by General Gibbon, Brigadier-General Alexander S. Webb, who had just received his volunteer appointment, after long and honorable artillery and staff service, reached the headquarters, seeking an assignment to duty at the front, and Hancock, knowing the man, seized the opportunity to place him at the head of the "Philadelphia Brigade," thus left without a commander. On the 26th the corps crossed Edwards' Ferry, near the scene of the unhappy battle of Ball's Bluff, in which several regiments of the Second Division had participated in October of 1861. On the 28th the corps reached Monocacy Junction, near Frederick City. Here the Army of the Potomac received the important intelligence that General Hooker had been relieved in the command by General George G. Meade, then at the head of the Fifth Corps. General Hooker, after protesting against the fatuous occupation of Harper's Ferry by a large force under French, in pursuance of the policy which had brought such disaster in September, 1862, had tendered his resignation. In justice it should be said, not only that Hooker was right in demanding the evacuation of Harper's Ferry, but that, from the moment Lee's invasion of Maryland was known, he had displayed at all points the

qualities of a first-rate commander. Whether he would again have broken down under the strain of an impending battle, as he had so mysteriously done at Chancellorsville after a brilliant initiative, can only be conjectured.

It is a critical thing to change the commander of an army in the presence of a powerful and aggressive enemy; but in this instance the responsibility had fallen on one at whose hands the Army of the Potomac was to suffer no loss of honor. Without pausing a single day, General Meade put his troops in motion northward, on the 29th, to find the enemy. Amid the fiery cloud of Southern raiders where was the nucleus of that high-daring, much-enduring army? The Second Corps was to proceed by a forced march through Uniontown to a point two miles out on the Westminster road. Much pre

cious time had been lost by the stupidity of the messenger who brought the order from headquarters; but to the accomplishment of its cruel task, thirty-two miles with artillery and trains on a single road, the veteran corps bent itself with unfaltering spirit. By ten o'clock that night the march had been made, and the wearied men sank to rest where they had halted. At Uniontown the reception of our troops by the patriotic inhabitants had been most friendly and inspiriting. Refreshment was freely offered along the road at gates and porches, and kind words and good cheer lifted the hearts of the

tired soldiers crowding forward to take their part in the greatest battle of the war.

There is some poetry but also much truth in the popular tradition regarding the spirit of the Army of the Potomac on the route to Gettysburg. Once more in "God's country," as the soldiers termed it; the bloody slopes of Marye's hill, the dismal woods of Chancellorsville far away in the rear; moving on good Northern roads, instead of wading ankledeep in the yellow Virginia mud, or thumping over corduroy; surveying a landscape which to most of them was like that of home, or in the enthusiasm of the moment looked so; going up to battle amid the acclaim of loyal citizens; marching between vineclad cottages which did not seem to belong to the same world as the mud-plastered log huts they had left behind-the good troops who marched from Frederick to Gettysburg, gallantly as they had borne themselves in disaster, were yet wonderfully heartened by scene and circumstance, by friendly greeting and the look of home. Earnestly did they talk together by the way until the fire burned and the strong resolve formed itself throughout the ranks to do or die for their country and its laws.

The following was the constitution, by divisions and brigades, of the Second Army Corps on the 30th of June, 1863:

First Division.-Brigadier-General John C. Caldwell.

First Brigade: Colonel Edward E. Cross.