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[365] Accordingly, nothing was done save to make some demonstrations of a rather feeble character, and the day was passed in attentions to the wounded and burying the dead, while holding the army in hand for pursuit. That night Lee began to retire by the Chambersburg and Fairfield roads, which leading westward from Gettysburg, pass through the South Mountain range into the Cumberland Valley at a distance of seven miles from each other. As a severe storm had come on during the afternoon and continued during the night, the roads were rendered very bad; so that the retreat was made painfully and slowly, and the rear of the column did not leave its position near Gettysburg until after daylight of the 5th. General Meade, as soon as he was satisfied that the enemy had actually withdrawn, took measures to follow up the retreat. When it became possible to take account of the losses of this great battle, it was found that on the Union side they included two thousand eight hundred and thirty-four killed, thirteen thousand seven hundred and thirty-three wounded, and six thousand six hundred and forty-three missing, making an aggregate of twenty-three thousand one hundred and ninety.1 On the side of the Confederates, they were supposed to be near thirty thousand, whereof nearly fourteen thousand were prisoners.2
1 Official Records of the War Department.
2 This is simply an approximate estimate, as no report of the Confederate casualties was ever made public. ‘It is not,’ says General Lee, ‘in my power to give a correct statement of our casualties, which were severe.’ Lee: Report of Gettyaburg. The number of prisoners captured by the Army of the Potomac, as by official returns, was thirteen thousand six hundred and twenty one. （Meade: Report of Gettysburg). 1 believe that the above estimate of thirty thousand for Lee's total loss will not prove to be in excess of the truth. Lee's aggregate present for duty on the 31st May was 68,352; and on July 31st it was 41,135—the difference being 27,217.
1866.
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