228 Southern Historical Society Papers.
the entire cavalry force of his army upon a useless raid. That this is not true I think the evidence I have laid before you abundantly establishes. The suggestion of General Longstreet in communica- ting the order of General Lee to General Stuart that the latter should pass by the enemy's rear need not have led to the results which I have described.
You will observe that General Longstreet' s suggestion to General Stuart was qualified, as was General Lee's letter to Stuart of June 23d, by saying that the latter should go by the enemy's rear, "if he thinks he may get through." The first movement of General Stuart after leaving Salem Depot early on the morning of the 25th brought him in conflict with General Hancock's Brigade, near Hay- market, and, finding that he could not pass around the rear of the enemy, the discretion so given him by General Longstreet was at an end, and there was yet time for General Stuart to retrace his steps and obey the order that he had received from General Lee in the letter of the 23d of June, to cross the Potomac west of the Blue Ridge and move on until he felt the right of Swell's column. But, instead of pursuing this course, General Stuart, as I have already pointed out, moved to Buckland, east of Bull Run mountain, and proceeded from that place through Brentsville, down to Wolf-Run shoals, and thence across the country by way of Fairfax station to the Potomac river. This latter movement was not sanctioned either by the suggestion of General Longstreet or by the positive orders of General Lee, and from the tenor of General Stuart's report it would seem that he entirely mistook the part that he was expected to take in the movement of the army. He placed himself east of the Federal army, with that army between his command and the Confederate r orce. He left General Lee without any information as to the move- ments of the enemy from the time he crossed the Potomac river until the 2d of July. By his silence, as I have described, he caused General Lee to move his army to Gettysburg, not with the expectation or purpose of meeting the enemy, but simply to prevent a movement which he supposed the enemy was making to obstruct his line of communication with Virginia, and caused him to fight the battle of Gettysburg without having his whole force present except on the third day, when it was equally possible, had General Lee been in- formed of what the enemy was doing, for him to have fought that battle with his entire force while the enemy's forces were approach- ing Gettysburg, or to have remained west of the mountains and have met the Federal army on some other field.
