General Lee, with an instinct common to officers and soldiers alike in both armies, knew that a great and decisive hour was approaching. He was in a strange country, experiencing such difficulties as all the Union commanders had encountered in Virginia and Tennessee and Mississippi. He had made preparations for a movement to Harrisburg; he was ignorant of the whereabouts of the Union army, and supposed it was still in Virginia. He had relied upon Stuart to keep him informed as to the movements of the Union troops, but had received no information. Many Southern writers have censured Stuart for the line of march taken by him, claiming that by going round in rear of the Union army he placed himself in a position where it was impossible for him to communicate with General Lee; but we are not to lose sight of the fact that Stuart left two brigades, Robertson's and Jones's, to watch the passes of the Blue Ridge, and that they were in position to send word to Lee; besides, Imboden's large brigade and Jenkins's brigade were near at hand, and portions of them might have been sent east of the mountains to watch for any advance of the Union army.

In Virginia General Lee had always received quick information of the movements of the Union army from the people as well as from his cavalry; but now he was in a country where the people were sending information of his movements, but who had no information to give in regard to the movements of the Union army.

It was ten o'clock on Monday evening when the pickets of Longstreet's corps saw a man approaching their lines, whose movements were

so suspicious that they arrested him.(") His clothes were covered with mud-he was very dirty, as if he had been on a long tramp. It was the scout Harrison, whom Longstreet had sent into the Union lines from Culpeper (p. 174). He had been with the Union army all the way up to Frederick. When he saw the troops entering that town he had started to find his commander, and was tired out by his long tramping. General Longstreet was asleep, but was awakened to hear his story, and sent the scout to General Lee. It was not far from midnight when the scout rehearsed his tale to the Confederate commander-in-chief in his tent beneath the oaks, just out from Chambersburg.

We come to an interesting hour. It was startling information. General Lee did not know that the Union army had crossed the Potomac. He had issued orders to move to Harrisburg. Ewell, with two divisions, was advancing down the valley, and was at Carlisle, thirty miles away. Early was at York, on the banks of the Susquehanna, sixty miles distant. He did not know where Stuart was had heard nothing from him since. leaving Virginia, but at that hour Stuart was nearly sixty miles away, while Robertson's and Jones's cavalry brigades were still in Virginia. "The information changed," says Longstreet, "the whole plan of the campaign."

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Before daylight, couriers were riding north to Carlisle with orders for Ewell to turn back, and southward into Virginia for Robertson and Jones to hurry to Chambersburg. () Orders were issued to Hill to move over the mountain along the turnpike towards Gettysburg, and for Longstreet to follow. It was a movement for the concentration of the army. When General Meade assumed command of the Union army on Sunday, he only knew that General Lee was in the vicinity of Chambersburg. On Monday he learned that Early was at Wrightsville, that Ewell was threatening Harrisburg, and that a large force of Confederates was at Chambersburg. He could only surmise what Lee intended to do, and must so move that he could concentrate his army at any point; to that end the different corps moved north, spreading out like a fan; the Sixth Corps took the road to Westminster, with Gregg's division of cavalry, to swing out upon the right flank, while Buford's division hovered on the left, the troopers riding up the by-ways amid the mountains to ascertain the movements of the Confederates.

Like two storm-clouds the two armies, on the last day of June, were approaching each other. I was riding with General Hancock, commanding the Second Corps. We came to a farm-house, where, by the gate-way, with roses in bloom around them and pinks perfuming the air, stood a

mother and her daughters, with loaves of bread in baskets and jars of apple - butter the mother cutting great slices of bread, the daughters spreading them with the sauce and presenting them to the soldiers.

"Hurrah for the mother! three cheers for the girls!" shouted the soldiers, as they took the luscious gifts and hastened on.

I joined the Fifth Corps. While passing through the town of Liberty a farmer rode into the village. The load in his wagon was covered with a white cloth.

"What have ye got to sell, old fellow? Gingerbread, eh?" said a soldier, raising the cloth and peeping in. "What do ye ask?"

"See here, old fellow, won't ye sell me a hunk of your gingerbread ?" said the soldier, producing an old wallet.

"No."
"Well, you are a mean old cuss.

It would be serving you right to tip up your old cart. Here we are marching all night and all day to protect your property and fight for ye. We haven't had any breakfast, and may not get any dinner. You are a set of mean cusses round here, I reckon.” The farmer stood up on his wagon-seat, took off the table-cloths, and said:

"I didn't bring my bread here to sell. My wife and daughters sat up all night to bake it for you, and you are welcome to all I've got, and I wish I had ten times as much. Help yourselves."

"See here, my friend, I take back all the hard words I said about you," said the soldier, shaking hands with the farmer, who sat on his wagon with tears rolling down his cheeks.

At daybreak on this last day of June we see Buford's division of Union cavalry, Gamble's and Devin's brigades, leaving their bivouac at the little village of Fountain Dale amid the mountains, and moving north. Through the night the Union pickets have seen lights gleaming in the distance around the town of Fairfield-the fires of Davis's brigade of Heth's division of Hill's Confederate infantry; and General Buford discovers that the Confederates are passing through the mountain defiles, and moving north-east in the direction of Gettysburg. He has but one battery, and instead of attacking, moves south-east to Emmettsburg, near which he finds the First Corps, under General Reynolds, who commands his own, the Third, and Eleventh Corps, forming now the left wing of the army.

"Move to Gettysburg and hold it," is the order of Reynolds, and we see the cavalry going north over a turnpike, passing through Gettysburg, turning west and unsaddling their horses in the fields and beautiful groves around the Theological Seminary, driving before them a small body of Pettigrew's Confederate infantry which was moving east into Gettysburg to obtain supplies, but which fell back to Cashtown, sending word to Hill that the Union cavalry was at Gettysburg.

At this evening hour on the last day of June General Meade is at Taneytown, thirteen miles south-east of Gettysburg. The First Corps

POSITION OF UNION AND CONFEDERATE ARMIES, SUNSET, JUNE 30, 1863.

of his army, under General Reynolds, is resting at Marsh Run, seven miles south of Gettysburg, the soldiers boiling their coffee beneath the shade of the trees, the artillerymen watering their horses in the stream. The Eleventh Corps, under General Howard, is in the fields around Emmettsburg, three miles farther south, on the boundary between Maryland and Pennsylvania. The Third Corps, under General Sickles, is at Bridgeport, five miles south-east of Emmettsburg, on the road to Taneytown.

The Second Corps (General Hancock) is with General Meade at Taneytown; the Twelfth Corps (General Slocum) is at Littlestown, six miles north-east of Taneytown; the Fifth Corps (General Sykes) at Union Mills, seven miles east of Taneytown; the Sixth Corps (General Sedgwick) at Manchester, seven miles still farther east, thirty-two miles from Gettysburg.

On the morning of the 30th of June Ewell's three Confederate divisions started towards Gettysburg, Rodes's and Johnson's marching south from Carlisle; Early south-west over the turnpike from York; marching so rapidly that in the evening they were at Heidlersburg, only ten miles from Gettysburg. Hill had crossed the mountains with Hetli's and Pender's divisions. Anderson's division was on the western slope at Greenwood. Longstreet moved to Greenwood with Hood's and McLaws's divisions ten miles east of Chambersburg - leaving Pickett's division to guard the long trains of supplies and ammunition. General Lee had left the grove at Chambersburg, and was at Greenwood with Longstreet, his trusted lieutenant. The Confederate army, aside from the cavalry, was much better concentrated than the army of General Meade.

It probably never will be known just how many men there were in the Confederate and Union armies advancing towards Gettysburg. The official returns do not give the true numbers, on account of changes made after taking the returns and before the arrival at Gettysburg.

When the Confederate army reached Chambersburg, Mr. Messersmith, cashier of the bank, undertook to ascertain the number, making a tally of each hundred. An officer saw what he was doing and ordered him to stop. Mr. Messersmith bowed, but went to his barn, obtained a hundred kernels of corn, holding them in his hand in his trousers - pocket, dropping a kernel for every hundred. When his hand was empty, ten thousand had passed. Then he gathered them up and dropped them again. Through the day he stood upon the steps of the bank counting the passing troops. He estimated the number at sixty thousand, which did not. include Early's division or Stuart's cavalry. The Confederate army had advanced slowly from the Potomac, and the ranks had been kept closed. There were few stragglers.

The Union army had made rapid marches after crossing the Potomac, and a great many soldiers had straggled from the ranks. I saw many drop by the roadside on the march from Frederick northward. The week after the battle I rode from Westminster, north-west of Baltimore, to Boonsboro, beyond South Mountain, and I saw many Union soldiers who had straggled, and who had not returned to their regiments. From the many stragglers there seen, I judge that not less than five thousand, and possibly many more than that number, had dropped from the ranks. The Confederate cavalry, including Imboden's and Jenkins's brigades, numbered not far from thirteen thousand; the Union cavalry, about eleven thousand.(") The Confederate army had two hundred and eighty-seven