succession to Reynolds. The result fully justified the choice, but to make it required moral courage, insight into character, and rapidity of decision. Hancock on his arrival at the front did just the work which was needed-rallying the troops, addressing and encouraging them, assigning positions to those already there, hastening into line the fresh troops as they arrived. Anticipating Lee's order to Ewell, he sent Wadsworth to occupy Culp's Hill, and having put all in order, reported to General Meade that he could hold the position till nightfall, and that here was the place to fight our battle, and received a prompt reply that the army was ordered there. Thus Buford and Reynolds and Hancock all united in the work that made the first day's battle so momentous. * It was not a surprise nor an accident-it was the opening engagement between two contending armies. Over the Army of Northern Virginia General Lee exercised supreme command for more than a year, during which he had won four great victories. Over the Army of the Potomac, General Meade had been in command for three days, and he was hampered by orders from Washington, and the necessity of conforming to them. He was looking for the enemy, his main point, as he said to Halleck, "to find and fight the enemy." He sent Reynolds on that errand, and Reynolds in turn despatched Buford with his cavalry to be the eyes of the army. He found them, and with his clear prescience saw the opportunity and the occasion, and quickly seized it, and Reynolds in turn helped to bring Lee's forces out of their mountain shelter, to hold them, and, in conformity with Meade's orders, bettered in their understanding by Buford and Reynolds of what was before them-an enemy rapidly concentrating at a position of great importance, they held on for the whole of that first day, while General Meade was enabled to prepare for that offensive defense which he had at the outset determined on. Even as great a military writer as Lord Wolseley speaks of the first day as a surprise to the Confederate army, and not to the Union army, but he is not borne out by the facts. General Lee says, in his report, that his whole force was ordered to concentrate at Gettysburg. Two divisions of General Hill's Corps were sent to Gettysburg by the Chambersburg road, and the Third Division was held in reserve. The two divisions of Ewell's Corps, Early's and Rodes', were ordered there, and coming, one from York the other from Carlisle, their concentration was effected * General F. A. Walker in Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. with admirable precision. Of the Union Army, Buford's Division of cavalry was sent through Gettysburg on the 30th of June to observe the enemy, and his movements were closely watched and fully reported both to Reynolds and Meade. Reynolds put his own corps, the First, into action on the morning of the first day, and under his orders the Eleventh Corps came up to its support, while the Third Corps, later on, followed, and by nightfall, with the Twelfth Corps and the Vermont Brigade, were on the ground and in position. Surely, then, there was no surprise in the battle, and it was fought just at the time and place where it best effected its object. True up to the 1st of July, the Confederate Army had met little but militia, and the people of Pennsylvania might well have asked: Why have they dared to march so many miles upon her peaceful bosom, frighting her pale-faced villages with war, and ostentation of despised arins? Richard II., act 2, sc. 3. But the end to the invasion came when the Army of the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia met in front of Gettysburg. It may be true that some of the Confederates expected to encounter only militia, yet the general officers, its leaders, knew that General Meade was looking for the enemy and for a place to fight, and both were found at Gettysburg. There the Army of the Potomac for three days contended for the supremacy which finally crowned the long struggle, and the issue was largely due to the sturdy valor of the small body of troops that on the first day withstood double their number Both Meade and Lee were manoeuvering for positions on which to deliver battle; General Lee, to gather the fruits of his invasion of the north, to mass his forces before the Union Army could be concentrated, and, fighting it in detail, to win a victory which should enable him to exact terms that would give a new lease of life to the Confederacy; General Meade, to protect Washington and Baltimore, to relieve Harrisburg and Philadelphia, and to drive Lee across the Potomac. Buford, with his cavalry, the eyes of the army, saw at a glance that Gettysburg was the best point for concentration and for a decisive battle. Reynolds, its right arm, saw that the time had arrived, and, with his corps, struck the first blow, meaning to follow it up with the help of the Eleventh and Third Corps. Hancock, in turn, seized the position on Cemetery Ridge, and by nightfall secured it, so that at the close of the first day, although the enemy had largely outnumbered our force, yet the substantial advantage was ours, for here Lee was brought to bay, and the successful battle of the second and third days were largely the outcome of that of the first day. The hard fighting of the first day is measured by that best test, the casualty list, strikingly alike on both sides, in spite of the contrast of the numbers engaged. Much of the details of this kind will be found in Fox's Book of Regimental Losses, well called Fox's Book of Martyrs, and it deserves close and diligent study on this and on the other great battles of the war, for its exhaustive study. The First Corps took into action 8,200 and lost 6,025. The Eleventh Corps, out of 9,197, took into action, General Howard says "hardly 6,000," and lost 3,801. On the Confederate side, in Hill's Corps, Heth says he took in 7,000 and lost 2,850, and Pender lost 1,690 out of 4,260 engaged. Ewell's Corps was 20,000 strong (according to General Meade's letter to Colonel Benedict), and Rodes' Division, out of 6,207, lost 2,853, and Early's, 1,188 out of 5,477. The First Corps lost over 70 per cent., the Eleventh Corps over 60 per cent. Of the First Corps, the Iron Brigade lost 61 per cent., 1,153 out of 1,883; the First Division 2,128, and the Second Division 1,686, out of 2,500, while the smallest, the Third Division, consisting, with the exception of one New York regiment, entirely of Pennsylvania regiments, lost 1,748 out of 2,069, over 80 per cent., and the other divisions were little behind the same heavy percentage. Biddle's Brigade of the Third Division lost 897 out of 1,287, nearly 70 per cent., leaving only 390, a fragment of a regiment. Stone's Brigade, by Colonel Wister's report, went in with 1,300 men and lost 852, over 66 per cent. It had but three regiments, the One Hundred and Forty-third, One Hundred and Forty-ninth and One Hundred and Fiftieth Pennsylvania, and no command fought more desperately or suffered greater losses. At its head its commander, Colonel Roy Stone, was wounded, and his successor, Colonel Langhorne Wister was also wounded. After taking position to the right of Biddle's Brigade, and rendering effective assistance to Wadsworth's hard-pressed division, Stone's little brigade was made the point of a concentrated attack in force by double its number; against its three small regiments were brought six regiments the average strength being over five hundred each. The Confederate reports iay stress on the severity of their losses. General Heth speaks of losing 2,700 out of 7,000, nearly 40 per cent., in twenty-five minutes. Colonel Hopkins of the Forty-fifth North Carolina, says that regiment suffered more than it ever did before in the same time. The Second North Carolina reported a loss of two-thirds. The Twenty-sixth North Carolina lost over 76 per cent., Pender's old brigade over 48 per cent., Daniel's over 43 per cent., and the regimental losses in both Hill's and Ewell's Corps were very heavy. On our side, of the losses of the Eleventh Pennsylvania lost 117 out of 292, or 40 per cent. One Hundred and Seventh Pennsylvania lost 165 out of 255, or 65 per cent. One Hundred and Twenty-first Pennsylvania lost 179 out of 263, or 68 per cent. One Hundred and Forty-second Pennsylvania lost 211 out of 362, or 59 per cent. One Hundred and Forty-third Pennsylvania lost 252 out of 465, or 55 per cent. One Hundred and Forty-ninth Pennsylvania lost 336 out of 450, or 75 per cent. One Hundred and Fiftieth Pennsylvania lost 264 out of 397, or 68 per cent. One Hundred and Fifty-first Pennsylvania lost 335 out of 467, or 73 per cent. The Union troops at various points won signal success, for they captured parts of three brigades of Confederate troops, Archer's, Davis' and Iverson's. The One Hundred and Seventh Pennsylvania reported the capture of more prisoners than the regiment numbered. Of the Pennsylvania regiments in the Eleventh Corps, The Twenty-seventh lost 111 out of 324, or 45 per cent. The Seventy-third lost 34 out of 332, or 10 per cent. The One Hundred and Fifty-third lost 211 out of 569, or 39 per cent. On the Union side of the greatest regimental losses at Gettysburg the First Corps is represented by the One Hundred and Fifty-first, One Hundred and Forty-ninth, One Hundred and Fiftieth, One Hundred and Forty-seventh, One Hundred and Forty-third and One Hundred and Forty-second Pennsylvania, and the Eleventh Corps by the Twenty-seventh, Seventy-fourth, Seventy-fifth, and One Hundred and Fifty-third Pennsylvania. On the Confederate side, the Twenty-sixth North Carolina lost, according to General Hoke's report, 708, but by the War Department's list, 588 out of over 800," over 75 per cent., for these North Carolina regiments went into the field of great strength, some as high as 1,800, others 1,500; one company of the Twentysixth North Carolina lost out of 3 officers and 84 men, all of the officers and 83 of men; another company, of the Eleventh North Carolina, lost 36 out of 38. The Second North Carolina Battalion was reported by General Ewell as losing 200, by the War Department 153, out of 240, 75 or 65 per cent.; Lane's North Carolina Brigade of Pender's Division, lost 660 out of 1,355, nearly 50 per cent.; Daniel's Brigade lost 916 out of 2,100, over 43 per cent.; Pettigrew's Brigade lost 1,105, nearly the whole. strength of Biddle's. The total loss in the Union Army at Gettysburg was 27 per cent.; that of the First Corps on the first day was over 70 per cent., that of the Eleventh Corps over 60 per cent. Compare these with the losses in famous foreign battles. At Balaklava the Light Brigade lost 37 per cent., at Inkerman the Guards lost 45 per cent., the heaviest German regimental losses in the Franco-Prussian war were 49 per cent. The Twenty-sixth North Carolina lost 72 per cent., the One Hundred and Fortyninth and One Hundred and Fifty-first Pennsylvania about as heavily. Nor did these Pennsylvania regiments fight any better on Pennsylvania soil than elsewhere, while their comrades from other states fought as bravely here as in any other field during the war. It has been the habit to speak of the first day's battle as if it had been an accidental encounter, in which horse, foot and artillery were driven in and through Gettysburg. In point of fact there was no accident, no surprise, no easy victory. Buford went by Reynolds' order to find the enemy, and his report on the 30th showed where Lee's forces were concentrating. From the dawn of July 1st, when Buford's cavalry first met the advance of Hill's Corps, until nightfall, when the Army of the Potomac was concentrated at and near Gettysburg, there was sturdy fighting, stout resistance against a largely superior force, and an all-important position and time to concentrate on it gained. The Confederate Army fought to win the first day, but the Union Army fought to win the next day and the next, and the final victory.* The battle of Gettysburg was a varying series of successive engagements, with alternate gains and losses, but the final result was that crowning success which was largely due to the good fight fought on the first day against heavy odds. The first day's battle was a series of distinct contests, and, like every battle, it was a compound of victory and defeat; every soldier killed, wounded or captured, every inch of ground gained or lost, being part of the final result. It was, indeed, "the soldier's battle," for it was the fixed determination of the soldiers to hold the ground that counted for more than any skilful manœuvres of military art or the best tactical methods. Buford's two brigades of cavalry fought and held in check Heth's Division, ard when Buford was relieved, the First Corps fought Heth's and Pender's *John C. Ropes'. "The Campaign under Pope." |