action. The Confederates
must either fight or retreat without fighting, and make their choice
very soon. So, when the two armies met at Gettysburg, Lee was
practically forced to risk an immediate action or begin a retreat
that might have ruined Confederate morale.

Gettysburg is one of those battles about which men will always
differ. The numbers present, the behavior of subordinates, the
tactics employed, were, and still are, subjects of dispute. Above
all, there is the vexed question of what Lee should or should not
have done. We have little space to spare for any such discussions.
We can only refer inquirers to the original evidence (some of which
is most conflicting) and give the gist of what seems to be indubitable
fact. The numbers were a good seventy thousand Confederates against
about eighty thousand Federals. But these are the approximate grand
totals; and it must be remembered that the Confederates, having
the start, were in superior numbers during the first two days.
On each side there was an aggrieved and aggrieving subordinate
general, Sickles on the Federal side, Longstreet on the other.
But Sickles was by far the less important of the two. In tactics
the Federals displayed great judgment, skill, and resolution. The
Northern people called Gettysburg a soldiers' battle; and so, in
many ways, it was; for there was heroic work among the rank and
file on both sides. But it most emphatically was not a soldiers'
battle in the sense of its having been won more by the rank and
file than by the generals in high command; for never did so many
Federal chiefs show to such great advantage. No less than five
commanded in succession between morning and midnight on the first
day, each meeting the crisis till the next senior came up. They
were Buford, Reynolds, Howard, Hancock, Meade. Hunt also excelled in
command of the artillery; and this in spite of much misorganization
of that arm at Washington. Warren was not only a good commander
of the engineers but a good all-round general, as he showed by
seizing, on his own initiative, the Little Round Top, without which
the left flank could never have been held.

Finally, there is the great vexed question of what Lee should or
should not have done. First, it seems clear that (like Farragut and
unlike Grant and Jackson) he lacked the ruthless power of making
every subordinate bend or break in every time of crisis: otherwise
he would have bent or broken Longstreet. Next, it ma