gallantly attacked the right flank of the enemy's infantry. Here was a lamentable occurrence in the decimation of the troopers that Farnsworth led, and in his own death. Through a quixotic order of Kilpatrick's, Farnsworth made a hopeless charge, plainly visible from the summit of Little Round Top. Surrounded by the enemy's infantry, the troopers pursued their way among stone walls, working what destruction they could, until a mere handful of them regained their own lines.

Victory for the first time in any great battle perched on the standards of the Army of the Potomac. By official record the loss of the Army of the Potomac in killed, wounded, and missing, was twenty-three thousand and forty-nine, and that of the Army of Northern Virginia, twenty thousand, four hundred and fifty-one. Discrepancies in the official returns of the latter army, however, and other allied facts, lead to the belief that the losses of that army as there given do not represent the correct sumtotal. Swinton, who is generally temperate in his statements, places the probable Confederate loss at thirty thousand, and all the evidence at hand justifies belief in the correctness of that estimate.

If, as the poet says, "Freedom shrieked as Kosciusko fell," she must have drawn a deep sigh of relief as the sun went down upon that field. African slavery was but a portion, great as that was, of the contents of victory there for progress. "We cannot consecrate this ground," said Lincoln, as he delivered his beautiful address before the multitude soon afterwards assembled there to do its perished heroes honor. No, nor priest nor prelate nor gorgeous ceremony can add to the simple dignity and pathos of the memories which there and elsewhere the battle-fields of the nation awaken wherever nature left undisturbed murmurs in every brook and sighing breeze amid the graves the requiem of the dead.

CHAPTER XVIII.

FROM GETTYSBURG TO THE RAPPAHANNOCK.

The

GENERAL LEE had been driven by fate to fight, and to fight just as he did fight the battle of Gettysburg. Confederate victories of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, following closely on the heels of others, had so elated the officers and soldiers of the Army of Northern Virginia, that if they did not feel positive contempt for the Army of the Potomac, they certainly had a feeling akin to it, in the belief that it was no match for the Army of Northern Virginia. Lee was constrained by this sentiment to fight a pitched battle whenever he might meet his enemy in force. He was constrained to fight in the particular locality of Gettysburg, because the strategical movements of both armies had led up to that consummation, and to both the tactical requirements of ground seemed to be sufficiently fulfilled. Moreover, Lee was forced to fight without delay. He had no time to manœuvre, because he had no means of renewing his supplies of food and ammunition. Meade, on the contrary, could afford to delay, because he could obtain ample supplies of both. Lee was therefore obliged to fight at once an offensive battle, and Meade was enabled to fight a defensive one.

If Lee had not been so far from his base, and with his communications interrupted, he would doubtless have tried to manœuvre Meade out of his position by extending his right towards the Baltimore Turnpike, thus seeking to intercept the communications of the Army of the Potomac with its base. Now, having fought under the conditions

imposed upon him, he was defeated. The battle had gone irretrievably against him. Safety in retreat had to be sought. So, having withdrawn his left wing through Gettysburg, he at once threw a line of entrenchments in front of his army on Seminary Ridge, sharply refused to the right and resting on Marsh Creek, of which Willoughby Run is an affluent, and on the left continued the entrenchments across the Chambersburg Turnpike and the Mummasburg Road, leading to the nearest passes through South Mountain. Here, safely retired, the work of burying the dead and succoring the wounded proceeded during the 4th of July, his retreat taking place on the night of the 4th. On the Federal side the same sad task was performed on the 4th and part of the 5th. On the 7th came to the marching army the joyful tidings from the West, that, on the 4th, Grant had captured Vicksburg and its garrison of thirty thousand men, and that the Mississippi was then open from its sources to its mouth, except at Port Hudson, which, on July 9th, surrendered to General Banks.

It has been much discussed whether General Meade should not have followed the enemy through the passes of South Mountain opposite Gettysburg instead of doing what he did, in following the enemy's line of retreat in a parallel direction along the east side of the range. The alternative which has been discarded always seems to have extraordinary fascination for the average human mind, so easy is it to demonstrate success of the thing not tried. General Meade evidently contemplated adopting the course of a direct pursuit, but for good and sufficient reasons, which will now appear, discarded it. General Lee retreated in the night of the 4th of July, leaving numbers of his wounded. Early on the 5th General Meade despatched with cavalry the strongest corps in the army, the Sixth (which as a corps had not been engaged), in pursuit

of the enemy. His combinations were perfect to meet the conditions. Lee, retreating with his main body through the Fairfield Pass, midway between Gettysburg and Hagerstown, and partly by the Cashtown Pass, opposite Gettysburg, Buford was despatched to Williamsport on the Potomac, to head off and attack the enemy's trains arriving; Kilpatrick, through Monterey Pass, south of the Fairfield Pass, to come upon the trains while in transit. Cavalry, of Gregg's division, harassed the enemy through Cashtown Pass. The Sixth Corps with cavalry marched for Fairfield Pass to attack the enemy. On the morning of the 6th Sedgwick reported that he could engage the enemy at Fairfield Pass, upon receiving which intelligence Meade arrested one portion of the flank movement in progress by holding the First and Third Corps in hand to support the Sixth in case of an engagement of the latter at Fairfield Pass. Sedgwick's final report that afternoon showed plainly, however, that great delay in pursuit would be entailed by a battle at Fairfield Pass, and therefore, on the 7th, General Meade adopted the flank route through Frederick and the Hamburg and High Knob Passes in the Catoctin Mountains, much delayed in the latter by torrents of rain on the 7th and 8th. There had also been pouring rain in the night of the 3d and on the 4th, impeding movements from the beginning.

Swinton thinks that General Meade adopted a wrong course, but it will soon become apparent that his view is not tenable. He says, in his "Campaigns of the Army of the Potomac,"

"The principles already laid down as those that should guide criticism on McClellan's conduct after Antietam apply with equal and even greater force to Meade's conduct after Gettysburg. That an army that had moved so far from its base as that of Lee; that had crossed the frontier; that had been defeated in a great battle of three days'

duration, in which it had suffered immense loss; that then sought safety in flight only to find itself barred at the frontier by the rise of the Potomac (as though Providence fought with the Union army), should have been destroyed or hopelessly crippled, appears indisputable."

That the ordinary observer, entirely unread in military matters, should so think and speak unhesitatingly, would not be strange, for such a one always so thinks and speaks, but that Swinton should have so declared awakens surprise. He knew that defeat does not always end in rout, that after it retreat cannot always be prevented; and moreover, was generally as capable as any man of seeing the existence or the absence of parallelism in conditions. Let us examine into the correctness of his view in the particular case under consideration. Had he reflected that, even if the Army of the Potomac had followed the Army of Northern Virginia directly into Cumberland Valley, it would have had to do only with a rearguard, and that while the rearguard was delaying its advance, Lee would have gained all the time he needed with the main body to take up the position near Williamsport that he adopted? Humphreys, who was chief-of-staff after the battle of Gettysburg, says in his little volume, “Gettysburg to the Rapidan" (it is best here to give his exact language),

Possibly a prompt, vigorous, direct pursuit by the whole army on the morning of the 5th of July, by the Cashtown and Fairfield Passes, would have brought on a general engagement before the Army of Northern Virginia had taken up the position covering the crossingplaces of the Potomac; but probably it could not have reached Hagerstown before the evening of the 7th, and Lee would have had the few hours needed to make his entrenchments too strong for successful attack."

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Possibly," according to General Humphreys, such a movement would have succeeded, but "probably" it would