“The enemy have Milroy surrounded at Winchester and Tyler at Martinsburg. If they could hold out a few days, could you help them?”, President Lincoln wrote to General Hooker on June 14, 1863.
“If the head of Lee’s army is at Martinsburg and the tail of it on the Plank Road between Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, the animal must be very slim somewhere. Could you not break him?”
Lincoln’s words were lost on Hooker. After Chancellorsville, Hooker’s confidence plummeted. Even worse, some of Hooker’s officers openly questioned his leadership. Some officers were actually planning to overthrow Hooker, while others tried to position themselves to be his successor. So, even if Hooker planned an attack to slice Lee’s army in two, the success of the attack would have hinged on officers that had absolutely no faith in their commanding officer. On top of that, the enlisted men were still shaken up from Chancellorsville. An attack by Hooker in mid-June on Lee’s army could have been disastrous. Lee’s army was spread out, but so was Hooker’s. At best, Hooker would only be able to throw in a Corps or two at any given point along Lee’s line. The mindset of Lee’s army was completely opposite of Hooker’s. The Confederates were eager, confident, and had a huge morale boost from the victory at Chancellorsville. Lee himself thought of his army as “invincible”. An attack on Lee’s army would have put the Confederates in a defensive position, and the result could very well have been on the scale of Fredericksburg.
On June 14th, Hooker’s entire army was on the move northward. June 14th marks the beginning of some brutal marches endured by the Army of The Potomac. Due to Hooker’s cautiousness, his army was significantly behind Lee’s. The only way to make up the ground was to march the army night and day. The Union I and III Corps began their march towards Manassas Junction around 4AM on June 14th. The III Corps stopped around midnight, 9 miles outside of Manassas Junction. The I Corps wasn’t so lucky; they continued marching through the night. After a 20-mile march, the Union V Corps reached Catlett’s Station around 7PM. A soldier in Weed’s brigade recalled that “some of the men fell out of the ranks, just as thought they had been shot.” The VI Corps assembled at Stafford Court House and marched through the night of June 14th and into the early morning hours of June 15th. The XII Corps completed an all-night march on June 13th-14th, stopping at Dumfries around 9AM. The II Corps finally broke camp, but did not make much progress during the day on June 14th.
The conditions were awful for these forced marches. Roads were congested, and the dust hung in the air, making it difficult to breathe. There was a serious lack of water, too. Men noted marching 20 or more miles on a single fill-up of their canteens. According to John Halsey of the 17th Maine, part of Colonel Philippe de Trobriand’s brigade, “it is difficult to get sufficient water for drinking, and as for ablutions, a mud puddle would be deemed an inestimable treasure.” Marching during the night presented other problems for the troops. One Union soldier listed the hazards as “falling off bridges, stumbling into ditches, tearing the face and injuring the eyes against the bushes and projecting limbs of trees often sprung back from a soldier ahead.”
During the evening of June 14th, General Albert Jenkins cavalry brigade (under Gen. Stuart), received orders to ride to Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. Jenkins moved out early the next morning, and by 11:00PM on June 15th had his troopers riding through the streets of Chambersburg. Hearing the news of the approaching Confederates, bankers and storekeepers of Chambersburg hid their valuables, or sent them further to the north.
The Confederate II Corps wrapped up their victory at the Battle of Second Winchester on June 15th. The rest of the Army of Northern Virginia resumed its march northward through the Shenandoah Valley. Gen. Rodes’ division (II Corps) reached the Potomac River by 11PM that evening across from Williamsport, Maryland. Rodes sent the brigades of Stephen Ramseur, Alfred Iverson, and George Doles across the river, along with 3 artillery batteries.
The Army of The Potomac finally regrouped around Centreville on June 15th. Most of the men had just marched 25 miles in nearly 20 hours. The roads leading to Centreville we littered with blankets, knapsacks, rations and anything else soldiers felt would lighten their loads. During the next 48 hours, Union patrols fanned out looking for evidence of enemy movement. Unknown to the patrols at the time, the nearest Confederate force was 26 miles away.
By the end of June 15th , portions of the Army of Northern Virginia had crossed the Potomac River and entered Maryland and Pennsylvania. The Army of The Potomac had reestablished its nucleus around Centreville, and the rearguard of Lee’s army had finally left Fredericksburg behind and were now joining the remainder of the Army of Northern Virginia.
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