ghting on his own soil. Meade secured a strong position on the hills
about the since famous village of Gettysburg, and awaited attack; he had
somewhat more than 90,000 men, who were, however, still laboring under
the delusion that Lee was invincible and that their commanders were
unequal to those of the adversary. Without waiting for the return of his
cavalry and without trying, like Napoleon at Austerlitz, to entice the
Federals away from their fortifications, General Lee pressed forward. On
July 1 the Confederates gained some advantage in the fighting; on the
second day they held their own; but on the third day they attempted,
somewhat after the manner of Burnside at Fredericksburg, the impossible,
and the best army the South ever had was hopelessly beaten. About 30,000
of their brave men were dead, wounded, or missing. Meade had not
suffered so great a loss, and he had saved the cause of his Government.
After a day of waiting the Confederate army took up its march unmolested
toward northern Virginia. While the people of the North rejoiced at
their deliverance, the news came that Grant had captured Vicksburg and
all the 30,000 men who had defended that important point. The
Mississippi went on its way "unvexed to the sea," as Lincoln said, for
New Orleans had long since fallen and the upper river had been cleared
of all resistance. At only one point on the long line from Washington to
Vicksburg had the Confederates held their own--Chattanooga, whence Bragg
had retreated earlier in the year and where the next great battle was to
be fought.

Hastily Davis ordered his available regiments to Bragg, who held the
mountain ridges south of Chattanooga. Lee, who felt strong enough to
hold Meade in check in northern Virginia, sent away Longstreet with his
veterans. September 19, Rosecrans attacked Bragg on his impregnable
hills, and after two days of heroic fighting and appalling losses he
retired to the city. Bragg had won a victory similar in every respect to
that which crowned Meade's efforts at Gettysburg. Though slow, unpopular
with officers and men, and unimaginative, he soon seized the strong
points on the river above and below the city, and Rosecrans was
surrounded, besieged, for the single, almost impassable road to
Nashville and the North would not bear the burden of necessary supplies.
If Bragg had proved watchful and alert, it would have been only a matter
of time when the Federals would have been driven by famine to