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Updated: June 8, 2025
They had prepared to run by tearing the fences down; and then it was trying to form line, and breaking as soon as our fellows howled a little, all the way for five long miles to Martinsburg; and the last our boys saw of the Rebs was their straight coat-tails at the south end of the town.
By the twenty-sixth, the first day on which Stanton's reinforcements from Baltimore and Washington could possibly have fought at Strasburg, the Confederates had reached Martinsburg, fifty miles beyond it. Banks had already crossed the Potomac, farther on still.
"If the head of Lee's army is at Martinsburg," Lincoln wrote Hooker, "and the tail of it on the Plank road, between Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, the animal must be very slim somewhere could you not break him?" But Hooker could not. He did not even try. Lee's movements seemed to paralyze him his chief of staff wrote: "We cannot go boggling round, until we know what we are going after."
The strike spread with the speed of a prairie fire over most of the northern roads between New England and the Mississippi. At the height of the controversy at least 100,000 strikers and six or seven thousand miles of railway were involved, while at several points especially Martinsburg, West Virginia, and Pittsburg, rioting and destruction took place.
The majority lounged lazily upon the grass, some squatted upon their knapsacks, while a large stone was given by common consent to a tall, fine-looking Lieutenant, the principal officer present. "Corporal," said he, addressing the little Irish Corporal, "do you know how near we are to Martinsburg?" "Faith I don't, Lieutenant."
Except at Winchester and Martinsburg, where the garrisons, alarmed by the news of Pope's defeat, were already preparing to withdraw; in the vicinity of Norfolk, and at Fortress Monroe, the invaders had no foothold within the boundaries of the State they had just now overrun; and their demoralised masses, lying exhausted behind the fortifications of Washington and Alexandria, were in no condition to resume the offensive.
The interview over, I returned to my army to arrange for its movement toward Newtown, but while busy with these preparations, a report came to me from General Averell which showed that Early was moving with two divisions of infantry toward Martinsburg.
He swung round in the hall that was darkening toward sunset and swept off his hat. "Do you think, sir, that there will be fighting to-night?" "I think not, madam. There may be skirmishes of course our men may cut off parties of the enemy. But there will be no general battle. It is agreed that General Banks will get across the Potomac. The troops will bivouac this side of Martinsburg."
While General Early was in the telegraph office at Martinsburg on the morning of the 18th, he learned of Grant's visit to me; and anticipating activity by reason of this circumstance, he promptly proceeded to withdraw so as to get the two divisions within supporting distance of Ramseur's, which lay across the Berryville pike about two miles east of Winchester, between Abraham's Creek and Red Bud Run, so by the night of the 18th Wharton's division, under Breckenridge, was at Stephenson's depot, Rodes near there, and Gordon's at Bunker Hill.
Upon the advent of Torbert, Early immediately grew suspicious, and fell back twelve miles south of Martinsburg, to Bunker Hill and vicinity, where his right flank would be less exposed, but from which position he could continue to maintain the break in the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, and push reconnoitring parties through Smithfield to Charlestown.
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