Edward Alfred Pollard, The lost cause; a new Southern history of the War of the Confederates ... Drawn from official sources and approved by the most distinguished Confederate leaders.

[405] enemy's country, done with the deliberation of general orders, and by the army acting in line of battle; and that such retribution, while it could have brought no historical discredit on the Confederate arms, was due the suffering people of the South, was necessary to teach the enemy a lesson, and indicated a kind of operation which, removed from the enemy's own barbarity, would equally avoid that weak warfare which irritated instead of alarming an invaded people, and thus strengthened their forces and obtained recruits for them on their own soil. Gen. Lee appears never to have comprehended this argument. We shall see hereafter in what coin his civilities in Pennsylvania were paid back, and how, notwithstanding the constant exertions of the Confederates, for what President Davis termed the reputation of “Christian warriours,” the ingenious falsehoods of an enemy, himself constantly in the commission of the worst atrocities, entitled them the worst of savages, and turned upon them the phrase of “rebel barbarities.” But surely one reflection here cannot escape the world. It is the extreme improbability of such “barbarity” on the part of a people who, in the third year of the war, exhibited this magnanimity in Pennsylvania, and even in the character of an invading army, declined to take advantage of some of the most ordinary penalties of war.

On the 28th of June, Gen. Hooker, at his own request, was relieved from the command of the Federal army, and Gen. Meade, whose antecedents were those of an efficient corps and division commander, was appointed to succeed him. A great alarm pervaded the North. The Governors of Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland, and Western Virginia called out their militia forces. But these feverish displays were of little consequence. It was easily seen by the intelligent that the security of the North rested upon Meade's army, and on the strongly fortified lines of Washington, and that if this array was once broken, hastily levied militia could afford no protection against Lee's army, and that thus the war was about to culminate in a grand contest of regular arms. It was a sharp, fearful issue. Gen. Meade found himself in command of a splendid army of about one hundred and fifty thousand men. He comprehended the necessity of rapid and decisive action. Rapidly organizing his forces, he marched out to meet the Confederates. Making a disposition of his forces so as to cover both Washington and Baltimore at the same time, he moved forward cautiously until his advance reached Gettysburg. About one mile from the town, a line of entrenchments was thrown up on a range of hills, and a heavy force moved forward through and beyond the town to watch the movements of his adversary.

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