It was one of the war’s most dramatic moments – and the soldiers of Robert E Lee’s army knew it. They were crossing the Potomac River to take the war to the North. Less than a year earlier, Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia had tried to do so and had failed – their attempted invasion had been turned back at the battle of Antietam. Now, in the summer of 1863, Lee’s army was again wading the Potomac, crossing into Maryland, heading to Pennsylvania and Northern soil. This time they were fresh from a major victory at the battle of Chancellorsville and Lee hoped to win another victory in the North – one that would end the war’s awful bloodshed and gain Southern nationhood.

On the morning of Thursday, June 25th, the troops of General James J. Pettigrew’s Brigade – part of the Third Corps of Lee’s army – forded the Potomac near Shepherdstown, Virginia. Here, at Boteler’s Ford, the river was approximately 150 yards wide, marked in spots by scattered boulders, and was armpit-deep in places. Some men kept on their uniforms; while others stripped.

On the Maryland shore they shouted the “Rebel Yell,” and someone in the 26th N.C. began singing the lyrics of ”Maryland, My Maryland” – a poignant musical protest of the Northern occupation of Maryland. Other soldiers joined the chorus, and the poetic lament echoed over the broad river basin. An officer on General Pettigrew’s staff ordered the 26th North Carolina’s regimental band to play an accompaniment to the singing. The band – composed of accomplished musicians from the Moravian community in Salem, North Carolina – was renowned as one of the best bands in Confederate service. The musicians took up the tune and continued to play it until thousands of soldiers were across.

Just miles ahead across the Pennsylvania border lay the quiet crossroads hamlet of Gettysburg. There the great battle that Lee sought would be waged, but it would not end in Southern victory. Instead, it would prove to be the high water mark of the Confederacy and the beginning of the end of the Southern quest for independence. The North’s Army of the Potomac, defeated just weeks earlier, would prevail in defending Northern soil at Gettysburg, and untold thousands of Southern soldiers would not return across the Potomac.