THE FIRST DAY AT GETTYSBURG.
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duct, but sometimes of “disloyalty”to their superiors, civil and military,and even to the cause for which theyfought. These accusations were fol-lowed or accompanied by frequentchanges of commanders of the army,of army-corps, and even of divisions.Under such circumstances, but littleconfidence could be felt by the troops,either in the wisdom of a war officewhich seemed to change its favoriteswith the caprice of a coquette, or inthe capacity of new generals who fol-lowed each other in such rapid succes-sion. But it is due to that patient andsorely tried army, to say that the spiritof both officers and men was of thebest, and their devotion to duty uncon-querable. The army itself had origin-ally been so admirably disciplined andtempered, that there always remainedto it a firm self-reliance and a sternsense of duty and of honor that wasproof against its many discourage-ments. In battle it always acquitteditself well and displayed the highestsoldierly qualities, no matter who com-manded it or whence he came. Chan-cellorsville furnishes no exception tothis assertion, nor evidence of inferi-ority of the Northern to the Southernsoldier, but it does furnish strikingillustrations of Napoleon ’s well-knownSa ying, “ In war men are nothing, a man is everything.”
General Lee , who felt great confidence in his own troops, and overrated theeffects of successive reverses on the Federal soldiers, now resolved to assumeue offensive, for he knew that to remain on the defensive would in the endto rce him back on Richmond. He determined, therefore, in case the Army the Potomac could not be brought to action under favorable circumstances1,1 Virginia , to transfer, if permitted, the field of operations to Northern soil,'Were a victory promptly followed up might give him possession of BaltimoreWashington, and perhaps lead to the recognition of the Confederacy byoreign powers. The valley of the Shenandoah offered a safe line of opera-lo ns; the Federal troops occupying it were rather a bait than an obstacle,to capture or destroy them seemed quite practicable to one who controlledAbsolutely all Confederate troops within the sphere of his operations. The
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