THE FIRST DAY AT GETTYSBURG.
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2 A. m. of the 15th, and after proceeding three or four miles, the advance^countered Johnson’s troops, attacked vigorously, and at first successfully,but, the enemy receiving reenforcements, a hard fight ensued in which the•^ederals lost heavily. The retreat was then continued; the troops separated111 the darkness, one portion reaching Harper’s Ferry , another crossing thePotomac at Hancock. On the loth Ewell crossed the river, occupied Hagers-t°wn and Sharpsburg, and sent Jenkins’s cavalry to Chambersburg to collectapplies. On the 17th the garrison of Harper’s Ferry was removed to Mary-land Heights, and the valley of the Shenandoah was cleared of Federal troops,til these brilliant operations Oeneral Lee claims for Ewell the capture of 4000Prisoners and small-arms, 28 pieces of artillery, 11 colors, 300 loaded wagons,many horses, and a considerable quantity of stores of all descriptions, theei| tire Confederate loss, killed, wounded, and missing, being 269.
These operations indicate on the part of General Lee either contempt fortiis opponent, or a belief that the chronic terror of the War Department fortile safety of Washington could be safely relied upon to paralyze his move-ments, —or both. On no other reasonable hypothesis can we account for hisriretching his army from Fredericksburg to Williamsport , with his enemyc °neentrated on one flank, and on the shortest road to Richmond .
General Hooker’s instructions were to keep always in view the safety ofashington and Harper’s Ferry , and this necessarily subordinated his opera-tions to those of the enemy. On June 5th he reported that in case Lee movedVla Culpeper toward the Potomac with his main body, leaving a corps at Fred-ericksburg, he should consider it his duty to attack the latter, and asked if thatVv °uld be within the spirit of his instructions. In reply he was warned againstSll ch a course, and its dangers to Washington and Harper’s Ferry were pointed
0l d. On June 10th, learning that Lee was in motion, and that there were butIe W troops in Richmond , he proposed an immediate march on that place, fromAv tiich, after capturing it, he could send the disposable part of his force to anytiireatened point north of the Potomac, and was informed that Lee’s army, andRichmond, was his true objective. Had he taken Richmond , Peck’s largeIo rce at Suffolk and Keyes’s 10,000 men ji in the Peninsula might have beenUtilized, and Hooker’s whole army set free for operations against Lee.
As yet an invasion of the North had not been definitely fixed upon. Onjme 8th, the day before the engagement at Brandy Station, Lee, in a confi-c k*nti;il letter to Mr. Seddon, Confederate Secretary of War, stated that he wasa Ware of the hazard of taking the aggressive, yet nothing was to be gainedm remaining on the defensive; still, if the department thought it better to dohe would adopt that course. Mr. Seddon replied, June 10th, the date oflooker’s proposal to march on Richmond , concurring in General Lee’s views.
f° r °es referred to consisted (January 1st,jh °f three "brigades and some unassigned com-under General John J. Peck, andbrigades, and three cavalry commands — alsoass igned, stationed at Yorktown, Gloucesterjj- and Williamsburg, under General E. D.g®yes. The troops under Peck belonged to thee nth Corps. Keyes’s command was known asV °L. in. is
the Fourth Corps. Both were included in theDepartment of Virginia, commanded by GeneralJohn A. Dix , with headquarters at Fort Monroe.
While Lee was invading the North an expedi-tion was sent by General Dix from White House to the South Anna River and Bottom’s Bridgeto destroy Lee’s communications and threatenRichmond.— Editors.