All these scenes I have passed over, however. The greater drama
absorbed me. The gray horsemen were fighting heroically; but what was
that encounter of sabres, when the fate of Gettysburg was being decided
at Cemetery Hill?
So I pass over all that, and hasten on now to the sequel. Memory finds
few scenes to attract it in the days that followed Gettysburg.
But I beg the reader to observe that I should have no scenes of a
humiliating character to draw. Never was army less "whipped" than that
of Lee after this fight! Do you doubt that statement, reader? Do you
think that the Southerners were a disordered rabble, flying before the
Federal bayonets? a flock of panic-stricken sheep, hurrying back to the
Potomac, with the bay of the Federal war-dogs in their ears?
That idea--entertained by a number of our Northern friends--is entirely
fanciful.
Lee's army was not even shaken. It was fagged, hungry, out of
ammunition, and it retired,--but not until it had remained for
twenty-four hours in line of battle in front of the enemy, perfectly
careless of, even inviting, attack.
"I should have liked nothing better than to have been attacked," said
Longstreet, "and have no doubt I should have given those who tried, as
bad a reception as Pickett received."[1]
[Footnote 1: His words.
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