General Hovey, in his report, speaks in these words: "I can not think of this bloody hill without sadness and pride; sadness for the great loss of my true and gallant men; pride for the heroic bravery displayed. It was after the conflict literally the hill of death. Men, horses, cannon and the debris of an army lay scattered in wild confusion. Hundreds of the gallant Twelfth Division were cold in death or writhing in pain, while a large number of Crocker's gallant boys lay dead, dying or wounded, intermingled with our fallen foe. I never saw fighting like this."

No field of our war can show a finer display of the splendid soldiership and valor of the Union Volunteer than did this battle. Early on the morning of the 17th we moved forward to help in the complete conquest of Vicksburg. There, from May 22d to July 4, 1863, we were under fire night and day, and on July 4th witnessed the surrender of 31,600 prisoners, together with 172 cannon, about 60,000 muskets, and a large amount of ammunition; it being the largest army ever captured or surrendered on the Western Hemisphere.

DECEMBER 2, 1896.

* Grant's Memoirs, Vol. I., p. 572.

FROM STAFFORD HEIGHTS TO GETTYSBURG

IN 1863.

BY LEONIDAS M. JEWETT,

Late Captain Sixty-first Ohio Volunteer Infantry; Brevet Major U. S. V.

Thirty-nine years have passed since we broke camp at Stafford Heights to begin what turned out to be the greatest and most eventful march of my experience. The memories of Chancellorsville, like dark shadows, still linger in the minds of the boys that participated in that great disaster. Never had hopes been so high, and failure so great.

On April 27, 1863, we marched from Stafford C. H. to Hartwood Church. We were then on our way to fight the battle of Chancellorsville, crossing the Rappahannock River at Kelly's Ford.

On June 12, 1863, we again marched from Stafford C. H. to Hartwood Church. Those of us of the rank and file had not forgotten the identical march between exactly the same places two months before, and wondered where we were going. Frankly, with the scenes of Chancellorsville and the tangled forest then so fresh in our memories, we had no desire to re-experience another visit across the river. There was one precious reflection that, wherever we were destined to go to, the Stone Wall would not again ride around our flank in open defiance, and again destroy our boys. The march from Hartwood Church to Catlett's Station on that warm and suffocating June 13th, and from Catlett's Station,

crossing Manassas Junction to Centerville on June 14th, dispelled all illusions as to our again having to cross the Rappahannock. How the oppressive heat, fatigue and toil of the march of that day linger in the memory of the writer and his old comrades who joined in the procession! The three days spent at Centerville brought up old memories of the August days of the year before at Bull Run and the surrounding country for many a mile. Old Thoroughfare Gap, in the magnificent range of Blue Mountains, and the plains of Manassas are a sight to make you smile as a lover of nature, and to make you cry as a soldier. That moonlight scene of the boys in blue going into position at Bull Run on the night before the commencement of the battle was to me the grandest and most impressive scene of the war. Miles of lines of Union blue, with muskets gleaming in the moonlight, lying down for rest, preparatory for the great battle of the next day, made me think, boy that I was, that the war would soon come to an end. Little did I know of the great masses of soldiers in gray on the other side that were at the same time taking position to fight the battle of the next day, and less did I know of the failure of two or three Union corps within the sound of our guns to come to our relief as we fought the battle of the 29th and 30th of August of 1862, and after more than thirty years of careful study I know less now than then. It was a battle of great endurance, unrivaled gallantry and desperate fighting, but, alas, we came back to Centerville in the early dawn of that Sunday morning in the mist and rain, a defeated army. Pardon this digression, for I am marching with the army in 1863, and had gotten as far along as Centerville, and I could not avoid referring to some of

the thoughts that will linger in my memory as long as I shall be permitted to breath the pure air of the great country we helped to save. June 17th, 1863, we left Centerville, passing Gum Springs and Leesburg, and camped on Goose Creek, remaining there until the 24th. The frequent reconnoissances of infantry, the scouting cavalry, and the distant cannonading beyond the Blue Ridge, suggested that we were near the center, and our enemies upon the other side, upon the circumference of the circle. The Goose Creek days were anxious ones, and we felt that the battle would soon come on; but where or under what circumstances was the problem yet unsolved. June 24th broke the monotony, for on that day we marched to the Potomac River at Edward's Ferry and camped for the night. It began to dawn upon us that the battle was to be fought somewhere upon the free soil of the loyal States of the North. How much that meant, then, how little is known about it now except by my old comrades! It was an exciting and eventful period of the war, as we on the morning of the 25th crossed the Potomac River into the beautiful Monocacy Valley of Maryland, and in the heat of that summer day, marched twenty-six miles to Jeffersonville What a contrast with the barren, worn-out lands of old Virginia, with its pine-clad hills and mountains, and everlasting oceans of evergreen, to the rich and fertile fields of Maryland and Pennsylvania! How the fresh milk, bread and butter, and everything good to eat, were enjoyed by the boys. It was to us a land of milk and honey, to say nothing of many other good things to drink that went into the old canteen as we marched along. As we remained in the next few days near Middletown, we had a glimpse of the South Mountain battle

field, where McClellan and his troops had, the year before, won victory for our flag, the spot where the gallant Major General Reno fell being pointed out to us. The inspiration of this historic battlefield is to me one of the precious memories of this eventful march from Stafford Heights to Gettysburg.

The occurrences of the 28th of June were, in my judgment, the turning point of this famous campaign, and more important to the Union cause than even the repulse of Pickett's charge at Gettysburg.

I will, at some detail, endeavor to elaborate what I consider the only thought attempted to be expressed in this paper, aided by the most careful reflection of many years. We spent the forenoon of the 28th at Middletown, and witnessed the march of the Third Corps, under the gallant Sickles and Birney, and never did I observe a more inspiring sight, and a finer body of men never marched than the veterans of this historic corps, full of life, and as light-hearted and gay as the birds that flew across the valley to the beautiful mountains that surrounded us on every hand. In the afternoon we marched to Frederick City. It must be admitted upon all sides that the strategical movements of Hooker up to this time had been all that military science could exact. But it is right here that a danger confronted the Federal army as great as when Hooker stopped in the wilderness at Chancellorsville and failed to march ahead and uncover Banks' Ford, and get into communication with the troops he had left under Sedgwick at Fredericksburg. Hooker wanted the troops at Harper's Ferry, under French, to be placed under his immediate command, as it was, no doubt, his idea to add to this command the Twelfth Corps of General Slocum,