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 21 Journeying Forth S u mm e r – F a l l 1 8 6 3 The Pursuit of Lee With plenty of prodding from Lincoln to run Lee down before he got back over the Potomac, Gen. George Meade finally got the army on the roads down to the river. The Boys commenced to log daily marches that began before sunrise and did not end until long after dark. In a single day’s rainy march the regiment covered twenty-seven miles. The Maryland countryside was rich in crops and cattle, and mostly unblemished by war, and to the soldiers shouldering heavy packs and wearing worn-out shoes, that counted for a great deal. Nathan Parmater observed, “The boys think that a Md. Mile is not as long a Virginia mile.”1 The army had been pushed so quickly through Frederick on the way up to Gettysburg that there had not been time for Parmater to go into the town to look up old friends. The army was moving now with as much speed, but not as much purpose. As they returned through Frederick, Parmater saw a better opportunity to steal away for a visit, but there were risks involved. “It was at the peril of getting a booting as I saw General Geary boot a man close to me for starting out ahead, but as he did not see my white star he thought that I belonged to the red star division.”2 He went into town and looked up a young woman namedTillie Ogal, whose acquaintance he had made during his stay there last fall and early winter. He gave her a photograph of himself to add to those she had collected from other Union boys.3 The regiment marched close by a tree from which a man hung by the rope around his neck. He had been caught by a Federal cavalry patrol, with maps of army camps and fortifications stuffed in his pockets. His clothes had been torn off, and although horribly decomposed, some of the Boys recognized him.4 One soldier was certain this same old man was the peddler of patriotic sheet music who had come and gone from their camps as free as a bird way back when they were chasing Jackson up in the Shenandoah valley.5 By the accounts of other soldiers, this was the very same man, with his distinctive long white beard, they had seen hanging from a tree around the time of Port Republic, over a year earlier. They moved over into the deep valley between South Mountain and the Blue Ridge. They were expecting a fight anytime now, and they cleaned their rifles and rammed fresh charges in anticipation of it. The next day brought them to Keedysville, a tiny place sitting near Antietam Creek, and then onto the old battlefield itself. They passed over the famous stone bridge, pocked and chipped by the hailstorm of battle.6 The steady booming of a cannonade came to them from the Potomac, where they expected Lee would give battle, trapped as he was on their side with the rising river behind him. At Fairplay, with the Twenty-Ninth Ohio in advance, the brigade moved into a wheatfield. Rebel skirmishers were in plain 266 Journeying Forth sight, but neither side fired a shot. They were rousted from their blankets two hours after midnight and ordered into battle line, but it was hours before they got on the road down to the river. News had come in that the flood stage in the river had passed, and Lee was starting his army across to the safety of Virginia. They brushed up against rebel cavalry and shots were exchanged, doing little harm to either side, while from ahead of them, down by the river, came the sounds of a sharper engagement, but they were not called to join it. The rebels had built strong breastworks on the heights on the opposite bank, and Geary’s division was put to work building breastworks of their own. Bundles of wheat mortared in place with dirt and a log placed on top made for a strong wall. Works like these were better suited to defense than to an offense of the type needed to catch Lee, as the soldiers by this time knew.7 The Gettysburg campaign was over. Lee had crossed the Potomac back into Virginia. “It is to be regretted that he should have escaped at all but we have the satisfaction...

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