Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Three).djvu/81

 up with him in an entrenched position, we put off the attack long enough to give him time to withdraw his whole army across the river without any serious loss. Thus it happened that General Lee saved from the battlefield at Gettysburg an army still capable of giving many anxious hours to the defenders of the Union. Indeed, the political value of the results achieved at Gettysburg can hardly be overestimated. Had Lee defeated us on that battlefield, and marched with his victorious hosts upon Baltimore and Washington, there would have been complications of incalculable consequence. The lines of communication between the seat of our government and the North and West might have been seriously interrupted. A new secession movement might possibly have been started in Maryland. The disloyal partisan elements in the Northern States might have been greatly encouraged to aggressive activity. New attempts might have been made in England and France to bring about the recognition of the Southern Confederacy by those powers, and eventual intervention in its favor. I am far from believing that all this would have resulted in the final breaking down of the Union cause, for the North would no doubt have risen to a supreme effort, but our situation would certainly have been beset with most perplexing troubles for a time, and the war might have been materially prolonged. On the other hand, Lee's failure at Gettysburg—if we call it only that—had dashed the highest hopes of the Southern people. The invasion of the North and the attempt to transplant the war upon Northern soil had so decidedly miscarried that so ambitious a plan would hardly again be thought of. The hope of supplying the meager and constantly dwindling resources of the South with rich Northern spoil had to be given up forever. Moreover, Lee's army, which so far had thought itself invincible, and looked upon the Northern soldiers with