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If he who ruleth his spirit is greater than he that taketh a city,
Robert E. Lee was a general doubly great. The gallantry of the three
days’ fighting at Gettysburg he left like a golden light, like a
laurel wreath, with his men. The responsibility for Gettysburg, its
strategy and its tactics, he laid with quietness upon his own
shoulders and kept it there. In the last hour of the third day, after
the last great charge, after Pickett’s charge, when the remnant that
was left was streaming back, he rode into the midst of that thin grey
current. He sat Traveller, in the red light, in the murk and sorrow of
the lost battle, and called upon the men to re-form. Pickett came by,
his sword out, his long auburn hair dank with sweat. “Get your men
together, General,” said Lee. “They did nobly. It is all my fault.”
If the boyishness in Jeb Stuart, his dear love of dancing meteors, had
swept him in the past weeks too far from his proper base, he was now
fully and to the end by his general’s side. He kept his gaiety, his
_panache_, but he put on the full man. He was the Stuart of
Chancellorsville, throwing a steady dart, swinging a great shield.
Longstreet, the “old war horse”; A.P. Hill, red-shirted, a noble
fighter; “Dear Dick Ewell”—each rose, elastic, from the disastrous
field and played the man. That slow retreat from Gettysburg to the
Potomac, through a hostile country, with a victorious, larger army
hovering, willing to strike if only it could find the unguarded place,
was masterly planned, masterly done. The Army of Northern Virginia
retired grudgingly, with backward turnings, foot planted and spear
brandished. It had with it pain and agony, for it carried its wounded;
it had with it appalling knowledge that Vicksburg was fallen, that the
battle behind them, hard-fought for three days, was lost, that the
campaign was lost, that across the river the South was mourning,
mourning, that at last all were at the death-grapple. It knew it all,
but it went steadily, with lips that could yet manage a smile. For all
its freight of wounded, for all the mourning of its banners, it went
ably; a long, masterly retreat, with effective stands and
threatenings. But how the wounded suffered, only the wounded knew.
The rain came down as it usually did after the prolonged cannonadings
of these great battles. It came down in sullen torrents, unfriendly,
cold, deepening the deep reaction after the fever of the fight. It
fell in showers from a sky leaden all the day, inky all the night. At
twilight on the fourth, A.P. Hill and the Third Corps swung in silence
out upon the Fountain Dale and Monterey road. They marched away in the
rain and darkness. All night Longstreet and the First stayed in
position at the Peach Orchard. But the foe did not attack, and at dawn
Longstreet and the First followed A.P. Hill. When the dawn broke, grey
and wet, Ewell and the Second Corps alone were there by Seminary
Ridge. Again the blue—they also gathering their wounded, they also
mourning their dead—made no movement to attack. Ewell and the Second
followed the First.
The rain came down, the rain came down—rain and wind and low-hanging
clouds. Forty thousand men marched in a silence which, now and then,
it was felt, must be broken. Men broke it, with song that had somehow
a sob in it, with laughter more strained than jovial. Then came down
the silence again, leaden with the leaden rain. But march in silence,
or march in mirth, the Army of Northern Virginia marched with its
_morale_ unbroken. _Tramp, tramp!_ through the shifting sheets of
rain, through the wind that bent the tree-tops.... With Hood’s
division marched four thousand and more of Federal prisoners. With
these, too, the silence was heavy.
But there was not silence when it came to the fearful train of the
wounded. Fifteen miles, along the Chambersburg Pike, stretched the
train of the wounded and of ordnance and supply wagons, with its
escort of cavalry and a score of guns. The convoy was in the charge of
Imboden, and he was doing the best he could with those long leagues of
hideous woe. The road was rough; the night dark, with wind and rain.
“Woe!” cried the wind. “Woe, woe! Pain and woe!”
Ambulances, carts, wagons, crowded with the wounded, went joltingly,
under orders to use all speed. Cavalry rode before, cavalry guarded
the rear, but few were the actual guards in among or alongside the
wagons. Vanguard and rear guard needed every unhurt man. For miles
there were, in sum, only the wounded, the jaded wagon horses, the
wagon drivers with drawn faces. Orders were for no pausing, no halts.
If a wagon became disabled, draw it out of the road and leave it!
There must be rapid travelling through the night. Even so, if the blue
were alert, the blue might strike the train before day. Rapid motion
and no halting—“On!” beneath the blackness, in the teeth of wind and
rain. “Woe!” cried the wind. “Woe, woe! Pain and woe!”
The wagons were springless. In many there was no straw. Numbers of the
wounded lay upon bare boards, placed there, in some cases, hours even
before the convoy could start. Many had had no food for long hours, no
water. Their rough clothing, stiff with dried blood, abraded and
inflamed their wounds. The surgeons had done what bandaging was
possible, but many a ghastly hurt went unbound, unlooked to. With
others the bandages slipped, or were torn aside by pain-maddened
hands. There was blood upon the bed of all the wagons, blood and human
refuse. Upon the boards lay men with their eyes gone, with their jaws
shot through and crushed, with their arms, their legs mangled, with
their thighs pierced, their bowels pierced, with tormenting stomach
wounds, with a foot gone, a hand gone. There were men with fever and a
horrible thirst, and men who shook in a death chill. There were men
who were dead. And on them all poured the rain, for the canvas wagon
covers, flapping in the wind, could not keep it out. And the road, cut
by countless wheels and now washed into ridge and hollow, would have
been rough for well folk, in cushioned vehicles. “On! On! No halting
for any one!—Good God, man! Don’t I know they are suffering? Don’t I
_hear_ them? Do you reckon I _like_ to hear them? But if I’m going to
save General Lee’s trains I’ve _got_ to get on! _Get on, there!_”
“Woe!” cried the wind. “Woe, woe! pain and woe.”
“Oh, Jesus Christ, have mercy upon me!”
“Just let me die, O God! just let me die!”
“If there’s anybody at all outside, won’t they stop this wagon? If
there’s anybody driving, won’t you stop this wagon? Please! You don’t
know how it hurts—Please!... Ah!—_Aaahh!—Aaahhh!_”
“Curse you!—Curse war!—Curse living and dying! Curse God!
Ah!—_Ahhh!—Aaahhh!_”
“For God’s sake! just lift us out and let us die lying still, on the
roadside.... O God! O God!”
“O God! O God!”
“I am dying! I am dying!... Mary, Mary, Mary! Lift me up!”
“We are dying! We are dying!”
“O Jesus of Nazareth—”
“During this one night,” says Imboden, “I realized more of the horrors
of war than I had in all the two preceding years.”
The Second Corps, marching by the Fairfield road, marched in rain and
wind and weariness. Ewell, wooden-legged now, irascible, heroic,
sighing for “Old Jackson,” handling his corps as “Old Jackson” would
have approved, rode in front. Jubal Early, strange compound but
admirable fighter,—Jubal Early guarded the rear with the brigades of
Hoke and Smith and Gordon and Harry Hays. Between were Rodes’s
division—Iverson and Daniels, Dole, Ramseur and O’Neal—and “Alleghany”
Johnson’s division—Steuart and Jones and Nicholls and the Stonewall
Brigade. With each division heavily moved upon the road its
artillery—Charlottesville Artillery, Staunton Artillery, Louisiana
Guard Artillery, Courtney Artillery, King William Artillery, Orange
Artillery, Morris Artillery, Jeff Davis Artillery, Chesapeake
Artillery, Alleghany Artillery, First Maryland Battery, Lee Battery,
Powhatan Artillery, Salem Artillery, Rockbridge Artillery, Third
Richmond Howitzers, Second Richmond Howitzers, Amherst Artillery,
Fluvanna Artillery, Milledge’s Georgia Battery.
The Stonewall Brigade bent its head and took the blast. The rain
streamed from the slanted forest of rifle barrels; the wind blew out
the officer’s capes; the colours had to be furled against it. All the
colours were smoke-darkened, shot-riddled. The Stonewall was a veteran
brigade. It had an idea that it had been engaged in war since the
rains first came upon the earth. Walker, its general, a good and
gallant man, plodded at its head, his hat brim streaming wet, his
horse’s breath making a little cloud. _Tramp! tramp!_ behind him
marched the Stonewall—a long, swinging gait, a “foot cavalry” gait.
The Sixty-fifth Virginia, Colonel Erskine, covered the way with a
mountain stride. It was nearing now the pass of the South Mountain,
and its road lay uphill. It had done good service at Gettysburg, and
it had its wounded in that anguished column over on the Chambersburg
Pike. It had left its dead upon the field. Now, climbing the long
hills, colours slanted forward, keen, bronzed faces slanted forward,
man and beast streaming rain and all battling with the gusty wind, the
Sixty-fifth missed its dead, missed its wounded, knew that the army
had suffered defeat, knew that the high hopes of this campaign lay in
ashes, knew that these days formed a crisis in the war, knew that all
the sky had darkened over the South, knew that before it lay grim
struggle and a doubtful end. The units of the Sixty-fifth knew many
things that in the old piping time of peace they had never thought to
know.
The grain in the fields was all broken down, the woods clashed their
branches, through flawed sheets of dull silver the distant mountain
crests were just divined. The wind howled like a banshee, and for all
that it was July the air was cold. The Sixty-fifth thought of other
marches. Before McDowell—Elk Run Valley—that was bad. Elk Run Valley
was bad. Before Mechanicsville—coming down from Beaver Dam
Station—that was bad. Bath to Romney—that was worst.... We’ve had
plenty of bad marches—plenty of marches—plenty of heroic marches. We
are used to marching—used to marching.... Marching and
fighting—marching and fighting....
Tall and lean and tanned, the Thunder Run men opposed the wind from
the mountains. Allan Gold and Sergeant Billy Maydew exchanged
observations.
“I wouldn’t be tired,” said Billy, “going up Thunder Run Mountain. I
air not tired anyhow.”
“No, there’s no help in being tired.... I hope that Tom and Sairy are
dry and warm—”
“I don’t mind wet,” said Billy, “and I don’t mind cold, and I can
tighten my belt when I’m hungry, but the thing that air hard for me to
stand air going without sleep. I tell my will to hold hard and I put
tobacco in my eyes, but sleep sure air a hard thing for me to go
without. I could sleep now—I could sleep—I could sleep.... Yes; I hope
all Thunder Run air dry and warm—Mr. Cole and Mrs. Cole and Mother and
Christianna and Violetta and Rosalinda and the children and Grandpap
and the dawgs and Steve Dagg—No; I kinder hope Steve air wet and
whimpering.... Thunder Run’s a long way off. I could go to sleep—and
sleep—and sleep ...”
“I’m not sleepy,” said Allan. “But I wish I had a pitcher of milk—”
The Sixty-fifth determined to try singing.
“O my Lawd, whar you gwine?
Keep in de middle ob de road!
Gwine de way dat Moses trod,
Keep in de middle ob de road—”
“The butcher had a little dog,
And Bingo was his name.
BB-i-n-g-o-go! B-i-n-g-o-go!
And Bingo was his name—”
Toward four o’clock, as the head of the column neared Fairfield, came
from the rear a burst of firing—musketry, then artillery. There was a
halt, then the main body resumed the march. Early, in the rear,
deployed Gordon’s brigade and fought back the long skirmish line of
the pursuing blue. Throughout the remainder of the afternoon there was
fitful firing—sound, water-logged like all else, rising dully from the
rear. Down came the night, dark as a bat’s wing. The Second Corps
bivouacked a mile from Fairfield, and, waking now and then in the wet
and windy night, heard the rear guard repelling half-hearted attacks.
Reveille echoed among the hills. The Second rose beneath a still
streaming sky. The Stonewall, camped on a hillside, sought for wood
for its fires and found but little, and that too wet to burn. It was
fortunate, perhaps, that there was so little to cook. The Sixty-fifth
squatted around a dozen pin-points of light and did its best with the
scrapings of its commissary. “Well, boys, the flesh pots of Egypt have
given us the go-by! D’ye remember that breakfast at Greencastle? Oohh!
Wasn’t it good?”... “Hold your hat over the fire or it’ll go out!”...
“I wish we had some coffee ...” “Listen at Gordon, way back there,
popping away at Yanks!—Did you hear about his men burning fence rails?
No?—well, ’twas out beyond York. ‘Men!’ says Marse Robert’s General
Order, ‘don’t tech a thing!’ ‘All right, Marse Robert!‘ says we, as
you can testify. Gordon’s as chivalrous as Young Lochinvar, or ‘A
Chieftain to the Highlands Bound,‘ or Bayard, or any of them fellows.
So he piles on an order, too. ‘Don’t touch a thing! especially not the
fences. Gather your wood where Nature has flung it!’ Well, those
Georgia boys had to camp that night where Nature hadn’t flung any
wood—neither Cedar of Lebanon nor darned pawpaw bush! Just a nice bare
field with rail fences—our kind of fences. Nice, old, dry, seasoned
rails. Come along Gordon, riding magnificently. ‘General, the most
wood around here is musket stocks, and of course we ain’t going to
burn them! Can’t we take just a _few_ rails?’ ‘Boys,‘ says Gordon,
being like a young and handsome father to his men. ‘Boys, you can take
the top rail. That will leave the fences high enough for the farmer’s
purposes. Now, mind me! don’t lay your hand on anything but the top
rail!’ And off he goes, looking like a picture—leaf of Round Table, or
what not. Whereupon company by company marched up and each took in
turn the top rail.”
“Must have been an all-fired lasting top rail—”
“—And they had supper and went to bed cheered and comforted. And by
and by, in the morning, just after reveille, comes Gordon, fresh as a
daisy. And he looks at the boundaries of that field, and he colours
up. ‘Men,’ he says in a kind of grieved anger, ‘you have disobeyed
orders!’ Whereupon those innocents rose up and assured him that not a
man had touched anything but a top rail!”
_Fall in! Fall in! Column Forward!_
It rained, and rained. You saw the column as through smoke, winding
toward the pass of the South Mountain. From the rear came fitfully the
sound of musketry. But there was no determined pursuit. Early kept the
rear; Stuart, off in the rain and mist, lion-bold, and, throughout the
long retreat to the fortress, greatly sagacious, guarded the flanks.
A.P. Hill and Longstreet were now beyond the mountains, swinging
southward by the Ringgold road. With the First and the Third rode Lee,
grey on grey Traveller, in the grey rain, his face turned homeward,
turned toward the fortress of the South, vast, mournful, thenceforth
trebly endangered. It was the sixth of July. A year ago had been the
Seven Days.
Back on the road of the wounded there was trouble. Imboden, having
crossed the mountain, determined upon a short cut by a country road to
Greencastle. On through the small town rode the vanguard, the
Eighteenth Virginia Cavalry. Behind, as rapidly as might be, came the
immense and painful train. On the outskirts of the place a band of
civilians attacked a weakly guarded portion of the column. They had
axes, and with these they hewed in two the wagon yokes or cut the
spokes from the wheels. The wagon beds dropped heavily upon the earth.
“_Ahh!_” groaned the wounded. “_Ahhh! Aaaahh!_”
Back in wrath came a detachment of the Eighteenth, scattering or
capturing the wielders of axes. The long train passed Greencastle.
Before it lay the road to Williamsport, the road to the Potomac. The
rain was streaming, the wind howling, and now the Federal cavalry made
its appearance. All the rest of the day the train was subjected to
small sudden attacks, descents now on this section, now on that. The
grey escort, cavalry and artillery, beat them off like stinging bees;
the grey wagoners plied their long whips, the exhausted horses
strained forward yet again, under the wagon wheel was felt again the
ridge and hollow of the storm-washed road. “Woe!” cried the wind.
“Woe, woe! Pain and woe!”
There came a report that blue troops held Williamsport, but when late
in a stormy afternoon the head of Imboden’s column came to this place,
so known by now, frontier, with only the moat of the river between the
foe’s territory and the fortress’s territory,—when the advance rode
into town, there were found only peaceful Marylanders. The grey convoy
occupied Williamsport. At last the torturing wagons stopped, at last
the moaning hurt were lifted out, at last the surgeons could help, at
last the dead were parted from the living. Imboden requisitioned all
the kitchens of the place. There arose a semblance of warmth, a pale
ghost of cheer. Here and there sounded even a weak laugh.
“Say, Doctor! after hell, purgatory seems kind of good to us! That was
hell back there on the road—hell if ever there was hell.... _Ouch!_...
_Ooooghh! Doctor!_”
“Doctor, do you reckon I’ll live to get across? I want to see my
wife—I want to see her so badly.—There’s a boy, too, and I’ve never
seen him—”
“How air we going to get across? Air there boats?”
“Who’s keeping the Yankees away? Jeb Stuart? That’s good.... Oh,
Doctor, you ain’t going to cut it off? Please, Doctor, please, sir,
don’t! No, it won’t mortify—I’m just as sure of that! Please just put
it in splints. It ain’t so badly hurt—it ain’t hurting me hardly
any.... Doctor, Doctor! for God’s sake!—Why, I couldn’t walk any
more!—why, I’d have to leave the army!... Doctor, please don’t—please
don’t cut it off, sir....”
The rain came down, the rain came down, a drenching, sullen storm.
Wide, yellow, and swollen rolled the Potomac before Williamsport.
Imboden procured several flatboats, and proceeded to the ferrying
across of those of the more slightly wounded who thought that once in
Virginia they might somehow get to Winchester. In the midst of this
work came news of the approach of a large force of Federal cavalry and
artillery—Buford and Kilpatrick’s divisions hurrying down from
Frederick.
Imboden posted every gun with him on the heights between the town and
the river. Hart, Eshleman, McClanahan—all faced the eighteen rifled
guns with which presently the blue opened. A sharp artillery battle
followed, each side firing with rapidity and some effect. Imboden had
his cavalry and in addition seven hundred wagoners organized into
companies and headed by commissaries, quartermasters, and several
wounded officers. These wagoners did mightily. This fight was called
afterwards “The Wagoners’ Battle.” Five blue cavalry regiments were
thrown forward. The Eighteenth Virginia Cavalry and the Sixty-second
Virginia Mounted Infantry met them with clangour in the rain-filled
air. McNeill’s Partisan Rangers came to the aid of the wagoners down
by the river. Eshleman’s eight Napoleons of the Washington Artillery,
Hart’s and McClanahan’s and Moore’s batteries poured shot and shell
from the heights. Through the dusk came at a gallop a courier from
Fitzhugh Lee. “Hold out, General Imboden! We’re close at hand!” From
the direction of the Hagerstown road broke a clap of war thunder,
rolling among the hills. “Horse Artillery! Horse Artillery!” yelled
Imboden’s lines, the Eighteenth, the Sixty-second, the Partisan
Rangers, and the Wagoners. _Yaaaihh! Yaaaaihh! Yaaaaaaihhh! Forward!
Charge!_
July the seventh broke wet and stormy. The First and Third Corps were
now at Hagerstown. Ewell and the Second nearer South Mountain, yet
watchfully regarding the defiles through which might pour the pursuit.
But Meade had hesitated, hesitated. It was only on the afternoon of
the fifth that a move southward was begun in earnest. The Sixth Corps,
on the same road with Ewell, struck now and again at the grey rear
guard, but the rest of the great blue army hung uncertain. Only on the
seventh did it pour southward, through the country between the
Monocacy and the Antietam. In the dusk of this day Lee met Stuart and
ordered an attack at dawn. Time must be gained while a bridge was
built across the swollen river.
All day the eighth the heavy air carried draggingly the sound of
cannon. So drowned with rain were the fields and meadows that
manœuvring there was manœuvring in quagmires. The horsemen of both
sides must keep to the roads, deep in mire as were these. Dismounted,
they fought with carbines in all the sopping ways, while from every
slight rise the metal duellists barked at one another. At last the
Fifth Confederate Brigade drove the Federal left, and the running
fight and the long wet day closed with one gleam of light in the west.
On July the ninth the Army of Northern Virginia occupied a ten-mile
line from the Potomac at Mercersville to the Hagerstown and
Williamsport road. A.P. Hill held the centre, Longstreet the right,
Ewell the left, stretching toward Hagerstown. Forty thousand infantry
and artillery stood ready. Stuart with eight thousand horsemen drew
off to the north, watching like a falcon, ready for the pounce. The
rain ceased to fall. A pale sunshine bathed the country, and in it
gleamed the steel of the Army of Northern Virginia. The banners grew
vivid.
All day Lee waited in line of battle, but Meade was yet hesitant. The
tenth dawned, and Stuart sent word that the Army of the Potomac was
advancing through the defiles of South Mountain. All this day the grey
dug trenches and heaped breastworks. The sun shone, ill was forgotten;
hope sprang, nourished by steadfastness. There were slight cavalry
encounters. The night of the tenth was a warm and starry one. The grey
slept and rose refreshed. Ewell and the Second now left Hagerstown.
Each corps commanded one of the three roads glimmering eastward, and
Stuart patrolled all the valley of the Antietam. Lee had laid his
pontoon bridge across to Falling Waters. All night long there passed
into Virginia the wounded and a great portion of the trains.
July twelfth was a day of cloud and mist. Still the grey waited; still
Meade, with his sixty-five thousand infantry and artillery, his ten
thousand cavalry, hung irresolute. Kelly at Hancock had eight thousand
men. He could be trusted to flank the grey. And in the rear of the
grey was the river, turbid, wide, deep, so swollen as hardly to be
fordable. Halleck telegraphed Meade from Washington peremptory orders
to attack. But the twelfth passed with only slight encounters between
reconnoitring parties.
On the thirteenth down came the rain again, a thick, cold, shifting
veil of wet. Again Meade stayed in his tents. The Army of the Potomac
understood that on the morrow it would attack. In the mean time
reinforcements were at hand.
That night, in the rainy dusk, Stuart drew a cordon between the
opposed forces. Behind the screen of horsemen, behind the
impenetrable, rainy night, the Army of Northern Virginia prepared to
recross the Potomac. Beneath the renewed rains the river was steadily
rising; it was go now, or abide the onset of the sixty-five thousand
along the Antietam and on the Sharpsburg Pike, with Kelly’s eight
thousand marching from Hancock, and other troops on the road from
Chambersburg. Down came the rain and the night was Egyptian black.
The artillery and the balance of the trains must cross by the pontoon
bridge. Bonfires were built on the northern and the southern bank, but
all the wood was wet, and the flickering light proved deceitful as any
darkness. The rolling smoke mounted and overhung the landings like
genii from Arabian bottles. With sullen noise the guns crossed, hour
after hour of sullen noise. The wagons with the wounded crossed. A
heavy wagon, in which the badly hurt were laid thick, missed its way,
and, with its horses, went blindly over the side into the rushing
water, where all were drowned. After the guns and the wagons came the
men of Longstreet’s corps. Dawn found the First not yet over-passed,
while the Third waited on the pebbly stretch between the water and the
hills. In the mean time Ewell and the Second had undertaken the ford.
That which, a month before, had been a pleasant summer river,—clear,
wide, and tranquil, not deep, and well known by now to the Second
Corps,—was to-night a monster of the dark, a mill-race of the Titans.
The heaped wood set afire on either bank lit the water but a few yards
outward. Between the several glares was darkness shot with rain,
shaken by wind. And always the bonfires showed thronging men, a broad
moving ribbon running upwards and back from the water’s edge, and
between these two throngs a void and blackness. It was like a vision
of the final river—a great illustration out of “Pilgrim’s Progress.”
Company by company went down into the river; company by company slowly
mounted on the farther side, coming up from the water into strange
light, beneath tall shadowy trees. The water was up to the armpits. It
was cold and rushing water. The men tied their cartridge boxes around
their necks; they held their muskets above their heads; now and again
a short man was carried across upon the shoulders of a tall and strong
man. Sergeant Billy Maydew carried Lieutenant Coffin across thus.
The Sixty-fifth kept its cartridges dry, held its muskets high. It had
crossed into Maryland with song and joke and laughter, stepping easily
through water to the mid-thigh, clear water, sparkling in the sun. It
returned into Virginia through a high and stormy water, beneath a
midnight sky. The sky of its fortunes, too, was dark. There was no
singing to-night; each man, breasting the flood, needed all his wits
merely to cross. The red light beat upon the Sixty-fifth going down
from the Maryland shore, rank after rank, entering the water in a
column of three. Rank by rank, the darkness swallowed it up, officers
and men, colonel, lieutenant-colonel, captains, lieutenants, the
chaplain, the surgeons, the noncommissioned officers, all the men,
Thunder Run men, men from the mountainous Upper Valley counties,—all
the Sixty-fifth, rank by rank dipped out of the light into the
darkness. The darkness swallowed the regiment, then the darkness gave
it again to the light on the Virginia shore. Up to the gate of the
fortress, through the red flare of torches, came the Sixty-fifth. A
man with a great rich, deep voice, broke into song in the night-time,
in the wind and rain, as he came up beneath the sycamores. He sang
“Dixie,” and the Sixty-fifth sang it with him.
All night, endlessly across the river, out of light into darkness,
then into light again, came the slowly unwinding ribbon of the
regiments. All night the Second Corps was crossing by the ford as all
night the First was crossing by the unstable bridge of boats. In the
grey morning there crossed A.P. Hill and the Third. The last brigade
was Lane’s North Carolinians. It made the passage, and then Stuart
drew his thousands steadily to the waterside. Meade’s advance,
Kilpatrick and Buford, saw from the hill-tops the river dark with
swimming horsemen.