The point aimed at by Pickett was on Hancock's front, covering a space defended by perhaps some five or six thousand men. Our supply of canister had been mostly exhausted, and the gaps which had been torn in the enemy's ranks had been filled up as, with only such pauses as would enable the men to throw down the walls and fences in their path, the devoted column swept on. The Federal infantry reserved its fire with exceptional steadiness. The artillery was using grape.

On the right of the advancing column a small wood extended in front of our line. Here Stannard's brigade had been posted. As Pickett's column approached, these men opened an oblique fire which caused the enemy, in edging away from it, to move somewhat to their left; and as their lines arrived opposite the wood (Wilcox's delay on their right having entirely uncovered their flank) Stannard changed front and poured some destructive volleys at close quarters into their midst. But these Virginians were not to be thus stopped, though their right and left were naked of support. The column pushed on, struck Webb's brigade at the stone wall, and planting their battle-flags upon it, the men rushed over the obstacle, blue and gray struggling in one mass, and sought to hew their way to the line of breast works above.

But the effort had exhausted itself. Webb's resistance was superb. Fresh Union troops poured in from every side, filling up the vacant spaces, until the men stood four deep and upwards. Not a sign of demoralization was apparent. Our broken line was speedily rehabilitated. Too few of the enemy were left to continue the struggle, and the gallant body, surrounded on every side, and with but a tithe of its force unhurt, laid down its arms. A few had escaped to the rear. Barely one in four returned to the cover of the Confederate guns. Two thousand stayed within our lines.

The column of Pettigrew never reached our line. It broke before it could accomplish anything of moment. Hays's sharp fire had quickly checked its onset, and we captured two thousand five hundred prisoners.

Wilcox's column for some unknown reason had obliqued too much. to the right, as Pickett's had to the left, and as it later passed by Stannard's wooded salient, was, by another change of front, in similar fashion taken in flank upon the opposite side. Deploying his command, Wilcox opened fire, but was speedily driven back, with heavy loss in prisoners and battle-flags.

Thus ended the attack on our centre, like its predecessors on our right and left. The Army of Northern Virginia had suffered a

disastrous defeat.

The instinct of a great commander might have seized this moment for an advance in force upon the broken enemy. But Meade cautiously held what he had already won rather than gain more at greater risk.

He was content. He would adventure nothing. He had won the credit of defeating his enemy; he lost the chance of destroying him.

Meanwhile, on the 3d, the bulk of our cavalry had taken post on the right of our entire line, a few miles east of Gettysburg, to hold head against Stuart, who had, after his long and useless circuit, reported to his chief for duty. Stuart had received orders from Lee so to manoeuvre as to strike the Union right if, in case of Confederate success, it should retire, as it probably would do, towards Westminster. He therefore made a stout attack upon Pleasonton, to seize if possible the Baltimore road, and create a panic in our rear. This could have been made of greatest service to Lee. But after a combat of some severity, in which swords were repeatedly crossed, Pleasonton was able to balk Stuart of his purpose; and the latter soon found that he must himself retire to protect Lee's retreat rather than attempt further to disturb Meade's communications.

On the 4th Lee was still upon Seminary Ridge. His lines had been drawn in, and were concentrated where he could best cover the Hagerstown and Chambersburg roads. His cavalry protected his flanks. It is probable that he would have received a Federal attack with alacrity, and the Army of Northern Virginia was, despite its losses and defeat, in condition to give a good account of itself.

Meade advanced his lines slowly into Gettysburg and on the left, and reconnoitred with his cavalry. He still believed a fresh attack by the enemy possible, and considered what would be his best course in the event that such an attack should be made, or what if the Army of Northern Virginia should retreat.

So passed our National Holiday.

By daylight of the 5th the enemy had disappeared into the Cumberland Valley.

There were two roads over which Meade could undertake the pursuit. He could follow up Lee's army on its direct line of retreat via Chambersburg and Hagerstown, or he could move around by a circuit nearly twice as long east of the South Mountain range, and through the gaps to Middletown. The former route covered Gettysburg, and therefore Baltimore and Washington. The latter would take Lee in flank, if pushed with sufficient speed, for he was hampered with long trains. After some indecisive movements along the first, Meade decided on the second route.

Meanwhile, French, who had been at Frederick, had made a demonstration towards his old post at Harper's Ferry on the 3d of July, and finding Lee's pontoon-bridge at Falling Waters, just below Williamsport, but slightly guarded, he destroyed it. At the moment when Pickett was leading his men to what he deemed certain victory, the existence of the Army of Northern Virginia was compromised if it should be defeated and sharply followed up.

Lee's retreat was conducted with as much expedition as the tired,

miles of trains would warrant.

Meade's

disheartened men and many pursuit was lamentably slow. On the 6th the Army of the Potomac was at Emmetsburg. On the 7th at Frederick. On the 7th and 8th it was concentrating at Middletown. Now that the enemy was on the retreat, Halleck hurried forward reinforcements from Washington; and Smith moved down with his Pennsylvania levies. But Meade made.the utilization of these accessions the cause of still greater slowness. He would not believe that the enemy was vastly more disorganized than the Army of the Potomac by the fearful struggle at Gettysburg. He seemed to fear renewed attack by Lee. Finally, on July 13, he drew up in front of Lee's line along Marsh Creek near Williamsport, where the latter had been for nearly a week, and had strongly intrenched his army.

The elements were fighting for the Union army. The river had risen so as to be unfordable. Lee was absolutely trapped. Not but what the Army of Northern Virginia would have fought for existence as it had never yet fought for victory. But the Federals so largely outnumbered the enemy, that some action seemed to be demanded. The position might have been turned by way of Conecocheaque Run. Almost any course rather than inaction appeared advisable. In case of a disastrous assault, the Army of Northern Virginia would be scarcely ready to reassume the offensive. But at a council of his corps commanders on July 13, it was advised not to attack Lee's lines. This opinion, arrived at with all the then known facts before them, ought no doubt to modify to-day's criticism.

Meade, however, in spite of this advice decided to make an attack on the 14th. Too late. As morning dawned, it was discovered that the enemy had recrossed the Potomac. A new pontoon-bridge had been improvised, and as the water had largely subsided, the Williamsport ford could be used. The Army of Northern Virginia had merely suffered a defeat and beat an orderly retreat.

The numbers engaged and lost in this greatest of our battles have been the subject of much discussion. One of the best-read military men in the South, in a recent letter to me, honestly figures the Confederate effective at sixty thousand, and the Federal at ninety thousand. It is, of course, impossible to reach accuracy. But about sixty-eight thousand for the Army of Northern Virginia to eighty-four thousand for the Army of the Potomac seems approximately true, and is a generous enough estimate for the gallant men who attacked our lines on those three eventful days.

The loss was twenty-three thousand on each side,-all but one in three engaged.

Meade was a ripe, sound soldier. He fell short of greatness, perhaps, but few equaled him in precision and steady-going capacity. Under him the Army of the Potomac saw its greatest triumph, and its

greatest humiliation. Gettysburg was Meade's victory; Cold Harbor was not Meade's defeat. While he was in command the army was always in safe hands; its discipline was excellent; its esprit de corps high. All his subordinates held him in great esteem. In minor stations Meade obeyed with alacrity; in supreme control he commanded with discretion. His qualities are not salient; but he was well rounded both as a soldier and as a man.

From this time on the South waged a strictly defensive warfare. Not but what Lee again and again attacked the Army of the Potomac, as Hood did Sherman in the West. But every intelligent man in the Confederacy saw that to conquer any kind of peace which would afford them independence was all but an impossibility. Not that they lost heart. Their efforts were still marvelous. But after Gettysburg the Confederates fought because it was not in them to give up,—not because they believed they could win.

It was upon this spot that the death-knell of slavery was tolled, and that the American Nation proved its right to be one and indivisible. No man who carried arms in this greatest of our country's battles but may tell the tale with glowing pride; no scar there won but yields its meed of honor; no life laid down upon this hard-fought field but inscribes his name who bravely gave it up upon the roll of imperishable renown.

Rest to their ashes! Peace to that nobler part which dieth not!

THEODORE A. DODGE,

Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel, U.S.A.

THE VICKSBURG CAMPAIGN OF 1862-1863.

(Concluded from page 649, vol. xii.)

II.

PASSING Over the unimportant incidents of the two days immediately subsequent to the battle of Baker's Creek, it will be sufficient to say that the Confederate commander, after a feeble effort to avail himself of the defensive resources in the quarter of the Big Black, fell back within his lines at Vicksburg on the 18th of May, leaving some eight or ten field-guns in the hands of his persistent assailant. Meanwhile, or on the day before, General Johnston had addressed Pemberton in these terms: "If Haine's Bluff is untenable, Vicksburg is of no value and cannot be held; if, therefore, you are invested in Vicksburg you must ultimately surrender. Under such circumstances, instead of losing both troops and place, we must if possible save the troops. If not too late, evacuate Vicksburg and its dependencies and march to the northeast." 1

Upon the receipt of these orders, Pemberton assembled a council of war before which he placed them, and invited a free expression of the opinions of his subordinate generals as to the practicability of carrying them out. In the opinion of that council, as Pemberton wrote to Johnston, on the 18th of May, "unanimously expressed, it was impossible to withdraw the army from this position with such morale and material as to be of further use to the Confederacy. While the council of war was assembled the guns of the enemy opened on the works. . . . I have decided to hold Vicksburg as long as possible, with the firm hope that the government may yet be able to assist me in keeping this obstruction to the enemy's free navigation of the Mississippi River. I still conceive it to be the most important point in the Confederacy."

1 See Johnston's Narrative, page 187. Of this order, Pemberton subsequently, in his official report, spoke thus naïvely: "This meant the fall of Port Hudson, the surrender of the Mississippi River, and the severance of the Confederacy." Certainly that was what the evacuation of Vicksburg meant, but it meant also the saving of at least thirty thousand men, while his course brought on their loss superadded to that of Vicksburg, Port Hudson, of the Mississippi River, and the severance of the Confederacy within fifty-two days.

2 Johnston's Narrative, page 188.