for guessing; the long marches, followed by the forced ones of July 1-2, ofthe Army of the Potomac left thousands of stragglers on the roads. Thesetotals are of little importance; they would have been of some significancehad the larger army been defeated; but it was not. At the “ points of con-tact ” the Confederates were almost always the stronger. On July 1st 18,000Federal combatants contended against at least 25,000 Confederates, and gotthe worst of it. On July 2d Longstreet’s 15,000 overcame Sickles’s 10,000,and had to halt when a larger force was opposed to them. Williams’s TwelfthCorps retook its works from a larger body of Ewell’s troops, for at the con-tested point they were opposed by an inferior number ; and then held them,for Johnson’s superior force was as much hampered here by the nature of theground as was Meade ’s on the left, the evening before. In many respectsthe Confederates had the advantage: they had much better ground for theirartillery; they were fresher; they were all veterans; they were better organ-ized ; they were commanded by officers w T ho had been selected for their expe-rience and abilities, and in whom they had implicit confidence. These wereenormous advantages, sufficient to counterbalance the difference of numbers,which, if any existed, was small; and whilst all the Confederate army, excepthere and there a brigade, were fought to the utmost, the strongest Federalcorps (the Sixth) was hardly in action, the total loss of its eight brigades beingbut two hundred and forty-two killed, wounded, and missing. But the South-erners were subjected here to the disadvantages that the Northerners had tocontend with in Virginia : they were surrounded by enemies, not friends whosupplied them with aid and information; and they were not by choice, butby necessity, the assailants on the chosen ground of their opponents.
Right gallantly did they act their part, and their failure carried no discreditwith it. Their military honor was not tarnished by their defeat, nor theirspirit lowered, but their respect for their opponents was restored to what ithad been before Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville.
GENERAL HANCOCK AND THE ARTILLERY AT GETTYSBURG .I. BY FRANCIS A. WALKER , BREVET BRIGADIER-GENERAL, V. S. V.
eneral Hunt, in liis article on “The ThirdDay at Gettysburg ” [see p. 375], criticisesGeneral Hancock ’s conduct of his artillery, on theground that his directing the Second Corps bat-teries to continue firing throughout the Confeder-ate cannonade was both an encroachment uponhis°Wn (General Hunt’s) proper authority, as chief°t artillery of the Army of the Potomac, and anae t of bad policy. On the latter point he says:
‘‘Had my instructions been followed here, as theyWere by MeGilvery, I do not believe that Pickett’s divi-sion would have reached our line. We lost not only theure of one-third of our guns, but tbe resulting cross-“ l 'e, which would have doubled its value.”
. This, it will be seen, constitutes a very severelttl peachment. I have had much correspondencea hd conversation with General Hancock on theObject; and, as the heroic leader of the Second
Corps can no longer reply for himself, I beg leaveto speak on his behalf.
In the first place, two antagonistic theories ofauthority are advanced. General Hancock claimedthat he commanded the line of battle along Ceme-tery Ridge. General Hunt, in substance, allegesthat General Hancock commanded the infantry ofthat line, and that he himself commanded the artil-lery. Winfield S. Hancock did notread his commis-sion as constituting him a major-general of infan-try, nor did he believe that a line of battle was to beordered by military specialists. He knew that byboth law and reason the defense of CemeteryRidge was intrusted to him, subject to the actual,authentic orders of the commander of the Armyof the Potomac, but not subject to the discretionof one of General Meade’s staff-officers. GeneralMeade could, under the President’s order, have