repeated:
"It had not been intended to fight a general battle," he wrote, "at
such a distance from our base, _unless attacked by the enemy_."
General Meade said before the war committee afterward, "It was my
desire to fight a defensive rather than an offensive battle," and he
adds the obvious explanation, that he was "satisfied his chances of
success were greater in a defensive battle than an offensive one."
There was this great advantage, however, on the Federal side, that
the troops were on their own soil, with their communications
uninterrupted, and could wait, while General Lee was in hostile
territory, a considerable distance from his base of supplies, and
must, for that reason, either attack his adversary or retreat.

He decided to attack. To this decision he seems to have been impelled,
in large measure, by the extraordinary spirit of his troops, whose
demeanor in the subsequent struggle was said by a Federal officer
to resemble that of men "drunk on champagne." General Longstreet
described the army at this moment as able, from the singular afflatus
which bore it up, to undertake "any thing," and this sanguine spirit
was the natural result of a nearly unbroken series of victories. At
Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and in the preliminary struggle of
Gettysburg, they had driven the enemy before them in disorder, and, on
the night succeeding this last victory, both officers and men spoke of
the coming battle "as a certainty, and the universal feeling in the
army was one of profound contempt for an enemy whom they had beaten so
constantly, and under so many disadvantages."[1]

[Footnote 1: Colonel Freemantle. He was present, and speaks from
observation.] Contempt of an adversary is dangerous, and pride goes
before a fall. The truth of these pithy adages was now about to be
shown.

General Lee, it is said, shared the general confidence of his troops,
and was carried away by it. He says in his report "Finding ourselves
unexpectedly confronted by the Federal army, it became a matter of
difficulty to withdraw through the mountain with our large trains; at
the same time, the country was unfavorable for collecting supplies
while in the presence of the enemy's main body, as he was enabled to
restrain our foraging-parties by occupying the passes of the mountains
with regular and local troops. A battle thus became in a measure
unavoidable." But, even after the battle, when the Southern army
was much weaker, it was fou