Letter

Joseph Hooker to Edwin M. Stanton, January 1, 1863

PLEASONTON’S HEADQUARTERS,

Jume 14, 1863. Hon. E. M. Stanton, Secretary of War: Accept my thanks for Colonel Kilpatrick’s appointment.* Everything is quiet to the front and right. The enemy has a force of cavalry (about a brigade) at Amissville, which has been stationed there for over a week. No other enemy reported this side of the mountains this morning. A PLEASONTON Brigadier-General. HEADQUARTERS CAVALRY CoRPS, June 14, 1863. (Received 8.55 p. m.) I omitted to say in a former dispatch that the negro who came in from the rebel column moving on Maryland, stated that the rebel soldiers said they would not fight, excepting on their own soil; that they would desert and give themselves up the first chance. The movement is not popular with their soldiers. A. PLEASONTON, Brigadier-General. HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE Potomac. June 14, 1863—9.30 p. m, General HANCOCK : Defer withdrawal for a few hours, and await orders. Answer. BUTTERFIELD, Major-General. * As brigadier-general U. S. Volunteers. DUMFRIES, June 14, 1863—9.25 p. m. General PLEASONTON, Warrenton Junction : Of the 15,000 infantry and artillery remaining at Culpeper, I have no satisfactory information, unless included incolumn which you reported to me as having left there Thursday [11th] last.

HOOKER,

Major-General.
Editor's Notes
From: Operations in N. Virginia, W. Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Pt. 1. Summary: Hooker informs Secretary Stanton of quiet enemy movements, praises Kilpatrick's appointment, and reports low Confederate morale and desertion intentions during the Gettysburg Campaign in June 1863.
Sources
The War of the Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Volume 27, Part 1 View original source ↗