Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/440

406 the Federals, who still showed a bold front by a constant firing of infantry and artillery, desiring to have Gordon again in place and to have Johnson's division, which had been marching forward from Cashtown, in advance of Longstreet, to extend his line to the eastward, that he might scale Culp's hill and turn the Federal right at the same time that he made attack in front. The reinforcements from Longstreet did not appear, but Johnson arrived upon the field after sundown and then halted north of the town, in the vicinity of Pennsylvania college. This lack of energy and failure of concerted action by Lee's corps commanders lost to the Confederates the great advantages they had gained during the day, which, if followed up in "Stonewall's way," would, in so far as one can forecast events, have resulted in crushing the Federal army in detail, as it was stretched along the road for miles to the southward from Gettysburg, marching in wearied columns and encumbered with its great army trains.

The plan of pushing the attack abandoned, Lee met Early, Ewell and Rodes in conference after dark, to the north of Gettysburg, near the road leading to Carlisle. He now had information of the arrival of more Federal troops upon the scene of action; that Hancock was in command, and had 8,600 men, under Slocum, inline of battle to the south of Gettysburg, holding the crests of Cemetery ridge and Culp's hill, and thus fully protecting Meade's advance. Lee, in this conference with his subordinates, expressed an earnest desire to attack the Federals at daylight the next day, July 2d, if at all practicable, asking Ewell if he could not, with his corps, attack the enemy's right on the morrow. These Second corps leaders called General Lee's attention to the rugged hilltops already occupied by Federal troops, that loomed before them in the late twilight of a midsummer day, and argued that gradual approach to the Federal position from the westward was more favorable for an attack by the Confederate right. It is reported, by one of these officers, that Lee's next question was, "Perhaps I had better draw you around toward my right, as the line will be very long and thin if you remain here, and the enemy may come down and break through it." Early reports that Ewell then asserted that he could not only hold the ground already in his possession, but that