coming in with reports; the trustiest counsellors on the staff are with the General.

In a plain little wall-tent, just like the rest, pen in hand, seated on a camp-stool and bending over a map, is the new General Commanding" for the army of the Potomac. Tall, slender, not ungainly, but certainly not handsome or graceful, thin-faced, with grizzled beard and moustache, a broad and high but retreating forehead, from each corner of which the slightlycurling hair recedes, as if giving premonition of baldness-apparently between forty-five and fifty years of age- altogether a man who impresses you rather as a thoughtful student than as a dashing soldier-so General Meade looks in his

tent.

"I tell you, I think a great deal of that fine fellow Meade," I chanced to hear the President say, a few days after Chancellorsville. Here was the result of that good opinion. There is every reason to hope that the events of the next few days will justify it.

broke and ran like sheep, just as they did at Chancellorsville, and it's going to be another disaster of just the same sort." "We still hold Gettysburgh, and every thing looks favorable." Wadsworth's division cut to pieces; not a full regiment left out of the whole of it; and half the officers killed.” "We've been driven pellmell through Gettysburgh, and things look bad enough, I tell you."

This is the substance of the information we gain, by diligent questioning of scores. It is of such stuff that the "news direct from the battle-field,” made up by itinerant liars and "reporters" at points twenty or thirty miles distant, and telegraphed thence throughout the country, is manufactured. So long as the public, in its hot haste, insists on devouring the news before it is born, so long must it expect such confusion and absurdity.

Riding through the columns became more and more difficult as we advanced; and finally, to avoid it, we turned off into a by-way on the right. We were fortunately well supplied with maps, and from these we learned that but a few miles to the right of the Taneytown road, up which we had been going, ran the great Baltimore turnpike to Gettysburgh; and a Dutch farmer told us that our by-path would bring us out, some miles ahead, on this pike. It was cer

A horseman gallops up and hastily dismounts. It is a familiar face-L. L. Crounse, the wellknown chief correspondent of the New-York Times, with the army of the Potomac. As we exchange hurried salutations, he tells us that he has just returned from a little post-village in Southern Pennsylvania, ten or fifteen miles away; that a fight, of what magnitude he can-tain to be less obstructed, and we pushed on. not say, is now going on near Gettysburgh, between the First corps and some unknown force of the enemy; that Major-General Reynolds is already killed, and that there are rumors of more bad news.

Mount and spur for Gettysburgh is, of course, the word. Crounse, who is going too, acts as guide. We shall precede headquarters but a little. A few minutes in the Taneytown tavern porch, writing despatches to be forthwith sent back by special messenger to the telegraph office at Frederick; then in among the moving mass of soldiers, and down the Gettysburgh road at such speed as we may. We have made twentyseven miles over rough roads already to-day; as the sun is dipping in the woods of the western hill-tops, we have fifteen more ahead of us.

It is hard work, forcing our way among the moving masses of infantry, or even through the crowded trains, and we make but slow progress. Presently aids and orderlies begin to come back, with an occasional quartermaster or surgeon, or commissary in search of stores. C. seems to know every body in the army, and from every one he demands the news from the front. "Every thing splendid; have driven them five or six miles from Gettysburgh." "Badly cut up, sir, and falling back." "Men_rushed in like tigers after Reynolds's death, and swept every thing before them." (Rushing in like tigers is a stock performance, and appears much oftener in the newspapers than on the field.) "Gettysburgh burnt down by the rebels." Things were all going wild, but Hancock got up before we were utterly defeated, and I guess there's some chance now." "D-d Dutchmen of the Eleventh corps

Across the hills to the left we could see the white-covered wagons slowly winding in and out through the forests, and the masses of blue coats toiling forward. In either direction, for miles, you could catch occasional glimpses of the same sight through the openings of the foliage. The shades of evening dimmed and magnified the scene till one might have thought the hosts of Xerxes, in all the glory of modern armor, were pressing on Gettysburgh. To the front and right lay broad, well-tilled farms, dotted here and there with mammoth, many-windowed barns, covered with herds and rustling with the ripening grain.

Selecting a promising-looking Dutch house, with a more than usually imposing barn in its rear, we stopped for supper. The good-man's "woman had gone to see the soldiers on the road, but whatever he could get for us "you pe very heartily welcome to." Great cherry trees bent before the door under their weight of ripe fruit; the kitchen garden was crowded with vegetables; contented cattle stood about the barn; sleek horses filled the stables; fat geese hissed a doubtful welcome as we came too near them; the very farm-yard laughed with plenty.

We put it on the ground of resting our horses and giving them time for their oats; but I fear the snowy bread and well-spread table of the hearty farmer had something too to do with the hour that we spent.

Then mount and spur again. It was dark in the woods, but our by-path had become a neighborhood wagon-road, and the moon presently cast us occasional glances from behind the clouds. The country was profoundly quiet; the Dutch farmers seemed to have all gone to bed at dark,

Wadsworth's division; in a little upper room was
their General. He had been grazed on the head
with a fragment of shell, his horse had been
shot under him, and had fallen upon him; he
had been badly bruised externally and worse in-
ternally, and there was little prospect of his being
ready for service again for months.
He spoke
proudly of the conduct of his men, almost tear-
fully of their unprecedented losses.

and only their noisy house-dogs gave signs of life as we passed. Once or twice we had to rouse a sleeping worthy out of bed for directions about the road. At last camp-fires gleamed through the woods; presently we caught the hum of soldiers' talk ahead; by the roadside we passed a house where all the lights were out, but the family were huddled on the door-step, listening to the soldiers. "Yes, the army's right down there. If you want to stay all night, turn up by the Half a mile further on, through crowds of school-house. 'Squire Durboraw's a nice man." slightly wounded, and past farm-houses convert"Right down there" was the post-village of ed into hospitals, a turn to the right through a Two Taverns thronged with soldiers-the wo- meadow, up the slope of an exposed hill, and by men all in the streets, talking and questioning the side of a smouldering camp-fire. Stretched and frightening themselves at a terrible rate. A on the ground, and surrounded by his staff, lies corps general's headquarters had been there to- General Wadsworth, (late Republican candidate day, but they were now moved up to the front. for Governor of New-York,) commander of the That didn't look like serious disaster. We were advance division in yesterday's fight. He, too, four miles and a quarter or a half from the line kindles as he tells the story of the day, its splenof battle. Ewell had come down from York, and did fighting, and the repulse before overwhelmwe had been fighting him to-day. A. P. Hill was ing numbers. also up, coming by way of Chambersburgh or Batteries are all about us; troops are moving Hagerstown. Longstreet was known to be on into position; new lines seem to be forming, or the way, and would certainly be here to-morrow. old ones extending. Two or three general offiThe reserves were on their way. In short, Lee's cers, with a retinue of staff and orderlies, come whole army was rapidly concentrating at Gettys-galloping by. Foremost is the spare and someburgh, and to-morrow, it seemed, must bring the what stooped form of the Commanding General. battle that is to decide the invasion. To-day it He is not cheered, indeed is scarcely recognized. had opened for us-not favorably. He is an approved corps General, but he has not yet vindicated his right to command the army of the Potomac. By his side is the calm, honest, manly face of Howard. An empty coat-sleeve is pinned to his shoulder-memento of a hard-fought field before, and reminder of many a battle-scene his splendid Christian courage has illumined. They are arranging the new line of battle. Howard's dispositions of the preceding night are adopted for the centre; his suggestions are being taken for the flanks. It is manifest already that we are no longer on the offensive, that the enemy has the initiative.

"Squire Durboraw is a nice man." We roused him out of bed, where he must have been for two or three hours. "Can you take care of us and our horses till morning?" "I will do it with pleasure, gentlemen." And no more words are needed. The horses are housed in one of those great horse-palaces these people build for barns; we are comfortably and even luxuriously quartered. If the situation is as we hope, our army must attack by daybreak. At any rate, we are off for the field at four in the morning. AGATE.

II. THE REPULSE ON WEDNESDAY, FIRST JULY.
FIELD OF BATTLE, NEAR GETTYSBURGH, July 2.

TO THE FRONT.

We were in the saddle this morning a little after daybreak. The army was cut down to fighting weight; it had shaken off all retainers and followers-all but its fighters; and the road was alive with this useless material.

My companion and myself were forcing our way as fast as possible through the motley crowd toward the front, where an occasional shot could already be heard, and where we momentarily expected the crash of battle to open, when I was stopped by some one calling my name from a little frame dwelling, crowded with wounded soldiers. It proved to be Colonel Stephenson, the librarian of Congress. He had run away from his duties in the Capital, and all day yesterday, through a fight that we now know to have been one of the hottest in the war, had been serving most gallantly as aid on General Meredith's staff. Congress should make an example of its runaway official!

The lower story of the house was crowded with wounded from the old "Iron Brigade," of

THE POSITION.

A little further forward, a turn to the left, we climb the slope of another hill, hitch our horses half-way up, under cover of the woods, make our way through frowning batteries and by long rows of tombstones, stop for an instant to look at the monument of a hero from Fair Oaks, and are startled by the buzzing hiss of a well-aimed Minie, from the foes that fought us at Fair Oaks, above our heads; move forward to an ambitious little gate-keeper's lodge, at the entrance of the cemetery.

In front, on a gradual declivity, an orchard of gnarled old leafy trees; beyond the valley, a range of hills but little lower than that on which we stand; on this slope, half hidden among the clusters of trees, a large cupola-crowned brick building a theological seminary; between this and us half a dozen spires, roofs of houses, distinguishable amid the luxuriant foliage, streets marked by the lines of trees-Gettysburgh!

No sound comes up from the deserted town, no ringing of bells, no voices of children, no hum of busy trade. Only now and then a blue curl

of smoke rises and fades from some high window; a faint report comes up, and perhaps the hiss of a Minie is heard; the houses are not wholly without occupants.

We are standing on Cemetery Hill, the key to the whole position the enemy occupies, the centre of our line and the most exposed point for a concentration of the rebel fire. To our right, and a little back, is the hill on which we have just left General Wadsworth; still farther back, and sweeping away from the cemetery almost like the side of a horse-shoe from the toe, is a succession of other hills, some covered with timber and undergrowth, others yellow in the morning sunlight, and waving with luxuriant wheat; all crowned with batteries that are soon to reap other than a wheaten harvest. To the left, our positions are not so distinctly visible; though we can make out our line stretching off in another horse-shoe bend, behind a stone fence near the cemetery-unprotected, farther on; affording far fewer advantageous positions for batteries, and manifestly a weaker line than our right. An officer of General Howard's staff pointed out the positions to me, and I could not help hazarding the prediction that there on our left wing would come the rebel attack we were awaiting.

General Howard's headquarters were on this very Cemetery Hill-the most exposed position on the whole field. He had now returned and was good enough, during the lull that still lasted, while we awaited the anticipated attack, to explain the action of yesterday as he saw it.

THE BATTLE OF WEDNESDAY.

them pell-mell back. The news fired the column, and General Reynolds, with little or no reconnoissance, marched impetuously forward. Unfortunate haste of a hero, gone now to the hero's reward!

It was fifteen minutes past ten o'clock. The fire of the rebel skirmishers rattled along the front, but, shaking it off as they had the dew from their night's bivouac, the men pushed hotly on.

Meantime General Reynolds, on receiving his first notice an hour ago from Buford's cavalry, that the rebels were in the vicinity of Gettysburgh, had promptly sent word back to General Howard, and asked him, as a prudential measure, to bring up the Eleventh corps as rapidly as possible. The Eleventh had been coming up on the Emmetsburgh road. Finding it crowded with the train of the First, they had started off on a byway, leading into the Taneytown road, some distance ahead; and were still on this by-way eleven miles from Gettysburgh, when Reynolds's messenger reached them. The fine fellows, with stinging memories of not wholly merited disgrace at Chancellorsville, started briskly forward, and a little after one their advance brigade was filing through the town to the music of the fire above. General Reynolds's corps consists of three divisions-Wadsworth's, Doubleday's, and Robinson's. Wadsworth's (composed of Meredith's and Cutler's brigades-both mainly Western troops) had the advance, with Cutler on the right and Meredith on the left. Arriving at the Theological Seminary, above the town, the near presence of the enemy became manifest, and they placed a battery in position to feel him out, and gradually moved forward.

I have now conversed with four of the most prominent generals employed in that action, and with any number of subordinates. I am a poor An engagement, of more or less magnitude, hand to describe battles I do not see, but in this was evidently imminent. General Reynolds rode case I must endeavor to weave their statements forward to select a position for a line of battle. into a connected narrative. The ground of the Unfortunate-sadly unfortunate again-alike for action is still in the enemy's hands, and I have him, with all a gallant soldier's possibilities ahead no knowledge of it save from the descriptions of of him, and for the country, that so sorely needothers, and the distant view one gets from Ceme-ed his well-tried services. He fell, almost intery Hill.

We had been advancing toward York. It was discovered that the rebels were moving for a concentration farther south, and we suddenly changed our own line of march. The First corps, Major-General Reynolds, had the advance; next came the unfortunate Eleventh corps, with a new record to make that should wipe out Chancellorsville, and ready to do it.

stantly, pierced by a ball from a sharp-shooter's rifle, and was borne, dying or dead, to the rear. General Doubleday was next in command.

The enemy were seen ready. There was no time to wait for orders from the new corps commander; instantly, right and left, Cutler and Meredith wheeled into line of battle on the doublequick. Well-tried troops, those; no fear of their flinching; veterans of a score of battles-in the Saturday they had been at Boonesboro, twelve war some of them from the very start; with the or fifteen miles to the north-west of Frederick; by first at Philippi, Laurel Hill, Carrick's Ford, Cheat Tuesday night, the First corps lay encamped on Mountain and all the Western Virginia campaign ; Marsh Creek, within easy striking distance of trusted of Shields at Winchester, and of Lander Gettysburgh. The Eleventh corps was ten or at Romney and Bloomery Gap; through the camtwelve miles farther back. Both were simply paign of the Shenandoah Valley, and with the moving under general marching orders, and the army of the Potomac in every march to the red enemy was hardly expected yet for a day or two. slaughter sowing that still had brought no harAt an early hour in the forenoon the First vest of victory. Meredith's old Iron Brigade corps was filing down around Cemetery Hill in was the Nineteenth Indiana, Twenty-fourth Michsolid column, and entering the streets of Gettys-igan, Sixth and Seventh Wisconsin-veterans all, burgh. In the town our skirmishers had met and well mated with the brave New-Yorkers pickets or scouts from the enemy and had driven whom Wadsworth also led.

Cutler, having the advance, opened the attack; Meredith was at it a few minutes later. Short, sharp fighting, the enemy handsomely repulsed, three hundred rebel prisoners taken, General Archer himself reported at their head-such was the auspicious opening. No wonder the First determined to hold its ground.

and loved Lieutenant. That gray serpent, bending in and out through the distant hills, decides the day.

They are in manifest communication with Hill's corps, now engaged, fully advised of their early losses, and of the exact situation. They bend up from the York road, debouch in the woods near the crest of the hill, and by three o'clock, with the old yell and the old familiar tactics, their battleline comes charging down.

Yet they were ill-prepared for the contest that was coming. Their guns had sounded the tocsin for the Eleventh, but so they had too for-Ewell, already marching down from York to rejoin Lee. Small resistance is made on our right. The They were fighting two divisions of A. P. Hill's Eleventh does not flee wildly from its old antanow-numerically stronger than their dwindled gonists, as at their last meeting, when Stonewall three. Their batteries were not up in sufficient Jackson scattered them as if they had been pignumbers; on Meredith's left-a point that espe- mies, foolishly venturing into the war of the cially needed protection, there were none at all. A Titans. It even makes stout resistance for a litbattery with Buford's cavalry stood near. Wads- tle while; but the advantage of position, as of worth cut red tape and in an instant ordered it numbers, is all with the rebels, and the line is up. The captain, preferring red tape to red fields, forced to retire. It is done deliberately and with refused to obey. Wadsworth ordered him under out confusion, till they reach the town. Here arrest, could find no officer for the battery, and the evil genius of the Eleventh falls upon it again. finally fought it under a sergeant. Sergeant and To save the troops from the terrible enfilading captain there should henceforth exchange places. fire through the streets, the officers wheel them The enemy repulsed, the First advanced their by detachments into cross-streets, and attempt lines and took the position lately held by the to march them thus around one square after anrebels. Very heavy skirmishing, almost de- other, diagonally, through the town. The Gerveloping at times into a general musketry engage- mans are confused by the manoeuvre; perhaps ment, followed. Our men began to discover that the old panic at the battle-cry of Jackson's flying they were opposing a larger force. Their own corps comes over them; at any rate they break line, long and thin, bent and wavered occasional-in wild confusion, some pouring through the ly, but bore bravely up. To the left, where the fire seemed the hottest, there were no supports at all, and Wadsworth's division, which had been in the longest, was suffering severely. About one one o'clock Major-General Howard, riding in advance of his hastening corps, arrived on the field and assumed command. Carl Schurz was thus left in command of the Eleventh, while Doubleday remained temporarily Reynolds's successor in the First.

The advance of the Eleventh soon came up and was thrown into position to the right of the First. They had little fighting immediately-but their time was coming. Meantime the First, that had already lost its General commanding and had held its ground against superior numbers, without supports, from ten till nearly two, took fresh courage as another corps came up, and all felt certain of winning the day.

town a rout, and are with difficulty formed again on the heights to the southward. They lose over one thousand two hundred prisoners in twenty minutes. One of their Generals, Schempelfennig, an old officer in the Russian service in the Crimean war, is cut off, but he shrewdly takes to cover, conceals himself somewhere in the town, and finally escapes.

But while our right is thus suddenly wiped out, how fares it with the left-Robinson, and Doubleday, and sturdy Wadsworth, with the Western troops? Sadly enough.

By half-past three, as they counted the time, the whole of A. P. Hill's corps, acting in concert now with Ewell, precipitated itself upon their line. These men are as old and tried soldiers as there are in the war, and they describe the fire that followed as the most terrific they have ever known. In a single brigade, (Cutler's,) in twenBut alas! the old, old game was playing. The ty minutes, every staff-officer had his horse shot enemy was concentrating faster than we. Per- under him, some of them two and three. In haps no one was to blame for it; no one among thirty minutes not a horse was left to General or the living at least, and the thickly clustering staff, save one, and that one-as if the grim mockhonors that fitly crown the hero's grave bar all ery of war there sought to outdo itself—had his criticism and pardon all mistakes, if mistakes tail shot off! Generai Cutler himself had three they were.

About half-past two that afternoon, standing where we now stand, on Cemetery Hill, one might have seen a long, gray line, creeping down the pike and near the railroad on the north-east | side of the town. Little pomp in their march, but much haste; few wagons, but the ammunition trains all up; and the battle-flags that float over their brigades are not our flags. It is the road from York-these are Stonewall Jackson's menled now by Stonewall Jackson's most trusted

horses shot under him.

Few troops could stand it. All of the First corps could not. Presently the thin line of fire began to waver and bend and break under those terrible volleys from the dark woods above. The officers, brave almost always to a fault, sought to keep them in. One-his name deserves to be remembered-Captain Richardson, of the Seventh Wisconsin, seized the colors of a retreating Pennsylvania regiment, and strove to rally the men around their flag. It was in vain; none but

troops that have been tried as by fire can be reformed under such a storm of death; but the captain, left alone and almost in the rebels' hands, held on to the flaunting colors of another regiment, that made him so conspicuous a target, and brought them safely off.

The right of the corps gave way. The fierce surge of Ewell's attack had beaten up to their front, and, added to Hill's heavy fire, forced them slowly back.

prisoners; a few concealed themselves in houses and escaped-near a thousand of them were killed and wounded. Its fellow brigade went in one thousand five hundred strong; it came out with forty-nine officers and five hundred and forty-nine men killed and wounded, and six officers and five hundred and eighty-four men missing and their fate unknown. Who shall say that they did not go down into the very valley of the Shadow of Death on that terrible afternoon? AGATE.

FIELD OF BATTLE NEAR GETTYSBURGH, PA., July 4. Two more days of such fighting as no Northern State ever witnessed before, and victory at last! Victory for a fated army, and salvation for the imperilled country!

Wadsworth still holds on-for a few minutes more his braves protract the carnival of death. III. THURSDAY'S DOUBTFUL ISSUE-FRIDAY'S VICTORY. Doubleday managed to get three regiments over to their support; Colonel Biddle's Pennsylvania regiment came in and behaved most gallantly. Colonel Stephenson, who all the day had been serving in the hottest of the fight as aid to Meredith, relieved a wounded colonel, and strove to rally his regiment. Meredith himself, with his Antietam wound hardly yet ceasing to pain him, is struck again, a mere bruise, however on the head, with a piece of shell. At the same instant his large, heavy horse falls, mortally wounded, bears the General under him to the ground, and beats him there with his head and shoulders in his death convulsions.

It is idle fighting Fate. Ewell turned the scale with the old, historic troops; brave men may now well retire before double their number equally brave. When the Eleventh corps fell back, the flank of the First was exposed; when the right of the First fell back, Wadsworth's flank was exposed; already flushed with their victory, rebels were pouring up against front and both flanks of the devoted brigades. They had twice cleared their front of rebel lines; mortal men could now do no more. And so, "slowly and sullenly firing," the last of them came back.

Meantime, the fate of the army had been settled. It was one of those great crises that come rarely more than once in a lifetime. For MajorGeneral Howard, brave, one-armed, Christian fighting hero, the crisis had come.

His command-two corps of the grand army of the Potomac-were repulsed, and coming back in full retreat, a few sturdy brigades in order, the most in sad confusion. One cavalry charge, twenty minutes' well-directed cannonading, might wipe out nearly a third of the enemy, and leave Meade powerless for the defence of the North. These corps must be saved, and saved at once.

General Howard met and overmastered the crisis. The Cemetery Hill was instantly selected. The troops were taken to the rear and re-formed under cover. Batteries hurried up, and when the rebel pursuit had advanced half-way through the town a thunderbolt leaped out from the whole length of that line of crest and smote them where they stood. The battle was ended, the corps were saved.

The last desperate attack lasted nowhere along the line over forty minutes; with most of it hardly over half so long. One single brigade, that "iron" column that held the left, went in one thousand eight hundred and twenty strong. It came out with seven hundred men. A few were

It were folly for one unaided man, leaving the ground within a few hours after the battle has died fitfully out, to undertake a minute detail of the operations on all parts of the field. dare only attempt the merest outline of its leading features - then off for Cincinnati by the speediest routes.

I

I have been unable even to learn all I sought concerning the part some of our own Ohio regiments bore-of individual brigades and regiments and batteries I can in the main say nothing. But what one man, not entirely unfamiliar with such scenes before, could see, passing over the ground before, during, and after the fight, I saw; for the rest I must trust to such credible statements by the actors as I have been able to collect.

THE BATTLE-FIELD.

Whoever would carry in his mind a simple map of our positions in the great battles of Thursday and Friday, the second and third, at Gettysburgh, has but to conceive a broad capital A, bisected by another line drawn down from the top and equi-distant from each side. These three straight lines meeting at the top of the letter are ́ the three roads along which our army advanced, and between and on which lay the battle-field. The junction of the lines is Gettysburgh. The middle line, running nearly north and south, is the road to Taneytown. The right-hand line, running south-east, is the Baltimore pike. That on the left is the Emmetsburgh road.

Almost at the junction of the lines, and resting on the left-hand side of the Baltimore pike, is the key to the whole position-Cemetery Hill. This constitutes our extreme front, lies just south of Gettysburgh, overlooks and completely commands the town, the entire valley to right and left, the whole space over which the rebels advanced to attack our centre, and a portion of the woods from which the rebel lines on their centre debouched.

Standing on this hill and facing north (toward the town) you have, just across the Baltimore pike, another hill, almost as high, and crowned like the Cemetery with batteries that rake the centre front. Farther to the right and rear, the country is broken into a series of short, billowy