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WHAT IT SHOWS.

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the strategical advantage of that position; and that the great battle which was fought there was the result of chance rather than of design upon the part of either commander.

CHAPTER XXX.

GETTYSBURG-REBELS HOVERING AROUND IT-REYNOLDS ON MARSH CREEK -HILL AND LONGSTREET NEAR BY QUESTION AS TO STRENGTH OF ARMIES DID EITHER COMMANDER KNOW OF THE OTHER'S PROXIMITY ?—LEE DID NOT EXPECT TO FIGHT AT GETTYSBURG—NEITHER LEE NOR MEADE KNEW OF THE STRATEGIC ADVANTAGE OF GETTYSBURG REYNOLDS KNEW THE ENEMY WERE IN CONSIDERABLE FORCE NEAR HIM-PLEASONTON-BUFORD-DEVIN.

GETTYSBURG lies upon the north slope of a hill which rises in its immediate rear, some four hundred and eighty feet above the valley, just north of the town, through which flows a rivulet called "Stevens' Run." The contour of this hill is not unlike a fishing-hook, and taking this familiar figure as a guide, we will briefly describe it. Turning the apex of the convex bend so it will point due north, it will embrace "Cemetery Hill." Standing now, with your back towards Gettysburg, and your eye following the course of the hook on your left and to the southward, and towards its point, you find it crosses a slight depression a few hundred rods from the apex of the bend, and then begins to rise until it attains the top of "Culp's Hill," and passing that, terminates at the point, on "McAllister's Hill." The distance from on this side the hook is a little less than two miles. Along the base of this hilly ridge runs "Rock Creek," and on the east side of it, opposite "McAllister's Hill," abruptly rises another bluff, which swells into "Wolf Hill," at a short distance from the creek, and then continues in a high ridge toward the northeast, for a considerable distance. Turning now to the other side of the hook, you will first observe that it is a mile longer than the left side, and is more uniform in its course, but characterized by the same general outlines. A few hundred rods from the apex of the bend is a bluff, rising higher than “Ceme

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GETTYSBURG.

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tery Hill," then follows a depression for a distance of half a mile, where the ridge is but twenty feet above the bed of "Stevens' Run;" then the ground rises again in a bold rocky ledge into "Little Round Top," and making another ascent culminates in "Round Top." The distance across, from point to shank, is about two and a half miles, and the circumference about five miles. Within the hook the ground is low and tolerably level, but as you approach the bend it becomes hilly, and finally rises abruptly into "Cemetery Hill." The Baltimore Pike and the Taneytown Road enter Gettysburg, through the level space within the hook, and cross it at the bend.

Retaining the same position but looking to the north, Gettysburg lies at your feet, extending from near the top of Cemetery Hill to the foot of the valley, through which flows "Stevens' Run," and which empties into Rock Creek, a mile northeast of the village. This valley curves around the point of the hill, on the slope of which the town stands, and follows the conformation of the fishing-hook until it is interrupted by the opposing ridge of Wolf Hill. Still looking to the north, right over the tops of the houses on the westerly side of Gettysburg, and about a mile from where you stand, you see a ridge on the farther side of the valley, running nearly north and south, but much lower than the Cemetery Hill. On this ridge stands the Lutheran Seminary, and the ridge itself is called "Seminary Ridge." Beyond this, at short intervals, plain ridge and valley succeed each other, until the South Mountain range terminates the scene. To the northward and to the right and left, the landscape was fair to look upon on the first day of July, 1863. Woods, rich in their summer foliage, stood as a glowing and animate frame-work around the cultivated fields and the rural village which was soon to become famous as the scene of the greatest battle of modern times. The Emmetsburg road starts from the

south side of Gettysburg, passes along the hillside west of the cemetery, cleaves the valley diagonally in a southwesterly course, and ascends and crosses Seminary Ridge, at a point nearly opposite Little Round Top, and about a mile from it. The Hagerstown road leaves the north side of Gettysburg, and crossing the ridges in a westerly direction, is lost to sight in the forest toward South Mountain. Across the low ground from the ridge, near the Seminary to Gettysburg, was built up a dirt causeway or railroad embankment, and over which the "Ulster Guard" marched into Gettysburg, after the battle of the first of July.

For several days, rebel troops, both infantry and cavalry, had visited Gettysburg, and numerous bodies of soldiers were hovering on the north side of the town. On the thirtieth of June, at about nine o'clock A. M., a considerable portion of Hill's Corps approached within half a mile of the village, and stationed pickets along Seminary Ridge. At the end of an hour they withdrew towards Cashtown, and an hour later General Buford rode into Gettysburg, at the head of six thousand Federal cavalry, and passing through the town took position on the farm of Honorable E. McPherson, a mile and a half northwestward, where he unlimbered his guns and made his dispositions to resist an attack. One corps of the left wing-the First-reached Marsh Creek, four miles southwest of Gettysburg, on the afternoon of the thirtieth, and halted there for the night. The Eleventh was at Emmettsburg, six miles in rear of the First. On the same night, the Rebel General Hill, encamped his corps, 35,000 strong, a few miles north of the point occupied by General Reynolds. Longstreet's Corps, with the exception of Pickett's division, which was still at Chambersburg, closed up in rear of Hill. This corps was 31,000 strong, and 24,000 of these men were near at hand. Rodes' and Early's divisions, of Ewell's Corps, numbering 19,000 men,

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bivouacked at Heidlersburg, nine miles from Gettysburg, on this night. Johnson's division of this corps, 12,000 strong, was countermarching from Carlisle, and yet some distance from Gettysburg.

No one fact about the Gettysburg battle has been a subject of more controversy than that in relation to the actual numbers composing the two armies. I suspect that each side has attempted to show the opposing army greater than it really was, and at the same time to understate its own forces. This enhances the merits of the victory on the Federal computation of relative strength, and the Confederates seek to parry the discredit of defeat by exaggerating the numbers of the Unionists, while they place their own upon returns which do not include the re-enforcements that joined them after they crossed the Potomac. The system of returns adopted in the Federal Army was either defective in itself or in its execution, for it failed to give an accurate report of the strength of the army. The nearest the general-in-chief, or a corps, division or brigade commander could come to a positive statement of his command was "about" such a number. The system in the Confederate Army was even worse, or its officers were more skilful in concealing its true strength. It is probably not possible to give the exact figures of the strength of a large army from day to day, especially when it is on the march or engaged in an active campaign. Sickness, casualties from various causes, and the inevitable evil of straggling diminishes its ranks, but a very close approximation ought always to be possible. The numbers above given as the strength of the three Rebel Infantry Corps are derived from authorities strongly Federal, and I think they over-state them.

Lossing's "Pictorial History of the Civil War," Vol. III, page 59, foot-note 2, gives the figures I have quoted as the strength of these corps, and distributes them as follows: Hill's Corps-Heath's and Pender's divisions,