3 so
would give us decided fruits, not ground that was of no value. I do notthink there was any necessity for giving battle at Gettysburg . All of ourcavalry was absent, and while that has been urged by some as a reason whythe battle should have been made at once, to my mind it was one of thestrongest reasons for delaying the battle until everything was well in hand.The cause of the battle was simply General Lee ’s determination to light itout from the position in which he was at that time. He did not feel that hewas beaten on the second day, but that he was the victor , and still hoped hewould be able to dislodge Meade; but he made a mistake in sending such a
small number of men toattack a formidable forcein a position of great nat-ural strength, reenforcedby such temporary shel-ter as could bo collectedand placed in position tocover the troops. Lee ’shope in entering the cam-paign was that he wouldbe in time to make a suc-cessful battle north of thePotomac, with such ad-vantages as to draw offthe army at Vicksburg aswell as the Federal troopsat other points.
I do not think the gen-eral effect of the battlewas demoralizing, but bya singular coincidence ourarmy at Vicksburg sur-rendered to Grant on the4tli, while the armies ofLee and Meade were lying in front of each other, each waiting a movementon the part of the other, neither victor, neither vanquished. This surrender,taken in connection with the Gettysburg defeat, was, of course, very discour-aging to our superior officers, though I do not know that it was felt as keenlyby the rank and file. For myself, I felt that our last hope was gone, andthat it was now only a question of time with us. When, however, I foundthat Rosecrans was moving down toward Georgia against General Bragg, Ithought it possible we might recover some of our lost prospects by concentrat-ing against Rosecrans, destroying his army, and advancing through Kentucky -General Lee evidently felt severely mortified and hurt at the failure, so muchso that at times he was inclined to listen to some of those who claimed to be hisfriends, and to accept their proposition to find a scapegoat. He resisted them,however, and seemed determined to leave the responsibility on his own hands.