Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman. James Harvey Kidd
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authority. These, and many other equally false reports filled the air. They were probably the result of logical inferences from the actual situation. The time had arrived when active hostilities must soon begin, and what more natural than to suppose that Lee would inaugurate the fray by another invasion of the North? Among the letters that I wrote to my parents about that time one or two were preserved, and under date of June 1, 1863, I wrote to my mother a note, the following extract from which will serve to show that there was in our minds a sort of prophetic intuition of what was going to happen. Referring to the false rumors that were not only coming to our ears from these various sources, but even appearing in the Northern papers, I said:
"That Lee will attempt to raid into the North, after the manner of 'Stonewall' Jackson, is possible, perhaps probable, but when he comes we shall hear of it before he wakes up President Lincoln to demand that the keys to the White House be turned over to 'Jeff' Davis. Besides having an efficient and perfect line of pickets, scouts are out daily in our front, so that the idea of the rebel army reaching Washington without our knowledge is preposterous. Lee may make a rapid march through the Shenandoah Valley, and thence into Pennsylvania and Maryland, but nothing would please the Union army more than to have him make the attempt."
Three weeks after the date of that letter, Hooker's army was in motion to head off Lee, who had started to do the very thing thus hinted at, and there was not a soldier in the federal army of Virginia who did not feel, if he gave the matter any thought, that the confederate chief had made a fatal mistake, and rejoice at the opportunity to meet him, since meet him we must, outside his intrenchments and the jungles of Virginia. That Stahel's men were willing to do their part was proven by their conduct in the campaign that followed.
Early in June a thing happened that brought a feeling of gloom into the little camp. Colonel Norvell of the Fifth having resigned, the officers of that regiment united in a petition to the governor to appoint an outsider to the vacancy. Governor Blair selected Lieutenant Colonel Alger. Indeed, that was probably part of his business on the occasion of his recent visit. Colonel Alger was ordered to report immediately for duty with his new command, and left, taking with him the hearty congratulations and good wishes of all his comrades of the Sixth. But their regret at losing him was profound. They did not know how to spare him. It gave him more rank and a larger field of usefulness. Major Thaddeus Foote assumed command of the detachment.
This reference to the Fifth reminds me of Noah H. Ferry and a night ride in his company, about the time of Colonel Alger's promotion. I had been over to Colonel Gray's camp with some message to him from Colonel Alger, and meeting Major Ferry, who was field officer of the day, he said he was to start that night and inspect the entire picket line of the brigade, about fourteen or fifteen miles long and invited me to accompany him. He would reach the Difficult outpost in the morning, making an all night ride. I gladly accepted the invitation, both for the ride and to see the country. Major Ferry then in his prime, was a strong, vigorous, wholesome-looking man, with a ruddy complexion and bright eye, a man of excellent habits and correct principles. He told me that night what sacrifices he had made to go into the army. His business had cleared that year, $70,000, and with the right sort of management ought to go on prosperously. His leaving it had thrown the entire burden, his work as well as their own, upon the shoulders of his brothers. He had everything to make life desirable,—wealth, social position, youth, health,—there was nothing to be desired, yet he felt it to be his duty to give it all up to enter the service of his country. He talked very freely of his affairs, and seemed to be weighing in the balances his duty to himself and family. His patriotic feelings gained the mastery, however, every time, and he talked earnestly of the matter,—protesting that our duty to the government in its sore strait ought to outweigh all other considerations. It was clear that a struggle had been going on in his mind, and that he had resolutely determined to go on and meet his fate, whatever it might be, and when he was killed a few weeks afterwards at Gettysburg, I recalled the conversation of that night and wondered if he had not a presentiment of his coming fate, for he seemed so grave and preoccupied, and profoundly impressed with a sense of the great sacrifice he was making. A soldier neither by profession nor from choice, he wore the uniform of the Union because he could not conscientiously shirk the duty he felt that he owed the government, and relinquished fortune, home, ambition, life itself, for the cause of the Union.
Some time about the middle of June, the picket line was taken up. Major Foote's detachment was ordered to report to Colonel Gray, and Stahel's division was concentrated at Fairfax Court House. The rumors of the movements of armies had become realities. Lee was in motion. The army of Northern Virginia was trying to steal a march on its great adversary. Long columns of gray were stealthily passing through the Shenandoah Valley to invade the North, and to be on hand to help the farmers of Pennsylvania and Maryland reap their golden harvests.
But the alert federal commander, gallant "Fighting 'Joe' Hooker," was not caught napping. Lee did not escape from Fredericksburg unobserved. The army of the Potomac cavalry was sent to guard the passes in the mountains and see to it that Jackson's and Longstreet's maneuvers of the previous summer were not repeated, while six corps of infantry marched leisurely toward the fords of the Potomac, ready to cross into Maryland as soon as it should appear that Lee was actually bent on invasion of Northern soil. Hooker's opportunity had come and he saw it. For Lee to venture into Pennsylvania, was to court destruction. All felt that, and it was with elastic step and buoyant spirits, that the veterans of Williamsburg and Fair Oaks, of Antietam and Chancellorsville, kept step to the music of the Union, as they moved toward the land where the flag was still honored, and where they would be among friends. All the troops in the Department of Washington were set in motion by Hooker as soon as he arrived where they were. His plan was to concentrate everything in front of Lee, believing that the best way to protect Washington was to destroy the confederate army. Stahel was ordered to report to General Reynolds, who commanded the left grand division of Hooker's army, and who was to have the post of honor, the advance, and to lose his life while leading the vanguard of the federal army in the very beginning of the battle of Gettysburg. Thus it happened that we were at last, part and parcel of that historic army whose fame will last as long as the history of heroic deeds and patriotic endeavor.
Hooker's policy did not coincide with the views of the slow and cautious Halleck, and so the former resigned, thus cutting short a career of extraordinary brilliancy just on the eve of his greatest success. It was a fatal mistake for Hooker. I have always believed that, had he remained in command, the battle of Gettysburg would have been the Appomattox of the Civil War. Such an opportunity as was there presented, he had never had before. Even in the wilderness around Chancellorsville, where his well laid plans miscarried through no fault of his own, he was stopped only by a series of accidents from crushing his formidable adversary. The dense woods prevented the cooperation of the various corps; the audacity of Jackson turned defeat for Lee into temporary victory; and to crown this chapter of accidents, Hooker himself was injured so as to be incapacitated for command, at the very moment when quick action was indispensable.
Now the conditions were changed. Jackson, the ablest of all the confederate generals, was dead, and the army of the Potomac, greatly reinforced, was to meet the army of Northern Virginia, materially weakened, where they could have an open field and a fair fight. Every step that Hooker had taken, from the time when he broke camp in Falmouth until he, in a fit of disgust at Halleck's obstinacy, tendered his resignation at Frederick, Maryland, had shown a comprehensive grasp of the situation that inspired the whole army with confidence. The moment that Lee decided to fight the army of the Potomac on grounds of its own choosing, and to fight an offensive battle, he was foredoomed to defeat, no matter who commanded the federal army. Hooker possessed the very qualifications that Meade lacked—the same fierce energy that characterized Sheridan—the ability to follow up and take advantage of a beaten enemy. With Hooker in command, Gettysburg would have been Lee's Waterloo.
Sunday, June 21, heavy cannonading in the direction of the passes in the Blue Ridge mountains, proclaimed that the battle was raging. Pleasanton's cavalry had encountered Stuart and Fitzhugh Lee at Middleburg and a fierce engagement resulted. Our division left Fairfax at an early hour, and all supposed that it would go towards the sound of battle. Not so, however. Stahel, with as fine a body of horse as was ever brought together, marched to Warrenton, thence to Fredericksburg, scouting over the entire intermediate country, encountering no enemy, and all the