Rebellion Record: a Diary of American Events: Documents and Narratives, Volume 11.
Frank Moore, Ed.

[392] been wounded up to and until after the fight had commenced. Now, when it is remembered the entire front of my line did not occupy six hundred yards; that the opposing forces were in open ground, not three hundred yards from each other, and so close that no reconnoissance in front was necessary by an officer of Jackson's rank; and, taken in connection with the fact that the fierce attacks characteristic of the man did not cease until he was wounded, and were not renewed after he was, the conclusion is simple, natural, and forcible that Jackson commanded and fell in his attack on our guns. In justice to the high character as a general of Jackson, I am free to admit that had he not been wounded, and had made another attack, as he undoubtedly would have done, he would have carried my position; for my losses had already disabled more than half my guns, and the few that were left could have easily been overpowered.

There seemed a providential interference in Jackson's removal at the critical time in which it occurred, for the position fought for by him commanded and enfiladed our whole army; and had he won it on the rout of the Eleventh corps, the disaster to us would have been irreparable.

campaign of Gettysburg.

I was placed in command of the cavalry corps of the Army of the Potomac, and made a Major-General of volunteers, after the battle of Chancellorsville, and the campaign of Gettysburg began by my attacking the rebel cavalry at Beverly ford on the Rappahannock river, on the ninth of June, 1863. The rebels were defeated, and very important information was obtained relative to their proposed invasion of Pennsylvania, upon which General Hooker acted immediately, and moved his army toward Maryland. On the seventeenth, the nineteenth and the twenty-first of June, 1863, I attacked the rebels at Aldie, at Middleburg and Upperville, with such success, that General Lee abandoned his design of crossing the Potomac at Poolesville, and moved the bulk of his army to Hagerstown, by the way of Williamsport, and from thence to Chambersburg. When our army had arrived at Frederick City, General Hooker was relieved from the command and General Meade was assigned in his place. General Hooker left the army in fine condition and discipline, and well in hand, and he had the confidence of the troops in his ability to command them.

General Meade sent for me soon after his assigument, and in discussing the subject of the campaign, I mentioned that from my knowledge of the country, obtained the year before in the Antietam campaign, I considered the result of the present one depended entirely upon which of the two armies first obtained possession of Gettysburg, as that was so strong a position that either army, by holding it, could defeat the other; that General Lee knew this, and would undoubtedly make for it. But in the disposition of the army for the march, I saw that General Meade did not attach that importance to the subject that it deserved, and that he was more impressed with the idea that Lee intended crossing the Susquehanna river, and accordingly threw the bulk of his army too far to the east of Gettysburg. Seeing this I directed General Buford, who commanded the First cavalry division, and who was ordered to Gettysburg, to hold that place at all hazards until our infantry could come up. Buford arrived at Gettysburg on the night of the thirtieth of June, 1863, in advance of the enemy, and moved out the next day very early, about four miles on the Cashtown road, when he met A. P. Hill's corps of the enemy, thirty thousand strong, moving down to occupy Gettysburg; Lee thus doing exactly what I informed General Meade he would do. Buford with his four thousand cavalry attacked Hill, and for four hours splendidly resisted his advance, until Reynolds and Howard were able to hurry to the field and give their assistance. To the intrepidity, courage and fidelity of General Buford, and his brave division, the country and the army owe the battle-field of Gettysburg.

His unequal fight of four thousand men against eight times their numbers, and his saving the field, made Buford the true hero of that battle.

While this terrible fight of the first day was raging, having been commenced by Buford in the morning, and continued by Reynolds and Howard in the evening; General Meade was seventeen miles off, at Tarrytown, leisurely planning a line of battle on some obscure creek in another direction; when he was aroused by a despatch from Buford through me, stating that Reynolds was killed, the field was becoming disordered, and if he expected to save it the army must be moved up at once. The different again corps were then directed to march on Gettysburg, but some were so distant, Sedgwick's in particular, that it did not arrive on the field until sundown of the second of July, after having marched thirty-five miles. General Meade did not himself reach the field until one o'clock on the morning of the second, long after the first day's fight had been brought to a close.

On the second of July, 1863, that portion of the army that was on the field was placed in a defensive position, but General Meade had so little assurance in his own ability to maintain himself, or in the strength of his position, that when the rebels partially broke our line in the afternoon of the second, he directed me to collect what cavalry I could and prepare to cover the retreat of the army; and I was thus engaged until twelve o'clock that night. I mention this fact now, because when I was before your honorable Committee, and was asked the question, whether General Meade ever had any idea of retreating from Gettysburg, I answered that I did not remember; the above circumstance at that time being out of my mind, and it was