Read Online Gettysburg: The Last Invasion by Allen C. Guelzo - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Allen C. Guelzo
Tags: History, Non-Fiction
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Farnsworth’s rear guard. The skirmishing quickly took on serious dimensions, spilling into the streets of the town. (Unlike Gettysburg, a substantial number of Hanoverians grabbed firearms to take aim at the Confederate cavalrymen in the streets, and an ad hoc detail of mounted civilians, armed with shotguns, tried to offer their services to Kilpatrick.) Farnsworth’s brigade thundered into the rebels, evicting the Confederate skirmishers and “driving the rebels in confusion along the road and through the fields.” Stuart had neither wanted nor anticipated a fight at Hanover, but by the time he came up to the head of his column he could already see his lead brigade—John R. Chambliss’ threeVirginia and oneNorth Carolina cavalry regiments—falling back in disorder from the town. “As General Stuart saw them rushing out of the place,” he rode up and began trying to rally them. No success: “The long charge
in
, the repulse
out
… had thrown them into utter confusion.” 14
Instead of rallying, Stuart and his staff had to hightail for it themselves, jumping a high fence and drainage ditch like Saturday-morning fox hunters. Custer came blazing back down the road and, leaving Farnsworth to mop up in the town, the Boy General wheeled his brigade into the open ground just south of the town. But Stuart had more cavalry coming up the road, and this made Custer decide to limit himself to little more than threatening gestures. At sundown, Stuart quietly disengaged, and filed his brigades to the east, where they would have a clear route toward York and—he hoped—Dick Ewell. Kilpatrick made no effort to pursue him. Reports of Confederate infantry to the north (this wasJubal Early’s division, heading toward their rendezvous with Ewell and Rodes at Heidlersburg) convinced Kilpatrick that he was too exposed for comfort, and Stuart was allowed to slip away in the night. 15
Jubal Early was actually close enough to hear the distant rumble of artillery from the Hanover fight. Getting up from lunch in a tavern in the hamlet of Davidsburg, Early and his staff “heard the booming ofcannon toward the southwest.” Casually, Harry Hays remarked, “I suppose a battle has begun.” And not only Harry Hays, but “the whole command distinctly heard Stuart’s guns.” But Early proved to be more curious about paying the bill, handing the proprietor twenty dollars in Confederate notes to cover the meals for his staff and senior officers, and moved off to his rendezvous with Ewell. When Fitz Lee’s advance guard reached theYork Pike that night, they found that Early’s division had passed through some twelve hours before.
By now, Stuart’s troopers were “broken down & in no condition to fight.” A lieutenant in the9th Virginia Cavalry saw men slumped in saddles, “so tired and stupid as almost to be ignorant of what was taking place around them. Couriers in attempting to deliver orders to officers would be compelled to give them a shake and call before they could make them understand.” Even the drivers of the capturedwagon train were falling asleep on their seats and causing fits of stop-and-start that further slowed Stuart’s column. Yankee prisoners from the Hanover fight had to be pressed into duty as drivers “and it required the utmost exertions of every officer on Stuart’s staff to keep the train in motion.” 16
Stuart’s bleary-eyed brigades stumbled into the village of Dover in the wee hours of July 1st. The only information he could glean about Early’s possible direction was some local rumor about him marching toward Carlisle or Shippensburg. “I still believed that most of our army was before Harrisburg,” Stuart wrote, “and justly regarded a march to Carlisle as the most likely to place me in communication with the main army.” But when Stuart reached Carlisle early that evening with Fitz Lee’s brigade, not only had two divisions of Dick Ewell’s corps left Carlisle the day before, but
in
, the repulse
out
… had thrown them into utter confusion.” 14
Instead of rallying, Stuart and his staff had to hightail for it themselves, jumping a high fence and drainage ditch like Saturday-morning fox hunters. Custer came blazing back down the road and, leaving Farnsworth to mop up in the town, the Boy General wheeled his brigade into the open ground just south of the town. But Stuart had more cavalry coming up the road, and this made Custer decide to limit himself to little more than threatening gestures. At sundown, Stuart quietly disengaged, and filed his brigades to the east, where they would have a clear route toward York and—he hoped—Dick Ewell. Kilpatrick made no effort to pursue him. Reports of Confederate infantry to the north (this wasJubal Early’s division, heading toward their rendezvous with Ewell and Rodes at Heidlersburg) convinced Kilpatrick that he was too exposed for comfort, and Stuart was allowed to slip away in the night. 15
Jubal Early was actually close enough to hear the distant rumble of artillery from the Hanover fight. Getting up from lunch in a tavern in the hamlet of Davidsburg, Early and his staff “heard the booming ofcannon toward the southwest.” Casually, Harry Hays remarked, “I suppose a battle has begun.” And not only Harry Hays, but “the whole command distinctly heard Stuart’s guns.” But Early proved to be more curious about paying the bill, handing the proprietor twenty dollars in Confederate notes to cover the meals for his staff and senior officers, and moved off to his rendezvous with Ewell. When Fitz Lee’s advance guard reached theYork Pike that night, they found that Early’s division had passed through some twelve hours before.
By now, Stuart’s troopers were “broken down & in no condition to fight.” A lieutenant in the9th Virginia Cavalry saw men slumped in saddles, “so tired and stupid as almost to be ignorant of what was taking place around them. Couriers in attempting to deliver orders to officers would be compelled to give them a shake and call before they could make them understand.” Even the drivers of the capturedwagon train were falling asleep on their seats and causing fits of stop-and-start that further slowed Stuart’s column. Yankee prisoners from the Hanover fight had to be pressed into duty as drivers “and it required the utmost exertions of every officer on Stuart’s staff to keep the train in motion.” 16
Stuart’s bleary-eyed brigades stumbled into the village of Dover in the wee hours of July 1st. The only information he could glean about Early’s possible direction was some local rumor about him marching toward Carlisle or Shippensburg. “I still believed that most of our army was before Harrisburg,” Stuart wrote, “and justly regarded a march to Carlisle as the most likely to place me in communication with the main army.” But when Stuart reached Carlisle early that evening with Fitz Lee’s brigade, not only had two divisions of Dick Ewell’s corps left Carlisle the day before, but
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