escaped unhurt, while of its rank and file three-fourths were dead or captives. Pettigrew's division, also, though it had faltered earlier, was much cut up and lost many officers, besides heavily in killed, wounded, and prisoners. But this illustrious victory was not purchased without severe price paid; and this was sadly attested in the thousands of dead and wounded that lay on the plain. The loss in officers was again especially heavy; and among the wounded were Generals Gibbon and Hancock; but the latter did not leave the field till he learned the tidings of the discomfiture of the enemy.

After the repulse of Pickett's assault, Wilcox's command, that had been on the right but failed to move forward, advanced by itself to the attack, and came to within a few hundred yards of Hancock's line; but in passing over the plain it met severe artillery fire, and Stannard detached a force* which took it in flank and rear, capturing several hundred prisoners the rest fled. This ended the combat, though towards dusk General Crawford advanced across the wheatfield into the woods and took several hundred prisoners and a large number of arms. During the action, the cavalry had been operating on the flanks, Kilpatrick's division on the left, and Gregg's division on the right. Both divisions displayed much gallantry and suffered heavy loss.t

When the shattered columns of attack returned to their

* The Sixteenth Vermont, supported by a detachment of the Fourteenth Vermont.

+ It had not been designed that Wilcox should attack, but simply cover, the right flank of Pickett's assaulting column. But he did not move forward with sufficient promptness to effect the former purpose, and when Pickett had been repulsed, he made a foolish and isolated attack. Thus, in the first instance, he did not move forward enough, and in the second he moved too far.

The scope of this work does not permit the recital of the details of the nu. merous cavalry affairs; but I cannot forbear to mention the very spirited attack on Hood's right by the brigades of Farnesworth and Merritt, operating on the left flank of the army. Farnesworth, with the First Vermont and First Virginia Cavalry, cleared a fence in his front, sabred the enemy behind it, and then rushed on the second line and up to the muzzles of the guns, where most of them fell, and their gallant leader at their head.

lines on Seminary Ridge, it was clear to Lee that the attempt to break through the Union position was hopeless. Tho troops went back much disrupted, and it was only by the energetic, personal exertions of Longstreet and of Lee that they were rallied and re-formed. It is said that a counter-attack by the Union forces was much feared at this moment; and it is possible that had General Meade been aware of the extent of the damage he had inflicted on his opponent, and the extreme disorder of the moment, as also that the Confederate ammunition had run very low, an immediate advance by the left might have converted the repulse into a rout. But it must be borne in mind that he did not then know these things, and all he did know favored a cautious policy. For his own loss was terrible, the different corps were much intermingled, and to have quitted his defences would have exposed him to a repulse similar to that the enemy had just received; and as -with the exception of a few brigades of Sedgwick's corpsthere were no reserves, attack must have been made by already exhausted troops.*

With Lee there now remained only the alternative of re

* So far as I am aware, the only important witness on the Confederate side in favor of attack at this time, is Colonel Fremantle of the British service. Referring to the situation after Pickett's repulse, he says: "It is difficult to exaggerate the critical state of affairs as they appeared about this time. If the enemy, or their general, had shown any enterprise, there is no saying what might have happened. General Lee and his officers were evidently fully impressed with a sense of the situation." But the sequel seems to belie this; for he immediately remarks: "Yet there was much less noise, fuss, or confusion of orders than at an ordinary field-day; the men as they were rallied in the woods, were brought up in detachments, and lay down quietly and coolly in the positions assigned them."-Three Months in the Confederate States, pp. 269-270. A very different view of the probable success of an assault at this time is given by Captain Ross, of the Austrian service, who also witnessed the battle from the Confederate side. "The enemy," says he, "made no attempt to follow up their advantage, and it is well for them they did not. I see that a General Butterfield, in evidence given before some Federal committee, blames General Meade for not attacking Lee's right after the repulse, imagining that enormous captures of guns and other great successes would have been the result. It was, however, well for the Federals that General Meade did not do so

treat; and bitter as this alternative was-seeing that it involved the abandonment of the scheme of invasion and all the high hopes built thereon-it was imperative, for the position he had to assail was one against which he might dash his army to pieces, but against which he could now hope for no success. Yet he did not begin an immediate retreat, but waited the whole of the following day, during which he was withdrawing his trains and disposing his army for a retrograde movement. And it is the most striking proof that could be given of the confidence Lee still had in his troops, that during that whole 4th of July he was in a mood to invite rather than dread an attack. Retiring his left from around the base of Culp's Hill and from the town of Gettysburg, which was reoccupied by Howard's troops during the forenoon, a strong line of works was thrown up from the Seminary northwestward, and covering the Mummasburg and Chambersburg roads, while another line was formed on the right flank, perpendicular with their general front, and extending back to Marsh Creek. Here, while employed in the work of sending off their wounded, burying their dead, etc., the Confederates stood at bay, hopeless of venturing another attack, yet quite willing to be attacked.

But this was not in the line of General Meade's intent, for having gained a victory, and being certain of the necessity that was upon his antagonist of making a retreat, he was in no mood to jeopard an assured success by any rash adven

for he would have found McLaws and Hood's divisions there perfectly ready and willing to give him a much hotter reception than he would have liked." -Cities and Camps of the Confederate States, p. 65. On the Union side, many of the generals present have testified before the Committee on the Conduct of the War, in favor of attack. See Report, second series, vol. i., passim.

But since the above text was written, I have become convinced from testimony more weighty than any given above-to wit, the testimony of General Long. street himself that attack would have resulted disastrously. "I had," said that officer to the writer, "Hood and McLaws, who had not been engaged; I had a heavy force of artillery; I should have liked nothing better than to have been attacked, and have no doubt I should have given those who tried as bad a reception as Pickett received."

ture. Accordingly, nothing was done save to make some demonstrations of a rather feeble character, and the day was passed in attentions to the wounded and burying the dead, while holding the army in hand for pursuit. That night Lee began to retire by the Chambersburg and Fairfield roads, which leading westward from Gettysburg, pass through the South Mountain range into the Cumberland Valley at a distance of seven miles from each other. As a severe storm had come on during the afternoon and continued during the night, the roads were rendered very bad; so that the retreat was made painfully and slowly, and the rear of the column did not leave its position near Gettysburg until after daylight of the 5th. General Meade, as soon as he was satisfied that the enemy had actually withdrawn, took measures to follow up the retreat.

When it became possible to take account of the losses of this great battle, it was found that on the Union side they included two thousand eight hundred and thirty-four killed, thirteen thousand seven hundred and thirty-three wounded, and six thousand six hundred and forty-three missing, making an aggregate of twenty-three thousand one hundred and ninety. On the side of the Confederates, they were supposed to be near thirty thousand, whereof nearly fourteen thousand were prisoners.†

*

* Official Records of the War Department.

This is simply an approximate estimate, as no report of the Confederate casualties was ever made public. "It is not," says General Lee, "in my power to give a correct statement of our casualties, which were severe." Lee: Report of Gettysburg. The number of prisoners captured by the Army of the Potomac, as by official returns, was thirteen thousand six hundred and twenty. one. (Meade: Report of Gettysburg). I believe that the above estimate of thirty thousand for Lee's total loss will not prove to be in excess of the truth. Lee's infantry present for duty on the 31st May was 68,352; and on July 31st it was 41,135-the difference being 27,217.

LX.

THE CONFEDERATE RETREAT.

The retreat of Lee, which became definitively known on the morning of Sunday, July 5, brought with it the important question of pursuit.

Now, there were two lines by which the Confederates might be followed up: the one was a direct pursuit by the same routes over which they had retreated, pressing them down the Cumberland Valley; the other, a flank march by the east side of the South Mountains, defiling by the Boonsboro' passes, with the view to head off the enemy or take him in flank. The former had the recommendation of being the shorter line -the distance to the Potomac (at Williamsport) being in this case about forty miles; and by the latter line, nearly eighty. The only disadvantage attending it arose from the fact that the enemy might hold the débouchés of the mountains with a rear-guard, while making good his escape with his main body and trains. General Meade appears to have been in some doubt as to the proper method of action; but on the morning of the 5th, he sent a column in direct pursuit. He ordered Sedgwick's Sixth Corps (then the freshest in the army) to follow up the enemy on the Fairfield road, while he dispatched a cavalry force to press the retreating Confederates on the Chambersburg road. Sedgwick that evening overtook the rear of the Confederate column at a distance of ten miles, where the Fairfield road breaks through a pass in the South Mountain range This position was found to be very defensible; but there was no occasion to attack it, for another course had, meanwhile, been determined on, and Sedgwick was recalled.

Instead of pursuing the enemy by the direct route over which he had retreated, General Meade judged it better to