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the contents of our shoddy knapsacks, so that shirts, blouses, jackets, and blankets were to be seen stretched upon every available fence or carriage to dry. We learned here that the Army of the Potomac had been passing through Frederick for two days, but instead of pressing on to overtake it, we were sent at 3 o'clock P. M., with the Tenth Vermont Regiment and a company of cavalry, three miles from the city to Frederick Junction, a station on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, from which a short branch extended to the city.
Our business here was to guard the railroad bridge across the Monocacy.1 A block house erected for the same purpose stood near by. The spot was rather attractive as a whole, and the prospect of ample opportunity to wash and bathe in the river was quite gratifying.
On the morning of July 3d, before we had turned out, a faint rumbling of cannon was perceptible to the ear. It was the incipient muttering of the third day's battle at Gettysburg.
Often during the day did we kneel to the ground, and the quick throbbing sounds heard at irregular intervals told us the two great armies had indeed met, forty miles away, and were engaged in deadly struggle for the mastery.
Nor is Meade justly blamable for not pushing forward at once on the heels of his beaten foes. . . . . His real and grave error dated several days back of this. He had, on assuming command, been authorized to do as he judged best with French's force on Maryland Heights, and Couch's in Central Pennsylvania. Had he, on deciding to fight Lee as soon as circumstances favored, ordered both these to join him at the earliest moment, he would now have been consciously master of the situation, and might have blocked Lee's return to Virginia. But he gave no such order to Couch; and having at Butterheld's urgent suggestion withdrawn French's 11,000 men from Maryland Heights, he left 7,000 of them standing idle at Frederick, sending the residue as train guards to Washington, and actually apologized to Halleck, on meeting him, for having moved them at all! Had Gettysburg been lost for want of these 11,000 men, his would have been a fearful responsibility.
American Conflict, Vol. II.
The Arakelyan press, Boston, 1909.
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