Part 8

[78] Lee told the officer in command that he could spare him all the artillery he wanted, but no infantry.

[79] The Union cavalry attacked this train on the 6th without success. Had they succeeded, all of Lee's immense plunder would have fallen into their hands. As it was, the trains were got across by a rope ferry; also the four thousand Union prisoners that the army brought along with it.

[80] The corps trains had to move with the army mostly.

[81] The whole Union army did not leave Gettysburg before the morning of the 6th. The Confederates were then nearly up to Hagerstown.

[82] French, it will be remembered, had been ordered to hold Frederick. He now occupied the lower passes for which Meade was making, so reinforcing Meade.

[83] The infantry reached Middletown on the morning of the 9th, crossed South Mountain that day, and on the next came in front of the enemy's intrenchments.

[84] The Confederate losses have been variously estimated all the way from twenty thousand four hundred (total) to thirty thousand. There exists no accurate basis for a fair count. The first figure is far too low; the last, perhaps, too high.

XI

THINGS BY THE WAY

The battle of Gettysburg has often been called the turning-point of the war between the States. It was certainly the greatest of the many great conflicts of that war--the greatest exhibition, we will say, of stubborn fighting. There, if ever, it was that Greek met Greek. During three sweltering midsummer days, two numerous, well-appointed, veteran armies, ably led and equally nerved to their utmost efforts, fought for the mastery with equal resolution and bravery. For three days the result hung in suspense. Through all those terrible days the battle constantly grew in its proportions and intensity. From first to last, until the last gun was fired, the hush of expectancy fell upon the land. It was felt that this battle must be decisive. On one side, at least, was the determination to make it so. The impoverished Confederacy was staking its fortunes upon a last throw.

Yet this battle was singularly indecisive. On the first day the Union forces suffered a serious reverse; on the second they narrowly escaped a defeat; but on the third the Confederates were so signally repulsed that nothing was left them but retreat. This they effected with boldness and skill, in spite of the victors, in spite of the elements--in fine, in spite of that fortune which seemed to have turned against them from the moment of their defeat.

Considered, then, only as a battle, Gettysburg was a series of isolated combats, delivered without unity and followed by no irremediable reverse to the vanquished. In no military sense, therefore, can it be called decisive. In a political sense it was even less so, because Lee's army was neither destroyed, nor were the resources of the Confederacy fatally crippled. Rather was it a trial of strength between two athletes, one of whom, after throwing the other, tells him to get up and go about his business--in short, a mere pounding match.

Yet Gettysburg ought to have been the Waterloo of the Confederacy. Then and there that war should have ended. To say that the whole country was aghast at Lee's escape would be only the plainest expression of the popular feeling of the day. Naturally enough one great chorus of disappointment greeted its announcement. Was this all? Had these two armies merely had a wrestling match? Had Meade and Lee compared their bruises, only to separate with the understanding that they would fight again at some future day when both felt stronger? Apparently the war was no nearer its ending than before. To the common understanding it did seem "a most lame and impotent conclusion." If the Confederates could not be crushed when everything conspired against them, and in favor of the Union army, when would they be?

That Lee extricated his army from its highly dangerous position must no longer be attributed to his superior generalship, we think, but to the want of it on the Union side. It is vain to ask why this or that thing was not done, since this campaign is unique for its omissions. Meade at Gettysburg was like a man who has been pushed into a fight reluctantly, and who stops the moment his adversary is down.

The history of this battle is largely that of the two commanders and their subordinates. Things done or left undone control the destinies of nations as well as of individuals. The want of cordiality among some of the Union generals was an incident of importance.

In arresting Lee's triumphal march, Meade had undoubtedly achieved all that the best-informed persons would have asked of him when he took the command, more perhaps than he allowed himself to expect when the magnitude of the task first unfolded itself to his troubled vision. His measures are so expressive of this want of confidence that any other conclusion seems inadmissible. Very sanguine persons, indeed, said that Lee ought never to return to Virginia except as a prisoner of war. The bare notion of a successful invasion by seventy thousand or eighty thousand men, with one hundred thousand behind them and the whole North before them, was scouted as a piece of folly designed and put in execution by madmen. If one hundred thousand were not enough, were there not one hundred and fifty thousand available? When Lee got to the Susquehanna these demands were somewhat lowered. They did not know, these unreflecting persons, that what an army wants is not men, but a man--one man.

So far this army had been a school in which mediocrity had risen. The really great commander had not yet forced his way to the front in spite of cabals in or out of the army. There had been a series of experiments--disastrous experiments. No army had ever marched more bravely to defeat or so seldom to victory. Few expected victory now.

Yielding to an imperative order, Meade found the Herculean task thrust upon him, with the fact staring him in the face that a defeated general meant a disgraced one.

But even then he did not find himself free to handle his army as he thought proper, because in Halleck he had always a tutor and critic who from his easy-chair in Washington assumed to supervise the acts of the commander in the field. Upon a not over-confident general the effect was especially pernicious. The war-cry at Washington was, "Beat the enemy, but make no mistakes!" This was constantly ringing in Meade's ears. As Halleck was an excellent closet strategist, some of his suggestions would have been eminently proper and useful, could he have been on the spot himself, but under existing conditions they could serve only to make Meade still more hesitating and timid. Handled in this way, no army has ever achieved great results, and no army ever will achieve them.

At the close of the Third Day's sanguinary encounter with Lee, Meade had found himself victorious. The fact that the fortune of war had thus placed the initiative in his hands seems to have become a source of embarrassment and perplexity; from that moment his acts became timid, halting, partial. When pressed to more active measures he flew into a passion.

The fault, as we look at it, was not so much in the commander as in the man. Meade the commander could do no more than Meade the man. He was no genius. He was only a brave, methodical, and conscientious soldier, who, within his limitations, had acted well his part. Under Grant he made an excellent so-called second in command.

It has been said that in defending itself successfully, the Union army had done all that could be expected, under the circumstances. Must we then admit that for Lee not to conquer was in itself a victory? Unquestionably there was a prevalent, a somewhat overshadowing, feeling that all the best generalship was on the Confederate side.

By a sort of perversity of the human mind, a certain class of critics is always found ready to prove why a beaten general is the best general.

Nevertheless, Lee himself goes down in history as a general who never won a decisive victory.

He was certainly lucky at Gettysburg. For a time his great reputation silenced the voice of criticism. His own subordinates are now accusing him of making fatal mistakes. May it not be equally true that Lee rashly undertook more at Gettysburg than he was able to perform? He has as good as admitted it. Carried away by a first success, he committed the old mistake of underrating his adversary. His victory of the first day was due to no combinations of his own, because he was then completely ignorant of where the Federal army was. He supposed it at least twenty miles off. His success of the second, again, arose first out of an entire misconception on his part as to the Union position, which was nowhere near where he thought it was, and next from a piece of recklessness on the part of one of the Union generals, by which an inferior force was again opposed to a superior one. On the third, he used means wholly inadequate to the work in hand, yet of his own planning; and on all three days, with the field of battle under his eye, little or no manœuvring for advantage of position, and plenty of time to look about him in, he signally failed to secure coöperation among his corps commanders. We see no evidence here, we confess, of generalship. Indeed, this inability to make himself obeyed indicates a serious defect somewhere. Like another great but also unfortunate captain, Lee might have exclaimed in bitterness of spirit, "Incomprehensible day! Concurrence of unheard-of fatalities! Strange campaign when, in less than a week, I three times saw assured victory escape from my grasp! And yet all that skill could do was done."

Gettysburg made no reputations on either side. It may have destroyed some illusions in regard to the invincibility of Confederate generals. Meade succeeded because he was able to move troops to threatened points more rapidly than his assailant, but the battle was won more through the gallantry of the soldiers than by the skill of their generals. Victory restored to them their feeling of equality--their morale. And that was no small thing.

Considered with reference to its political effect upon the fortunes of the Confederacy, not to have succeeded was even worse than not to have tried at all, since it settled the question, once and for all, of achieving independence on Northern soil. Peace without submission was no longer possible, because the end was no longer in doubt. It came at last. And never in the history of the world, it is believed, have the victors shown such magnanimity to the vanquished.

THE END.

APPENDIX

ARMY OF THE POTOMAC AS IT FOUGHT AT GETTYSBURG.

Major-Gen. GEORGE G. MEADE, Commanding.

STAFF.

Major-Gen. Daniel Butterfield, Chief of Staff; Brig.-Gen. M. R. Patrick, Provost Marshal-General; Brig.-Gen. Seth Williams, Adjutant-General; Brig.-Gen. Edmund Shriver, Inspector-General; Brig.-Gen. Rufus Ingalls, Q. M. General; Brig.-Gen. Gouverneur K. Warren, Chief of Engineers; Brig.-Gen. Henry J. Hunt, Chief of Artillery; Col. Henry F. Clarke, Chief Commissary; Major John Letterman, Chief of Medical Department; Major D. W. Flagler, Chief Ordnance Officer; Capt. L. B. Norton, Chief Signal Officer.

FIRST ARMY CORPS.

Major-Gen. JOHN F. REYNOLDS.

_First Division._--Brig.-Gen. James S. Wadsworth. _First Brigade_: Brig.-Gen. Solomon Meredith; _Second Brigade_: Brig.-Gen. Lysander Cutler.

_Second Division._--Brig.-Gen. John C. Robinson. _First Brigade_: Brig.-Gen. Gabriel R. Paul; _Second Brigade_: Brig.-Gen. Henry Baxter.

_Third Division._--Maj.-Gen. Abner Doubleday. _First Brigade_: Brig.-Gen. Thos. A. Rowley; _Second Brigade_: Col. Roy Stone; _Third Brigade_: Brig.-Gen. Geo. J. Stannard; _Artillery Brigade_: Col. Chas. S. Wainwright.

SECOND ARMY CORPS.

Major-Gen. WINFIELD S. HANCOCK.

_First Division._--Brig.-Gen. John C. Caldwell. _First Brigade_: Col. Edwin E. Cross; _Second Brigade_: Col. Patrick Kelly; _Third Brigade_: Brig.-Gen. S. K. Zook; _Fourth Brigade_: Col. John R. Brooke.

_Second Division._--Brig.-Gen. John Gibbon. _First Brigade_: Brig.-Gen. William Harrow; _Second Brigade_: Brig.-Gen. Alex. S. Webb; _Third Brigade_: Col. Norman J. Hall.

_Third Division._--Brig.-Gen. Alexander Hays. _First Brigade_: Col. Samuel S. Carroll; _Second Brigade_: Col. Thomas A. Smyth; _Third Brigade_: Col. Geo. L. Willard; _Artillery Brigade_: Capt. J. G. Hazard.

THIRD ARMY CORPS.

Major-Gen. DANIEL E. SICKLES.

_First Division._--Major-Gen. David B. Birney. _First Brigade_: Brig.-Gen. C. K. Graham; _Second Brigade_: Brig.-Gen. J. H. H. Ward; _Third Brigade_: Col. Philip R. De Trobriand.

_Second Division._--Brig.-Gen. Andrew A. Humphreys. _First Brigade_: Brig.-Gen. Joseph B. Carr; _Second Brigade_: Col. Wm. R. Brewster; _Third Brigade_: Col. Geo. C. Burling; _Artillery Brigade_: Capt. Geo. E. Randolph.

FIFTH ARMY CORPS.

Major-Gen. GEORGE B. SYKES.

_First Division._--Brig.-Gen. James Barnes. _First Brigade_: Col. W. S. Tilton; _Second Brigade_: Col. J. B. Sweitzer; _Third Brigade_: Col. Strong Vincent.

_Second Division._--Brig.-Gen. Romayn B. Ayres. _First Brigade_: Col. Hannibal Day; _Second Brigade_: Col. Sidney Burbank; _Third Brigade_: Brig.-Gen. S. H. Webb.

_Third Division._--Brig.-Gen. S. Wiley Crawford. _First Brigade_: Col. Wm. McCandless; _Second Brigade_: Col. Joseph W. Fisher; _Artillery Brigade_: Capt. A. P. Martin.

SIXTH ARMY CORPS.

Major-Gen. JOHN SEDGWICK.

_First Division._--Brig.-Gen. H. G. Wright. _First Brigade_: Brig.-Gen. A. T. A. Torbert; _Second Brigade_: Brig.-Gen. J. J. Bartlett; _Third Brigade_: Brig.-Gen. D. A. Russell.

_Second Division._--Brig.-Gen. A. P. Howe. _Second Brigade_: Col. L. A. Grant; _Third Brigade_: Brig.-Gen. T. H. Neill.

_Third Division._--Brig.-Gen. Frank Wheaton. _First Brigade_: Brig.-Gen. Alex. Shaler; _Second Brigade_: Col. H. L. Eustis; _Third Brigade_: Col. David J. Nevin; _Artillery Brigade_: Col. C. H. Tompkins.

ELEVENTH ARMY CORPS.

Major-Gen. OLIVER O. HOWARD.

_First Division._--Brig.-Gen. Francis C. Barlow. _First Brigade_: Col. Leopold von Gilsa; _Second Brigade_: Brig.-Gen. Adelbert Ames.

_Second Division._--Brig.-Gen. A. von Steinwehr. _First Brigade_: Col. Chas. R. Coster; _Second Brigade_: Col. Orlando Smith.

_Third Division._--Major-Gen. Carl Shurz. _First Brigade_: Brig.-Gen. A. von Schimmelpfennig; _Second Brigade_: Col. Waldimir Kryzanowski; _Artillery Brigade_: Maj. Thos. W. Osborn.

TWELFTH ARMY CORPS.

Major-Gen. HENRY W. SLOCUM.

_First Division._--Brig.-Gen. Alpheus S. Williams. _First Brigade_: Col. Archibald L. McDougall; _Second Brigade_: Brig.-Gen. Henry H. Lockwood; _Third Brigade_: Col. Silas Colgrove.

_Second Division._--Brig.-Gen. John W. Geary. _First Brigade_: Col. Chas. Candy; _Second Brigade_: Col. Geo. A. Cobham, Jr.; _Third Brigade_: Brig.-Gen. Geo. S. Greene; _Artillery Brigade_: Lieut. Edw. D. Muhlenberg.

CAVALRY CORPS.

Major-Gen. ALFRED PLEASONTON.

_First Division._--Brig.-Gen. John Buford. _First Brigade_: Col. Wm. Gamble; _Second Brigade_: Col. Thos. C. Devin; _Reserve Brigade_: Brig.-Gen. Wesley Merritt.

_Second Division._--Brig.-Gen. D. McM. Gregg. _First Brigade_: Col. J. B. McIntosh; _Second Brigade_: Col. Pennock Huey; _Third Brigade_: Col. J. I. Gregg.

_Third Division._--Brig.-Gen. Judson Kilpatrick. _First Brigade_: Brig.-Gen. Elon J. Farnsworth; _Second Brigade_: Brig.-Gen. Geo. A. Custer.

HORSE ARTILLERY.

_First Brigade_: Capt. John M. Robertson; _Second Brigade_: Capt. John C. Tidball.

ARTILLERY RESERVE.

Brig.-Gen. R. O. TYLER.

_First Regular Brigade_: Capt. D. R. Ransom; _First Volunteer Brigade_: Lieut.-Col. F. McGilvery; _Second Volunteer Brigade_: Capt. E. D. Taft; _Third Volunteer Brigade_: Capt. James F. Huntington; _Fourth Volunteer Brigade_: Capt. R. H. Fitzhugh.

INDEX

ARMY OF THE POTOMAC follows Lee, 39; order of march, 40; halts at Frederick, Md., 40; change of commanders, 40; dangerous meddling, 41; effect on the army, 42; its _morale_, 43, 44; its efficiency, _note_, 45; in march toward the enemy, 49; diverging while the enemy is concentrating, 52; hard marching, 53; is badly scattered, 53; left wing in a critical position, 54; how posted on June 30, 55; Buford's cavalry engaged at Gettysburg, 62; First Corps gets up to its support, 63; holds the ground till the Eleventh arrives, 68; both are defeated, 76; losses, 77; reasons for defeat, 77; ordered to Gettysburg, 85; Twelfth Corps gets up, 87; also part of Third, 89; other corps, 90; strength of the corps, _note_, 96; as posted July 2 on Cemetery Ridge, 98; Third Corps movements, 101, _et seq._; how this corps was formed to resist Lee's attack, 109; whole of the army up at last, 109; the battle begins, 112; Sickles' whole line is driven in, 124; we hold Little Round Top, 121; portions of the Second and Fifth assist the Third; they have to fall back, 123; other troops compel Longstreet to desist, 125; dispositions for renewing the battle, 133, 134; Culp's Hill attacked, 135; Ewell driven out, 136; sustains a terrific cannonade, 137, 138, 139; lines as formed to resist charge of July 3, 140; the assault repulsed, 143, _et seq._; remains inactive, 153; while Lee retreats, 154; marches in pursuit, 154; finds enemy in a strong position, 156; _notes_, 159; and Lee again slips away, 157; losses during the campaign, 157.

Baltimore alarmed, _note_, 45.

Baltimore Pike, cutting the Union lines, 99.

Battlefield Memorial Association, _note_, 21.

Buford's (John) cavalry operations on the left, 40; riding to Fairfield, 49; finds the enemy, 54; is ordered to hold Gettysburg, 55; posts himself on Oak Ridge, 61; fights till relieved, 63; is sent off to the rear, 101.

Cavalry, battles of July 3d, 148; operations during Lee's retreat, _notes_, 158.

Carlisle, Pa., occupied, 29; evacuated, 51.

Cemetery Ridge, described, 15, 16; becomes a rallying-point, July 1, 77; situation afternoon of July 1, 82; Hancock renders it secure, 87; described more in detail, 98, _et seq._; the enemy succeed in scaling it, July 2, 125, 128; but are repulsed, 129; its advantages for defence better availed of, 130.

Chambersburg, Pa., occupied by Lee's cavalry, 25; becomes his headquarters, 27.

Confederate Army, The, eludes ours, _note_, 32; and invades Pennsylvania, 23; its strength, 24; its composition, _note_, 32; points of superiority, 24, 25; its _personnel_, 26, 27; at Chambersburg, 26, 27; moves to York and Carlisle, 28; its spirit, 29; moves to concentrate, 52; its advance upon Gettysburg is disputed, 62; finally defeats the forces opposed to it, 69, _et seq._; losses, _note_, 80; all but one division up night of July 1, 91; how formed, _note_, 110; the attack on Sickles, 115; Sickles defeated, 123; Longstreet's losses, 125; Cemetery Ridge reached by Hill's troops, 125; Ewell gains a foothold at Culp's Hill, 126; advantage to the Confederates, 127; position at close of the day, _note_, 131; Ewell expelled from Culp's Hill, 136; cannonades Union position, 137; final attack repulsed, 141, _et seq._; evacuates Gettysburg, 150; getting ready to retreat, 150; retreat effected, 157; losses, _note_, 159.

Culp's Hill, its relation to Cemetery Hill, 19; occupied by Union troops, 84; made secure, 87; enemy gain a lodgment at, 126; retaken, 136.

Cumberland Valley, route of Lee's invasion, 23; exodus from, 34.

Curtin, A. G., his efforts to meet the invasion, 36.

DEVIL'S DDEN, The, situation of, 20; surroundings, _note_, 22; struggle for its possession, 115, 116, 117; in the enemy's hands, _note_, 131.

EARLY'S (J. E.) operations around York, 28; as a blind, _note_, 33; recalled to Gettysburg, 52; his arrival decides the day, 73, 76; assaults Cemetery Hill, July 2, 128; but is forced out, 129.

Emmettsburg Road, described, 21; picketed by Union troops, 88; its relation to the hostile armies, 99; becomes a point of direction for Longstreet's attack, 114.

Ewell's Confederate corps at Chambersburg, 26; moves on to Carlisle and York, 28; moves to Gettysburg and decides the first of July, 69, _et seq.;_ but hesitates to attack Cemetery Hill, 81.

FREDERICK, Md., becomes the pivot for the Union army, 40.

GETTYSBURG, described, 10, 11; its strategic value, 13, 14, 15, _et seq._; its topography, 15, 16, _et seq._; Cemetery Ridge, 16; Seminary Ridge, 17; commanding points, 19, 20; Cemetery Ridge as a defensive line, 20; _notes_ 1, 2, and 3, p. 21; memorials of battle, _note_, 21; first appearance of Confederates in, 28; and _note_, 33; Lee's whole army marching to, 52; Union forces approaching, 55; how and where the battle began, see Chap. V., p. 60; in first day's conflict, 60, _et seq._; occupied by Ewell, 78; evacuated, 150.

Great Round Top, how situated, 19.

HANCOCK, Winfield S., organizing victory from defeat, 81, 82, 83; orders Culp's Hill occupied, 84; his report to Meade, 85; _note_, 95; sends Geary's division to Little Round Top, 88.

Harrisburg alarmed, 25; enemy near it, 29; the panic at, 34, _et seq._; militia ordered to, 37; narrow escape of, 50.

Heth's (Harry) Confederate division approaches Gettysburg first, 52; encounters Buford's cavalry, 62 brings on battle of July 1, 63; sustains a check, 66; Pender, Rodes, and Early come to his aid, 69, 75; takes part in the famous charge of July 3, 140, 141.

Hood, John B., marches into Chambersburg, 26, 27; attacks the Union left, July 2d, 114; is wounded, 115; his attack checked, 117; Union cavalry in his rear, 148.

Hooker's (Joseph) plan of campaign, 40; objections to, _note_, 45; is superseded, 40.

Howard, Oliver O., takes command at Gettysburg, 70; calls in vain for help, 70, 71.

LEE, Robert E., his ascendancy over his troops, 29; portrait of, 30; wants his cavalry badly, 38; feels what it is to be in an enemy's country, 39; plans thwarted by Meade, 50; decides to cross South Mountain and give battle, 50; _note_, 59; orders all corps to Gettysburg, 51; steals a march on Meade, 53; at Gettysburg, 81; decides to attack, 91; Longstreet to turn Union left, 94; the plan in detail, 105, 106; determines to renew the battle, 133; reinforces Ewell, 133; orders Longstreet to assault Cemetery Ridge, 134; sends off his wounded, 153; follows with his army, 154; gets to the Potomac before he can be intercepted, 156; and crosses to Virginia safely, 157.

Little Round Top, its position and appearance, 19; _note_, 22; Hancock causes its occupation, 88; is abandoned, 98; is about to fall into the enemy's hands, 115; troops brought up to it, 119, 120; conflict for its possession, 120, 121; Union troops remain masters, 121.

Longstreet, James, opposes Lee's purpose, 91; is ordered to begin the attack of July 2, 105; gets into position, 106; as a fighter, 106, 107; method of attacking Sickles, 114, 115; is successful here, but halts before the main position, 125.

Lutheran Church a hospital, 22.

Lutheran Seminary, its situation, 17; Union troops make a stand there, 77.

MCLAWS, (Lafayette) Confederate division attacks Sickles, July 2, 117.