gained, it finds itself in a trap where it is in danger of being sacrificed to the last man. Unable to execute the simplest manœuvre, it is at the mercy of any organized body brought against it. Lee seemed to have forgotten Fredericksburg. Longstreet did better at Chickamauga.

Two cavalry battles belong to the complete history of this remarkable day, though in no way affecting the main result. In the first Stuart attacked and was defeated. This was

Cavalry

cavalry against cavalry; and as PickBattles. ett's front attack was repulsed, that in the rear amounted to little in itself. In the second Kilpatrick made a bold dash into Hood's rear, about Round Top, with the view of throwing the enemy into confusion, breaking up his line there, and so facilitating an advance by the Union forces in that quarter. This was cavalry against infantry in position, and the ground the worst possible for cavalry manœuvres. For an hour the enemy had our troopers riding round them with drawn sabres, receiving the fire first of one regiment and then of another. No

advantage being taken of the diversion, the cavalry was nearly cut to pieces.

To this day the woods show the destructive effects of this cannonade.

2" I instructed the chiefs of artillery and battery commanders to withhold their fire for fifteen or twenty minutes after the cannonade commenced, then to concentrate their fire with all possible accuracy upon those batteries which were most destructive to us, but slowly, so that when the enemy's ammunition was exhausted we should have enough left to meet the assault." - Gen. Hunt, Chief of Artillery.

Pickett's division with two brigades absent was probably five thousand five hundred strong, Heth's not less, and the three supporting brigades as many more. The troops were no doubt selected as the very best that offered.

X

THE RETREAT

THRICE had the sun gone down on that ensanguined field, where one hundred and fifty thousand men had striven for the mastery and forty thousand sealed their devotion with their blood. Exhausted by their efforts, the Confederates thought only of making good their retreat. Gettysburg Gettysburg was immediately evacuated evacuated. and both wings drawn back on the main body, so that, as now re-formed and contracted, Lee's army stretched from Oak Hill to Lee's New the peach orchard. Behind this line, Position. and under cover of its woods, he was now getting ready to retreat.

Such plain indications could hardly be overlooked.1 A reconnoisance from the Union left found the Confederates retiring. During the night the Union troops went forward to the battlefield of the 2d.

Lee's lost opportunity on the Ist was as nothing to Meade's on the 3d. It came when the Confederates were in the confusion resulting from their repulse. It was lost, however, be

Lost

Chances.

cause the great captain was not there.

Meade was unequal to exacting a supreme effort at this moment, either from his army or himself. To let slip this opportunity was to tempt fortune itself, and it never came again.

But if from any of the many causes alleged,2 or all of them put together, the one chance out of a thousand, for which all this marching and fighting had been going on, had eluded Meade's grasp, or if it be conceded that he found Lee's new position so strong as to hold out no hope of a successful assault, history will still demand to know why this beaten army, short of ammunition, encumbered with its wounded, its prisoners, and its wagons, thirty to forty miles from the Potomac, with a mountain defile to pass and a wide river to cross, was suffered to march off unmolested with all its im

Strange
Inaction.

mense spoil, and not only to do that, but to re

main eleven days between Gettysburg and the Potomac without being once seriously attacked.

Lee in a
Tight Place.

means

That Lee could not long remain on Seminary Ridge, let his position be ever so strong, was a self-evident proposition. He had exhausted his of attack, his army was cut down by more than twenty thousand men, his ammunition was nearly expended, nor could it be replenished short of Virginia. His means of defence were therefore extremely limited. If it had been possible to detain Lee where he was, even for a few days longer, his surrender was a foregone conclusion without firing another shot. But taking the situation as we find it, we do not see how he could have been more critically placed, if in the presence of an enterprising opponent. Lee's attitude after the battle. savors far more of bravado than a desire to be attacked. To block his retreat it would have been necessary to seize the Monterey Pass immediately after the battle.3 Meade had the shorter line. His cavalry would have kept Lee at bay until the infantry could come up. He should never have suffered Lee to put