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enemy's hands, but would be well taken care of. We also met the Rev. General Pendleton, chief of

artillery to the army, and remained some time in conversation with him.

CHAPTER V.

L. presently rode off to see General Lee, and when he returned, told us that a retreat had been decided on. We were kept a long time at the cottage of a silly old Dutchman, by a heavy downfall of rain, and then went to Bream's tavern on the road to Fairfield, which lay in the direction of our retreat. The road was crowded with waggons, as the whole train had but two roads to move on-the Fairfield and the Cashtown one. When Lee's army entered Maryland, the waggon-train alone, without the artillery, was forty-two miles long, and it was now larger than ever, though most of the waggons and teams procured in Pennsylvania had been already sent to the rear.

Bream's tavern, house, stables, barn, and every out-building, were full of wounded men, some of whom were being moved into the ambulances, and others more badly wounded were being removed to the better accommodation left thereby vacant.

It was a grievous sight to see these fine young fellows, many of them probably crippled for life, and yet all were cheerful and smiling. Looks of deep sympathy greeted them on every side as they were borne past on stretchers. And sometimes the wounded men would address a few encouraging words to some friend who stood near, himself too sad to speak.

Many were to be left behind, too severely wounded to bear removal; and it struck me very much that it should be they who would speak words of comfort to their more fortunate friends who had escaped the dangers of the battle.

Not one complained. All bore themselves in the same proud manly

way.

For a time the yard in front of Bream's tavern seemed a regular rendezvous for generals and their staff-officers, and all who passed stopped on their way and entered into conversation.

Here I met General J. E. B. Stuart for the first time, and was introduced to him, and to many others too numerous to name.

When it was dusk we went on a mile or two farther on the Fairfield road, and presently came upon a blazing_fire, around which were Generals Lee and Longstreet, with all their Staff.

We were to remain here till the train had passed, when the main body of the army would be withdrawn from its position and join the retreat.

It soon grew pitch dark, and then the rain began again. Oh, how it did pour! I never saw anything like it. Now and then it would relax a little, and then again and again would rush down in torrents. "This is too heavy to last," I thought to myself many a time, but it did last.

Fortunately for me I was tolerably weatherproof, as Colonel F. had very kindly lent me his indiarubber overcoat, he and L. having gone off in an ambulance, as a covered four-seated "buggy," specially belonging to the headquarters of the medical department, was called.

It was certainly a dismal night. The fire was kept up and protected from the rain by continually piling on fresh wood, and it was a roaring one, yet I wondered that it was not extinguished. It lighted up the scene with a strange glare.

Lee and Longstreet stood apart engaged in earnest conversation, and around the fire in various groups lay the officers of their Staffs.

Tired to death, many were sleeping in spite of the mud and drenching rain; and I well remember one long log of wood, a fence rail, which was much coveted as a pillow. Once Major Moses, unable to sleep, got up and politely offered me his share of it.

I accepted and lay down, but the edges were very sharp, and each time I fell off into a doze, I began to dream so vividly that my head was being cut off, that at last I could stand it no longer, and returned the Major his part of the bolster with thanks. Again and again during the night reports came in from Law, M'Laws, Ewell, &c., stating that the enemy had retreated, and that they had no thing but cavalry in front of them. General Lee said, a few days afterwards, that he had hesitated whether he should not countermand his own retreat, which he certainly would not have commenced if he had anticipated such dreadfully bad weather. But the waggon-trains were now well on their road to the rear, and their safety might have been compromised if the army had not followed them. By eight o'clock next morning the whole waggon-train had got past us, and the troops began to move. It had ceased raining, but the road was a sea of slush and mud, and we got along very slowly. I was on horseback this day, but the next I travelled with L., in an ambulance, a most tedious way of proceeding on a march, as one has to stick to the line of mud called the road, and keep time with the train, which comes to a stop every now and then by a waggon getting "stalled" in some hole or rut. Once well stuck, it takes a good deal of hard pulling by the mules, and almost as much hard swearing, I am sorry to say, by their drivers, to get a waggon afloat again; and so we moved along, but very slowly, and it was dark before we reached Hagerstown.

Some smart skirmishing had been going on near here before we

arrived, as some of the enemy's cavalry had attacked the trains. They succeeded in capturing about forty of Ewell's waggons and ambulances, and twenty of Stuart's, but were driven off before they could do further damage. On this occasion the teamsters were said to have behaved very well, and to have repelled an attack of the enemy by themselves after their own cavalry guard had "skedaddled." We managed to get on a couple of miles beyond the town; but L., Colonel F., and myself, returned next day, and took up our quarters together in Hagerstown, at the Washington Hotel. We were anxious to get some supplies here, but the shops were all shut, so we made interest with the landlord of our hotel; and as we engaged to pay in "greenbacks," he promised to introduce us to a store" keeper of the place. "You'll find him a very fine gentleman, sir, and quite honest," he said. Next morning we were turned out early, our black waiter announcing that the "lady" wished to make the beds, so we had to make room for the chamber-maid, and went down-stairs, and were introduced to the "fine gentleman." I very nearly forgot to shake hands when this ceremony was performed, which would have been a terrible breach of etiquette. However, all went on smoothly; we got into his store through the back-door, and invested a large amount of greenbacks in the purchase of coffee, white sugar, stearine candles, &c. &c., all which luxuries are at present almost unprocurable in the Confederate States.

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In the afternoon I rode out to the camp, and stayed there till the evening, talking over the late battles. It seemed undecided whether we should advance again; but in summing up the advantages already obtained by this forward movement of Lee's, it is obvious that the campaign has not been a fruitless one. The war has not only

been carried on in the enemy's country, but enormous supplies have been obtained, which will maintain the army for several months to come. Waggons and horses, which were very necessary, have also been secured in incalculable numbers. The men, whose meatration for several months past has been a quarter of a pound of bacon, now get a pound and a half of beef. Fifteen thousand cattle have been driven to the rear for the use of the army, which at present requires about three hundred head a-day. Then the enemy has had to evacuate a large portion of Southern territory, upon which they were pressing heavily, and that, too, just in time for the harvest to be secured to the Confederacy. There is no doubt, however, that the North will claim Gettysburg as a glorious victory; and there will, of course, be great rejoicings over it in "Yankeedoodledom," as my friends say. At the Dutchman's cottage I met two officers who had been prisoners of war in the North, and confined in Fort Delaware, near Baltimore. They described the horrors of their existence there; and it seems, indeed, by all accounts that I have heard before and since, to be a very filthy and unwholesome place, utterly unfit for the confinement of prisoners of war. The fact that both sides speak the same language makes it extremely difficult to recapture a man when he has once escaped, and renders it perhaps necessary to resort to restrictions far more stringent than usual in Europe; and if only close confinement and want of exercise were complained of, there might be some excuse: but there is none for choosing a place notoriously unwholesome, denying the unfortunate captives the means of keeping their prison and themselves clean, and supplying them at the same time with scanty food, which is sometimes so bad as to be almost poisonous. I visited the Libby Prison at Richmond some time after

wards, and found, it kept scrupulously clean and well ventilated; there was not a bad smell about the place; and, to attend upon the 900 to 1000 officers confined there, forty negro servants were kept.

At Belle Isle, in the James river, close to Richmond, there were about 8000 prisoners living in tents, in a regular encampment, with plenty of room for exercise, any amount of water, bathing allowed in the season, and better rations than the Confederate soldiers get in the field, though nominally the same. They had been on Belle Isle six months when I went there, and I counted seventy-six graves in the island. As many have died in one day at Fort Delaware-so Captain BoisSieux, the Commandant of Belle Isle, informed me. During the first three months only one had died, but latterly, since the exchange of prisoners had been stopped, the men easily fell ill, grew despondent, and died.

The Yankees have tried very hard to get up a sensation in the North, about the alleged ill-treatment of Federal prisoners in the South. For this purpose they have had photographs taken of some poor fellows who had been for a long time ill in the hospitals at Richmond, and had been sent home to their friends to save their lives. Of course, these poor wretches looked in the most miserable condition, although it was through illness and not from starvation; but the Yankees did not scruple to scatter portraits of them about by the million, as samples of the state of all the prisoners held in the South. It was a jeu d'esprit very laudable, "as it might injure the South," like Mr Seward's forged despatches; but, after what I had seen with my own eyes at Belle Isle and the Libby Prison, and what I heard with my own ears from Southerners of their treatment as prisoners in the North, I could not help being reminded of the old Scotch proverb, "Ill doers are ill deemers."

CHAPTER VI.

Two days after our return to Hagerstown, Colonel F. left us, being obliged to return to England without delay, and made straight for the Federal lines, determined to take his chance of getting through them. Most of his friends were rather anxious about him, but Longstreet, with whom he was a great favourite, was confident he would succeed. "A man who has travelled all through Texas as successfully as the Colonel, is safe to get through the Yankee lines all right," he said.

L. and I visited General Lee in the afternoon, and he spoke very openly on the subject of the late campaign.

Had he been aware that Meade had been able to concentrate his whole army-for which he deserved great credit-he certainly should not have attacked him: indeed it had not been his interest nor his intention to bring on a great battle at all; but, led away, partly by the success of the first day, believing that Meade had only a portion of his army in front of him, and seeing the enthusiasm of his own troops, he had thought that a successful battle would cut the knot so easily and satisfactorily, that he had determined to risk it. His want of knowledge of the enemy's movements he attributed to Stuart having got too far away from him with his cavalry.

Stuart, who had gone to within sight of Washington and captured a large train of waggons close to Georgetown, a suburb of that city, had expected to rendezvous with the main army on the Susquehanna, but when he reached York he found that General Lee had not advanced as far as he expected, and that the whole Federal force was between him and General Lee. Consequently he had to make a long detour, coming round by Carlisle, to rejoin the army, and

did not arrive till the evening of the second day's battle.

General Lee, when he had commenced his forward movement, had gained several days' march upon General Hooker, who was at that time opposed to him; but at Chambersburg he had been obliged to halt with his main force for three days, as there had been some delay in forwarding his supply trains. This gave Meade, who had now superseded Hooker, time to concentrate his forces in the right direction. Otherwise, and if Lee had been able to follow closely upon Ewell's corps, which had advanced as far as Carlisle, he would have crossed the mountainous region of Pennsylvania, and got into the rich and fertile valley of the Susquehanna without any opposition.

Here his army would have found plentiful means of subsistence. Philadelphia would have been threatened, and Washington, Baltimore, and the army of the Potomac would have been cut off from their supplies, and from all communication with the North except by sea. The communications of General Lee could not have been seriously interfered with without the Federal army entirely uncovering Washington and Baltimore. He might have taken up a position where it would have been very difficult for Meade to attack him; and without further fighting, by merely maintaining his army at or near Harrisburg or some other central point, incalculable results might have been secured. But it was not so ordained.

If the campaign had such an object in view as I have supposed, it was already defeated, when Meade was able to concentrate his whole army and place it in Lee's way before he had got through the mountains.

Far from his base of supplies, with an enormous waggon - train,

Lee could not hope by manoeuvring to dislodge Meade from before him; and in that difficult mountainous region, where strong defensive positions are to be found at every few miles' interval, it would have been very unreasonable to expect to inflict such a crushing defeat upon Meade's army as would prevent him from making any further resistance. Had the strong positions at Gettysburg been stormed, no doubt cannon and colours and prisoners would have been taken, but at a great sacrifice of life. The Federals would have fallen back, and probably taken up a still stronger position a few miles to the rear. Lee would have had to retreat all the same, especially as, after the third day's fight, ammunition-particularly small-arms ammunitionwas getting short. Had there been only a portion of Meade's army at Gettysburg, and that portion had been overwhelmed, of course it would have been a different thing; and, as General Lee said himself, it was under the impression that he had only a part of Meade's army to deal with that he fought the battle.

As we were riding back to Hagerstown we fell in with Colonel Wickham, who commands a brigade of Stuart's cavalry, in connection with whom the following story was told me.

It will be remembered that Virginia was one of the last States to secede, and did not do so until she had exhausted every effort to effect a compromise; and when she did so, the few Southern States that were still hesitating followed her example, and the war became inevitable.

Matters were coming to a crisis when the leading men of Virginia sent a deputation of three of their number* to wait on the President, Mr Lincoln.

They tried to impress him with a sense of the gravity of the situation, and urgently entreated that he would do something to calm the excitement amongst the people, whose irritation at the threats of the Administration and of the Northern States was getting beyond control.

It was just after the taking of Fort Sumter, and Lincoln's having called out 75,000 men to coerce the South.

"But what would you have me do?" said Mr Lincoln.

"Mr President,” replied one of the deputation, "I would beg you to lend me your finger and thumb for five minutes"-meaning, of course, that he wished him to write something that should allay the prevailing excitement.

But Mr Lincoln did not choose to understand him. "My finger and thumb!" he repeated-“my finger and thumb! What would you do with them? Blow your nose?"

The deputation retired in disgust, and Virginia seceded.

We remained about a week at Hagerstown, being all the time, as we discovered afterwards from the Yankee newspapers, in the most frightful danger of being captured by Meade's victorious and pursuing army. Lee's army, upon which we relied for security, was, it is true, only a mile off, Hagerstown and ourselves lying between them and the Yankees, but it was a demoralised horde of fugitives; and Meade lost all the credit he had gained at Gettysburg, because he did not capture the whole "crowd," or drive them into the Potomac. Fortunately we were in happy ignorance of the peril in which we were placed, or it might have disturbed our peaceful slumbers at the Washington Hotel.

Whilst we were at Hagerstown, the news arrived of the fall of Vicks

* I have since heard that Colonel Wickham, although a very prominent man in the councils of his State, was not one of this deputation, which consisted of Messrs W. B. Preston, G. W. Randolph, and A. N. H. Stuart.

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