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Updated: May 19, 2025
That he designed invasion, aided by the recruits anticipated in Maryland, seems unquestionable; since, even after discovering the lukewarmness of the people there by the fact that few joined his standard, he still advanced to Hagerstown, but a step from the Pennsylvania line. The promises of his address had been kept.
Major-General Doubleday, in his clear, vigorous account of this campaign writes: "Union spies who claimed to have counted the rebel forces as they passed through Hagerstown made their number to be 91,000 infantry and 280 guns.
All day long on the 4th of July it remained in view of Meade's army, but he dared not assail it. There was nothing left but to return to Virginia. On the night of the 4th of July the army began to retreat, and on the 7th it halted near Hagerstown and offered battle, which Meade refused.
July 11, early in the morning, an attack was made on the lines around Hagerstown, which developed a hornets' nest of sharpshooters armed with telescopic rifles, who could pick a man's ear off half-a-mile away.
It was nearly dark when the long train of ambulances halted in the streets of Hagerstown. Some large buildings had been taken for hospitals and the wounded were being placed therein as the ambulances successively arrived. This consumed much time and, while waiting for the forward wagons to be unloaded, it occurred to me that it would be a nice thing to obtain quarters in a private house.
Moreover, Longstreet's ammunition column, together with an escort of 600 men, had been cut up by the cavalry which had escaped from Harper's Ferry, and which had struck the Hagerstown road as it marched northward into Pennsylvania. Yet, on the whole, Lee had no reason to be chagrined with the result of his operations. McClellan had acted with unexpected vigour.
The small animals now seek the shade of the forest and the birds, with bills open and wings drooping, haunt the streams and seem to enjoy the charm of their cool leafy wilderness that every lover of nature finds. Memory shall always linger fondly about the wonderful drive from Cumberland to Hagerstown, Maryland. Here may be had the loveliest of Blue Ridge views.
When the command had reached a stone mill, about three miles southeast of Hagerstown, they found the cause only a little girl about fourteen years of age, perhaps the miller's daughter, standing in the door wearing an apron in which the colors were so blended as to represent the Confederate flag.
The train from Hagerstown was due at 11.15 A.M. We took another ride behind the codling, who showed us the sights of yesterday over again. Being in a gracious mood of mind, I enlarged on the varying aspects of the town-pumps and other striking objects which we had once inspected, as seen by the different lights of evening and morning. After this, we visited the school-house hospital.
At Hancock, at Hagerstown, and at Frederick were other thousands, and all, from the general of the division to the corporal drilling an awkward squad in the fields beside the canal, thought of the Army of the Valley as at Winchester.
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