General Lee had been strangely passive (or perhaps supremely self-confident) ever since entering Pennsylvania, particularly in this matter of keeping track of the opposing army. Over the past year he had become totally dependent on Stuart to deliver intelligence on the Yankees, or to arrange for its delivery. Now, at this critical moment, Stuart was not there. “It was the absence of Stuart himself that he felt so keenly,” Major Henry McClellan wrote of Lee. “. . . It seemed as if his cavalry were concentrated in one person, and from him alone could information be expected.” Should any delay or
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