Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/434

400 and ordered Hooker to the north bank of the Potomac, to interpose his army between Lee and Washington. The chronicles of the day record this remarkable prayer, by President Lincoln: "O, Lord, this is your fight; but we, your humble followers and supporters here, can't stand another Fredericksburg or Chancellorsville."

From Williamsport, on the 25th, where Longstreet was crossing the Potomac, Lee wrote to President Davis saying, that if the whole of Hooker's army was concentrated upon him he could accomplish nothing, and would be compelled to return to Virginia; but urged that it would be a great relief to him if even the effigy of an army, under Beauregard, were concentrated at Culpeper. He insisted that he would have to abandon his line of communication because he had not the men to hold it; but he still thought he could draw Hooker across the Potomac and compel the Federal government to bring troops from the South, to defend its capital, and thus defeat its plans of invasion. Another letter followed, the next day, again urging an advance upon Washington from Culpeper.

On the 27th, Ewell was in Carlisle; his advance, under Early, had crossed the South mountain and was nearing York. The same day that Lee, in person, crossed the Potomac, June 25th, Hooker began crossing the same river, a fact of which Lee was still in ignorance, at Chambersburg, on the 27th; as Stuart was that day crossing the Potomac, at the mouth of Seneca creek, not far from Washington, between Hooker's army and that city, and was rapidly riding northward into Pennsylvania, cumbered with the spoils he had captured in the rear of Hooker's army.

By the 28th Hooker had concentrated four corps of his army at Frederick and three at Middletown, on the National turnpike, a few miles to the westward; so that seven Federal corps were available for a rapid movement across South mountain to Hagerstown, to the rear of Lee's army, which was now some miles to the northeast of that town in the Cumberland valley. At this juncture of affairs. Hooker demanded that the 10,000 men, left in garrison at Harper's Ferry, should join his command in the field. This brought on an issue with his government, which resulted in his displacement and the putting of Gen. George Meade in command of the army of the Potomac, on the 28th day of June, the fourth change in the