THE FIRST DAY Chapter Nine

 

I suppose the Rebel troopers deserved their brief moment of exhilaration.  After the dark, hushed and nervous passage through the Bull Run Mountains, the gray morning light of Thursday, 25 June, 1863 revealed the canvas tops of Federal supply wagons, white pearls on a string, sparkling in the myriad prisms left by the overnight rain - like presents just waiting to be opened. The Rebels  unlimbered some artillery and sent a few shells whistling like shots across the caravan's bow.  But within  moments federal artillery returned fire. And the growing light revealed the dark threatening blue of massed Federal infantry. The flicker of Rebel delight faded into shadow.

Major General James Ewell Brown (J.E.B.) Stuart was leading 3 brigades of the best light cavalry in the world. First in line were the 1,300 troopers of Lieutenant General John Randolf Chambliss, then the 1,900 men of Lt. General Wade Hampton, with Fitzhugh Lee's 2,000 men bringing up the rear. 

The goal for these 4,500 effectives was to make an easy 28 miles a day, covering 110 miles over 4 days to arrive no latter than 29 June, at Hanover Pennsylvania, collecting supplies as they came. There Stuart expected to join Brigadier General Richard Ewell's 2^nd Corps, which was to be in Carlise, Pennsylvania on that date. As historian Scott Nesbit has written, “Realistically, Lee could not have expected to hear from Stuart until the 28th and quite possibly the 29^th...”.

The 40 mile first day's route had been scouted in advance by the diminutive General John S. Mosby. Once through the mountains Stuart planned to slip between the units of the somnambulist Joe Hooker's army to reach Haymarket, and then to cross the Potomac River at Seneca Ford. From there the cavalry corps would pass west of Washington, D.C., and on to Hanover. There would then be plenty of time to destroy railroad bridges, burn supply stores and spar with Federal cavalry. Stuart had done this twice the year before. And there was no reason not to assume he could do it again. Except...

Except there had been Brandy Station the month before – where union cavalry had come within a hair of capturing “Jeb” Stuart himself. And just 10 days ago a Rhode Island regiment had surprised Stuart again in Middleburg, Virginia. And now, setting out on a maneuver that required stealth and speed, Stuart found himself, within 15 miles of his starting point blocked by an entire Federal infantry division - on the move. They were not supposed to be there.  Mosby had discovered as much the day before, but trapped behind shifting Federal lines, he had been unable to warn Stuart.

Military Historian David Powell described Stuart's options as either a “detour to the southeast in hopes of getting around the Union army; or returning to...fall in behind the Confederate infantry...(at) Williamsport. Either choice would necessitate a delay...”. Being who he was, Stuart chose to double back to Buckland, Virginia , and look for a another way through the Federal army. But he was already a day behind schedule.

Before dawn on Friday, 26 June, Stuart led his troopers south and then 20 miles eastward, to the ford over the Occoquan River at Wolf Run Shoals, barely avoiding the Federal Second Corp, which had finished crossing just the day before. Realizing now that the entire Federal army was marching north, Stuart sent a warning to Lee, who was still at Williamsport. But that message also failed to arrive. And because of the Federal cavalry screening the rear of Hanncock's corps, Stuart was forced to inch his way forward, making just 20 miles this day. He was now 2 days behind schedule, and further from the Potomac River than ever. Growing desperate to make up lost time, on Saturday, 27 June, Stuart pushed his men and horses 60 miles to the Potomac – his first troopers crossing the river at 3:00 am. on Sunday, 28 June at Rockville, Maryland. The “Southern Cavalier” was forced to spend the rest of the day letting his men and horses recover from that brutal forced march.

But now their luck changed, or so it seemed. They captured an entire Federal supply train of 125 “best United States model wagons” - pulled by mules, in the words of 54 year old Colonel Richard Lee Tuberville Beal, “..fat and sleek and harness in use for the first time.” The wagons were so desperately needed by the Confederacy, and their cargo of oats so valuable to Stuart's own horses, that Stuart didn't burn them, but took them with him, when he headed north the next morning, Monday, 29 June, 1863.

Having been forced to finally give up his dreams of capturing Richmond – and avoiding a rematch with Robert E, Lee - General Joseph Hooker (above) had, on Wednesday, 24 June, finally begun shifting his Army of the Potomac,  northward. These were the movements which had so disrupted Stuart’s own intentions. But at last Hooker was moving. He was moving slowly, in part,  because of the troops lost when their enlistments expired, had convinced Hooker that Lee now outnumbered him. In desperation, Hooker dispatched his Chief-of-Staff, Major-General Crawford, to Washington to collect 15,000 men from the forts surrounding the capital. 

Fierce Union man, lawyer, politician and Brigadier General John Potts Slough, military governor of Alexandria, Virginia, ordered his men to ignore Crawford. . On 25 June, Hooker demanded that Slough be arrested. Slough was not, and Halleck informed Hooker, “No other troops can be withdrawn from the Defenses of Washington.” In his growing frustration, Hooker admitted “I don't know whether I am standing on my head or feet.”

On Friday, 26 June, Hooker had finally moved his headquarters north across the Potomac, but over half of his army was still in Virginia. And so was his mind. That evening he telegraphed Halleck, “Is there any reason why Maryland Heights (above, BG)  should not be abandoned...?” Saturday morning he arrived in Harper's Ferry (above) himself, and informed Halleck, “I find 10,000 men here, in condition to take the field.” Hooker wanted Harper's Ferry and the heights abandoned, and those 10,000 men enlisted in his army. And he didn't trust Halleck to make the decision. “I beg that this may be presented to the Secretary of War and His Excellency the President.”  In response Halleck dispatched a telegram to the new commander at Harper's Ferry, ordering him to ignore any instructions from Hooker. The telegram was opened and read right in front of "Fighting Joe". And that was the final insult to Hooker's fragile ego.

At 1:00 pm. on Friday, 27 June, Hooker telegraphed Washington, “My original instructions require me to cover Harper's Ferry and Washington...I am unable to comply with this condition with the means at my disposal, and earnestly request that I may at once be relieved from the position I occupy.” To which Halleck replied, “As you were appointed to this command by the President, I have no power to relieve you. Your dispatch has been duly referred for executive action.”

The Hooker had finally hit the fan.

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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 Seven

 

I think some of the 300 troopers saw the danger. But momentum carried them up the narrow road and into the blind curve, past the 2 story farmhouse of Mr. Dallas Furr on the left, past the low stone wall on the right where some of the killers crouched, to the top of the rise and into the killing zone. In the time it takes to draw a breath 2,000 Virginians rose and fired a single murderous volley, from front and rear, punctuated by a point blank cannon blast of grapeshot. In the words of the First Massachusetts regimental history, “In a moment the road was full of dead and dying horses and men, piled up in an inextricable mass....All who were not killed were captured,” says the history, “except a very few...in the rear of the squadron.” Those few survived. But they never forgot the bloody ambush at Aldie, Virginia.

Just after midnight of Wednesday, 17 June, 1863, “Fighting Joe” Hooker passed on some of the heat he had been getting from Washington to his cavalry corps commander, Brigadier General Alfred Pleasonton (above). Hooker's orders were brutal. “The Commanding General relies upon you...to give him information of where the enemy is...Drive in (their) pickets, if necessary and get us information. It is better that we should lose men than to be without knowledge of the enemy.” 

Fired with this new urgency, at 3:00 a.m. Pleasanton dispatched 30 year old, 6 foot 1 inch Brigadier General David McMurtrie Gregg (above) to take his 2^nd cavalry division and occupy the “quaint and picturesque” village of Aldie.

The Federal stupidity at Winchester allowed Robert E. Lee to gamble. He ordered Longstreet's First Corps not to follow Ewell's safer road through the Chester Gap and into the Shenandoah Valley, but to take the quicker route, east of the Blue Ridge, and be quick about it. It was a blazing hot Tuesday, 16 June, 1863, when the First Crops' of the Army of Northern Virginia,  21,000 men,  set out on a 12 hour quick-step march. Choking on their own dust clouds, over 500 rebels dropped from heat exhaustion. But by dark the First Corps had covered almost 30 miles, and the advance had reached the town of Upton, Virginia, almost at the mouth of Ashby's Gap. And with that forced march a village 40 miles away, on the east side of the Loudoun Valley, became, briefly, a place men would die to posses.

At just about 10:00 on the hot, humid morning of 17 June, Major General J.E.B. Stuart (above) and his staff rode into the village of Middleburg, in the center of the Loudoun Valley. 

Closely following were 5 Virginia cavalry regiments, commanded by Col. Thomas Munford (above) and supported by Captain James Breathed's battery of 5, 3 inch rifled horse artillery. 

Stuart was under orders to blind the Yankees to Longstreet's march. So about noon, after allowing the troopers and horses 2 hours to cool down and water, Stuart dispatched the Virginians 5 miles further eastward to plug the Aldie gap in the rolling Bull Run Mountains.

 Munford held the 1^st and 3^rd Virginia regiments about a mile west of the pass as his reserve, and to collect forage for the brigade's horses. The 2^nd and 4^th regiments took the Carter's Bridge cutoff – now the Cobbs House Road - to reach the Snickersville Turnpike north of Aldie (above). 

 The 5^th Virginia regiment continued through the pass alongside the Small River and arrived in the little village of 145 souls about 2:30 that afternoon, just as the Federal Cavalry Brigade of Colonel Judson Kilpatrick appeared through the heat shimmers.

Killpatrick (above) had 1,200 troopers under his command – first in line was the 2^nd New York, followed by the 6^th Ohio, the 1^st Massachusetts and then the 4^th New York volunteer cavalry. An hour behind was the Second Brigade, commanded by the Division commander's cousin, Colonel “Long John” Irvin Greeg, leading the 1^st Maine and 4^th Pennsylvania volunteer regiments. A collision was not only inevitable, it was just what Colonel Judson “Kil-cavalry” was looking for.

The New York boys chased the rebels out of Aldie. Then rebel Colonel Thomas Rosser brought his Virginians in force and chased the Yankees back down the pike. 

In response the 6^th Ohio went into formation, and together the 2 Federal regiments drove the 5^th Virginia back beyond the road junction with the Snickersville Pike, thus opening up both roads for a Federal advance. Killpatrick had his 2 leading regiments dismount to defend the Ashby Pike, and sent the Massachusetts and 4^th New York boys up the Snickersville pike, to outflank the Virginians.

The Massachusetts troopers skirmished with the 2^nd and 4^th Virginian until about 3:30, slowly driving the rebels back to their main line of defense, the hilltop stone fences and house of the Furr family farm. Colonel Munford, who personally organized the defenses on the hilltop, said, “I doubt if there was a stronger position in fifty miles of Aldie than the one I had.” South of the Furr house, across the fields, Companies E and G of the 1^st Massachusetts formed in column of fours and charged straight up the turnpike, with the 4^th New York attacking across the fields. As the temperature topped 94 degrees Fahrenheit, those on the road quickly outpaced the New Yorkers crossing the fields.

When rebel Sargent George Brooke and his fellow Virginians stood and fired,  he was so close he could see the dust fly off the blue jackets of the Massachusetts boys, as rounds from nearly 2,000 carbines and revolvers penetrated. It was impossible to miss. 

On the other side, Corporal John Weston wrote his sister, “We were flanked on the right and left...firing into us a perfect hail of bullets. Let me turn my head which way I would, it was horses and men falling..."

"The road was narrow...all blocked up with wounded horses with their legs broken, kicking and floundering among men and horses dead and dying. If a wounded man fell among them there was not much chance for him. I can't see for my life how any of our squadron got out..” Few did. The slaughter was memorable even to men in their third year of war.

 

Piled high at the blind curve were the bodies of 24 officers and men, 42 wounded and another 88 unable to escape before being taken prisoner. On the Rebel side, Colonel Munford would later write, “I have never seen as many Yankees killed in the same space of ground...on any battlefield in Virginia that I have been over.” A Federal doctor was more succinct, calling the fight at Aldie, “by far the most bloody cavalry battle of the war.” Another rebel officer noted, “I had never known the enemy’s cavalry to fight so stubbornly or act so recklessly, nor have I ever known them to pay so dearly for it.”

The lead elements of Colonel Gregg's 2^nd Battalion, the First Maine cavalry, arrived to stabilize the Federal line, and by evening the Confederate troopers were forced to withdraw from the Aldie pass and fall back toward Middleburg, where they discovered an understrength Yankee Rhode Island regiment had captured the town in a rush, almost taking Stuart and his entire staff prisoners. Then the Islanders had grimly held on until relieved by the General Gregg's division, after dark.

The opposing cavalry spent Thursday, 18 June, pushing each other into and out of Middleburg. But by the end of the day, General Pleasanton's gathering cavalry corps had pushed westward, closer to the masking Blue Ridge. Pleasanton still didn't know what Stuart's troopers were fighting so hard to protect. And the only way he could find out was to keep pushing up the Ashby's Gap Pike until he could break through. But that made Stuart's job relatively easy – keep throwing fresh units in front of Pleasanton, to slow him down and cost him men. As night fell, a thunderstorm crashed over the Loudoun Valley, and rained into the morning of Friday, turning the unimproved roads and fields into quagmires.

Behind the cavalry screen, the unimpeded rebel march north continued. On Friday, 20 June, A.P. Hill's corps began crossing the Potomac River further downstream from Williamsport, where General “Baldy” Ewell's men were still striping the Maryland countryside of food and horses.

But the aggression of Pleasanton's horsemen had convinced Lee to hold some infantry back in the Shenandoah Valley, blocking Ashby's Gap and, 14 miles to the north, Snickersville Gap, through the Blue Ridge. And the units Lee picked to slow down and provide the blocking force were the 21,000 men commanded by his “Old War Horse”, Lieutenant General James Longstreet.

There were good reasons for the choice. Lee trusted Longstreet (above) to use his men wisely, avoiding a bigger fight than was absolutely necessary. And, after the forced march of 16 June, Longstreet's men could use a day or two of rest. But there might be other less laudable reasons for Lee to make “Old Pete” last in line for the invasion. Just a month ago Longstreet had urged the Confederate government to dismember Lee's Army of Northern Virginia,. That would also free Longstreet from Lee''s authority. And he had forced Lee to negotiate to win the argument.  It also seems likely to me that Lee had begun to worry that “Pete” Longstreet might be too cautious once over the Potomac. The "Grey Knight" had no doubt that Longstreet would follow orders, but all orders are subject to interpretation. And subsequent events would seem to prove Lee right to worry. So the First Corps was held back to guard the passes through the Blue Ridge. Longstreet, the most experienced corps commander in Lee's army was thus last in, with the Division of Brigadier General George Picket as their tail-end-Charley

While the Massachusetts cavalry were bleeding that Wednesday, 17 June, Major General Joseph Hooker (above), commander of the Army of the Potomac, had worked himself into a new panic. He telegraphed his boss, General Halleck, “All my cavalry are out, and I have deemed it prudent to suspend any farther advance of the infantry until I have information that the enemy are in force in the Shenandoah Valley. I have just received dispatches from Pleasonton...He ran against...(rebel cavalry) near Aldie, and...it is further reported that there is no infantry on this side of the Blue Ridge...All my cavalry are out. Has it ever suggested itself to you that this cavalry raid may be a cover to Lee's re-enforcing Bragg or moving troops to the West?”

It was a most desperate fantasy - that Lee could slip away and vex and embarrass some other union general rather than General Hooker.  General-in-Chief Henry Halleck (above) deflated that balloon with a telegram on Thursday, 18 June, “Officers and citizens...are asking me why does not General Hooker tell (us) where Lee's army is; he is nearest to it... I only hope for positive information from your front.” 

 Halleck's missive crossed with Hooker's (above) latest fevered paranoia - “I would request that signal officers be established at Crampton's Pass and South Mountain (in Maryland).” He had returned to his obsession with those isolated and under strength commands outside his control. By noon on Friday, 19 June, Hooker was again demanding that he be given authority over the few infantry and cavalry at Harpers Ferry and in the Cumberland Valley of Pennsylvania “I have asked...for information as to the location, character, and number of their commands. Please direct it to be furnished....Are orders for these commands to be given by me where I deem it necessary?”

During all of this fevered mental activity The Army of the Potomac – the 85,000 effectives that Hooker was actually responsible for - had been slowly shuffling north. The 12^th crops under Major General Slocum was at Leesburg, Virginia, the 11^th under General Howard was just south of there, the 5^th Corps under General Meade was at Aldie, the First Crops under General Reynolds was camped around Herndon Station, the 3^rd Corps under General Birney was at Gum Spring, the 2^nd Corps under General Hancock was at Centerville, and the 6^th crops commanded by Major General Sedgwick was at Germantown, Virginia. So both armies were on the move. But Hooker remained convinced that the Army of Northern Virginia had not yet crossed over the Potomac in force

And then, on the afternoon of Saturday, 19 June, General Hooker (above) asked his boss, “ Do you give credit to the reported movements of the enemy as stated in the Chronicle, of this morning?” Halleck forced himself to wait an hour before he responded. “I do not know to what particular statement in the Chronicle you refer. There are several which are contradictory. It now looks very much as if Lee had been trying to draw your right across the Potomac, so as to attack your left. But...it is impossible to judge until we know where Lee's army is. No large body has appeared either in Maryland or Western Virginia.”

Lee had stolen a week's march on Hooker. On Saturday, 19 June, he already had 1/3^rd of his infantry across the Potomac, with another third about to cross. And Hooker remained confused and bewildered. It was not until late on Sunday, 20 June,  that things clarified for Hooker, and it was the sacrifices of the cavalry which finally pierced the fog at Hookers headquarters. At 5:30 that evening he notified Washington, “Infantry soldiers captured report...that Longstreet's rear passed through the Blue Ridge yesterday. I have directed a bridge to be laid at Edwards Ferry to-night.” Hooker was finally following Lee north of the Potomac River.

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