Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 37.djvu/235

Rh Colonel Mosby's book involves very serious strictures on General Lee, which his soldiers are loath to accept save on the most incontrovertible evidence. He asks us to believe, as I have said, that the Report of the Gettysburg Campaign which General Lee signed' in January, 1864, not only reflects gross injustice on General Stuart, but bristles with, inconsistencies and grievous mistakes on points of capital importance. It is incredible that these two reports of the battle were signed by General Lee without reading them. It is inconsistent with his habit in other cases. We know that he took time to read Gen. Pickett's report of the battle. Why not then read his own report? And if General Lee read them, then certainly their salient statements, to say the least, have the stamp of his authority. But Col. Mosby asserts that it was not Lee's purpose on the 28th of June to advance against Harrisburg, though he says so in his report, and though Col. Marshall says he himself sent orders to that effect to Hill and Longstreet on the night of the 28th. He insists also that the change of plan and the orders to concentrate at Cash-town were not the consequence of the intelligence brought by a scout on June 28th, although General Lee affirms it in his report. No matter: Col. Mosby knows better: He is sure that Lee had ordered Ewell back from Carlisle on the 27th, and he is satisfied by this by the letter in Lee's letter-book, not copied, but written from memory afterwards by Colonel Venable. His whole argument on this point rests, as I have said, on the accuracy of the date of that letter. I have shown that on the hypothesis of an error in date, the 28th instead of the 29th, the inconsistencies Col. Mosby alleges disappear.