Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 23.
Reverend J. William Jones, Ed.

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[227] Cashtown and Gettysburg, and Ewell to march from Carlisle, so as to form a junction with Hill either at Cashtown or Gettysburg, as circumstances might direct. He ordered General Longstreet to prepare to move the next morning, following Hill. The army moved very slowly, and there would have been no difficulty whatever in having the whole of it at Gettysburg by the morning of the 1st of July had we been aware of the movements of the enemy on the other side of the mountains.

You will thus see that the movement to Gettysburg was the result of the want of information, which the cavalry alone could obtain for us, and that General Lee was compelled to march through the mountains from Chambersburg eastward without the slightest knowledge of the enemy's movements, except that brought by the scout. While making this march the only information he possessed led him to believe that the army of the enemy was moving westward from Frederick to throw itself upon his line of communication with Virginia, and the object of the movement, as I have stated, was simply to arrest the execution of this supposed plan of the enemy, and keep his army on the east side of the Blue Ridge.

It would have been entirely within the power of General Lee to have met the army of the enemy while it was moving on the road between Frederick and Gettysburg, or to have remained west of the mountains. It had not been his intention to deliver a battle north of the Potomac, if it could be avoided, except upon his own terms, and yet, by reason of the absence of the cavalry, his own army marching slowly eastward from Chambersburg, and southward from Carlisle, came unexpectedly on the Federal advance on the 1st day of July, a considerable part of the Confederate army having not yet reached the field of battle.