This statement may modify the condemnatory judgments which were formed against General Meade, and may prepare our minds rightly to interpret General A. P. Howe's report of the general pursuit. In narrating its spirit and progress, he says: "On the fourth of July it seemed evident enough that the enemy were retreating. How far they were gone we could not see from the front. We could see but a comparatively small force from the position where I was. On Sunday the Fifth and Sixth Corps moved in pursuit. As we moved, a small rearguard of the enemy retreated. We followed them, with this small rearguard of the enemy before us, up to Fairfield, in a gorge of the mountains. There we again waited for them to go on. There seemed to be no disposition to push this rearguard when we got up to Fairfield. A lieutenant from the enemy came into our lines and gave himself up. He was a Northern Union man, in service in one of the Georgia regiments; and, without being asked, he unhesitatingly told me, when I met him as he was being brought in, that he belonged to the artillery of the rearguard of the enemy, and that they had but two rounds of ammunition with the rearguard. But we waited there without receiving any orders to attack. It was a place where, as I informed General Sedgwick, we could easily attack the enemy with advantage. But no movement was made by us until the enemy went away. Then one brigade of my division, with some cavalry, was sent to follow after them, while the remainder of the Sixth Corps moved to the left. We moved on through Boonsboro', and passed up on the pike-road leading to Hagerstown.