to
move on the 29th, and on the 30th was approaching the town of
Gettysburg.[1]

[Footnote 1: The movements of the Federal commander were probably
hastened by the capture, about this time at Hagerstown, of a dispatch
from President Davis to General Lee. Lee, it seems, had suggested
that General Beauregard should be sent to make a demonstration in the
direction of Culpepper, and by thus appearing to threaten Washington,
embarrass the movements of the Northern army. To this suggestion the
President is said to have replied that he had no troops to make such
a movement; and General Meade had thus the proof before him that
Washington was in no danger. The Confederacy was thus truly
unfortunate again, as in September, 1862, when a similar incident came
to the relief of General McClellan.]

XIII.

LEE IN PENNSYLVANIA.

Lee, in personal command of the corps of Hill and Longstreet, had
meanwhile moved on steadily in the direction of the Susquehanna, and,
reaching Chambersburg on the 27th of June, "made preparations to
advance upon Harrisburg."

At Chambersburg he issued an order to the troops, which should find a
place in every biography of this great soldier. The course pursued
by many of the Federal commanders in Virginia had been merciless and
atrocious beyond words. General Pope had ravaged the counties north
of the Rappahannock, especially the county of Culpepper, in a manner
which reduced that smiling region wellnigh to a waste; General Milroy,
with his headquarters at Winchester, had so cruelly oppressed the
people of the surrounding country as to make them execrate the very
mention of his name; and the excesses committed by the troops of these
officers, with the knowledge and permission of their commanders, had
been such, said a foreign writer, as to "cast mankind two centuries
back toward barbarism."

Now, the tables were turned, and the world looked for a sudden and
merciless retaliation on the part of the Southerners. Lee was in
Pennsylvania, at the head of an army thirsting to revenge the
accumulated wrongs against their helpless families. At a word from
him the fertile territory of the North would be made to feel the iron
pressure of military rule, proceeding on the theory that retaliation
is a just principle to adopt toward an enemy. Fire, slaughter, and
outrage, would have burst upon Pennsylvania, and the black flag, which
had been virtually raised by Generals Pope and Milroy, would have
flaunte