Part 29 (2/2)

On the third day came the final test. The brave Confederate General Pickett led many thousands of soldiers over an open plain in a most desperate charge to break the Union center. On, on they came, their ranks now torn through and through by Union shot and sh.e.l.l, but still on they charged. Drawing nearer, up they rushed to the Union line with the familiar Southern yell, and with frantic fury dashed upon our firm-set ranks. Our men wavered with the mighty shock and for a moment fell back, but instantly rallied with the Union cheer.

In the furious onset and the hand-to-hand fight, friend and foe fell by thousands. But the charging battalions were shattered, crushed, driven back, melting away under the concentrated fire, and only some few fragments of all that vast column straggled back over the field of death.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE.]

Lee was baffled, defeated; the Union was safe. The invaders, with that vast army that came with stately pride, went back to Virginia with sorrowing memories of the direst disaster of the war. Never again did a large Confederate force hazard a march into the North. After Gettysburg there was little hope of Confederate triumph.

=314. Memorials of the Victory.=--Gettysburg was a costly victory. Over that broad area of the three days' battles, strewn through wood and meadow, on field and hill, lay the bodies of thousands of soldiers.

One-third of Lee's entire army, and about a fourth of the Union forces, had been killed or wounded. The arena of fiercest fighting in the third day's final charge is now marked by a suitable monument, which bears upon a bronze tablet an inscription that indicates the historical importance of the spot.

Upon opposite columns are also inscribed the names of the officers who led the surging columns of gray, and the names of those officers who held firm the impregnable walls of blue.

The whole field of battle, covering several square miles, is dotted with hundreds of similar memorials of many varieties. These monuments have been erected year after year by the survivors or by their friends. They indicate the positions held by regiments, brigades, and divisions, where desperate charges and equally desperate repulses occurred, or where gallant officers fell.

=315. Lincoln's Masterly Address at Gettysburg.=--In November, 1863, the central portion of the battlefield was set apart as a National Cemetery and dedicated with solemn ceremonies. The most important of these was the notably eloquent address by President Lincoln, which has pa.s.sed into history as an event hardly less memorable than the great conflict itself. Perhaps in no language, ancient or modern, are any words found more comprehensive and eloquent than this brief speech.

Time has tested the strength of this short, simple address. After more than a quarter of a century it is still as familiar as household words.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GENERAL U. S. GRANT.]

=316. Success of General Grant in the West.=--Let us now read about a few of the great events of the war in the West during the first half of the year 1863. Here General Grant was the central figure of important military operations. He had already become prominent by the brilliant campaigns we have mentioned. His remarkable career furnishes one of the many examples of great men coming up from obscure and unpromising conditions of life.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAP OF MILITARY OPERATIONS IN THE WEST.]

He was born in Ohio in 1822, and received a military education at West Point. He was a successful officer in the Mexican War, having been engaged in nearly all the battles of the war, where he manifested conspicuous bravery. Returning from Mexico, he engaged a while in farming, but with discouraging results. Evidently it was not his vocation.

When the Civil War opened, Grant was employed at a small salary in his father's leather store in Galena, Illinois. He at once offered the governor his services, and was appointed a colonel of an Illinois regiment. He rose rapidly to conspicuous positions.

=317. Capture of Vicksburg.=--General Grant, after defeating the Confederates at the battle of s.h.i.+loh, and driving them south to Corinth, followed them to Vicksburg. This was a stronghold from which they seemed to defy every effort to dislodge them.

The city stands on a high bluff some two hundred feet above the Mississippi, and as there were heavy batteries all along the river front and on the hillsides, Grant could not attack the city with his gunboats.

On the north there were miles of swamps and creeks, so that he could not approach on that side. On the east the city was heavily fortified with cannon.

President Lincoln and the country expected General Grant to capture Vicksburg. What could he do? Witness his superb generals.h.i.+p!

He first protected against cannon shot a number of gunboats and steamers by means of bales of hay, and planned to run them past eight miles of batteries one dark night in April. This movement was so perilous that officers would not order their men to go, but called for volunteers. So many were eager to go that lots were drawn for a chance. One soldier refused one hundred dollars for his place.

Soon as the watchful Confederates sighted the first boat of the grim procession, they opened a deafening cannonade, and started a series of bonfires that lighted up all the miles of that voyage of death. Some of the transports were destroyed, but enough got through to answer the general's purpose.

Next Grant ferried his army across the river some miles below Vicksburg, and fought and defeated General Pemberton's troops, which had moved down to meet him. Then, learning that General Johnston was coming to attack him, he marched up between the two armies. On his east side he met Johnston's army and defeated it. Thence he turned west and drove Pemberton again, and the next day routed him once more and drove his entire army into Vicksburg.

Commodore Porter's gunboats now threw huge sh.e.l.ls into the doomed city from the river and Grant's army bombarded it on the east. It was an awful siege. No building was safe. The people lived in caves dug in the sides of the hills. Food was so scarce that mules, cats, dogs, and rats were devoured. At last, after seven weeks of siege, Pemberton, on July 4, surrendered his entire army of about thirty thousand men, the largest force captured during the war.

These two great victories, at Gettysburg and at Vicksburg, one in the East, the other in the West, both won at the same time, gave new hope to the Union cause. The Confederacy was at last cut in two, for the Mississippi River was open in its entire length, and its waters, in Mr.

Lincoln's words, ”flowed unvexed to the sea.”

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