Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America. Vol. 3.
Henry Coppee , LL.D., Ed.

---

[535] one we will mention in a few words what was done during those few days by the detachments of Federal troops which, without belonging directly to the Army of the Potomac, were nevertheless within its sphere of action.

We left General Couch at Harrisburg, busy in preparing, to the best of his ability, for the defence of that city, and endeavoring, with the aid of another general whose name is equally familiar to us (W. F. Smith), to organize the Pennsylvania militia. He did not pretend to oppose the march of the Confederates with these troops, but by pressing them and watching them closely wherever they went he could, without ever being drawn into a fight, keep the run of their movements and furnish the Federal authorities with valuable information. This is what he did. On the 29th he apprised Halleck of the time when the stoppage in Ewell's march occurred; on the morning of the 30th, as soon as the latter had commenced his backward movement, he also sent word to the authorities at Washington, and despatched Smith at the same time in pursuit with all the cavalry he could muster. It is this detachment, following Ewell's track, which had just occupied Carlisle when Stuart made his appearance before that city on the 1st of July. Through his firmness and excellent defensive arrangement Smith succeeded in organizing a resistance which, as we have stated, deceived the Confederate general: after having withstood the fire of the enemy's artillery without being able to reply to it, he managed with his raw troops to hold the Elite of the Southern cavalry in check.

The communications between Halleck and Meade, frequently interrupted by Stuart, were often slow and difficult; nevertheless, on the evening of the 30th the chief of the Army of the Potomac received the first intelligence of Ewell's movement. Chambersburg was mentioned as the probable point of concentration of the Confederates. Upon this information, Meade, thinking that they would assemble west of South Mountain, made all his arrangements for the 1st of July. In the mean time, a director of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, Mr. Scott, who subsequently became Assistant Secretary of War,¹ and who had organized a