nfinished when the Rebels appeared in
force in the vicinity. Harrisburg might easily have been taken, and a
way opened into the heart of the North. But a Power greater than man's
ruled the event. The Power that lifted these azure hills, and spread out
the green valleys, and hollowed a passage for the stream, appointed to
treason also a limit and a term. "Thus far, and no farther."

The surrounding country is full of lively reminiscences of those
terrible times. Panic-stricken populations flying at the approach of the
enemy; whole families fugitive from homes none thought of defending;
flocks and herds, horses, wagon-loads of promiscuously heaped household
stuffs and farm produce; men, women, children, riding, walking, running,
driving or leading their bewildered four-footed chattels,--all rushing
forward with clamor and alarm under clouds of dust, crowding every road
to the river, and thundering across the long bridges regardless of the
"five-dollars-fine" notice (though it is to be hoped that the
toll-takers did their duty):--such were the scenes which occurred to
render the Rebel invasion memorable. The thrifty German farmers of the
lower counties did not gain much credit either for courage or patriotism
at that time. It was a panic, however, to which almost any community
would have been liable. Stuart's famous raid of the previous year was
well remembered. If a small cavalry force had swept from their track
through a circuit of about sixty miles over two thousand horses, what
was to be expected from Lee's whole army? Resistance to the formidable
advance of one hundred thousand disciplined troops was of course out of
the question. The slowness, however, with which the people responded to
the State's almost frantic calls for volunteers was in singular contrast
with the alacrity each man showed to run off his horses and get his
goods out of Rebel reach.

From Harrisburg, I went, by the way of York and Hanover, to Gettysburg.
Having hastily secured a room at a hotel in the Square, (the citizens
call it the "Di'mond,") I inquired the way to the battle-ground.

"You are on it now," said the landlord, with proud satisfaction,--for
it is not every man that lives, much less keeps a tavern, on the field
of a world-famous fight. "I tell you the truth," said he; and, in proof
of his words, (as if the fact were too wonderful to be believed without
proof,) he showed me a Rebel shell imbedded in the brick wall of a house
close by