Fitzhugh Lee, General Lee

[305] and the old Sharpsburg battlefield to Lee's position. While he was moving around the horseshoe, General Lee, with a good start, had gone across from heel to heel, and, had it not been for high water, would have been in Virginia before the last of the Army of the Potomac left the battlefield of Gettysburg.

Meade telegraphed Halleck on the 6th that if he could get the Army of the Potomac in hand he would attack Lee if he had not crossed the river, but hoped if misfortune overtook him that a sufficient number of his force would reach Washington and, with what was already there, make it secure. Halleck, from his office in Washington, urged him to “Push forward and fight Lee before he can cross the Potomac.” And Mr. Lincoln was cramming him with the comforting information that Vicksburg, on the Mississippi, had surrendered to Grant on July 4th, and that if “Lee's army could be destroyed, the rebellion would be over.”

While waiting at Williamsport General Lee received the news of the capture (by raiding Federal cavalry) of his son, General W. H. F. Lee, who was wounded at Brandy Station on June 10th, and had been taken to Hickory Hill, the residence of the Wickhams, near Hanover Court House. He wrote Mrs. Lee: “I have heard with great grief that Fitzhugh has been captured by the enemy. Had not expected that he would have been taken from his bed and carried off; but we must bear this additional affliction with fortitude and resignation, and not repine at the will of God. It will eventuate in some good that we know not of now. We must all bear our labors and hardships manfully. Our noble men are cheerful and confident. I constantly remember you in my thoughts and prayers.”

On July 12th, in camp near Hagerstown, Lee heard his son had been carried to Fort Monroe, and wrote: “The consequences of war are horrid enough at best surrounded by all the amelioration of civilization and Christianity. I am very sorry for the injuries done the family at Hickory Hill, and particularly that our dear old Uncle Williams in his eightieth year should be subjected to such treatment. But we can not help it and must endure it. You will, however, learn before ”