General Imboden,
westward, to destroy the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and another
body, under General Jenkins, in advance, toward Chambersburg.
Meanwhile, the rest of the army was moving to join him. Hill, finding
that the enemy had disappeared from his front near Fredericksburg,
hastened to march from that vicinity, and was sent forward by Lee, on
the track of Ewell, passing in rear of Longstreet, who had remained
in Culpepper. The latter was now directed by Lee to move along
the eastern side of the Blue Ridge, and, by occupying Ashby's and
Snicker's Gaps, protect the flank of the column in the Valley from
attack--a work in which Stuart's cavalry, thrown out toward the enemy,
assisted.

Such was the posture of affairs when General Hooker's chief-of-staff
became so much puzzled, and described the Federal army as "boggling
around," and not knowing "what they were going after." Lee's whole
movement, it appears, was regarded as a feint to "cover a cavalry-raid
on the south side of the river"--a strange conclusion, it would seem,
in reference to a movement of such magnitude. It now became absolutely
necessary that Lee's designs should be unmasked, if possible; and
to effect this object Stuart's cavalry force, covering the southern
flank, east of the Blue Ridge, must be driven back. This was
undertaken in a deliberate manner. Three corps of cavalry, with a
division of infantry and a full supply of artillery, were sent forward
from the vicinity of Manassas, to drive Stuart in on all the roads
leading to the mountain. A fierce struggle followed, in which Stuart,
who knew the importance of his position, fought the great force
opposed to him from every hill and knoll. But he was forced back
steadily, in spite of a determined resistance, and at Upperville a
hand-to-hand sabre-fight wound up the movement, in which the Federal
cavalry was checked, when Stuart fell back toward Paris, crowned the
mountain-side with his cannon, and awaited a final attack. This was
not, however, made. Night approaching, the Federal force fell back
toward Manassas, and on the next morning Stuart followed them, on the
same road over which he had so rapidly retreated, beyond Middleburg.

Lee paid little attention to these operations on his flank east of
the mountains, but proceeded steadily, in personal command of his
infantry, in the direction of the Cumberland Valley. Ewell was moving
rapidly toward Harrisburg, with orders to "take" that place "if he