June 29, 1863, The New York Herald
The events of yesterday on the western side of the Susquehanna river, between Harrisburg and Columbia, ought to be sufficient to bring within the next three days a hundred thousand armed Pennsylvanians to the rescue. Philadelphia, from her population of half a million, ought to be able to report within twenty-four hours the mustering within her limits of at least twenty-five thousand armed men. All the stupid and embarrassing formalities of red tape as between county and State, and State and federal authorities, should be cast to the winds, and the people of every county of the Commonwealth, trusting to the general organization and the disposition of their forces by the Governor and by Gen. Couch, should send forward their troops by regiments, battalions and companies as fast as they can be armed and equipped from their own resources, not for thirty days or sixty days, but for the expulsion of the invading army of the rebellion.
The federal administration and General Meade are now occupied in covering approaches by which this daring rebel army may advance upon Washington or Baltimore; and, if General Meade’s army amounted to half a million of men, we conjecture that it could not for several days to come be marched over the interval between its present lines of occupation and the army of Lee to the deliverance of Pennsylvania.
It appears to us that the cunning rebel General Lee has been deliberately widening the distance between the two armies, in order, first, to draw our Army of the Potomac as far away from Washington as possible before giving battle; and secondly, to prey as long as possible meantime upon the rich counties and towns of Pennsylvania between the Potomac and the Susquehanna. It therefore devolves chiefly upon Pennsylvania, for the present, to arrest the advances of the enemy within her borders. New York has sent to her support some fifteen thousand men or more of our well trained and well equipped State militia. Pennsylvania, acting with similar energy, ought now on her own account to have fifty thousand soldiers on the Susquehanna.
The ultimate designs of Lee are still the subject of conjecture. We cannot believe that beyond a paltry detachment or two he contemplates any military operations east of the Susquehanna. We guess that he is holding the bulk of his army in a position from which he may advance against or retreat from General Meade, as the occasion may invite or require; and that, while busy in collecting supplies in Pennsylvania, he is not the man to neglect his lines of escape – that, in fact, he is not the man to put an unfordable river or a powerful hostile army in his rear for a haphazard dash upon Philadelphia or Baltimore. We believe, in fact, that in advancing to the Susquehanna the forces of Lee have reached their Northern terminus, and that within a day or two his real intentions will be developed in some other direction. He has lost too much time to attempt the passage of the Susquehanna in force, and too much time to move down in search of the great army on his flank. Let Pennsylvania attend to his little detachments of foragers for a few days, and prepare for a vigorous support in the rear to the movements of General Meade from Washington, and the end of this rebel invasion will be the end of the rebellion.
The Army of the Potomac, under General Meade, will advance with new life and vigor, and with reinforcements which will enable him to baffle and defeat all the movements of the enemy in any direction. Let Pennsylvania, meantime, do her duty in behalf of her own people, and New York will not be wanting in additional contributions of soldiers to make sure work of the audacious invader of a neighboring State.