66

and planting their batteries for the supreme effort which was to decide the momentus issue-the unity of the Nation and fate of the Southern Confederacy. The forenoon was one of anxious expectation in the Union lines, occasionally broken by futile firing here and there along the line. The rebels having finished their preparations, at 1 P. M. the signal was given and one hundred and twenty-five guns from Longstreet and Hill's front opened their fire on the Union center and left, which was continued without intermission over two hours. The Union artillery replied, while the infantry, availing themselves of every means of shelter from the iron hail, awaited patiently the expected charge, and at 3 P. M., from behind the rebel batteries came their infantry in line of battle, 18,000 strong, preceded by skirmishers, and supported by a line of reserves, moving rapidly to the charge upon Cemetery hill, especially upon the front extending on the left to Round Top. The result is graphically described by Agate: 'The final struggle, the last great, desperate charge, came at 4 P. M. The rebels had gathered up all their strength for one fierce convulsive effort that should creep over and crush out the very existence of the Union army. They swept up to the contest, the flower of their army to the front, victory staked on the issue. In some places they lifted up and pushed back the Union line, but that secure position of our troops was firmly held. Wherever the enemy entered it infilading fires from half a score of crests swept away their columns like chaff. Broken and hurled back, they easily fell into the hands of the Union boys, and on the center and left the last half hour brought more prisoners than all the rest. So it was along the whole line; but it was on the second corps that the flower of the rebel army was concentrated. It was there that the heaviest shock beat upon and sometimes crumbled the Union line. Here came Pickett's splendid division of Longstreet's corps in front, and the best of Hill's veterans in support. They came steadily and, as it seemed, resistlessly sweeping up. From a hundred guns their artillery had covered their approach. Hancock was wounded. Gibbons, an approved soldier, and ready for the crisis, succeeded to the command. As the tempest of fire approached its height, he walked along the line, renewing his orders to the men to reserve their fire. The rebels-then three lines deep-came steadily up. They were in point blank range. At last the order came. From thrice six thousand guns there came a sheet of flame, a crash, a rush of leaden death. The line melted away, but there came the second line, resistless still. The first had been our supreme effort; at the instant, the Union boys were not equal to another. Over the barricades, the momentum of their charge swept them on. Our thin lines could fight, but it had not the strength to oppose this momentum-it was pushed behind the guns. Right on came the rebels, but they had come too far; a storm of grape and cannister tore its way from man to man, and marked

its track with the fallen straight down their line.

This exposure of their line The line fell back, disjointed

A

to the Union artilery had sealed their fate. already. The Union boys were just behind the guns. They spang forward upon the broken column, but there was little need of fighting now. regiment threw down their arms and colors; all along the line smaller detachments did the same. Webb's brigade brought in eight hundred prisoners. Gibbons took fifteen stand of colors. Over the field the escaped fragments of the charging line fell back-the battle was over."

The rebels found that it was a fatal, fruitless sacrifice. It was not a rout, it was a bitter, crushing defeat. For once and the first time the Army of the Potomac had won an acknowledged, honest and dearly bought victory. This battle was the most severe and hotly contested of the war, and the losses on both sides for the number engaged has no parallel in any engagement. The Union loss was 23,286 killed and wounded-one-fourth of the number engaged. The rebel loss was much larger in killed and wounded, and 13,621 prisoners; one-third of their effective force was killed, wounded and prisoners.

66

On the morning of the 4th of July the President issued the following: Washington, July 4, 11:30 A. M. The President announces to the country that news from the Army of the Potomac up to 10 o'clock, P. M. is such as to cover the army with the highest honor, to promise a great success to the cause of the Union, and to claim condolence for the many gallant fallen; and that for this he especially desires on this day, He whose will, not ours, should ever be done, be everywhere remembered and reverenced with profoundest gratitude."

CHAPTER XXXI.

LEE'S RETREAT-CAPTURE OF VICKSBURG-BRAGG'S DEFEAT.

As the smoke of the battle drifts away over the town of Gettysburg, fancy pictures standing on the crest of Cemetery ridge, the genius of Columbia, as she looks with sadness over the field of battle, and views the dead and wounded numbered by thousands, and in her imagination is vividly painted the tens of thousands of widows and orphans made in the terrible conflict. She turns to the soldier in gray and asks, “Why this unnatural and deadly strife between brothers and countrymen? Why is our heretofore peaceful and happy country drenched in fratricidal blood?" The soldier turns away as he answers: "It is for the security, perpetuity and extention of slavery." To the soldier in blue she turns and the same questions are propounded. The soldier in blue answers: "For Nationality, Government and law, for the Constitution, for freedom and for humanity." And as hope now irradicates the countenance in place of sadness, the gentle twilight steals on apace, and the illusion vanishes, and darkness comes on over the field of battle, and the stillness is broken only by the measured tread of the sentinel, and the click of the ambulance wheels as they slowly roll to the hospitals with their mangled burdens. Midnight has come, and all is still save the sound of the wind passing over the battlefield with its weird, sibilant voice singing a requiem to the unburied dead who await the rites of sepulture on the morrow. On the morning of the 4th of July the Union army were in position ready for the enemy, should they be disposed to renew the conflict. But General Lee found that his troops had been so badly punished that a renewal of the battle would result more disastrously than on the preceding day. The roll call on the morning of the 4th showed that his veterans, the flower of his army, were missing, killed, wounded or prisoners, and in a council of his officers, called on the morning of the 4th, it was advised to retreat, and, if possible, save the remnant of the army by reaching and crossing the Potomac. On the night of the 4th the retreat commenced, and pursuit was made by the

Union army on the 5th and was continued without bringing on an engagement until the rebels reached their former position on the Rappahannock.

In December, 1862, Gèneral N. T. Banks, appointed to succeed General Butler in the military department of Louisiana, arrived at New Orleans with a large force, and at once took possession of Baton Rouge. On the 21st of December General Sherman started for Memphis with his command, and passed down the Mississippi to the mouth of the Yazoo, above Vicksburg, ascended that river, landed, and made an attack on Vicksburg from the rear. The fighting continued for three days, and the army advanced to within two miles of the city, but on the 30th they were repulsed with severe loss. On the 2d of January General McClernard arrived and assumed command, and the taking of Vicksburg for the time seemed hopeless. The capture of Arkansas Post redeemed the failure in some degree. In February, General Grant having been placed in command, the attack on Vicksburg was to be renewed. Various plans and measures were undertaken to get in the rear of the place so as to command the river above and below, but they were all abandoned, and General Grant determined with his vessels to boldly run down the river, by the city and the rebel batteries, which he did successfully, and marched his army down on the opposite side to Brueassburg, sixtyfive miles below Vicksburg, where he crossed on the 30th of April, and advanced upon Fort Gibson, where he was opposed by General Bowen, who was defeated with a loss of killed, wounded and prisoners of fifteen hundred men. General Grant then marched with his army upward towards Vicksburg, and again met the enemy at Raymond, May 12th, and the defeated them, with a loss of eight hundred men. On May 14th Union forces near Jackson met the rebels under J. E. Johnson. The enemy was defeated, and the capital of the State of Mississippi, with seventeen pieces of artillery and large stores of supplies, was captured. General Grant then turned his course west for Vicksburg. General Pemberton, the commander of that city, advanced with his forces with the hope of checking his advance, but he was defeated on the 16th at Baker's creek, losing four thousand men and twenty-nine pieces of artillery. On the next day the same forces were overtaken at Big Black Bridge, ten miles from Vicksburg, and defeated with a loss of 2600 men and seventeen pieces of artillery. On the 18th Vicksburg was closely invested, and the rebels were completely shut up within the city. An attempt was made to carry the enemy's work by storm, but the assault failed, and a regular siege was at once adopted by the land forces, in which the armed vessels in the river joined. The investment was pressed with much vigor, and the Union works were drawing closer every day. The enemy was known to be short of supplies, and their only hope was that General Johnson would be able to collect an army sufficient to raise the

siege by attacking Grant in his rear. General Grant had provided for this emergency by ordering General Sherman to pay his respects to General Johnson and counteract any movement on the part of that General to relieve Vicksburg. General Sherman performed that duty so effectually that no serious attempt was made to relieve the enemy. With no prospect of succor, General Pemberton therefore proposed to surrender Vicksburg on the morning of the 4th of July, on condition that his troops should be permitted to march out. General Grant refused, and demanded an absolute surrender of the garrison as prisoners of war. General Pemberton called a council of his officers, and acceded to the terms demanded by General Grant.

The historian states that the Union loss from the time General Grant ran by Vicksburg up to the time of its capture was, killed, 1343; wounded, 7095; missing, 535; total, 8773. The rebel loss was, killed and wounded, 10,000; prisoners, 43,000; missing, 3000; total, 56,000; 220 cannons and 70,000 stands of small arms. The Union was now receiving back a portion of the guns and small arms sent South during President Buchanan's administration. The surrender of Vicksburg was immediately followed by that of Port Hudson, which surrendered to Banks July 8th, with 7000 prisoners and fifty cannons and a large quantity of small arms. The value of these captures was not estimated by the list of prisoners and the number of small arms, but by the lact tha the Confederacy was cut in twain. And as President Lincoln said, “The father of waters goes unvexed to the sea." General Sherman said: "The two victories occurring at the same time, the one at Gettysburg defensive and the other at Vicksburg offensive, should have ended the war; but the rebel leaders were mad, and seemed determined that their people should drink the very lowest dregs of the cup of war, which they themselves had prepared." Writing in reference to the capture of Vicksburg, he said: "The campaign of Vicksburg, in its conception and execution, belongs exclusively to General Grant, not only in the great whole, but in the thousands of its details. I still retain many of his letters and notes, all in his own handwriting, prescribing the routes for march for divisions and detachments, specifying even the amount of food and tools to be carried along. Many persons gave his Adjutant-General, Rawlins, credit for these things, but they were in error, for no Commanding General of an army gave more of his personal attention to detail, or wrote so many of his own orders as General Grant. His success at Vicksburg justly gave him great fame at home and abroad. The President conferred on him the rank of MajorGeneral in the regular army, then existing by law, and General McPherson and I shared in his success by receiving similar commissions as BrigadierGenerals in the regular army."