Late in June 1863, the Union Army of the Potomac pursued Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia as it invaded the North less than a year after the Antietam Campaign. On Monday, June 29, the Federal corps marched north toward Pennsylvania on parallel roads after being ordered to stay between Lee and the large Northern cities. Gen. John F. Reynolds led I Corps west of Frederick on Emmitsburg Road, while Gen. Oliver O. Howard and XI Corps tramped Old Frederick Road to Emmitsburg. Commanding Gen. George G. Meade, with III and XII Corps and the artillery reserve, moved on what is now Rte. 194, while Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock's II Corps and Meade's V Corps, soon placed under Gen. George Sykes, marched northeastward along present-day Rte. 26 to Liberty and Unionville. Gen. John Sedgwick's VI Corps, which guarded the army's right flank, moved by New Market to Mount Airy and Westminster, reaching Manchester on June 30. The next day, the corps began an epic 34-mile march to Gettysburg and arrived late in the afternoon of July 2. A soldier in the 37th Massachusetts Infantry, VI Corps, later recalled that on entering New Market, two or three young ladies stood in front of their home waving small Union flags, an electrifying sight that convinced the troops they were in the land of friends.