id to have been issued, when, as the dawn broke over the hills, the
Federal camps were seen to be deserted. General Meade had abandoned
his campaign, and was in full retreat toward the Rapidan.

The army immediately moved in pursuit, with Lee leading the column.
The disappearance of the enemy was an astounding event to them, and
they could scarcely realize it. An entertaining illustration of this
fact is found in the journal of a staff-officer, who was sent with an
order to General Hampton. "In looking for him," says the writer, "I
got far to our right, and in a hollow of the woods found a grand
guard of the Eleventh Cavalry, with pickets and videttes out, gravely
sitting their horses, and watching the wood-roads for the advance
of an enemy who was then retreating across Ely's Ford!" Stuart was
pressing their rear with his cavalry, while the infantry were steadily
advancing. But the pursuit was vain. General Meade had disappeared
like a phantom, and was beyond pursuit, to the extreme regret and
disappointment of General Lee, who halted his troops, in great
discouragement, at Parker's Store.

"Tell General Stuart," he said, with an air of deep melancholy, to an
officer whom he saw passing, "that I had received his dispatch when
he turned into the Brock Road, and have halted my infantry here, not
wishing to march them unnecessarily."

Even at that early hour all chance of effective pursuit was lost.
General Meade, without wagons, and not even with the weight of the
rations brought over, which the men had consumed, had moved with the
rapidity of cavalry, and was already crossing the river far below. He
was afterward asked by a gentleman of Culpepper whether in crossing
the Rapidan he designed a real advance.

"Certainly," he is reported by the gentleman in question to have
replied, "I meant to go to Richmond if I could, but Lee's position was
so strong that to storm it would have cost me thirty thousand men. I
could not remain without a battle--the weather was so cold that my
sentinels froze to death on post."

The pursuit was speedily abandoned by General Lee as entirely
impracticable, and the men were marched back between the burning
woods, set on fire by the Federal campfires. The spectacle was
imposing--the numerous fires, burning outerward in the carpet of
thick leaves, formed picturesque rings of flame resembling brilliant
necklaces; and, as the flames reached the tall trees, wrapped to
the summit in dry vines,