his hour
of my reckoning, this hour of my Golgotha, when I climb the hill alone
and ask the man I have wronged to take my place--surely you should be
content with my humiliation? I shall not hesitate to proclaim it from
the housetop when I ask for your election. If I have wronged you, my
anguish could not be more pitifully complete! Will you do as I ask, and
assure the safety of our country?"

"I'll do my best to save my country," was the slow, firm answer, "but in
my own way."

The General rose, bowed stiffly and left the President standing in
sorrowful silence, his deep eyes staring into space and seeing nothing.

On the morning of July 1st the two armies were rapidly approaching each
other, marching in parallel lines stretched over a vast distance--the
extreme wings more than forty miles apart.

Buford, commanding the advance guard of the Union army, struck Hill's
division of the Confederates before the town of Gettysburg and the first
gun of the great battle echoed over the green hills and valleys of
Pennsylvania.

The President caught the flash of the shock from the telegraph wires
with a sense of sickening dread. The rear guard of his army was yet
forty miles away. What might happen before they were in line God alone
could tell. He could not know, of course, that but twenty-two thousand
Confederates had reached the field and stood confronting twenty-four
thousand under John F. Reynolds, one of the ablest and bravest generals
of the Union army.

Through every hour of this awful day he sat in the telegraph office of
the War Department and read with bated breath the news.

The brief reports were not reassuring. The battle was raging with
unparalleled fury. At ten o'clock General Reynolds fell dead from his
horse in front of his men, and when the news was flashed to Meade he
sent Hancock forward riding at full speed to take command.

The President read the message announcing Reynolds' death with quivering
lip. He put his big hand blindly over his heart as if about to faint.

At three o'clock the smoke which had enveloped the battle line was
lifted by a breeze as Hancock dashed on the field. He had not arrived a
moment too soon. His superb bearing on his magnificent horse, his
shouts of confidence, his promise of heavy reinforcements, stayed the
tide of retreat and brought order out of chaos.

The day had been won again by Lee's apparently invincible men. They had
driven the Union army from their line a mil