had not been engaged at the second Bull Run, its work
having been to cover the trains of Pope's army on the retrograde
movement from Warrenton Junction. Although new regiments had been
added to these corps, it is hardly proper to say that the army as a
whole was not one which could be rapidly manoeuvred. I see no good
reason why it might not have advanced at once to the left bank of
the Monocacy, covering thus both Washington and Baltimore, and
hastening by some days Lee's movement across the Blue Ridge. We
should at least have known where the enemy was by being in contact
with him, instead of being the sport of all sorts of vague rumors
and wild reports. [Footnote: McClellan was not wholly responsible
for this tardiness, for Halleck was very timid about uncovering
Washington, and his dispatches tended to increase McClellan's
natural indecision. Official Records, vol. xix. pt. ii. p. 280.]

The Kanawha division took the advance of the right wing when we left
Leesboro on the 8th, and marched to Brookville. On the 9th it
reached Goshen, where it lay on the 10th, and on the 11th reached
Ridgeville on the railroad. The rest of the Ninth Corps was an easy
march behind us. Hooker had been ordered further to the right on the
strength of rumors that Lee was making a circuit towards Baltimore,
and his corps reached Cooksville and the railroad some ten miles
east of my position. The extreme left of the army was at
Poolesville, near the Potomac, making a spread of thirty miles
across the whole front. The cavalry did not succeed in getting far
in advance of the infantry, and very little valuable information was
obtained. At Ridgeville, however, we got reliable evidence that Lee
had evacuated Frederick the day before, and that only cavalry was
east of the Catoctin Mountains. Hooker got similar information at
about the same time. It was now determined to move more rapidly, and
early in the morning of the 12th I was ordered to march to New
Market and thence to Frederick. At New Market I was overtaken by
General Reno, with several officers of rank from the other divisions
of the corps, and they dismounted at a little tavern by the roadside
to see the Kanawha division go by. Up to this time they had seen
nothing of us whatever. The men had been so long in the West
Virginia mountains at hard service, involving long and rapid
marches, that they had much the same strength of legs and ease in
marching which was afterward so much talked of