knowledge
or unquestionable authority.

The Military Situation on the Border.

Before proceeding directly to the narration of the terrible catastrophe,
it may be well to glance at the military situation on our border. This
seems the more necessary from the fact, that a very large portion of the
public prints have been misled into the belief, and consequently have
unwittingly led their readers to believe that, "if the citizens of
Chambersburg had turned out to resist the enemy, the burning and pillage
of the town could have been averted," inasmuch as the rebel force,
according to some statements, was very trifling, "scarcely numbering two
hundred men." You, my dear friend, are laboring under this erroneous
belief yourself. Allow me, therefore, to turn your attention to the
following facts, which are well established, and which can be corroborated
by any amount of evidence.

General Couch, the commander of this military division, had under his
control a company of about one hundred men at Mercersburg, sixteen miles
southwest from here, and a section of a battery of artillery in this
place. This was the entire military force in the Cumberland Valley, under
the control of our military commander, at the time. Several Pennsylvania
regiments which had previously been organized for the defence of the
border, through the efforts of our vigilant Governor, had been summoned
by the General Government to Washington and the Potomac Army. One hundred
men and two small cannon--that was all.

But you ask: "Was not General Averill near enough to have prevented the
rebels from executing their nefarious design upon your town? and, if so,
why did not General Couch inform him of the situation of affairs, and urge
him forward?" The answer is at hand. General Couch _did_ attempt to inform
General Averill in time of the fact that the enemy, with a force about
three thousand strong, had crossed the Potomac west of Williamsport, and
was moving by way of Mercersburg and St. Thomas directly on Chambersburg.
Averill was encamped one mile from Greencastle (ten from Chambersburg) on
Friday night, July 29. The first two messengers with despatches from
General Couch, could not find him. The third messenger succeeded
accidentally in finding him after midnight in a field. Averill only now
discovered that he had been flanked by the enemy, and expressed himself
greatly surprised and chagrined to the messenger at this state of things.
Whether he was to