voidable under the circumstances, had impaired the energies of even
his superb physical constitution. As the bulk of the rear-guard of the
army safely passed over the shaky bridge, which Lee had looked at
with some anxiety as it swayed to and fro, lashed by the current, he
uttered a sigh of relief, and a great weight seemed taken from his
shoulders. Seeing his fatigue and exhaustion. General Stuart gave him
some coffee; he drank it with avidity, and declared, as he handed back
the cup, that nothing had ever refreshed him so much.

When General Meade, who is said to have resolved on an attack, in
spite of the opposition of his officers, looked, on the morning of the
14th, toward the position held on the previous evening by the Southern
army, he saw that the works were deserted. The Army of Northern
Virginia had vanished from the hills on which it had been posted, and
was at that moment crossing the Potomac. Pressing on its track toward
Falling Waters, the Federal cavalry came up with the rear, and in the
skirmish which ensued fell the brave Pettigrew, who had supported
Pickett in the great charge at Gettysburg, where he had waved his hat
in front of his men, and, in spite of a painful wound, done all in his
power to rally his troops. With this exception, and a few captures
resulting from accident, the army sustained no losses. The movement
across the Potomac had been effected, in face of the whole Federal
army, as successfully as though that army had been a hundred miles
distant.[1]

[Footnote 1: Upon this point different statements were subsequently
made by Generals Lee and Meade, and Lee's reply to the statements of
his opponent is here given:

HEADQUARTERS ARMY NORTHERN VIRGINIA,

_July 21, 1863._

_General S. Cooper, Adjutant and Inspector-General C.S.A., Richmond,
Va_.:

GENERAL: I have seen in Northern papers what purported to be an
official dispatch from General Meade, stating that he had captured
a brigade of Infantry, two pieces of artillery, two caissons, and a
large number of small-arms, as this army retired to the south bank of
the Potomac, on the 13th and 14th inst.

This dispatch has been copied into the Richmond papers, and, as its
official character may cause it to be believed, I desire to state that
it is incorrect. The enemy did not capture any organized body of men
on that occasion, but only stragglers, and such as were left asleep
on the road, exhausted by the fatigue and exposure of one of t