rom
flank to flank, even by courier, was difficult, the country being
well cleared and exposed to the enemy's view and fire, the roads
all running at right angles to our lines, and, some of them at
least, broad turnpikes where the enemy's guns could rake for two
miles. Is it necessary now to add any statement as to the superiority
of the Federal force, or the exhausted and shattered condition of
the Confederates for a space of at least a mile in their very
centre, to show that a great opportunity was thrown away? I think
General Lee himself was quite apprehensive the enemy would _riposte_,
and that it was that apprehension which brought him alone out to
my guns, where he could observe all the indications."

General Trimble, who commanded a division of Hill's corps, which
supported Pickett in his advance, says, "By all the rules of warfare
the Federal troops should (as I expected they would) have marched
against our shattered columns and sought to cover our army with an
overwhelming defeat."

Colonel Simms, who commanded Semmes' Georgia brigade in the fight
with Crawford just referred to, writes to the latter, "There was
much confusion in our army so far as my observation extended, and
I think we would have made but feeble resistance, if you had pressed
on, on the evening of the 3d."

General Meade, however, overcome by the great responsibilities of
his position, still clung to the ridge, and fearful of a possible
disaster would not take the risk of making an advance. And yet if
he could have succeeded in crushing Lee's army then and there, he
would have saved two years of war with its immense loss of life
and countless evils. He might at least have thrown in Sedgwick's
corps, which had not been actively engaged in the battle, for even
if it was repulsed the blows it gave would leave the enemy little
inclination to again assail the heights.

At 6.30 P.M. the firing ceased on the part of the enemy, and although
they retained their position the next day, the battle of Gettysburg
was virtually at an end.

The town was still full of our wounded, and many of our surgeons,
with rare courage, remained there to take charge of them, for it
required some nerve to run the risk of being sent to Libby prison
when the fight was over, a catastrophe which has often happened to
our medical officers. Among the rest, the chief surgeons of the
First Corps, Doctor Theodore Heard and Doctor Thomas H. Bache,
refused to leave their