After the Confederate victory at Chancellorsville in May 1863, Gen. Robert E. Lee led the Army of Northern Virginia west to the Shenandoah Valley, then north through central Maryland and into Pennsylvania, while Gen. George G. Meade, who replaced Gen. Joseph Hooker on June 28, led the Army of the Potomac in pursuit. Near the end of June 1863, about 15,000 exhausted Union soldiers paused around Manchester as Meade, uncertain of Lee’s objectives or strength, ordered his army toward nearby Pipe Creek to meet any move toward Washington or Baltimore. The Union army’s right flank rested at Manchester, its center at Union Mills, and its left at Middleburg. Gen. John Sedgwick’s VI Corps, the largest in the Federal army, reached Manchester on June 30 after a long march from New Windsor through Westminster in intense heat, and the town’s residents brought bread, cakes, pies, and milk to overheated, footsore soldiers, some without shoes. On July 1 the men rested, cleaned their weapons, and received sixty rounds of ammunition each, but that evening orders sent the weary VI Corps back through Westminster and north on the Littlestown Turnpike toward Gettysburg. Marching through the night and all the next day under the scorching sun, they covered 34 miles and arrived at Gettysburg with loud cheers about 5 P.M. on July 2, just in time to reinforce the Union lines. The armies had collided there on July 1 in a battle neither commander had planned to fight at that place, and after three days the defeated Confederates retreated across the Potomac River into Virginia on July 14.