"
[Footnote: Official Records, vol. xii. pt. iii. pp. 534, 540, 543.]
On the 8th of August Pope telegraphed me, accordingly, to march by
way of Lewisburg, Covington, Warm Springs, and Augusta Springs to
Harrisonburg, and there join him by shortest route. He indicated
Winchester or Romney as my secondary aim if I should find the
junction with him barred. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 460, 462, 551.] This
route avoided Staunton, but by so short a distance that it was
scarcely safer, and the roads to be travelled were much harder and
longer. At this time several detachments of considerable size were
out, chasing guerilla parties and small bodies of Confederate
troops, and assisting in the organization or enlistment of Union
men. The movement ordered could not begin for several days, and I
took advantage of the interval to lay before General Pope, by
telegraph, the proof that the march would take fifteen days of
uninterrupted travel through a mountainous region, most of it a
wilderness destitute of supplies, and with the enemy upon the flank.
Besides this there was the very serious question whether the Army of
Virginia would be at Charlottesville when I should approach that
place.
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