Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 40.djvu/271

Rh a new method of waging war, he makes use of our legs instead of our bayonets." (Id. p. 79).

Again, the soldiers said to the Emperor (p 326): "You cannot be quite right in your head to lead us about on such roads without any food."

Now a comparison with these records of marches which excite such admiring comment from the historian, shows that Steuart's brigade, in marching 133 miles in 9 days immediately preceding the battle of Gettysburg, considerably surpassed the achievements of Napoleon's soldiers. And, again I say, they were stimulated to these extraordinary exertions not by the expectation of plunder, but by devotion to their heroic chief, and to the sublime cause which he represented.

I have already said that Ewell's objective was the city of Harrisburg. Indeed this was the objective of the whole army. Both General Early, marching through York, and General Hill, crossing the South Mountain and passing through Cashtown, were instructed to cross the Susquehanna and move upon Harrisburg. Up to the evening of the 28th of June, the orders issued by General Lee contemplated the concentration of his whole army at or near Harrisburg, but late that evening intelligence was brought which gave him his first information that Hooker had crossed the Potomac; that he had subsequently been relieved of the command of the Army of the Potomac by General Meade; and that that officer, with his whole army, was marching rapidly northward. This occasioned a complete change in Lee's campaign. Orders were at once issued to General Ewell at Carlisle to march southward and by him to Early at York to retrace his steps, marching southwest. The whole army was now to concentrate at or near Cashtown, which is on the eastern breast of the great South Mountain, eight miles west of Gettysburg. Here Lee hoped in a very advantageous position to fight a defensive battle. His three corps under Ewell, Hill and Longstreet were rapidly concentrating at the chosen point.

Let us now point out that the battle of Gettysburg was begun on the 1st of July without orders from General Lee, and