THE FIRST DAY Chapter Eleven

 

I think the cow was as much a victim of panic as the humans. On Wednesday morning, 24 June, 1863, about 3 miles west of the farming hamlet of New Oxford, near the bridge over Bush Run, the unnamed bovine bolted in front of a coal fed locomotive going about 15 miles an hour.

Although tragically, Bossie was killed, no humans were seriously injured. But the collision did throw the small utility engine (above) off the tracks, forcing the impatient Colonel William W. Jennings to walk to his destination. His mission was urgent. Time was running out, according to Major Granville Owen Haller, 7^thUnited States infantry regular army, who, with less than 100 volunteer cavalry troopers, was praying for Jennings arrival in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

William Wesley Jennings had gone to work as a mold maker in his father's Harrisburg iron foundry when he was 15 years old. By the age of 22 he was running the place, active in Republican politics and the Feemasons. He'd been elected a lieutenant in the 3 month volunteers who had rushed to defend Washington during the first summer of the civil war.  Two summers later, when the rebel Army of Northern Virginia threatened again, Jennings had volunteered again, helping raise and drill the 26^th Emergency Volunteer Regiment of 700 - mostly students, middle aged mechanics, lawyers and farm hands. On Tuesday, 23 June, 1863, the Governor ordered Jennings to take his barely trained men by rail to Gettysburg, and consult there with Major Haller. It was the next day that bossy threw herself across his tracks, 35 west of Harrisburg, and derailed his schedule.

Setting out on foot from the wreck site, Jennings took Company A with him mostly because its' 83 members were all from Gettysburg. It took the Colonel most of Thursday to cover the 12 miles, arriving in Gettysburg (above) just before dusk .

Meanwhile, help for the rest of the stranded regiment had arrived from Hanover Junction. The steam engine was remounted on the tracks, and at 9 on the morning of Friday, 26 June, the rest of the regiment arrived at the 3 year old Gettysburg station (above). Ominously, as soon as the regiment had disembarked, the train backed out of the station and retreated all the way back to Harrisburg, proving it was more valuable than the men.

Meeting in the Eagle Hotel (above), on the central square - "the diamond" -  of Gettysburg,  the 43 year old Major Haller, still weak from the fever he had contracted a year ago in Virginia, “suggested” the 25 year old Colonel Jennings entrench his men along Marsh Creek,  just to the west of Herr Ridge, about 3 miles outside of Gettysburg, astride the Chambersburg Pike. Jennings protested, but the Major insisted. Harrisbug had to know if the rebel army had turned at Gettysburg, and in what strength.

Gettysburg (above) - just 10 miles north of the Maryland border - had only 2,400 residents, and just 450 buildings – including six hotels and taverns, and 7 churches  But the town was important because of the roads that radiated like the hands of a clock from the town's "diamond" central square. 

At nine o'clock,  running 8 miles to the west  alongside an unfinished railroad cut was  the Chambersburg turnpike (above)  which crossed Willoughby Run and Marsh Creek before climbing uphill to...

Cashtown (above) - not a town but a roadside inn and store,  whose owner was famous for demanding cash. It sat at the eastern foot of...

“Black's Gap” ((above)  through the 1,900 foot high South Mountain – front ridge of the Appalachians. 

From the gap the road led to Chambersburg, which sat astride the Cumberland valley, the north-south route through the interior, and joined with the Shenandoah Valley, south of the Potomac River..

Running out from the square at ten o'clock and climbing over Oak Ridge, was the Mummasburg road, named for the village 10 miles to the north, north-west of Gettysburg., where South Mountain began to curve to the east.

At noon was the north bound road that ran just past the northern end of South Mountain before reaching Carlise. From Carlise a road led 25 miles due east to the railroad bridge over the Susquehanna River and the state capital of Harrisburg.

At one o'clock out from the Gettysburg "diamond" was the 25 mile east bound road and the Gettysburg railroad line. Both crossed Rock Creek to New Oxford, then continued to Hanover Junction and then York. And 10 miles east of York was another railroad bridge at Wrightsville over the Susquehanna. At three o'clock was the 12 mile east bound road to the industrial town of Hanover and the Harrisburg to Baltimore road. 

At four o'clock the Baltimore Pike left the "diamond" at the center of Gettysburg (above), heading south east first to Tanytown, Maryland, 20 miles to the south southeast, with Baltimore 45 miles farther and Washington, D.C.just beyond that.

Splitting off from the Baltimore Pike south of town (above),  at seven o'clock,  was the Emmitsburg Road – heading 18 miles to the southwest, with Montery Pass through South Mountain just beyond. Occupy Gettysburg and you were a day's march from Baltimore or Harrisburg. And you were just a day's march from the safety of the Potomac. Capture either Baltimore or Harrisburg and the north might sign a peace. And that was why Major Haller had advised the Governor that the Emergency Militia must be sent to Gettysburg as quickly as possible - and why Haller had ordered Jennings to send his tiny detachment, minus a company held back in Gettysburg, to meet the rebel army.

At about 10:30 that foggy Friday morning, in a cold “drizzling rain” and “meeting refugees at every step”, the reluctant Colonel Jennings marched his 700 men 3 miles west on the Chambersburg Pike, to a farm owned by lawyer Edward McPherson, atop Herr Ridge. Descending the west face of the ridge and approaching the bridge over the meandering Marsh Creek, Jennings sent 80 men across under Captain Warner H. Carnahan as a picket line. He then led the rest of his regiment into the woods north of the pike where they stacked arms, built fires and even pitched tents.

The nervous Jenning's (above) was feeling like a sacrificial lamb. His only support was provided by 33 year old local farmer Robert Bell, who had brought 45 volunteer mounted scouts, each supplied with a new Spencer carbine and a navy Colt pistol by the state. Bell picketed his men in a clover field south of the bridge. Then Colonel Jennings and Captain Bell rode up the next rise, Knoxlyn knoll, to look for rebels. They found them ¾ of a mile away, coming down the slope right toward them.

It was Jenning's nightmare - 150 butternut brown, grey and captured blue clad rebel cavalry - the 35^th Virginia “White's Commanches”, named after their commander, 31 year old Elijah Viers “Liege” White (above), "an excitable, impetuous sort of personage, of large build and auburn complexion.” 

Behind them, visible through the dank rain, was a full brigade of 1,500 veteran infantrymen under a "tall, lanky, and straight as a ramrod " Georgia lawyer, the audacious, deeply racist and often wounded General John Brown Gordon. 

One member of the 26^th would give voice to Jennings' emotions at the moment - Haller's orders, the man wrote, had sent “raw and comparatively undisciplined troops into the very jaws of the advancing Confederates.” Jennings started to order his aide to warn Major Haller back in Gettysburg, but Captain Bell interrupted, telling the Colonel his “supreme necessity” was to save his regiment from capture.

It actually was worse than Captain Bell knew. Gordon's brigade was part of Jubal Early's 5,000 man division. In capturing Cashtown the day earlier - Thursday, 25 June - Brigadier-General Early (above) had also captured two of Bell's scouts, who said Gettysburg was expecting infantry reinforcements. Not sure how strong the federals would be, Early decided to approach the crossroads from two directions. He sent Gordon and White's command directly down the Chambersburg Pike, while he took the bulk of his command - Hay's, Smith's and Hoke's brigades - north to Mummasburg. He then sent General Henry T. Hays and his 1,500 Louisiana Tigers, along with 250 troopers of the 17^th Virginia cavalry, under ex-realitor Colonel William Henderson French, to approach Gettysburg down the Mummasburg road. This put French and Hays in the perfect position to cut Jenning's tiny command off from Gettysburg, and capture them all.

Unaware of this, Jennings galloped back across the Marsh Creek bridge, and sharply ordered his men to fall into marching formation. Then, instead of falling directly back on Gettysburg, Jennings enlisted one of the men from Company A, Private Baugher, to slide his regiment out of the rebels' way, heading a mile north, first to the Belmont Road which they followed to the Mummasburg Road. Colonel Jennings left Captain Carnahan's 80 pickets, supported by Bell's 40 cavalrymen, along the Chambersburg Pike to cover his own retreat. But he had just failed to do the same for Major Haller and the unsuspecting troops and citizens back in Gettysburg.

At first sight of the militia baring his way, Methodist minister Lt. Harrison Strickler, commander Company E in White's Comanche's, typically ordered his men to charge. According to rebel Captain Frank Myers, White's Comanches “came with barbarian yells and smoking pistols, in such a desperate dash, that the blue-coated troopers wheeled their horses and departed ... without firing a shot.”  All 80 infantry men were captured. Added Myers, “nobody was hurt, if we except one fat militia Captain, who, in his exertion to be first to surrender, managed to get himself run over by one of Company E’s horses, and was bruised somewhat.” It was a triumphal moment for the rebel troopers, and most of them then splashed across the creek and descended upon the abandoned tents left behind by the 26^th. The looting delayed them more than the union soldiers had.

In a reverse of Paul Revere's ride, Robert Bell and his irregulars galloped directly back to Gettysburg (above), spreading panic like a virus as they did. The refugees from Chambersburg and Cashtown found the energy to run, to drive their horses to a gallop. It took less than ten minutes for the infection to reach the town..

In Gettysburg itself, at 43-45 Chambersburg road - two blocks and around the corner from the train station -  Hugh Scott, the telegraph operator, saw Ball's men gallop past, heard their cries and saw their terror. He responded as he had prepared to. He ripped the telegraph equipment from its table, threw it in the buggy he had borrowed and whipped the horse down the road toward New Oxford and York.

Captain Ball paused long enough at the Eagle Hotel to inform Major Granville Haller (above) of the collapse of the 26^th.. and to infect him with the panic. Haller, a veteran of the War of 1812 and the Mexican War, tried to telegraph Harrisburg, but found the telegraph office empty, the equipment gone. So he threw himself on a horse. He did not stop until he had reached Hanover. He telegraphed the Governor at 8:00 that night. “… Rebels in Gettysburg. Ran our cavalry through town; fired on them; no casualties. Horses worn out. Ordered all troops to York. … Cavalry officers and men did well.” But he had no word of praise for Colonel Jennings or the 26th regiment.

Meanwhile, back along the Mummasburg road, the 26^th was wheeling column right, marching eastward toward Gettysburg, when Colonel French's mounted Virginians appeared from the Northwest. With the enemy so close, Jennings had no choice but to throw his Pennsylvanians into a battle line, behind the split rail fences. As French's cavalry approached, the militia fired a volley. A few rebels fell from their saddles, and the cavalry returned fire, but they then fell back. It was obvious the militia were retreating, and Colonel French realized they were going to capture Gettysburg, so why lose any more men?

Colonel Jennings fulfilled his role, slowly leapfrogging his men down the slope toward Gettysburg. As they approached the town he saw the rebel cavalry had beaten him there, and he redirected his men toward Hunterstown, 5 miles north on the Carlise road. The first day of fighting in Gettysburg was almost over. And so far, despite all the shooting, not a single human had been killed.

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THE FIRST DAY Chapter Eight

 

I can feel the anger dripping from every word in the diary entry of Rachel Bowman-Cormany for Tuesday, 23 June, 1863. The rebel cavalrymen had returned. “They rode in as leisurely as you please,” wrote Rachel, “I just wonder what they want this time...” 

Jenkin's raiders again invaded the town's businesses “... and were dealing out flour by the barrel and molasses by the bucketful. They made people take them bread and meat...Some dumb fools carried them jellies and the like.” The war for the citizens of Chambersburg was no longer a matter of political principle, religious conviction or moral imperative. Lee's march into Pennsylvania, like Sherman's later march through Georgia, had made it personal.

Two companies of Brigadier General Albert Jenkins' “Border Rangers” had snuck into Chambersburg the night before, and Captain Moorman's Company was ordered to “commender” horses from the farms on the western slope of South Mountain. The remaining 1,500 troopers arrived late in the morning. And 24 hours later, on Wednesday, 24 June, the cavalry were replaced by the 22,000 men of the Second Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia. “At 10 a.m.,” wrote Rachel, “the infantry commenced to come and for 3 hours they just marched on as fast as they could.”  They were hurrying to the top of Jedediah Hotchkiss' 7 ½ foot long map of the Cumberland Valleys - The state capita. The road itself made their intended destination obvious. Wrote Rachel, “It is thought by many that a desperate battle will be fought at Harrisburg.”

Following Lieutenant General Ewell's men was the Third Corps under Lieutenant General A.P. Hill, which had crossed the Potomac 3 days before. Still in Virginia, but ready to cross the river at Williamsport, was the First Crops of Lieutenant General James Longstreet. When his entire 70,000 man Army of Northern Virginia was unified north of the Potomac, General Robert E. Lee would be positioned to raid the rich farms and factories of Pennsylvania, confiscating weapons, clothing, food, horses, escaped slaves and even impress free black citizens. And perhaps force the Federal government to its knees.

To mask his movements in Pennsylvania,  Lee was operating behind the 70 mile long South Mountain - actually a jumble of peaks and folds up to 12 miles wide. There were only 2 gaps through the range. In the south, touching the Maryland border, was the 10 mile corkscrew Monterey Gap (above).. 

The Waynesboro - Emittsburg Turnpike (above)  followed Red Run creek, which meandered westward into the Cumberland valley. 

Half way up the palisade was the lower, wider and straighter 8 mile long Cashtown Gap, “... through which it was possible to move expeditiously a large force with artillery and wagon trains” (above). Past the Cashtown store, Marsh Creek ran eastward, into the rolling Piedmont of Pennsylvania. Fortifying these two passes would shield Lee's communications and his line of retreat. But even a hundred fifty years later it is unclear exactly what the 56 year old Confederate commander sought to accomplish behind that mountain curtain.

Part of the confusion was created by Lee's personality. On Monday, 22 June, he took note that many of the supplies Jenkin's cavalry had seized were not reaching the rest of the army. So he ordered General Ewell to “If necessary send a staff officer to remain with Jenkins.” Why not just insist on the staff officer? Not that it mattered in this instance because Lee immediately transferred Jenkins brigade out of Ewell's command and into J.E.B. Stuart's cavalry corps. 

 Lee also decided it was time to let General Stuart off the leash. He told his charismatic drama queen , “If you find...that two brigades can guard the Blue Ridge...you can move with the other three...and take position on General Ewell’s right.” He then warned Stuart these orders were to be “...strictly complied with”, but he never told Stuart how close to Ewell's right he should stay.

At that moment Stuart was guarding the flank of the First Crops of General James Longstreet. And Longstreet, who saw Stuart's orders, and warned Lee that a shift directly north, to cover Ewell, might tip off Hooker to the grand plan. “Pete" Longstreet  talked it over with General Lee, and convinced him that maybe, if Hooker was not moving north, possibly, Stuart could slip in-between the units of the Army of the Potomac, get on their eastern flank, raise hell, grab supplies and even beat Ewell to Harrisburg. It was the kind of maneuver Stuart had pulled before. It had the advantage of forcing Hooker to look to his own flank instead of Ewell's, putting Stuart in the soft underbelly of the Federal Army, and maybe surprising and capturing Harrisburg. And, since Lee had given Stuart the option, Stuart naturally decided to take it.

Lee's nonspecific orders, particularly when issues were vital, can be seen as either offering freedom of action for his subordinates, perhaps southern gentility, or a passive-aggressive refusal to plainly state what he really wanted when it really mattered. And he had an almost religious faith in his soldiers. He wrote one of his division commanders, John Bell Hood, " There were never such men in an army before. They will go anywhere and do anything if properly led"  Such devotion covered a lot of failings in command. Also, whatever his intent his southern manners left his subordinates, like Stuart, struggling with ambiguous wording, and often choosing a course of action they preferred, rather than the one Lee preferred. When they were right, Lee was right. When they were wrong, they had failed Lee. Like his counterpart, Joseph Hooker, Robert E. Lee's talents and shortcomings would be on full display during the Gettysburg campaign.

Trying to guess Lee's intentions for the Union in late June of 1863 was the job of 33 year old Chief Engineer for the Army of the Potomac, Brigadier General Gouverneur K. Warren (above)  – a man Lee described as “calm, absorbed, and earnest”.  Warren resembled a professor of mathematics - which he had taught at West Point. He was “short and willowy...no more substantial... than a young boy...his uniforms tended to hang off him as if they were several sizes too big.” He was an introvert, rarely smiled, and suffered long periods of depression. But he was a fierce and capable warrior with a quick and powerful mind, and he was so honest his fellow Union officers either hated or admired him.

While the Army of the Potomac was still gathered around Fairfax Courthouse, Virginia, Major General Hooker (above) asked Warren to consider what would happen if he moved the army to Harpers Ferry. Warren admitted such a move would allow them to “protect Washington...and Baltimore... and...enable us to operate on (Lee's) communications.” And maybe catch his army divided by the Potomac. In addition, Warren mused, “It will prevent Lee from detaching a corps to invade Pennsylvania...”

But Lee already had 44,000 men in Pennsylvania. It was too late for Hooker to move his center of operations to Harpers Ferry, and Warren clearly suspected that, since, in his presentation to Hooker the shy and arrogant genius added “These opinions are based upon the idea that we are not to try and go round his army, and drive it out of Maryland, as we did last year, but to paralyze all its movements by threatening its flank and rear if it advances...”

This was the key to the balance of power between the two armies that June of 1863. By staying south of Lee, between his army and Washington, The Army of the Potomac was positioned to cut Lee off, trap him in enemy territory, and defeat the Army of Northern Virginia “in detail” - a piece at a time. It was a golden opportunity. General Warren knew it. Lincoln knew it. It seems Longstreet and Lee both knew it. But it does not seem to have occurred to “Fighting Joe” Hooker.

That Monday afternoon, 21 June, Company “D” – 50 to 100 men - of Jenkin's troopers under Captain Robert Moreman (above) were in the woods just west of Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania, at the high point of Monterey Pass. They were looking for horses. What they found was some Pennsylvania militia. After firing a few shots the militia scattered, and the rebels pushed ahead to the town Fairfield (below), at the northwestern entrance to the pass. And with that, the south gate to the Cumberland valley was slammed shut.

About 5:00 p.m., 21 June, 1863, Stuart's formal orders arrived by courier and repeated Lee's earlier instructions. But now, they ended, “You...will...be able to judge whether you can pass around their army without hindrance, doing them all the damage you can...” Once again Lee had given Stuart permission to ride around the Army of the Potomac – again. He had not ordered it, but he had not forbidden it, either. Just after dark, another thunderstorm broke over the soldiers sleeping under the stars of Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia..

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THE FIRST DAY Chapter Six

 

I can almost taste the fear and the fascination when reading 27 year old pretty and proudly plain dunkard Rachel Bowman-Cormnay's account of being awakened by the “clatter of hoofs” in the last half hour of Tuesday, 16 June, 1863. Glancing to make sure her infant daughter Cora was still asleep, Rachel padded barefoot to the front window of her boarding-house and saw, “...sure enough the Greybacks were going by as fast as their horses could take them.” 

The rebel cavalrymen disappeared northward up the dark street toward “The Diamond” at the center of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. But rather than turn away to dress or climb back into bed,  Rachel waited at the window until,  in a few moments,  she heard a gun shot.  And “then they came back faster...” You can almost feel her anticipation as she waited in her nightgown for what would come next.

What came were the leading elements of “Grumble” Jenkin's 1,600 man cavalry brigade. “They came in, the front ones with their hands on the gun triggers ready to fire and calling out...that they would lay the town in ashes if fired on again...” Finally, about 2 in the morning of Wednesday, 17 June, things quieted, and Rachel caught a few hours of sleep. She was up again at 5 in the morning. “All seemed quiet...We almost came to the conclusion that the reb's had left again...Soon however they became more active.”

Their activity was hunting food, horses, clothing and Negroes. Any who think the American Civil War was not about human bondage, need only read Rachel's diary. “O! How it grated on our hearts to have to sit quietly and look at such brutal deeds...Some of the colored people who were raised here were taken along.” In other words, about 50 black skinned human beings were kidnapped at the point of a gun. “I sat on the front step,” said Rachel, “as they were driven by just like we would drive cattle...nearly all hung their heads. One woman was pleading wonderfully with her driver for her children – but all the sympathy she received from him was a rough "March along". 

Like most people in any age, Rachel Bowman (above) was a collection of contradictions. Raised in a conservative evangelical family, her parents sacrificed to get her a college education - a rare liberal achievement for any woman 1850. At Otterbein College, just north of Columbus, Ohio, she met a divinity student named Samuel Cormany. And after they were graduated, they were married in 1860. They moved to her native Ottawa, Canada, where Cora was born in 1861.

With the outbreak of the American Civil War, the devout pacifists and dedicated abolitionists returned to the Cormay family farm just north of Chambersburg (above), where Samuel joined the 16^th Pennsylvania Cavalry, and marched off to war. Rachel and Cora lived with Samuel's parents for a time, but when family tensions rose she moved into town, surviving on Samuel's pay.

The rebels who frightened and fascinated the 4,000 residents of Chambersburg were not regulars but self named “Border Rangers”, irregulars under 33 year old Brigadier General Albert Gallatin Jenkins (above, before the war) - described as  "about 5 foot 10 inches high, well-formed and of good physique; dark hair, blue eyes, and heavy brown beard; pleasing countenance, kind affable manners, fluent and winning in conversation; quick, subtle, and argumentative in debate". Upon his father's death Albert exchanged his law career for running the family's 4,400 acre plantation, Green Bottom, on the banks of the Ohio River – worked by about 100 black slaves. His troopers were mostly local small farmers who had spent the war trading raids – house burning,  kidnapping,  murder and mutilation - with local Union sympathizers. Like border “rangers” on both sides, these men fought more out of hate than principle.

The troopers under “Grumble” Jenkins were scouts for Major General Robert Edwin Rodes' 21,000 man infantry division. On 14 June, 1863, after being relieved in front of Martinsburg, most of Jenkin's men crossed the Potomac and drove the 25 miles north to Chambersburg on Tuesday, 15 June.. On Wednesday morning, 16 June, Rachel Cormany observed “they were carrying away men's clothing and darkeys.” - slaves. The rebels showed a particular affinity for stealing men's hats, snatching them right off the owner's heads. 

Rachel also saw General Jenkins in the flesh ( in his best pirate appearance) . “He is not a bad looking man,” she confided to her diary. “There were a few real intelligent, good looking men among (his troopers). What a pity that they are rebels. After the main body had passed the news came that our soldiers were coming...” And with that, Jenkin's entire Brigade grabbed what they could carry and headed back south.

General Rodes (above) had ordered Jenkins to hold Chambersburg. But hearing a bugle call, and fearing approaching Federal troops, Jenkins abandoned the town on Thursday, 18 June, retreating 20 miles back to Hagerstown, Maryland, where he met General Rodes, who had just crossed the Potomac. Rodes was infuriated. In fact, on 18 June, there were no Federal troops within 50 miles of Chambersburg, and in their rush any goods not of immediate use to Jenkin's men were abandoned. The fuming 34 year old Rodes noted, “The result was that most of the property... which would have been of service to (my) troops...was removed or concealed before it (Chamberburg) was reoccupied.” Although Rodes commissariats estimated some 3,000 head of cattle had already been captured in Pennsylvania, only some 1,500 head had reached the rest of the army. Meanwhile, “The horses were almost all seized by the cavalry of General Jenkins, and were rarely accounted for.”

In all fairness, the “Border Rangers” were neither trained nor equipped to stand and fight. And hearing Rodes' complaints, his boss, Second Corp commander Lieutenant General Richard Ewel (above)l, took over direct command of Jenkins' brigade. He no more approved of Jenkins actions than Rodes, but he knew Jenkins raiders were the only cavalry his corps had to lead the way into Pennsylvania. The best troopers were riding with Stuart, shielding the right flank of the army from the Federals.

Meanwhile, Ewell's own infantry had been exhausted by the forced marches since Front Royal, the capture of Winchester and Martinsburg, and then the advance to the Potomac. So after crossing the river at Williamsport  (above) , “Baldy” Ewell sent his 4 brigades into camp, allowing them to rest and send out foraging parties to confiscate food and goods, the excess which could be ferried back across the river.. The pause also allowed Lieutenant General James Longstreet's First Corps to close up to the south shore of the Potomac, and Lieutenant General A. P. Hill's Third Corps to do the same, closer to Harpers Ferry.

Lee's plan continued to tempt Federal General Joe Hooker to strike toward Richmond. Had Fighting Joe done so, J.E.B. Stuart's cavalry would delay the Army of the Potomac while Longstreet forced march his First Corp to meet them from behind Richmond's defenses. At the same time, A.P. Hill's Third Corps was just a 2 day march from the outskirts of Washington. And, Ewell could continue his collecting supplies from the Pennsylvania country side, unmolested. In the same tactical position Hooker had faced -  with part of one corps across the Rappahancock -  Lee was in the stronger strategic position with one corps across the Potomac. And Hooker continued to seem determined not to understand that.

During the afternoon of Wednesday,  16 June, 1863, while Rachel Cormany was watching Jenkin's Brigade looting Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, a panicky General-in-Chief Henry “Old Brains” Halleck (above) telegraphed Major-General Joesph Hooker, “There is now no doubt that the enemy is surrounding Harper's Ferry, but in what force I have no information...our force there...cannot hold out very long.” He added there was no hope for relief “excepting from your army.” 

Hooker (above) took the bait and replied a few hours later, “In compliance with your directions, I shall march to the relief of Harper's Ferry. I put my column again in motion at 3 a.m. tomorrow. I expect to reach there in two days...” Hooker then sent a similar notification to the President, Abraham Lincoln, adding, “I am prepared to move without communications with any place for ten days”

At that point, it seems,  the long suffering Abraham Lincoln (above) hit the roof of both the White House and the War Department. Hooker had been playing Lincoln and Halleck against each other, like a child plays divorced parent.  Lincoln also suspected Hooker of attempting to sneak in his plan for a march south while Lee's Army was headed north, despite Lincoln's repeated orders, “Your objective is Lee's army.” 

At 10:00 that night, Lincoln replied to Hooker, “ To remove all misunderstanding, I now place you in the strict military relation to General Halleck of a commander of one of the armies to the general-in-chief of all the armies. I have not intended differently, but as it seems to be differently understood, I shall direct him to give you orders and you to obey them.”

Within 15 minutes, Hooker received a second telegram, this one from Halleck. “I have given no directions for your army to move to Harper's Ferry. I have advised the movement of a force, sufficiently strong to...ascertain where the enemy is...I want you to push out your cavalry, to ascertain something definite about the enemy.” It was as complete a smack down as could be conceived. 

And yet Hooker, ever the anarchist,  was determined to find somebody to play along with his dramatic performance. Half an hour after receiving Hallecks telegram, “Fighting Joe” dispatched a new request to Secretary of War William Stanton. “If General Cadwalader has gone to Pennsylvania, please request him to send me information of the rebel movements...”

But Stanton (above)  was a Washington drama queen himself and far better at the game then Hooker. He responded before midnight, “General Cadwalader has not gone to Pennsylvania, but is here waiting for orders. You shall be kept posted upon all information received here as to enemy's movements, but must exercise your own judgment as to its credibility. The very demon of lying seems to be about these times, and generals will have to be broken for ignorance before they will take the trouble to find out the truth of reports”.

At 9:30 the next morning, Thursday, 17 June, Lincoln telegraphed Hooker yet again, informing him that the superintendent of the telegraph office had assured the President that everything about enemy movements had been and would be forwarded to Army of the Potomac. The rough translation was that Lincoln was just about fed up with Hookers equivocation and excuses.

To which Hooker (above) offered up yet his final whining excuse. “The advice heretofore received by telegraph from Washington has stated successively that Martinsburg and Winchester were invested and surrounded; that Harper's Ferry was closely invested, with urgent calls upon me for relief; that the enemy were advancing in three columns through Pennsylvania...Now I am informed...that General Tyler, at Harper's Ferry...seems to think that he is in no danger. Telegraph operator just reports to me that Harper's Ferry is abandoned by our forces. Is this true?...I should very much like to have reliable and correct information concerning the enemy on the north side of the Potomac.”

Imagine that - a general in time of war, wishing he knew for for certain what his enemies' intentions were.  And just where did Hooker think that information was going to come from? Before noon General Halleck replied to Hooker as bluntly as he could, without actually calling him a lunatic and a great big baby. “No reliable information of rebel movements in Maryland.” 

Then, just in case Hooker was unaware that his bosses were looking over his shoulder, Halleck added - “All telegrams from you or to you are subject to the hourly inspection of the Secretary of War and the President. No important instructions have or will be sent to you without their knowledge.” In other words -  Hooker, you wanted this job, so go do it. 

Halleck later added, “I regret...that reports from north side of the Potomac are so unreliable and contradictory, but they are given to you as received. What is meant by abandoning Harper's Ferry is merely that General Tyler has concentrated...on Maryland Heights. No enemy in any force has been seen below Harper's Ferry, north of the river...So far, we have had only the wild rumors of panic-stricken people.” And, Halleck might have added, one of those panic-stricken people seemed to be Hooker.

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