this monument will be one of the handsomest at Gettysburg. New York State has spent $260,000 on this single field in commemorating the deeds of those of her sons who fell there, and this last monument is an eloquent and fitting period to the eulogium of which it is a part.

Too much honor cannot be paid by a State to her brave dead, who fell fighting her cause, and the example which it sets to the younger generation is in the highest degree stimulating, exhilarating, and inspiring. By such actions heroes are made. They see the honor paid to patriotism, and strive

to emulate those who merited it by true worth, and proved their loyalty by shedding their blood.

Many a State had troops at Gettysburg, but none did more than those that came from New York. Many a State has erected marble shafts to the memory of its dead at Gettysburg, but none more choice and lovely than that which will be unveiled there to 10,000 survivors of that battle on July 3d, by the New York State Commission. This monument is worthy of the blameless and heroic

In the first battle near Gettysburg, the Northern soldiers showed a determination we had never before seen in them. General Hill said that he saw a Federal soldier plant his regimental colors in a railway cut, and that there they made an excellent stand. The men, after planting their colors, fought with a determination and obstinacy that was almost invincible. When, at last, they were compelled to retire, the color-bearer was the last to retreat, and General Hill says that he was honestly sorry when he saw the brave fellow meet his doom, for he retreated with his face toward the foe and shook his fist at every backward step.

In the second day's fight, General Lee, to my own knowledge, sat most of the time on the stump of a tree. He was quite alone, and I especially

noticed that he received and sent only one message during the entire day.

It was on the third day. Pickett's division had just come up. It was to bear the brunt of the

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engagement; it was weak in point of numbers, comprising only about 5,000 men. After the battle was opened, I joined General Longstreet. was surprised at the number of wounded. However, I had not seen enough to give me any idea of the amount of mischief that had been done. When I got near General Longstreet, I saw one of his regiments coming toward us in good order. I thought I was just in time for a good engagement, so said to General Longstreet, "I wouldn't have missed this for anything."

GENERAL SLOCUM.

The general was seated on the top of a fence, and looked perfectly calm. "The devil you wouldn't!" he replied, grimly. "We have attacked the enemy, and have been repulsed."

Looking around, I saw our men slowly and sulkily returning toward us, under a heavy fire. Some of them were straggling, and General Pettigrew came up and said:

"General, I can't get my men up again."

Very well, then, general," answered Longstreet, curtly, "just let them alone; the enemy is going to advance, and will spare you the trouble."

I think about the best thing I saw on that bloody field was General Lee's action toward General Wilcox. The latter wore a straw hat and short jacket; he came up and explained, almost crying, the condition of his brigade. "Well, never mind, general," said General Lee, shaking him heartily by the hand; "all this is my fault; it is I who have lost the fight, and you must help me out of it in the best way you can."

After our rout at Gettysburg, General Lee was engaged in riding about encouraging and trying to rally the broken troops. His face did not give the slightest evidence of annoyance or disappointment, and almost to every soldier he met he said something encouraging. As he

passed me I heard him say: "This will all come right in the end, but you all must rally, and we will talk it over afterward. We want every good man now."

General Lee said to an English officer, who was a correspondent, standing near: "This has been a sad day to us, colonel, a sad day; but we cannot always expect to gain victories."

It was then that an incident occurred which made me almost idolize him afterward. General Lee was always loved by his officers, and more so by his men, but none of us, I believe, ever knew the full depth of kindness of his heart. A mounted officer, who was riding past us, began beating his horse because it shied at the bursting of a shell.

"Don't whip him, captain, don't whip him," said General Lee, "I've got just such a foolish horse myself."

As we

I think that one of the saddest incidents of the war which I witnessed was after the battle of Gettysburg. Off on the outskirts, seated on the ground, with his back to a tree, was a soldier, dead. His eyes were riveted on some object held tightly clasped in his hands. drew nearer we saw that it was an ambrotype of two small children. Man though I was, hardened through those long years to carnage and bloodshed, the sight of that man who looked on his children for the last time in this world, who, away off in a secluded spot had rested

coming before our eyes which almost blinded us. We stood looking at him for some time. I was thinking of the wife and baby I had left at home, and wondering how soon, in the mercy of God, she would be left a widow, and my baby boy fatherless. We looked at each other and instinctively seemed to understand our thoughts. Not a word was spoken, but we dug a grave and laid the poor fellow to rest with his children's picture clasped over his heart. Over his grave, on the tree against which he was sitting I inscribed the words:

"Somebody's Father, July 3, 1863."

Among Southerners, also, at least among Virginians, the fight is regarded as exceptional in the rare valor displayed in the assaults upon Meade's line. And no ex-Confederate could listen, except with a full heart, to the panegyric heaped upon Pickett's men at the cyclorama of "Gettysburg," recently exhibited in New York, by the old soldier of the Grand Army of the Republic, who was charged with the duty of explaining to the public the scenes set forth on the canvas.

The interest of the military critic hangs mainly upon speculations as to what might have happened in different dispensations. The battle was an accident, and its main details were ac

which I believe to be true, from what I have seen of him. It is said

that after the battle of Gettysburg, one of our (Southern) soldiers lay in a house near the battle-field, dying. The major-general rode up and, dismounting, entered the house. He knelt down beside the man and, after talking to him sometime, took out a little black book and read: "Let not your heart be troubled. Ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions." He then offered up a prayer to God for the dying soldier, and, leaning over him, kissed him. and said:

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"Captain, we will meet in heaven."

WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN. ETTYSBURG has acquired a sentimental importance, that distinguishes it in the Northern States above all other battles of the Civil War. There the "backbone" of the Confederacy is said to have been broken, and no doubt the issue contributed largely to the final result of the war.

Its mention is inseparably associated with a volume of ifs and exclamation points, and it will be well if the many mistakes of many of the leaders on both sides become enveloped in the veil of romance that is gradually settling upon the hills of Gettysburg.

Had Stuart informed Lee of the movements of the Federal troops, the week that was frittered away supinely about Carlisle and Chamrsburg might have been spent in picking up in detail the widely scattered corps of Meade. Had Ewell run over Doubleday when they met in front of the town, instead of allowing himself to be occupied by an inferior force a whole after

noon and night; had he even pushed Doubleday back a few minutes longer-beyond Culp's Hill-had Longstreet been prompt on the morning of the second day; had Sykes delayed the occupation of Round Top a little longer, etc., etc., a wholly different turn would have been given to the affair.

But when on the morning of the third day he was confronted with the fish-hook line planted upon Culp's Hill, Cemetery Ridge, and Round Top, he was forced to break through its centre (the only vulnerable point) or withdraw from Meade's front at great peril to his army. In this alternative he was justified in trusting to his old soldiers, for the infantry with which he had just crossed the Potomac have never been surpassed by any body of troops in history. And even in front of Cemetery Ridge we are tempted to speculate upon what might have happened had Pickett been better supported, or had Lee's ammunition held out.

Not less interesting is the consideration of the possibilities had Meade followed Pickett back to his lines, or assaulted Lee in force the next day, or pressed him while he was retiring beyond the mountains, or attacked him while he lay for a week about Williamsport, impeded by the swollen Potomac.

The most interesting figure in the fight is that of Lee. He generously assumed the burden of

the failure, and it is not certain that some of his officers have not sought to shift to him the responsibility for their own shortcomings. Bu whatever may be his merit or demerit, he is brought out into massive relief by the poise and equanimity which lifted him above the vicissitudes of fortune, and preserved to him the command of his individual resources as fully in defeat as in victory. He received and parried the crushing blow that Pickett suffered with unequaled intrepidity, and withdrew from Pennsylvania as calmly as the tide recedes upon an ocean in repose.

Gettysburg as a fact has passed into history, and as the stones rise upon its field to testify the glory that the various commands gleaned in its harvest of death, its hills are clothed with a halo brighter than that of Yorktown or Bunker Hill. During the next generation the traditions of the North and the South will have united in one stream, and Gettysburg will have become a shrine to which the whole people will devoutly turn. Upon its field was brought to naught the most momentous campaign of the Civil War; it was the turning-point of a war that could not have logically had any other result than that which actually befell. And this distinction will make of it the Mecca of liberty.

WM. J. HARDY.

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HE summer of '64, with Sherman's army, was a continuous succession of battles and skirmishes. From Rocky Face Ridge and Mill Creek Gap, Johnston's army of the Confederacy had been forced back by successive stages of battle, assault and flanking detour, until the early days of June found the Confederate army at Marietta, with its strongly defen

sive chain of surrounding hills, the key to which was the impregnable heights of Kenesaw Mountain, at which a determined stand was made to stay the onward and victorious progress of the Union army. Its wooded and rugged slopes presented an insurmountable barrier to the Union forces, while its towering summit afforded to the Confederate commander unobstructed oversight of every movement within the lines of Sherman's army. From the 4th of June to July 2d, Johnston succeeded in baffling every effort of Sherman to overrun or force him from his position, and only when the old tactics of flanking, by extending the Union right and overlapping, and endangering his sources of supply and retreat, was Johnston forced back once more toward Atlanta.

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their retreating army. Here gathered the trains from every part of Sherman's army for supplies, and the motley gathering of quartermasters, commissaries, ordnance officers, clerks, wagon masters, teamsters, contrabands, and the muchabused, but indispensable, army mule, made a small army in itself. "First come, first served," was the rule, and as the facilities were not equal

The army supply depot was at Big Shanty, a very primitive town on the Georgia Central Railroad, the then nearest point to "the front" to which the railroad had been repaired after its destruction by the Confederates, in the wake of

to the demand, it frequently occurred that a wait of two or three days was required before your "estimate" was reached in the list and your supplies obtained.

Being detailed as receiving clerk of the commissary department of the First Division, Twentieth Army

Corps, it became my duty to visit this place, and it also occurred that I once had some three days waiting time on

wandered about to watch the interesting activity that the continual coming and going of supply trains; the push and hurry of those who had obtained, and the scramble to get into place of those who were yet to get, their supplies; the shouting of the wagon masters, interlarded with plenteous and frequently unique profanity; the coming and going of the railroad trains, with their loads of supplies and their burdens of suffering humanity, as the wounded were placed in these same cars to make their long journey to the rear, afforded a scene that only the supply depot of an advancing, fighting army can present.