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ernment property, Stuart's party made prize, at Chambersburg, of a moderate quantity of shoes and clothing, and the more valuable spoil of some eight hundred horses from gentlemen's and farmers' stables. Colonel A. K. McClure, of the town, who escaped capture, but not spoliation, has given a good-humored account of his enforced hospitalities to a

sent in a flag of truce, and found no military or civil authority in the place; but some prominent citizens who met the officer were notified that the place would be occupied, and if any resistance were made the place would be shelled in three minutes. Brigadier-General Wade Hampton's command, being in advance, took possession of the place, and I pointed him Military Governor of viportion of the raiders, at the close of city. No incidents occurred during which he pleasantly pays a passing comifinight, during which it rained connu- pliment to his guests. "Our people," ously. The officials all fled the town on says he, "generally feel that, bad as they our approach, and no one could be found are, they are not so bad as they might who would admit that he held office in be. I presume that the cavalry we had the place. About two hundred and with us are the flower of the rebel army. seventy-five sick and wounded in hospi- They are made up mainly of young men tal were paroled. During the day a in Virginia, who owned fine horses and large number of horses of citizens were have had considerable culture. I should seized and brought along. The wires not like to risk a similar experiment were cut, and railroads were obstructed. with their infantry."* Next morning it was ascertained that a large number of small arms and munitions of war were stored about the railroad buildings, all of which that could not be easily brought away were destroyed-consisting of about five thousand new muskets, pistols, sabres, ammunition; also a large assortment of army clothing. The extensive machine-shops and depot buildings of the railroad and several trains of loaded cars were entirely destroyed." From Chambersburg General Stuart took the road eastwardly towards Gettysburg, turning into Maryland by Emmetsburg, and thence by way of Frederick, crossing the Baltimore and Ohio railroad to the vicinity of Poolesville. Here he met the advance of General Pleasanton's cavalry, which had started from the camp at Sharpsburg in pursuit of the invaders. There was some skirmishing, with little injury to either side, Stuart succeeding in crossing the river before reinforcements could come up to assist the small force of Pleasanton, who had conducted the march with extraordinary vigor, accomplishing ninety miles in twenty-four hours. Besides the damage they inflicted on railway and gov

The greatest sufferer, in fact, by this expedition, appears to have been General McClellan, the raid affording a new argument to the War Department for his immediate advance upon the enemy-a proceeding which would seem to have been opposed to his better judgment. He called upon the government for horses to remount his dismounted cavalry soldiers, that he might oppose these rebel raids; a request which brought from the President a suggestion, "that if the enemy had more occupation south of the river, his cavalry would not be so likely to make raids north of it." A few days after, the President wrote at length to General McClellan, reviewing the advantages and disadvantages of the onward movement, which he had advised below the Shenandoah and Blue Ridge. With regard to transportation, which had been stated as defective, it was urged . that the Union army was certainly better off in that respect than the enemy, who managed very formidable movements, and that to supply it fully, would "ignore the question of time, which cannot and

*Letter of Colonel A. H. McClure, Chambersburg, Pa.,

October, 1862. Rebellion Record, vol. 6, p. 1.

66

ADVANCE OF THE ARMY.

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followed by the corps of General Burnside. General Sedgwick and General Hancock in the lower part of the Shenand ah valley, about Charlestown, pressed

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enemy, who now began their retreat ards Richmond, leaving a sufficient ison at Harper's Ferry. The Union s occupied the passes of the Blue ho. Snicker's Gap was taken possesto bf by General Hancock, on the 2d means ember, while General Pleasanton, with his cavalry, was driving the enemy beyond. Upperville and Piedmont were occupied on the 4th, by the Union cavalry, cutting off the approaches from Ashby's and Manassas Gap. The last corps of the army was over the Potomac on the 5th, and on the 6th the advance was at Warrenton, General McClellan holding his headquarters at Rectortown, on the Manassas Gap Railway. The movement thus far, spite of the inclemency of the weather, a severe winter storm having set in, was attended with success, and hopes were entertained by the public of a decisive engagement, when it was unexpectedly announced that General McClellan had been superseded in command of the Army of the Potomac by General Burnside. The order to this effect, of the Secretary of War, dated Washington, November 5th, was accompanied by the following from General Halleck: "On receipt of the order of the President, sent herewith, you will immediately turn over your command to Major-General Burnside and repair to Trenton, New Jersey, reporting, on your arrival at that place, by telegraph, for further orders."

must not be ignored." "Again," continued the President, one of the standard maxims of war, as you know, isto operate upon the enemy's communications as much as possible, without ex-t posing your own.' You seem to act as t if this applies against you, but cannot apply in your favor. Change positions with the enemy, and think you not he would break your communication with Richmond within the next twenty-four hours? You dread his going into Pennsylvania. But if he does so in full force, he gives up his communications to you absolutely, and you have nothing to do but to follow and ruin him; if he does so with less than full force, fall upon and beat what is left behind all the easier. Exclusive of the water-line, you are now nearer Richmond than the enemy is by the route that you can, and he must, take. Why can you not reach there before him, unless you admit that he is more than your equal on a march? His route is the arc of a circle, while yours is the chord. The roads are as good on yours as on his." Either way, the President thought, the enemy should be met. "In coming to us," said he, "he tenders us an advantage which we should not waive. We should not so operate as to merely drive him away. As we must beat him somewhere, or fail finally, we can do it, if at all, easier near to us than far away. If we cannot beat the enemy where he now is, we never can, he again being within the intrenchments of Richmond." The arguments of the President proved so much in accordance with the necessities of the position, that General McClellan, taking them into consideration, finally resolved to execute the suggested movement on the east of the Blue Ridge. Accordingly, on the 26th of October the army commenced crossing the Potomac by a pontoon bridge at Berlin, General Pleasanton taking the lead with a body of cavalry,

Letter of President Lincoln to General McClellan, Washington, October 13, 1862.

Apparently, in justification of this removal, a correspondence was published between Secretary Stanton and General Halleck, dated 27th and 28th of October, in which emands of General McClellan up War Department for supplies we ed, and it was made to appear "s important requisitions made ses and clothing had been ing

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the burden upon him of a reluctant or inefficient discharge of duty in delaying to set his army in motion after positiv ders had been given him to that Whatever the real merits of the cas have been, the explanation given friends of the Administration withdrawal of General McCle that the times demanded an greater activity. In the word. publican journal of the day :defeat of General McClella that he lacked motive power. excessive caution which cramps all of his better energies, and practically disables him for aggressive warfare; the very first requisite is boldness. That over-cautious disposition was noticed long ago, but there was a fond hope that experience would cure it. Experience, and that too of the hardest sort, has not cured it. It has been demonstrated to be an inseparable part of General McClellan's nature. It is the presence of this fatal quality alone-the parent of indecision, procrastination and inaction-that reconciles us, and will reconcile the country, to the displacement of a commander otherwise so competent."

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The orders of removal was brought to General McClellan by a special messenger from Washington, General Buckingham, and reached him in his camp at Rectortown at eleven o'clock on the night

*New York Daily Times, Nov. 11, 1862.

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ou. nation's h achieved, our mutual perils and fatigues, the graves of our comrades fallen in battle and by disease, the broken forms of those whom wounds and sickness have disabled-the strongest associations which can exist among men-unite us still by an indissoluble tie. We shall ever be comrades in supporting the constitution of our country, and the nationality of its people." A few days after, on the 12th, Major-General Fitz John Porter, in a general order, took leave of the army corps which he had led, being summoned to Washington to meet the charges preferred against him by General Pope, and was succeeded in his command by MajorGeneral Joseph Hooker, who, though not yet quite recovered from his wound received at Antietam, and unable to ride on horseback, brought to the field his accustomed energy of character.

END OF VOL. II.

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