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sent to Gordonsville, leaving only one regiment behind him; but notwithstanding his departure the Confederates could yet muster eight or nine thousand men in the works which surrounded the capital: it was more than was necessary to protect it from any sudden attack.

On the 25th, Colonel Spear was sent by Keyes, with about one thousand cavalry, to destroy the railroad-bridge over the South Anna near Hanover, to which allusion has already frequently been made. Crossing the river by fording, he attacked at once, on both sides, the regiment that Corse had left to guard the crossing: dispersing it, after having inflicted upon it some heavy losses, he burned the bridge and returned to White House on the 28th. This operation, well conducted, but without any importance, inasmuch as Lee was no longer at Fredericksburg or Culpeper at the end of the railroad line, was the only incident of the campaign. After Spear's return Keyes despatched General Getty on the 1st of July, with eight thousand men, to Hanover Court-house, and on the same day he started himself, with five thousand, in the direction of Richmond as far as Baltimore Cross-roads. But these two columns advanced very cautiously. While the city of Richmond was in a state of excitement, Keyes, after a skirmish in which he lost about twenty men, seeing the uselessness of the campaign he had been made to undertake, fell back upon White House on the 3d. Here he found Getty, whose venture had been productive of no other result than the capture of the Confederate general W. H. F. Lee, wounded at Brandy Station, in a farm-house where he was being cared for. After this expedition the Federal government did at last what it should have done before: the largest portion of the Fourth army corps was incorporated with the Army of the Potomac.

ON

CHAPTER III.

OAK HILL.

N the 1st of July, 1863, the whole Southern army, as we have seen, was on the march since morning to concentrate itself at Gettysburg. Ewell, who had at first proceeded in the direction of Cashtown by cross-roads, having learned that Hill was going beyond this village, immediately took the direct roads converging upon Gettysburg, where he intended to assist the Third corps. Lee's army, which had been divided for the last eight days, was then about to be massed, either on that or the next day, east of South Mountain, thus menacing Baltimore and Washington: its chief relied upon this demonstration to bring back the Army of the Potomac, which he believed to be yet at a considerable distance in pursuit of him, and oblige it to attack him in a defensive position which he thought he had ample time to select and occupy. It is stated that he had assured his lieutenants that he should not take the offensive on the field of battle.

The Federal army was arrayed en échelon at greater distances, and Meade, equally desirous of securing the advantages of a defensive position, held himself ready to assemble it by a concentrating movement in the rear; but, whatever might have been his final determination, it was necessary for him to occupy Gettysburg, either for the purpose of covering this movement or for advancing. We have seen that his cavalry, forestalling the enemy, had established itself in this village on the previous evening, while the First and Eleventh army corps, starting at the same hour with Hill's and Ewell's soldiers, were marching, like them, toward this point. Fortunately, being fully acquainted with the character of his former comrades, who had become

his subordinates within the last three days, Meade entrusted the task of clearing and directing his left to two men equally noted for quickness of perception, promptness of decision, and gallantry on the battlefield-Buford and Reynolds. So that, by one of those singular chances which play so important a part in war, at the very moment when the Southern general, believing that he was mustering his army at a considerable distance from the enemy, had selected for this purpose a point which one of his army corps had just crossed without difficulty, this point was precisely the one selected by his adversary, while the latter, who did not wish to expose himself to the dangers of a concentration in front of his lines, had so conducted the march of his troops that his left wing was about to rush unexpectedly against the heads of column of the whole Confederate army.

The end of June had been rainy, with frequent storms, which, while imparting the freshness of spring to the leaves of the forest and the grass of the meadows, had at the same time broken up the roads over which the combatants of both armies were marching in close column. Before bringing them face to face in hostile array we will leave them for a while, pursuing their way with the carelessness of the soldier, who is too familiar with the multitudinous risks of war to ponder over them, and devote a few lines to the description of the surroundings of Gettysburg, a rich and beautiful country, whose atmosphere at this early morning hour was so strongly surcharged with warm vapors that the sun found it difficult to dispel them, while its slanting rays, piercing through heavy, opaque clouds, flashed over the long and solid wall of South Mountain, a lofty barrier which shuts out the whole horizon at the west.

The irregularities of the ground, as we had occasion to remark in regard to the entire region of country adjoining this chain, are due to the prevalence of rocky ridges lying parallel to its general direction, sometimes emerging from the soil in steep, ragged notches resembling ruined castles or fantastic pyramids. Α hard-working population settled upon this fertile land has almost entirely cleared it, so that the woods, much more scarce than in Maryland, and the rocks, less numerous than at Emmettsburg, only constitute isolated points of support in the

centre of a territory adapted for deploying armies and the evolutions of artillery.

The streams which traverse this section of country were at this season altogether insignificant. The principal ones, Willoughby Run and Rock Creek, pursue a parallel course from north to south, one west and the other east of Gettysburg, emptying themselves lower down into Marsh Creek. The banks of these two resemble each other. Covered with woods, those of Rock Creek, as its name implies, are bristling with rocks, which, rising as high as one hundred and twenty, and even one hundred and fifty feet, above its bed, have prevented the woods from being cleared. Those of Willoughby Run are not so high nor so steep, and are less wooded. The battlefield is comprised between the right bank of the former and the left bank of the latter. The hills that are met on this ground may be divided into two groups, disposed in analogous fashion, whose formation reveals a geological law which is common to the whole section of this country. Each group forms a combination of three ridges starting from a common point, alike in elevation and abruptness. The central ridge, the highest and longest, follows a southerly direction; another, equally straight, but less elevated, south-south-westward; the third, extending east-south-eastward, is short, and split into two sections, as if, by the general direction in the upheaving of the ground, it had been thwarted in its formation. The starting-point of the first group is a ridge situated one and a quarter miles north-west of Gettysburg, in the direction of Mummasburg, called Oak Hill, on account of the thick forest of oaks which covered it. Its central ridge is about two miles long and very narrow, with considerable elevation for two-thirds of that distance, being throughout interspersed with small woods, farms, and country-houses. Among these habitations there is a Lutheran seminary (which has given it the appellation of Seminary Hill), the belfry of which, located on the culminating-point, overlooks the whole surrounding country. The south-western ridge is, at first, only separated from the one last mentioned by a narrow strip of land which deepens in proportion as they diverge. It borders the course of Willoughby Run. The third consists of several round hillocks which grad

ually decrease in size as far as Rock Creek. Amid the vast cultivated fields covering these hillocks there may be seen a few farm-houses, the Crawford farm-house among the rest, and at six hundred feet from Rock Creek the almshouse. The second group is situated south-east of the first; its starting-point is twenty-eight hundred yards from Oak Hill. It was well known before the battle by the name of Cemetery Hill, on account of the cemetery which crowns the summit, as if in advance, by some ominous forethought, it had been placed there upon a point where so many victims were to perish at once. This rock-girded pinnacle rises abruptly about eighty feet above a large valley which is watered by Stevens' Run, a small stream that flows from west to east and connects with Rock Creek after having wound around the foot of the hillock occupied by the Crawford farm-house. The small town of Gettysburg is situated in this valley on the south side of Stevens' Run, and its streets, lined with houses behind which some fine orchards are seen stretching out, rise in gentle acclivities to the base of Cemetery Hill. The principal ridge, which starts from this point with a southerly direction, soon decreases in size; the rocks disappear; the slopes, bare at the west, became less rugged on this side: at the east, on the contrary, the bed of Rock Creek deepens still more rapidly between declivities that are covered. with thick forests. At a distance of sixteen hundred yards from the extremity of Cemetery Hill the line of elevation has lessened by about twenty yards; then it rises again to the length of two-thirds of a mile, to terminate at last in the shape of two hills with bold outlines which proudly command all the neighboring localities, and whose fantastic rocks seem, from a distance, absolutely inaccessible to man. That farthest south, which is the highest, rises to a height of not less than two hundred and ten feet above Gettysburg; it is known by the name of Round Top; the other called Little Round Top, separated from the first by a distance of five hundred and fifty yards, is less in height by one hundred and five feet. Both of them, connected by a narrow defile, form at the west a declivity, at the foot of which flows a small marshy stream, Plum Run, whose bed is more thin three hundred feet below the summit of Round Top. The opposite

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