e close of Gen. Webb's official report he states, 'The Brigade
captured nearly one thousand prisoners and six battle flags, and
picked up fourteen hundred stand of arms and nine hundred sets of
accoutrements. The loss was forty-three officers and four hundred and
fifty-two men, and only forty-seven were missing. The conduct of this
Brigade was most satisfactory.'"

* * * * *

Compare the calm, temperate, lucid, truthful and dignified statement of
Colonel Banes, who, as the Adjutant of the Philadelphia (Webb's) Brigade,
was more familiar with its every movement than any officer or private
soldier could possibly be; a statement prepared with deliberation by a
man of mature years, and ripened judgment, with that of the raving,
distracted, ridiculous utterances of the youthful Lieut. Haskell, in his
book said to have been hastily written within two weeks after the battle,
written between his hours of duty, while on the march from Gettysburg back
to Harper's Ferry, written by him while not yet fully recovered from the
delirium of excitement that overcame him in the exalted position he claims
to have assumed, that of Supersedeas Commander of the Army of the Potomac
to annihilate the Confederate Army, in the event of its renewing the
attack.

It was the author Haskell who asked this question of Lieut. Haskell:

"Great heavens! were my senses mad?--the larger portion of Webb's
Brigade--my God! it is true, was breaking from the cover of the
works, without order or reason, with no hand uplifted to check them,
was falling back a fear-stricken flock of confusion. A GREAT,
MAGNIFICENT PASSION OVERCAME ME as I met the tide of these rabbits,"
and a lot more of such incoherent, disconnected trash, from the young
Lieutenant so OVERCOME WITH A MAGNIFICENT PASSION that the aberration
of mind which followed while writing that narrative was inevitable.

Col. Banes says, "This struggle lasted but a few moments, when the enemy
in front threw down their arms, and, rushing through the lines of the
Seventy-second hastened to the rear as prisoners without a guard."

It was these men of Pickett's Division hastening to the rear whom Haskell
met, if ever he met any one fleeing to the rear on that occasion; but
"Great heavens! his senses were mad." A "Magnificent Passion" overcame
him. He was in a delirium of vainglory, and he mistook the defeated
Vet