Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 33.djvu/157

 General Lee at Gettysburg. 153

action of the afternoon, a cavalry charge under General Farnsworth against the Confederate right had been repulsed. And Stuart, with the Confederate cavaly, had attempted to get around the Federal right beyond Gulp's hill and reach the Baltimore Turnpike, but was repulsed by General Gregg.

Would General Meade advance in force? Lee's artillery was put in battery on Seminary Ridge, and the depleted ranks of the divis- ions were promptly drawn into line. But both had suffered enor- mously, and neither was capable of attack. The Confederate loss in the three days was something more than 20,000, one-third of a total of 63,000 of all arms. Dead on the field were Armistead, Garnett, Fender, Barksdale and Semmes. Seriously wounded were Wade, Hampton, Hood, Kemper, Heth, Pettigrew, Trimble, Scales, Jenkins, and S. T. Anderson, while Archer was a prisoner: In an unusual percentage of young regimental and company officers, the flower of the Southland, were left upon the field. Of many of them and a multitude of men in the ranks, the pride and hope of the best of homes, no tidings came back. In unknown graves they sleep, many of them in Hollywood, willing sacrifices, offered to their country and their God.

THE DAY AFTER.

One whole day it was Saturday, the 4th of July both armies rested, as if the memories of a common American liberty and achieve- ment forbade a disturbance of the day sacred to all. On the night of the 4th, the trains began to retire, by Cashtown and Fairfield, through the gaps of the South Mountains. Long lines of ambu- lances wended their painful way in the darkness, over rocky roads, through the cold and damp of mountain passes. ( The artillery fol- lowed, and then the divisions which had left so many behind. EwelPs corps, as a rear guard, did not leave Gettysburg until the forenoon of July 5th. The sun was shining brightly when I rode with General Ewell out of the town square, and by the Seminary, which was filled with our wounded officers and men.

In an address to his command at Hagerstown, July nth, Gen- eral Lee said: "After long and trying marches, endured with forti- tude that has ever characterized the soldiers of Northern Virginia, you have penetrated the country of our enemies, and recalled to the defence of their own soil those who were engaged in the invasion of ours. You have fought a fierce and sanguinary battle, which, if not