CHAPTER XXI.

A DAY AT THE FRONT-FAREWELL TO UPTON'S HILL-AT LEESBORO-A TERRIBLE MARCH-UNEXPECTED MARCH-DISAPPOINTED HUSBANDS, FATHERS, WIVES AND CHILDREN-LEE'S STRATEGY-INVADES MARYLAND -MARYLANDERS DISAPPOINT THE CONFEDERATES-DECEIVED BY BALTIMORE SECESSIONISTS-A RAGGED, BARE-FOOTED AND UNWASHED ARMY -CONFEDERATES ENCAMP AT FREDERICK-UNION FORCES ON THEIR LINE OF COMMUNICATIONS-LEE'S ORDER TO DISPERSE THEM-CHARACTERISTIC AND INSTRUCTIVE-CONSOLIDATION OF UNION ARMIESMCCLELLAN IN COMMAND-ORGANIZATION OF ARMY-ADVANCE TO THE MONOCACY-THE SCENERY-CITY OF FREDERICK-"ROUND ABOUT THE ORCHARDS SWEEP"-PLEASONTON STRIKES REBEL REAR-FORWARDSOUTH MOUNTAIN-PLEASANT VALLEY-TURNER'S GAP-AN ARTILLERY DUEL-THE BATTLE OF SOUTH MOUNTAIN-WHAT IT AND OTHER LIKE BATTLES PROVE-WASTED AMMUNITION-LOADING WITHOUT FIRINGWHAT WAS FOUND ON THE GETTYSBURG BATTLE-FIELD-HILL AND LONGSTREET IN POSSESSION OF TURNER'S GAP-FEDERALS CARRY THE MOUNTAIN CRESTS-A COLD NIGHT-RELATIVE STRENGTH OF CONTENDING FORCES-PRISONERS-KILLED AND WOUNDED-PRESIDENT'S TELEGRAM-A BRILLIANT VICTORY.

OUR sojourn in the old quarters was restless and brief. On the day following our return to them, we were ordered to the front to repel a party of rebels who had appeared at Bassett's Hill, and whose artillery had driven in our cavalry out-posts. The enemy withdrew without hazarding a brush with our infantry, and the "Twentieth" remained out on the picket-line during the night and part of the next day.

At ten o'clock on Saturday night, the sixth of September, we received orders to march forthwith, and the regiment was soon in line awaiting the final command to move. Not receiving it for half an hour, arms were stacked, and the men lay down beside their muskets, while the officers sauntered along the line, wondering how long they were to wait and where they were to go. At two o'clock in the morning the order came, and the familiar

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cry "fall in " aroused the sleepers, and in a few minutes we bade a final farewell to Upton's Hill, and, facing toward the eastern horizon, where there was yet no sign of the morning sun, marched over the road we first traversed in the Old Dominion, as far as Ball's Cross Roads, and from thence, via Aqueduct Bridge, across the Potomac to Georgetown, down Pennsylvania Avenue through Washington to Seventh street, and filing into that street as the sun began to show itself in the east, we soon left the "City of magnificent distances" behind And at five o'clock that afternoon, about fifty officers and men of the regiment found themselves together at Leesboro, in Maryland, at which point we were ordered to halt for the night.

us.

The distance marched by the "Twentieth " was only sixteen miles. It had on several former occasions, and did, often afterwards, make nearly twice that distance in the same number of hours, and every man answered to his name at roll-call at the end of the march. But here was an almost total disruption of a regiment which prided itself somewhat upon being able to make long marches and hold together to the end. Probably no other troops marched an equal number of consecutive miles, in such an impenetrable cloud of dust as enveloped and blinded and suffocated the First and Ninth Corps of the Army of the Potomac on that memorable and distressing occasion. Certainly they never before or afterwards had anything like so terrible an experience. There had been no rain for a long time; the road was broad and the surface was covered with a fine flourlike dust, ankle deep; the day was excessively warm and the air utterly stagnant; for miles this road was crowded with marching men, with horses, army wagons, gun carriages, caissons, ambulances, and all the impedimenta of an army, which completely filled it from side to side. For a time officers attempted to keep their respective commands together, but it finally became im

possible even to recognize one's own comrades, so dense was the cloud of dust, and so dust-covered were officers and men. So, companies and regiments became disintegrated, and the fragments struggled on as best they could, and found their regimental and company headquarters during the night, but it made a terribly severe day's work for the troops. The "Twentieth" had men enough present at the finish to make several stacks of arms, and its silk and satin colors floated near the outspread blanket whereon was Regimental Headquarters. We plumed ourselves upon these facts when we learned from several other regimental commanders, that they halted at night without their colors, and without ment enough present to form a stack of arms.

The march of the First Corps was sudden, and to most of us unexpected. Where Lee was or what doing, was unknown in our army except at and very near the head of it, and it was generally supposed that we would be given a breathing time and undergo a partial reorganization. Relying too confidently upon these expectations, many officers had sent for their families to come to Washington, hoping to have a brief reunion with loved ones from home before another campaign began. Some were able to arrest the family movement by letter or telegram, but in numerous other instances wives and children were hurrying on to Washingtou, while the husbands and fathers were launching forth on the Maryland campaign. The latter was our case, and wife and child arrived in Washington the day after the regiment marched through the city.

The successes of General Lee in the recent operations against the Army of the Potomac on the peninsula, and against Pope's army at Bull Run, had induced the Confederate commander to cross the Potomac and plant his army upon the soil of Maryland. This strategy was expected to develop the disloyal sentiment of that State and greatly augment the rebel army. It was one

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of the delusions under which the South labored, that the State was ready to throw itself into the Confederate cause, the moment it saw an opportunity to deliver itself from the dominion of the Federal Government. The presence of a large and victorious Confederate army, certainly seemed to offer such an opportunity, but to the surprise and chagrin of General Lee, the people received him with great coolness, and there were no recruits for the invading army. General Lee issued a proclamation to the people, assuring them the time had come for "the recovery of their liberties," but it was of no avail. They did not seem to appreciate the boon offered them, and they remained quietly at home or fled from the routes of his advancing columns.

General Lee seems to have supposed that the Federal Government had treated the people of Maryland with tyrannical severity, and that they were ready to rise in arms; and that the Federal Government, conscious of its misdeeds towards this people, and having, therefore, to expect a revolt, so soon as they should be encouraged thereunto by the presence of the Confederate army, would feel constrained to retain the Union forces around the capital to protect it from this new and formidable danger. At all events, this only can be the meaning of General Lee's statement rendered to his government, as to the motives underlying this invasion. He says: "The condition of Maryland encouraged the belief that the presence of our army, however inferior to that of the enemy, would induce the Washington Government to retain all its available force to provide against contingencies which its course towards the people of that State gave it reason to apprehend."

The refugees from Baltimore had sung "My Maryland" in the streets of Richmond for months, and represented to Davis and Lee that all that the people of that State required to induce them to join the Confederacy, was the presence of a Confederate army within their

bounds. Now they had it; and behold, they seemed only anxious to get rid of it at the earliest moment! Perhaps the external condition of the Confederate troops had something to do with the coolness of their reception. A host likes to see his guests in apparel becoming the individuals and honorable to the entertainer; but here was a swarm of ragged and bare-footed veterans, whose filth and repulsive tatters bespoke the poverty of the Quartermaster's department, and the total absence of the habit of ablution. General Lee says in his Report of the Army of Northern Virginia (Vol. I, page 27): "Thousands of the troops were destitute of shoes." General Jones, who commanded a division, says: "Never had the army been so dirty, ragged, and ill provided for, as on this march." (Ibid., Vol. II, page 221). It was this army of tatter-de-malions that the Union forces had to come out to meet, regardless of the danger of an uprising in Maryland.

Lee's army had crossed the Potomac between the fourth and seventh of September, by the fords near Leesburg, and encamped in the country around Frederick. Lying in rear of Lee's army, and on his line of communication, by way of Shenandoah Valley, with Richmond, was a Union force of about nine thousand men, under Colonel D. H. Miles, at Harper's Ferry; while Martinsburg and Winchester were held by a force of twenty-five hundred Federals, under General White. Lee desired unobstructed 'access to the Shenandoah Valley, and he supposed his movement on Frederick would induce the Federals to withdraw. ("It had been supposed that the advance on Frederick would lead to the evacuation of Martinsburg and Harper's Ferry, thus opening the line of communication through the valley." Lee's Report Army Northern Virginia, Vol. I, p. 28). Besides the fact that these Union forces lay across Lee's most desirable line of communication with his base, they also constituted a continuous menace to

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