Seven hundred more men were taken at Martinsburg.
On June twenty-seventh, the whole of Lee's army was encamped at
Chambersburg in Pennsylvania in striking distance of the Capital of the
State.
The execution of this march had been a remarkable piece of strategy. He
had completely baffled the Northern Commanders, spread terror through
the North and precipitated the wildest panic in Washington.
Within twenty-odd days the Southern General had brought his forces from
Fredericksburg, Virginia, confronted by an army of one hundred thousand
men, through the Blue Ridge, and the Shenandoah Valley into
Pennsylvania. He had done this in the face of one of the most powerful
and best equipped armies the North had put into the field. He had swept
the hostile garrisons at Winchester, Martinsburg and Harper's Ferry into
his prisons and camped in Pennsylvania without his progress being once
arrested or a serious battle forced upon him. He had cleared Virginia of
the army which threatened Richmond and they were rushing breathlessly
after him in a desperate effort to save the Capital of Pennsylvania.
So far Lee had made good every prediction on which he had based his plan
of campaign.
Davis felt so sure that he would make good his promised victory that he
hurriedly dispatched Stephens to Fortress Monroe under a flag of truce
and asked for a safe conduct for his Commissioner to Washington.
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