June 16, 1863, The New York Herald
The city was startled yesterday with the exciting news of another invasion of Maryland by some advanced detachments of the rebel army of Virginia; by the positive information, in this connection, of a rapid flank movement northward by General Lee with the main body of his army, and by the proclamation of President Lincoln calling for a hundred thousand militia from the States of Maryland, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio, to aid in the work of driving back the enemy.
With the additional details which we publish today of the movements of the rebel forces in the Shenandoah valley, and on the Potomac below Washington, and in Maryland and Pennsylvania, it is very clear that Gen. Lee has resolved, sink or swim, upon some bold and desperate enterprise to repair the sinking fortunes of the rebellion. It is well known that since the last great battles on the Rappahannock he has been heavily reinforced from North and South Carolina, while our Army of the Potomac has been considerably reduced by the loss of many regiments of veteran volunteers with the expiration of their appointed terms of service. Thus we dare say that the army of Lee, in point of numbers, is now fully equal, if not superior, to that of General Hooker. At all events, it is abundantly manifest that Lee regards himself sufficiently strong to undertake an aggressive campaign, and that in the outset he has stolen a march upon General Hooker and the War Office.
The question recurs, what are the objects and what are the expectations of the enemy in this aggressive campaign? What are they driving at? Is it a destructive foray through Maryland into the heart of Pennsylvania, or the capture of Washington by a rapid movement, with an overwhelming force, upon the rear of the city? Or is Lee aiming, with the main body of his army, to cut in between Gen. Hooker and the national capital, and thus to cut him off and cut his columns to pieces? We, of course, know nothing of the dispositions of Gen. Hooker’s forces since the breaking up of his camps on the Rappahannock. It will suffice for the present that his whole army is in motion towards Washington, and from this fact it is likely that, between some portions of the two armies, a sanguinary collision may at any moment occur, if it has not already taken place.
But from the eighteen thousand rebels reported at Winchester, in the Shenandoah valley, and from the ten thousand or more who crossed into Maryland below Harper’s Ferry, and from the fact that no rebel forces have been reported as on any of the roads leading from Culpepper to Washington, it is probable that Lee is moving his whole army around on the rear of Washington, or for a destructive campaign through Maryland and Pennsylvania, before General Hooker can come to the rescue. A very few days will now settle the question. Lee must indeed be very strong if he can pare twenty or thirty thousand men for a foraging incursion into Maryland and Pennsylvania, and yet feel strong enough to meet and arrest the march of General Hooker towards Washington. We shall doubtless have some definite intelligence today of the whereabouts of the main body of the rebel army; and if it shall turn out that it is not in the neighborhood of Manassas, we may next expect to hear of another formidable siege, although we trust not another disgraceful capitulation, at Harper’s Ferry. The safe arrival there of that tried and able soldier, General Milroy, after having cut his way through an overwhelming force of the enemy at Winchester, renders it certain that Harper’s Ferry, if necessary, will be held and defended to the last.
Let us only hear that the main body of the rebel army in superior strength is not in front of General Hooker, and we shall feel perfectly satisfied that Lee is on a fatal expedition to his army; but otherwise we may expect, and before the expiration of the present week, some of the most terrible battles of the war.