The Project Gutenberg EBook of Harper's Round Table, May 28, 1895, by Various

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Title: Harper's Round Table, May 28, 1895

Author: Various

Release Date: June 25, 2010 [EBook #32976]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HARPER'S ROUND TABLE, MAY 28, 1895 ***

Produced by Annie McGuire

[Illustration: HARPER'S ROUND TABLE]

Copyright, 1895, by HARPER & BROTHERS. All Rights Reserved.

* * * * *

PUBLISHED WEEKLY. NEW YORK, TUESDAY, MAY 28, 1895. FIVE CENTS A COPY.

VOL. XVI.--NO. 813. TWO DOLLARS A YEAR.

* * * * *

[Illustration]

HEROES OF AMERICA.

THE CHARGE AT GETTYSBURG.

BY THE HONORABLE THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

[Illustration: Decorative T]

he battle of Chancellorsville marked the zenith of Confederate good
fortune. Immediately afterwards, in June, 1863, Lee led the victorious
Army of Northern Virginia north into Pennsylvania. The South was now the
invader, not the invaded, and its heart beat proudly with hopes of
success; but these hopes went down in bloody wreck on July 4th, when
word was sent to the world that the high valor of Virginia had failed at
last on the field of Gettysburg, and that in the far West Vicksburg had
been taken by the army of the "silent soldier."

At Gettysburg Lee had under him some seventy thousand men, and his
opponent, Meade, about ninety thousand. Both armies were composed mainly
of seasoned veterans, trained to the highest point by campaign after
campaign and battle after battle; and there was nothing to choose
between them as to the fighting power of the rank and file. The Union
army was the larger, yet most of the time it stood on the defensive; for
the difference between the generals, Lee and Meade, was greater than
could be bridged by twenty thousand men.

For three days the battle raged. No other battle of recent years has
been so obstinate and so bloody. The victorious Union army lost a
greater percentage in killed and wounded than the allied armies of
England, Germany, and the Netherlands lost at Waterloo. Four of its
seven corps suffered each a greater relative l