somebody saw, and that no order was issued to move on to Harrisburg. Ewell was then over thirty miles north, at Carlisle; he had been a week in Pennsylvania and had detached Early's Division to go east to the Susquehanna; Jenkins' Cavalry was about Harrisburg; General Lee, with Hill and Longstreet, had crossed the Potomac several days before. Now I say that any private or teamster would have told General Lee that Hooker would not stay in Virginia when he was in Pennsylvania. That was something that any man of ordinary sense would have known without being told.
According to Colonel Marshall, General Lee was thrown almost into a panic when he heard the news that Hooker was over the river and was following him.
"As 1 can't believe it, I said in my book, and I repeat, that in my opinion, when General Lee signed a paper containing such an absurdity he had never read it. If he had thought, when he crossed the Potomac, that Hooker's army was still in Virginia, then instead of marching north he would have turned east. The Chambersburg letter shows that General Lee knew that Hooker was still keeping between him and Washington. It told Ewell that lie had written him "last night" (27th) that Hooker had crossed the Potomac and was moving towards South Mountain, and that he had directed Ewell to move back to Chambersburg; but if he had not already progressed on that road he wanted him to move east of the mountain in the direction of Cashtown or Gettysburg. So on the night of the 27th General Lee wrote Ewell what his report says he had first heard from a spy on the night of the 28th. Neither Colonel Talcott nor Colonel Taylor tries to explain this letter or make it consistent with the statement of the report.
DATE OF LETTER ESTABLISHED.
I anticipated in my book (pages 117-121) that some one would insist that the date was a mistake, and should have been the 29th. But, if the letter in the Records should have been dated the 29th, then "last night's" letter would have been dated the 28th. Now, Early says that he received at York a copy of this letter on the evening of the 29th, and he started early the next
