A Daughter of Maryland — page 181: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

158 A DAUGHTER OF MARYLAND. believed that a systematic invasion of Northern soil would not only stem the tide of battle but turn it back upon his enemies, and a stronghold established there cause new allies to rush to his support. Should he be able to gain a permanent footing in the heart of the anthracite regions of Pennsylvania the vast resources of that section would then be his and the great network of railroads supplying the coal: and iron for the Federal army and navy be under his con- trol. It was an enticing prospect, and the government at Richmond gladly gave him such encouragement as it could. But all this has been told many times. At this critical period Pickett’s men had barely finished their famous round-robin march of four months’ duration, passing through Petersburg and Richmond and on to Culpepper Court House, when ragged, hungry and footsore and their ranks decimated by the loss of two brigades, * they were ordered forward on the Pennsylvania campaign, though no man save the commanding officers knew their destination. It was whispered that they were bound on the grandest triumphal march yet conceived in the history of the war. Whatever each man may have felt there was no lagging, no desertion, no disorder, and be it said to the credit of sixty thousand men and their officers there was little or no destruction of property. On either hand the fertile fields offered their tempting bounties, nearly ready for the harvest, and very inviting looked the waving acres of rye and corn to those grim-fortuned invaders, who realized as they had not before the neglect of their own land at the homes where their loved ones were suffering for * Through one of those unaccountable actions of officials high in power at such times, Corse’s and Jenkins’ brigades were not allowed to join Pickett’s - _ Division on this campaign, though they were really a part of it. Had they been where they rightfully belonged, the number ef these troops would have been over eight thousand, instead of barely five thousand. What this difference of force would have made at that famous charge in that little clump of woods on Cemetery Ridge is for the speculator and not the historian ; to tell.—AvTHOR. . COMmIGcbDOOoOKS. cor