Drawn from authentic sources) by R.Meade Bache.

FOR THE SAKE OF CLEARNESS, ALL BUT
THE PRINCIPAL ROADS ARE OMITTED,
AND ALSO DETAIL OF WOODS AND HOUSES.

THIE

ЗАЯЗ033 3TAR30

ONE

with Early's, had proceeded no further than driving in the Federal skirmishers when the assault of Early on his left had taken place and been repulsed. On the Federal line at Cemetery Hill, held by the Eleventh Corps, the enemy achieved a temporary success, but owing to the timely arrival of Carroll's brigade, of the Second Corps, sent to its assistance by Hancock, they were precipitately driven out of a portion of the entrenchments which they had captured. On the right of the position, opposed to Johnson, the enemy had made a lodgment in some entrenchments which had been evacuated by troops of the Twelfth Corps, drawn thence during the afternoon as reinforcements for the left wing of the army. Here Greene's brigade of that corps bore a distinguished part in thwarting a greater success of the enemy, who at nightfall still maintained himself in the extreme works on the right, the possession of which endangered the hold of the Army of the Potomac on the Baltimore Turnpike, and thus threatened its rear.

That night a memorable council of war met at General Meade's headquarters, which determined unanimously to fight it out at Gettysburg as representing an admirable position. After General Meade's death it was attempted to use this incident to his disadvantage. Why he called a council should be evident. He had, by the night of the 2d of July, been only five days in command of the army. An army, including its leader, being in constitution what it has been described to be, he would be presumptuous indeed who, in command for only five days, and nearly half of the time in the midst of a battle, would not seek the opinion of his corps-commanders. Within a few days thereafter, General Meade held another council, but still at a time when he had been in command only sixteen days. After Gettysburg he knew himself to be in command of an army which had as

much confidence in him as he in it, and never called a council again. It was in the interest of his corps-commanders, in his own, in that of the cause they all represented, at a time when he could not know that his individuality was welded with the mighty instrument of which he was a part, that he and they should meet, and the morale of all be confirmed by personal conference, thence communicated in assurance by a thousand paths to the rank and file which had proved so worthy of confidence. The subsequent inimically reported statement, that he had wished to retreat, was finally set at rest by a pamphlet, issued after long forbearance by his son, Colonel George Meade, in which the point as to whether or not General Meade had desired to retreat from Gettysburg is conclusively settled in the negative. Circumstances will lead the historian to believe that the accusation rests upon the basis of uneasiness from extraneous causes in the minds of his defamers.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE THIRD DAY OF GETTYSBURG.

THE enemy, as has been said, remained in possession at night of the works on the right which had been occupied by some of the Twelfth Corps, captured as the result of withdrawing a large force thence to the dangerously assailed left flank of the army. During the night of the 2d General Meade therefore massed a heavy force of artillery and infantry near the works, with the view to their recapture as soon as daylight should appear. Johnson's division, with three brigades of Early's, both of Ewell's corps, had, in the evening and night of the 2d, hugged and advanced up the hillsides around the sweep from Culp's Hill to the outskirts of Gettysburg, opening the attack on their left, where they finally made lodgment in the lines, thinly defended on account of the withdrawal of the troops mentioned; while the immediately succeeding attack, more to their right, at Cemetery Hill, under Early, was made by Hoke's brigade and by Hays's, the redoubtable "Louisiana Tigers," whose prowess, as believed by themselves, nothing could withstand. These troops had managed, under cover of the straggling outskirts of the town, to carry one of the Eleventh Corps' batteries, whence they were ejected by Carroll's brigade, of the Second Corps, which, as the reader will remember, had been opportunely despatched by Hancock from his lines for the reinforcement of the sorely pressed right of the general position.

We have now reached the morning of the 3d of July. General Meade took the initiative, which Ewell had intended