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the irascibleJubal Early, split off from Ewell’s advance up the Cumberland Valley on June 22nd. Early’s division (accompanied by Col.William French’s17th Virginia Cavalry andElijah White’s35th Virginia Battalion for screening) hugged the western slope ofSouth Mountain through the hamlets of Waynesboro, Quincy, and Mount Alto and then turned due east, heading for York and the bridges crossing the lower Susquehanna at Wrightsville. There, unless Robert E. Lee issued a recall order, Early (followed at some distance by Powell Hill) would cross the river and join with Ewell in taking Harrisburg. 15
    Square in Jubal Early’s path to York, however, was Gettysburg. The town’s only defense on June 26th were the six-day soldiers of the 26th Pennsylvania (who finally made it to Gettysburg on a second train that morning, to be greeted with a lavish breakfast), the Philadelphia cavalry troopers,Robert Bell’s home guard horsemen, and several ofDavid McConaughy’s civilian scouts. The home guards had already traded a few shots with Early’s cavalry screen at Fairfield and theMonterey Gap, and Major Haller had set farmers to felling trees as obstructions on the road from Cashtown to Gettysburg. None of this was likely to do more than annoy Early’s 6,500 hungry, confident veterans, but Major Haller was determined to make at least some sort of flourish, and although it had now begun to rain, the 26th Pennsylvania and the gaggle of scouts, home guards, and the finely dressed troopers from Philadelphia marched sullenly westward, out theCashtown Pike. 16
    Jubal Early took no more notice of what was reported as “a large force of Pennsylvania militia” than he did of the weather. Between noon and two o’clock, he sent one of his three brigades, under a grandiloquent Georgian,John Brown Gordon, straight along the Cashtown Pike to where the 26th Pennsylvania was deployed behindMarsh Creek, three miles from the center of Gettysburg, and then hooked his two other brigades and William French’s cavalry northward, to the left, along theHilltown Road. The entire encounter could not have lasted more than twenty minutes. “The militia, who no doubt had previously resolved to die if need be in defense of their homes and friends,” wrote a sardonic Confederate staff officer, “changed their minds when they caught a glimpse” of Gordon’s infantry. The 26th Pennsylvania Emergency Militia broke and ran for their lives, some hoping to reach the train station in Gettysburg to make a quick exit eastward, others strugglingnorth and east with French’s cavalry regiment in pursuit. The home guards also bolted back to the town, where Captain Bell told them to disband and fade back to their homes. Major Haller, the author of this little affair, took off in the direction of York, accompanied by the First City Troop in all their finery. All told, Gordon and French scooped up 175 prisoners; one of Bell’s home guards,George Washington Sandoe, was shot and killed by Confederate cavalry just south of Gettysburg, thus earning a fatal nomination as the first soldier (of sorts) to die at Gettysburg. 17
    The home guards were also the first to gallop through Gettysburg with the news that “the Rebels” were now indisputably coming. MissCarrie Sheads’ girls school on theCashtown Pike was dismissed and the girls sent running and crying into town, where they sought refuge in the lobby of theEagle Hotel onChambersburg Street.Hugh Scott, who operated the towntelegraph office out of his parents’ home on Chambersburg Street, promptly disconnected the telegraph, strode out the door, and drove off frantically in the direction of York in a borrowed horse and buggy. Shelves inJohn L. Schick’s clothing store on the diamond had advertised a “great variety” of gloves, glasses, parasols, umbrellas, and the best “dress trimmings” at “prices to defy competition,” but on this afternoon the shelves had been swept clean and the stock sent off to