Free Lee and His Men at Gettysburg: The Death of a Nation by Clifford Dowdey

this plan to Lee, who, with reservations, agreed to it “if practical.”
    Apparently General Lee was concerned about adding this risk to the whole gamble of the invasion, for on June 23 he had Colonel Marshall, his A.A.G, write Jeb Stuart a worried follow-up letter of instructions.
    Without question, those instructions offered Stuart the discretion that Lee customarily granted to his subordinates. His innate consideration restrained him from giving a direct order to those he trusted, and he was always influenced by the individualistic nature of the patriot army. Because this army lacked the machinery of a regular establishment, Lee felt that more could be accomplished by appeals to the officers’ initiative and sense of personal responsibility. He preferred suggestion to command when an officer had proved trustworthy, as had Stuart, and Lee was especially fond of young Jeb.
    Lee’s letter was delivered to cavalry headquarters before daybreak of the 24th. Stuart, refusing the comforts of a house while his men slept in the rain, was sleeping under a rubber blanket on the ground. As always, Stuart came fully awake at the touch of his aide. This is, in part, what the letter said:
     
If General Hooker’s army remains inactive, you can leave two brigades to watch him, and withdraw with the three others; but should he not appear to be moving northward, I think you had better withdraw this [west] side of the mountains tomorrow night [24th], cross at Shepherdstown the next day [25th], and move over to Frederick.
You will, however, be able to judge whether you can pass around their army without hinderance, doing them all the damage you can, and cross the river east of the mountains. In either case [that is, whether Stuart crossed the Potomac west of the mountains at Shepherdstown or at some ford east of the Blue Ridge], after crossing the river, you must move on and feel the right of Ewell’s troops, collecting information, provisions, etc.
    There was no underscoring in the letter clumsily written by Colonel Marshall and endorsed by Lee, but even in Marshall’s unclear instructions the words here italicized would leave a trained cavalryman in no doubt about his assignment.
    The letter also referred to the instructions sent two days before, in which Lee’s orders were clearer: “If you find that he [Hooker] is moving northward … you can move with the other three [brigades] into Maryland, and take position on Ewell’s right, place yourself in communication with him, guard his flank, keep him informed on the enemy’s movement. …”
    Lee left to Stuart’s discretion only the place to cross the river and whether to move northward by the Valley or by circling Hooker’s army if he could “without hinderance.” Stuart was given no leeway regarding the purpose of the cavalry’s movement. In fact, the repetitive instructions reflected Lee’s anxiety over Stuart’s big risk, and in the second letter he showed that he urgently wanted Stuart to follow the army quickly: “I think the sooner you cross into Maryland, after tomorrow [June 24], the better.”
    The last line of the letter, the last words that Stuart received from Lee in Virginia, read: “Be watchful and circumspect in all your movements.”
    4
    Committed to making the ride around Hooker eclipse even the celebrated ride around McClellan, Stuart ignored Lee’s provisos and accepted the anxious letter as authority for moving northward to the east of and around the Union army. “The commanding-general wrote me, authorizing this move if I deemed it practical”—that was the only mention Stuart made of the letter in his official report.
    To “deem it practical,” Stuart was obliged to defy immediately the specific order to cross the mountains and move north by way of the Valley if Hooker remained inactive. To the best of Stuart’s knowledge, Hooker was inactive on the morning of June 24. He had been so informed by the irrepressible scout Major John Mosby. This