Waters. Three days before he had written Davis: "A series of storms . . . has placed the river beyond fording stage, and the present storm will keep it so for at least a week. I shall therefore have to accept battle if the enemy offers it, whether I wish to or not. . . I hope your Excellency will understand that I am not in the least discouraged, or that my faith in the protection of an all-merciful Providence or in the fortitude of this army is at all shaken." The condition of the army "is good, and its confidence unimpaired."1 July 10 he sent confidentially this word to Stuart: "We must prepare for a vigorous battle, and trust in the mercy of God and the valor of our troops."2 July 12, after he had taken up his very strong position on the Potomac, he wrote Davis: "But for the power the enemy possesses of accumulating troops I should be willing to await his attack, excepting that in our restricted limits the means of obtaining subsistence are becoming precarious. The river has now fallen to four feet, and a bridge, which is being constructed, I hope will be passable by to-morrow." "3

By July 11 Meade in his pursuit had come within striking distance of Lee. Reinforced by some fresh troops, he might have attacked on the 12th or 13th and ought to have done so.4 Defeat could not result in disaster. A success no greater than Antietam would be a help to the cause, and a complete victory was possible that might end the war. While proceeding with great caution, Meade had determined to make an attack July 13; but, wavering in mind and weighed down with responsibility, he called, contrary to the best military maxims, a council of war. Five out of seven of his corps

1 O. R., vol. xxvii. part ii. p. 299. 25.30 A. M., ibid., part iii. p. 991. 3 Ibid., part ii. p. 301.

4 I have been led to this judgment by the testimony of Warren, Humphreys, and Hunt (C. W., 1865, vol. i. pp. 379, 395, 455), supported by a mass of comment and opinion. Contrariwise, see Meade's testimony, ibid., p. 336; his unofficial letter to Halleck, July 31, O. R., vol. xxvii. part i. p. 108; Hunt, Century War Book, vol. iii. p. 382.

Meade to Halleck, July 12, 4.30 P. M., O. R., vol. xxvii. part i. p. 91.

commanders were opposed to the projected attack, which influenced him to delay giving the orders for it. He devoted July 13 to an examination of the enemy's position, strength, and defensive works, and the next day advanced his army for a reconnaissance in force or an assault if conditions justified it, when he ascertained that during the night previous the Confederate army had crossed the Potomac. "The escape of Lee's army without another battle has created great dissatisfaction in the mind of the President," telegraphed Halleck.1 Meade asked to be relieved of the command of the army: his application was refused.2

During the 12th and 13th of July Lincoln was a prey to intense anxiety, and when he got the intelligence, soon after noon of the 14th, that Lee and his army were safely across the river, he could hardly restrain his irritation within bounds. "We had them within our grasp," he declared; "we had only to stretch forth our hands and they were ours, and nothing I could say or do could make the army move." I regret that I did not myself go to the army and personally issue the order for an attack. On the spur of the moment he gave vent to his feelings in a letter to Meade which on second thoughts he did not sign or send. Prefacing his censure with "I am sorry now to be the author of the slightest pain to you," he wrote: "You fought and beat the enemy at Gettysburg; and of course, to say the least, his loss was as great as yours. He retreated, and you did not, as it seemed to me, pressingly pursue him; but a flood in the river detained him, till by slow degrees you were again upon him. You had at least twenty thousand veteran troops directly with you, and as many more raw ones within supporting distance, all in addition to those who fought with you at Gettysburg; while it was not possible that he had received a single recruit; and yet you stood and let the flood run down, bridges be built, and the enemy move away at his leisure without attacking him. . . . Again, my

1 July 14, O. R., vol. xxvii. part i. p. 92.

3 John Hay's diary, Nicolay and Hay, vol. vii. p. 278.

2 Ibid., p. 93.

dear general, I do not believe you appreciate the magnitude of the misfortune involved in Lee's escape. He was within your easy grasp, and to have closed upon him would, in connection with our other late successes, have ended the war. As it is, the war will be prolonged indefinitely. If you could not safely attack Lee last Monday, how can you possibly do so south of the river, when you can take with you very few more than two thirds of the force you then had in hand? It would be unreasonable to expect, and I do not expect [that] you can now effect much. Your golden opportunity is gone, and I am distressed immeasurably because of it." 1

The disappointment of Lincoln was profound and enduring. Somewhat later he said: "Our army held the war in the hollow of their hand and they would not close it. We had gone through all the labor of tilling and planting an enormous crop, and when it was ripe we did not harvest it. Still I am very grateful to Meade for the great service he did at Gettysburg."

"2

Nothing can so fitly close my account of the battle of Gettysburg as the reproduction of Lincoln's two-minute address at the dedication of the Gettysburg National Cemetery, November 19, 1863: "Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate we cannot consecrate we cannot hallow this ground.

1 Nicolay and Hay, vol. vii. p. 280.

The brave

2 John Hay's diary, Nicolay and Hay, vol. vii. p. 278.

men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." 1

1 Lincoln, Complete Works, vol. ii. p. 439. In chap. vii. vol. viii. Nicolay and Hay have given a very interesting account of this address; see, also, the Nation, Nov. 28, 1895, p. 387.

My authorities for the campaign of Gettysburg are the correspondence and orders in O. R., vol. xxvii. parts i., ii., and iii.; reports of Halleck, Hooker, Meade, Ingalls, Hunt, Doubleday, Hancock, Gibbon, Webb, Hays, Humphreys, Sedgwick, Howard, Schurz, Slocum, part i.; reports of Couch and W. F. Smith, part ii. ; reports of Lee, Longstreet, Ewell, A. P. Hill, part ii.; testimony of Butterfield, Doubleday, Hancock, Humphreys, Hunt, Meade, Sedgwick, Sickles, Wadsworth, Warren, Williams, C. W., 1865, vol. i.; articles of Longstreet, Hunt, Halstead, Gibbon, Law, Allan, Alexander, Francis A. Walker, Century War Book, vol. iii.; Life of Lee, Long; do. by Fitzhugh Lee; do. by Cooke; do. by White; Taylor, Four Years with Gen. Lee; Longstreet, From Manassas to Appomattox; Nicolay and Hay, vol. vii.; Lincoln, Complete Works, vol. ii.; Walker, History of the Second Army Corps; Walker's Hancock; Doubleday, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg; Davis, Confederate Government, vol. ii.; Schuckers's Chase; Life of Seward, vol. iii.; Swinton, Army of the Potomac; do. Decisive Battles; General Wolseley in the North American Review for Sept. and Oct. 1889; the files from May 11 to July 6 of the N. Y. Tribune, Times, World, Herald, Eve. Post; Boston Courier, Advertiser; Chicago Tribune; Phila. Inquirer; Washington Nat. Intelligencer; Columbus Crisis.

CHAPTER XXI

BEFORE and during the war the Mississippi River possessed, as a channel of communication and commerce, a great importance, which has steadily diminished with the development of the railroad system of the West. The importance of gaining the control of it was from the first appreciated at the North. Looked upon in the East as a military advantage, it was deemed by the people of the Western States indispensable to their existence as an outlet to their products, an artery for their supply. "The free navigation of the Mississippi" were words to conjure with, not only in the Southwest, but everywhere west of the Alleghanies, except in the region directly tributary to the great lakes. From the location of his home Lincoln was brought up with this sentiment, he had his mind impregnated with it in manhood, and now he did not for a moment lose sight of its military and commercial consequence. The capture of Forts Henry and Donelson and the resulting operations had freed the Mississippi north of Vicksburg; the capture of New Orleans had given us its mouth. But the Confederates had practical possession of it between their two strong fortresses of Vicksburg and Port Hudson, a distance of about two hundred miles, and thereby retained communication between Louisiana and Texas on one side and the rest of the Confederacy on the other. Louisiana supplied them with sugar, and the great State of Texas furnished quantities of grain and beef, besides affording, by virtue of its contiguity to Mexico, an avenue for munitions of war received from

1 California and Oregon are manifestly excepted from this general

statement.