This text is part of:
[202]
in the battles of the 1st and 3d, out of a total present of 1,043, lost 677 killed, wounded and captured. After the repulse of our attacking column, General Lee remained in position in front of the enemy, awaiting an attack until the night of the 4th, when he retired and fell back beyond Hagerstown, Md., without molestation.
Gettysburg was a victory for the enemy, but it was won at great cost,—his return of casualties showing a loss of 23,049 killed, wounded and captured. The returns also show a great Confederate loss, 20,451.
The killed in the Federal army was 307 in excess of the killed in General Lee's army, and the wounded exceeded that of the Confederates by 684.
In prisoners, the excess in favor of General Lee was 32. General Lee's prisoners were captured on the battlefield.
Except the captures made on Cemetery hill and a few on the afternoon of the 1st, the prisoners lost by the army of Northern Virginia were barefooted and foot-sore stragglers, captured after the battle.
Leaving Hagerstown, Heth's and Pender's divisions constituting the rear guard of the army, Lee took position between that point and Williamsport, then retired on the evening of the 13th to a point one mile and a half from Falling Waters, and formed line of battle.
About 11:30 a. m., says General Heth (now sufficiently recovered to command his division), a small body of cavalry numbering 40 or 55 men dashed up and charged his line, and in less than three minutes all of this reckless squad were killed but two or three.
The noble General Pettigrew and one man of the Seventh Tennessee were mortally wounded.
The charge by this body of Federal cavalry was made upon the First, Seventh and Fourteenth Tennessee and Thirteenth Alabama.
A few minutes later, a large body of dismounted cavalry with artillery made a vigorous attack on Brockenbrough's brigade, which was repulsed; but the enemy being heavily reinforced, Brockenbrough retired under orders.
On the 14th of July, General Meade telegraphed General
Atlanta, Ga. 1899.
Tufts University provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.