Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/436

402 just as he was about to follow his cavalry advance to attack Harrisburg, where the governor of Pennsylvania, with the militia of that State, was in constant expectation of his appearance before that city, which he was ready to evacuate. Ewell promptly sent orders to Early, at York, to fall back to Cashtown, and prepared to move in that direction the next morning with the remainder of his command.

Meade, informed of the advance of Ewell to York and toward Harrisburg, at once changed the direction of his army, as Lee had anticipated he would, and on the evening of the 29th two of his corps bivouacked near Emmitsburg, and one near Taneytown, just south of the Maryland-Pennsylvania line and on highways leading toward Gettysburg; while four others of his corps encamped in the rear of these, along Pipe creek, an eastern tributary of the Monocacy, in a good defensive position covering the approaches to Baltimore. Buford's cavalry covered the Federal front within the Pennsylvania line near Fairfield, guarding the approaches from Cashtown and Gettysburg. These two great contention-seeking armies were now but a few miles apart; and yet there is evidence that neither leader was aware of the exact whereabouts of the other.

Stuart, entirely out of communication with Lee, broke the line of the Baltimore & Ohio railroad on the morning of the 29th, thus interrupting Meade's communication, with Washington, and that evening rested at Westminster, but a few miles to the eastward of Meade's bivouacs. On the 30th he again rode northward, fighting his way through the Federal cavalry at Hanover, on the railway from York to Gettysburg, but much delayed by the long train of mule teams that he had captured in the vicinity of Washington, and in utter ignorance of the fact that the famous battle of Gettysburg had already begun, but a few miles to the westward from his line of march. Stuart was pressing forward to join Ewell's advance, under Early, in the vicinity of York, marching all night toward his destination, passing but seven miles to the eastward of Early's bivouac, still believing that the latter was at York, where the rendezvous with him had been appointed by Lee, and whither he rode but to find Early gone. Having no knowledge of the direction he had taken, Stuart continued to Carlisle, and thence, by a wide