Stuart had now received his final instructions from General Lee, authorizing him to move into Maryland, around the rear of the enemy and between him and Washington. He was likewise instructed to do them all the damage he could on his way. With his transportation destroyed and communications broken, Hooker would be seriously embarrassed in pursuing General Lee, or probably forced to fall back for supplies, or to defend the capital against this demonstration. In the meantime, while Hooker was thus delayed, the Confederates would have been levying contributions on the farmers in Pennsylvania. His original plan, which was bold in conception and perfectly practicable in execution, was thwarted by an event which he could not control. It was obvious now that Hooker would not initiate any movement, but would confine himself to covering the capital and observing his adversary. It was equally plain that when the Confederate army made a move west of the Blue Ridge, Hooker would make a corresponding one on the east. It was, therefore, all important for the success of Stuart's movement that the status quo of the two armies should be preserved until he could get through Hooker's army to the river, when it would be too late for Hooker to take any step to defeat it. The distance was not more than twenty miles to the Potomac from the point where he would enter Hooker's lines; and this could be got over between sunrise and sundown, as he intended to march in three parallel columns. He knew the country well, and the position of each corps; and it would have been easy enough for him to flank them. Before Pleasanton could have got ready to follow the blazing meteor, it would have been out of sight. The three brigades that were to accompany Stuart were quietly withdrawn from Pleasanton's front on the evening of June 24, and marched in a southerly direction to their rendezvous at Salem. Those of Jones and Robertson were put in the position they had held about Middleburg, and, of course, were charged with the ordinary duty of cavalry on a post of observation. As Gen. Stuart says in his report, "Robertson's and Jones's brigades, under command of the former, were left in observation of the enemy, on the usual front (about Middleburg), with full instructions as to following of the enemy, in case of withdrawal, and joining our main army." An order to a cavalry officer to observe an enemy, of course implies that he is to report what he sees; otherwise, there is no use in his observing. Stuart left behind a force of over 3000 cavalry, which was amply sufficient for every purpose. By daybreak, on the morning of the 25th, his column debouched through Glassock's Gap, in the Bull Run, and proceeded towards Haymarket. At the same time I started across by the route I had been travelling for a week, to connect with him at the appointed place. We had stopped at a spring on the mountain side to make our breakfast on some sutlers' stores that had been saved from our captives. Two men had been sent forward on a picket; but they had scarcely got a hundred yards before a volley was fired; and the bullets whistled all around us. We sprang upon our horses; but, as the men did not return, we knew that they must have been killed or captured. General Meade, whose camps were near by, had prepared an ambuscade a second time for me, but I had escaped. (I wonder if he would have called this bushwhacking.) We made a detour around them, and hurried on to join Stuart; as we could hear his cannon about Haymarket. It seems that when Stuart got there, he found the roads on which he intended to march that day occupied by Hancock's corps, that had broken up camp that morning, and was moving towards the Potomac. When I got to the Little River Pike, about eight miles below Aldie, which was to be our point of junction, instead of meeting him we struck the head of Hancock's column. His divisions were marching on every road. I spent the day and night riding about among them, and with great difficulty extricated myself from the dilemma in which I was placed. I could not find out where Stuart was, nor he where I was; for Hancock was between us. So I retraced my steps and went on to Pennsylvania through the Shenandoah Valley, passing General Robertson's command, that was quietly resting in Ashby's and Snicker's Gaps, in the Blue Ridge, after the enemy retired on the 26th. Pleasanton that day had moved by his flank, across General Robertson's front, to Leesburg, to cover the crossing of Hooker's army. Why he should have halted and remained idle three days in the gaps of the Blue Ridge in Virginia after both armies had marched into Pennsylvania is a mystery that has never been satisfactorily explained. If there were any sound military reasons for his staying there three days, there were equally as sound ones for his not leaving at all. His proper position was on General Lee's flank, next to the enemy, in order to protect his rear and to keep him informed of their movement.

If General Robertson had then in obedience to General Lee's and Stuart's instructions, promptly followed the enemy along the base of South Mountain through Boonesboro, the Confederate cavalry might easily have reached Gettysburg in advance of the Federal troops. In this event, there would not have been the accidental collision of armies. General Lee would have fought a defensive battle, and Gettysburg might have been to Southern hearts something more than "a glorious field of grief." Even as it was, Stuart's movement around his rear had so confused General Meade, that his army was more scattered than ours, and two of his corps in the first day's fight, were caught in delicto and crushed. He was looking for Lee on the Susquehanna, when in fact he was concentrating on Gettysburg.

On account of Hancock's unexpected movement, Stuart had been compelled to make a wider circuit than he had intended, and did not cross the Potomac until the night of the twenty-seventh, the day after Hooker got over. He thence moved northerly towards the Susquehanna, to put himself on Ewell's flank in accordance with the instructions of General Lee. But owing to the derangement of his plans by the advance of the Union army, without General Robertson having given him notice of it, Ewell had been recalled, and Stuart did not join the army until July the second, at Gettysburg, when the battle was raging. But Robertson's command had not even then come up. This movement of Stuart's around the rear of Hooker's army has been condemned by General Long, the military secretary and biographer of General Lee, as having been undertaken either "from misapprehension of his instructions, or love of the Éclat of a bold raid" (which, of course, implies disobedience of orders);13 and General Longstreet says that as he was leaving the Blue Ridge, he instructed Stuart to follow him down the Valley, and cross the Potomac at Shepherdstown, but that Stuart replied that he had discretionary powers from General Lee where to cross the Potomac.

When this charge was made against Stuart, both the critics were viewing his movement in the light of the disaster to our arms at Gettysburg, and it was more agreeable to put the blame of it on a dead man than a living one. General Long, who had access to the Confederate archives, may plead the blindness with which he is afflicted as an excuse for his error, and I have no doubt that General Longstreet has forgotten that his own letter to Stuart contradicts his statement.

Gen. Lee made two reports of this campaign; one written in July, 1863, a few weeks after the battle; and a more detailed one in January, 1864. There is a slight color of truth in the imputation cast upon Stuart that Gen. Lee intended to censure him in his report. But this is owing to a false interpretation given to it by persons who have construed a single sentence literally, and not in connection with others that qualify and explain it.14 Gen. Lee does say: "It was expected that as soon as the Federal army should cross the Potomac, Gen. Stuart would give notice of its movements, and nothing having been heard from him since our entrance into Maryland, it was inferred that the enemy had not yet left Virginia. Orders were therefore issued to move on Harrisburg." Now if all that Gen. Lee says in his report about Stuart's cavalry is read, together as a whole, it is apparent that in the sentence above quoted, he uses Stuart's name not in a personal sense, but descriptive of his cavalry corps, for in another place he says that Stuart had been directed to divide his cavalry, leaving a portion to watch the enemy in front of the mountain passes in Virginia, and "with the remainder to cross into Maryland and place himself on the right of Gen. Ewell," who was marching on Harrisburg.15

Clearly Gen. Lee did not intend to involve himself in the contradiction of saying that he expected Stuart personally to perform at the same time the double duty of watching Hooker along the Potomac, and guarding Ewell's flank on the Susquehanna.16 Gen. Lee in thus referring to Stuart was somewhat careless and inaccurate in his language, as he was when, in describing the battle of Gettysburg, he said that Robertson's command arrived on July 3d, when, in fact, it never got nearer than Cashtown, some eight miles from the battle-field. But Gen. Lee is explicit in saying, in his report, that he gave Stuart full authority to make the movement around the enemy's rear. Among the Confederate archives in Washington, I have at last found in Gen. Lee's confidential letter-book his final instructions to Stuart, which have never been published, which must set this controverted question at rest forever. At the time when they were written, Gen. Lee's headquarters were at Berryville. They are dated June 23, 1863, 5 P.M.

In them Gen. Lee presents to Stuart the alternative of crossing the Potomac west of the Blue Ridge at Shepherdstown and moving over to Frederick, Md., or, "you will, however, be able to judge whether you can pass around their army without hindrance, doing them all the damage you can, and cross the river east of the mountains. In either case, after crossing the river, you must move on and feel the right of Ewell's troops, collecting information, provisions, etc." In a letter to Stuart dated June 22, he had said: "If you find that he is moving northward, and that two brigades can guard the Blue Ridge and take care of your rear, you can move with the other three into Maryland and take position on General Ewell's right, place yourself in communication with him, guard his flank and keep him informed of the enemy's movements, and collect all the supplies you can for the use of the army. One column of General Ewell's army will probably move towards the Susquehanna by the Emmetsburg route, another by Chambersburg." The intention of General Lee clearly was that Stuart with one portion of the cavalry was to guard Ewell's flank and give him information of the enemy. The other was to be left17 behind, as he says in his report, "to hold the mountain passes as long as the enemy remained south of the Potomac." To suppose that Gen. Lee intended them to remain there after the enemy had gone is to suppose that he was not only unfit to command an army, but even a corporal's guard. It is clear that he intended the two brigades under Robertson to perform the same service for the column of Longstreet and Hill (with whom he had his headquarters) as Stuart was to do for Ewell, who was separated from him. When these two corps crossed the Potomac on the 25th, he knew that Stuart had not crossed west of the Ridge in advance of them. He would not have committed the blunder of marching all his infantry into Pennsylvania knowing that all his cavalry was in Virginia. He must, therefore, have expected for Stuart to cross the Potomac on the same day to the east of the Ridge; which he would have done but for Hancock's movement. Some have contended that his anxious inquiries for Stuart when he got to Chambersburg prove that he did not know which way he had gone. They only show that he did not know where Stuart was at that time. As Stuart had been directed to open communication, as soon as he got into Pennsylvania, with Ewell, and had not been able to do so on account of the Federal army getting between them, Gen. Lee, not having heard from him, very naturally felt a great deal of solicitude for his safety. If Gen. Lee had not thought that he would cross the Potomac somewhere on the same day that he did, he would have waited and sent for him. But again, Gen. Lee would not assume the responsibility of authorizing Stuart to go around Hooker's rear unless the movement had the approval of Gen. Longstreet, whose headquarters were at Millwood, not far from Berryville. Gen. Lee's instructions to Stuart were therefore sent through Longstreet. In a letter to Stuart, Longstreet not only approves of Stuart's going into Maryland around the rear of the enemy, but opposes his going the other route through the Shenandoah Valley, on the ground that it would disclose their plans to the enemy. In concluding his letter he says:

"N.B.—I think that your passage of the Potomac by our rear at the present moment will in a measure disclose our plans. You had better not leave us, therefore, unless you can take the proposed route in rear of the enemy." By "our rear" Longstreet meant through the Shenandoah Valley. The reasons he gave Stuart were conclusive in favor of the course he took. It was Gen. Lee's policy to detain Hooker as long as possible in Virginia. But if Stuart passed to the west of the Ridge and crossed the Potomac at Shepherdstown, he would be discovered by the signal stations of the enemy on Maryland heights. This would indicate, of course, that the infantry was to follow him. On the contrary, Hooker would interpret a movement around his rear as nothing more than a cavalry raid, and it would be a mask to conceal Lee's designs. It was no fault of Stuart's that he was unable to execute his plan.