266 PICKETT'S Repulse. [1863. outer lines, fought hand-to-hand at the main line, and even leaped the breastworks and thought to capture the batteries. The point where they penetrated was marked by a clump of small trees on the edge of the hill, at that portion of the line held by the brigade of General Alexander S. Webb, who was wounded; but his men stood firm against the shock, and, from the eagerness of all to join in the contest, men rushed from every side to the point assailed, mixing up all commands, but making a front that no such remnant as Pickett's could break. General Lewis A. Armistead, who led the charge and leaped over the wall, was shot down as he laid his hand on a gun, and his surviving soldiers surrendered themselves. On the slope of the hill many of the assailants had thrown themselves upon the ground and held up their hands for quarter; and an immediate sally from the National lines brought in a large number of prisoners and battle-flags. Of that magnificent column which had been launched out so proudly, only a broken fragment ever returned. Nearly every officer in it, except Pickett, had been either killed or wounded. Armistead, a prisoner and dying, said to an officer who was bending over him, "Tell Hancock I have wronged him and have wronged my country." He had been opposed to secession, but the pressure of his friends and relatives had at length forced him into the service. Hancock had been wounded and borne from the field, and among the other wounded on the National side were Generals Doubleday, Gibbon, Warren, But 1863.] LEE'S RETREAT. 267 terfield, Stannard, Barnes, and Brook. General Farnsworth was killed, and General Gabriel R. Paul lost both eyes. Among the killed on the Confederate side, beside those already mentioned, were Generals Garnett, Pender, and Semmes; and among the wounded Generals Hampton, Jenkins, Kemper, Scales, J. M. Jones, and G. T. Anderson. While this movement was in progress, Kilpatrick with his cavalry rode around the mountain and attempted to pass the Confederate right and capture the trains, while Stuart with his cavalry made a simultaneous attempt on the National right. Each had a bloody fight, but neither was successful. This closed the battle. Hancock urged that a great return charge should be made immediately with Sedgwick's corps, which had not participated, and Lee expected such a movement as a matter of course. But it was not done. That night Lee made preparations for retreat, and the next day - which was the 4th of July — the retreat was begun. General Imboden, who conducted the trains and the ambulances, describes it as one of the most pitiful and heartrending scenes ever witnessed. A heavy storm had come up, the roads were in bad condition, few of the wounded had been properly cared for, and as they were jolted along in agony they were groaning, cursing, babbling of their homes, and calling upon their friends to kill them and put them out of misery. But there could be no halt, for the Potomac was rising, and an attack was hourly expected from the enemy in the rear. 268 THE LOSSES. [1863. Meade, however, did not pursue for several days, and then to no purpose; so that Lee's crippled army escaped into Virginia, but it was disabled from ever doing anything more than prolonging the contest. Gettysburg was essentially the Waterloo of the war, and there is a striking parallel in the losses. The numbers engaged were very nearly the same in the one battle as in the other. At Waterloo the victors lost twenty-three thousand one hundred and eighty-five men, and the vanquished, in round numbers, thirty thousand. At Gettysburg the National loss was twenty-three thousand one hundred and ninety- killed, wounded, and missing. The Confederate losses were never officially reported, but estimates place them at nearly thirty thousand. Lee left seven thousand of his wounded among the unburied dead, and twenty-seven thousand muskets were picked up on the field. The romantic and pathetic incidents of this great battle are innumerable. John Burns, a resident of Gettysburg, seventy years old, had served in the war of 1812, being one of Miller's men at Lundy's Lane, and in the Mexican war, and had tried to enlist at the breaking out of the Rebellion, but was rejected as too old. When the armies approached the town, he joined the 7th Wisconsin regiment and displayed wonderful skill as a sharp-shoot. er; but he was wounded in the afternoon, fell into the hands of the Confederates, told some plausible story to account for his lack of a uniform, and was finally carried to his own house. Jenny 1863.1 INCIDENTS. 269 Wade was baking bread for Union soldiers when the advance of the Confederate line surrounded her house with enemies; but she kept on at her work, in spite of orders to desist, until a stray bullet struck her dead. An unknown Confederate officer lay mortally wounded within the Union lines, and one of the commanders sent to ask his name and rank. "Tell him," said the dying man, "that I shall soon be where there is no rank " — and he was never identified. Lieutenant Alonzo H. Cushing commanded a battery on General Webb's line, and in the cannonade preceding the great charge on the third day all his guns but one were disabled, and he was mortally wounded. When the charging column approached, he exclaimed: "Webb, I will give them one more shot!" ran his gun forward to the stone wall, fired it, said "Good-bye!" and fell dead. Barksdale, of Mississippi, had been an extreme secessionist, and had done much to bring on the war. At that part of the line where he fell, the Union commander was General David B. Birney, son of a slaveholder that had emancipated his slaves, had been mobbed for his abolitionism, and had twice been the Presidential candidate of the Liberty party. A general of the National army, who was present, remarks that Barksdale died "like a brave man, with dignity and resignation." On that field perished also the cause that he represented; and as Americans we may all be proud to say that, so far as manly courage could go, it died with dignity, if not with resignation. CHAPTER XVII. THE VICKSBURG CAMPAIGN. IN the autumn of 1862, after the battles of Iuka and Corinth, the National commanders in the West naturally began to think of further movements southward into the State of Mississippi, and of opening the great river and securing unobstructed navigation from Cairo to the Gulf. The project was slow in execution, principally from division of authority, and doubt as to what general would ultimately have the command. John A. McClernand, who had been a Democratic member of Congress from Illinois, and was what was known as a "political general," spent some time in Washington, urging the plan upon the President (who was an old acquaintance and personal friend), of course in the expectation that he would be entrusted with its execution. But he found little favor with General Halleck. At this time General Grant hardly knew what were the limits of his command, or whether indeed he really had any command at all. Vicksburg is on a high bluff overlooking the Mississippi, where it makes a sharp bend enclosing a long, narrow peninsula. The railroad from Shreveport, La., reaches the river at this point, and connects by ferry with the railroad running |