est equipment ever known
were added to his army. The ordnance trains were packed to their
capacity. His troops were better equipped than ever before in the
history of the war. Every department of the huge, pitiless machine was
running like clockwork.

Fifteen thousand cavalry were reviewed at Brandy Station led by Stuart's
waving plume--Stuart, the matchless leader who had twice ridden round a
hostile army of a hundred thousand men. Crowds of cheering women watched
this wonderful pageant and waved their handkerchiefs to the handsome
young cavalier as he passed on his magnificent horse draped with
garlands of flowers.

It required an entire week to review the cavalry, infantry, and
artillery.

On June the first, the advance began.

Ewell's corps, once commanded by Jackson, led the way. They swung
rapidly through the Blue Ridge Mountains, into the Valley and suddenly
pounced on General Milroy at Winchester. Milroy with a few of his
officers escaped through the Confederate lines at night and succeeded in
crossing the Potomac at Harper's Ferry. Ewell captured three thousand
prisoners, thirty pieces of artillery, a hundred wagons and great
stores. Seven hundred more men were taken at Martinsburg.

On June twenty-seventh, the whole of Lee's army was encamped at
Chambersburg in Pennsylvania in striking distance of the Capital of the
State.

The execution of this march had been a remarkable piece of strategy. He
had completely baffled the Northern Commanders, spread terror through
the North and precipitated the wildest panic in Washington.

Within twenty-odd days the Southern General had brought his forces from
Fredericksburg, Virginia, confronted by an army of one hundred thousand
men, through the Blue Ridge, and the Shenandoah Valley into
Pennsylvania. He had done this in the face of one of the most powerful
and best equipped armies the North had put into the field. He had swept
the hostile garrisons at Winchester, Martinsburg and Harper's Ferry into
his prisons and camped in Pennsylvania without his progress being once
arrested or a serious battle forced upon him. He had cleared Virginia of
the army which threatened Richmond and they were rushing breathlessly
after him in a desperate effort to save the Capital of Pennsylvania.

So far Lee had made good every prediction on which he had based his plan
of campaign.

Davis felt so sure that he would make good his promised victory that he
hurriedly dispatched Stephens