al days gallantly held in
check the head of the advancing column, he halted. The state capital
was a tempting prize, but scarcely worth to him the risk of a desperate
battle. The gates of the city were shut, and Ewell hesitated to hurl
his masses against them. It is not now pertinent to enquire what might
have resulted had he chosen to attack. He did not attack, and the
capital of Pennsylvania was spared the shame of having to pass beneath
the yoke of a conqueror. To the militia of New York and Brooklyn, in
the main, is due the praise of having saved her that humiliation.

The reason which prompted this bold and enterprising commander to
observe unusual circumspection in his advance up the Cumberland Valley
is obvious. He held the extreme right of the rebel line, whose left
could not have been much short of fifty miles distant. The militia of
Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Jersey and New York, had been summoned in haste
to the border, and for ten days they had been pouring down in unknown
numbers. Thus Ewell found himself confronted by an unreckoned host,
whose numbers would naturally, by one in his exposed situation, be
magnified. The position of defence was a strong one, and to have failed
in an assault upon it might easily have involved his destruction, and,
as a consequence, the destruction of the whole rebel army. Could he
have had a day or two longer to enable him to gain correct information
of the strength of the works, and of the garrison, he would not
probably have hesitated to attempt the capture of the place. But the
action of the great drama was now moving forward with startling
rapidity. Meade was concentrating on the flank of Lee, who saw that not
a day was to be lost in distant and secondary expeditions. Ewell was
accordingly recalled with all haste; and happy had it been for the
Union cause had the General commanding the Department of the
Susquehanna been early enough apprised of the hurried withdrawal of the
enemy to make the services of the militia available at Gettysburg.

But the defence of Harrisburg, which was the main objective of General
Lee in his raid up the Susquehanna Valley, is not the only title which
the New York Militia hold to the gratitude of Pennsylvania and of the
Nation. Who shall undertake to say how far the result of the battle of
Gettysburg was determined by the fact of Union militia reinforcements
being near at hand--their strength vastly over-estimated, there is no
doubt, by both armi