The Sun.
London, England, 1863-08-18 00:00:00

rose as it were out of the ground, until the spec-
tator, a prey to that whimsical caprice which at
moments of fierce and absorbing excitement seizes
on men's minds, found himself wandering in thought
to strange and far-off scenes, to happy valleysashich
had never seen war, and vaguely s.itculating how
their echoes would awake and resp Aid to such a
thunderous din.
Precisely at 1 o'clock, responsive to the warning
summons of two signal guns, the 140 pieces in the
Confederate centre and right opened fire; nor were
their voices hushed until 40 minutes after 2. Then
came General Pickett's turn, and nobly did he
spring to the head of his undaunted men, and mar-
shal them to the attack. With long floating locks,
with a seeming recklessness, which is, perhaps,
partly assumed, but which stamps him of the Murat
type, General Pickett, of more demonstrative
courage than other generals, but not less unflinch-
ing than his own sword, seemed as he advanced to
lead his men into the very jaws of death. Slowly
emerging into the open ground, with shells
singularly ineffective, as it seemed to me (consider-
ing the apparently murderous precision with which
they all burst) cracking and snapping over them at
every stride, Generl Pickett's men seemed
dtoivtakede
hours to surmount the mile of interval which divided
destinationt hem fro m tihae Fed
era l
reached;
with batteries.
a wild Ay
etlllengththey s
ptrhi enigr
gunint o
rt
ihdee Ya a
an kcenen ef
ea
dr tehr
awt oe r
eknsl;dai
es tr dt eh
eo f
group
Fuer de
ue rnadl
vGaennneer
iaal La oene gn
pt rl ee et
et
se
110 nga c
cerss
na tde Elf hr i
am
fet
wh a
moments
bGreenaetrhalisLdurnagwsntrmeeotr edifsreeeerinys,
that but
tPbeet tqi gu it:ckw 'esy de i voi f-
pa
captured
dce
guns,de-
pends
bmyo sr!
siuupon w
te retention h ose
almost
i scikme ut
tl toufutehoeucs a
is in confusion. Upon ntheir left Pettigrew's men
when close up to b
Yankee batteries, perceive a
large columnth e
Retaining Federals
that descending f
fatal
tai
the
habithill
et o
flank m.f
thinking for themselves which is so pernicious to a
soldier, the Confederates first halted, then got into
confusion, then broke and fell back. The
frightful damage from grape and;canister which,
shrinking at this perilous moment, they could
not but sustain, was compared by an eye-witness
of both scenes. to the punishment inflicted on
the Federals from the heights of Fredericksburg
in December last. In vain did General
Longstreet send Major Latrobe to General Petti-
grew, shortly before the latter's troops broke, urging
him, in military language, "to refuse his left"—
that is, to meet the flanking column by a line thrown
obliquely out to meet it. Major Latrobe's horse
was shot as he sped on his message, and on foot he
could not get up to General Pettigrew in sufficient
time to instruct and guide him. When Pettigrew
and his men fell back, the flanking column of
Yankees, meeting with no resistance, swept round
until they approached and overlapped Pickett.
Then, and not till then, he commenced to give way.
" Hide, blushing glory, hide" the cost of that re-
treat. Out of a division of 4,300 men he brought
out, in the first instance, about 1,500, though I be-
lieve that another 1,000 straggled in the next day.
His three Brigadier Generals lay dead or desperately
wounded upon the field ; out of all his field officers
only one major came out unwounded; 11 out of the
13 colours which he carried into action were lost.
Since the commencement of this war I know of no
division on either side which has ever made so
resolute an advance, or been so rudely and mur-
derously handled. Long will the 3d of July be
remembered in anguished Virginia, from which
State almost all Pickett's division was drawn. Gen.
Pickett and his staff, all of whom miraculously
escaped, were torn by grief at the loss of friends
known for a lifetime, but doubly and trebly en-
deared by the common perils and sufferings of these

ast two years.
But if at an earlier stage of this letter I fancied
hat less than his usual calmness was visible i❑
General Lee's face, all trace of cloud and anxiety
passed away in this the hour of our deepest gloom.
Riding from knot to knot of the stragglers, with
kind, firm, calm words encouraging the disheartened,
rallying every man who could carry a musket or was
only slightly wounded, he infused confidence and
spirit into his men at the moment which of all
others is most trying to volunteers. General Will-
cox, riding up to him, with tears in his eyes, ex-
claimed, " General, I have tried to rally my men,
but as yet they will not stand." General Lee re-
sponded, "Never mind, General, the fault is all
mine. All that you have to do is to help me to
remedy it so far as you can," If any testimony to
the affection and confidence inspired by General
Lee were wanting, it might be found in the cheers
issuing from the interior of ambulances as they
passed him, bearing their ghastly load of wounded
to the rear. This scene was witnessed by Colonel
Fremantle, of the Coldstream Guards, who has
returned to England, leaving behind him many a
friend in the Confederate army, which he has ac-
companied for the last three weeks.
After the repulse of General -Pickett's division
the struggle was virtually over. It is true that on
the extreme Confederate left General Johnson, of
Ewell's corps, captured a hill which would have
been important had complete success attended
Longstreet's attack. As it was, both armies, fear-
fully exhausted by their losses, fell back on the night
of the 3d, to commence on both sides preparations
for retreat on the 4th ; the initiative in retreating,
as was subsequently believed, having been taken by
General Meade. The incidents of the day's battle,
the struggles of individual companies, which, to
borrow Napoleon's'expression, "belong rather to
the biography of a regiment than the history of an
army," would fill a volume. Suffice it to say. that
while the particulars of the Confederate loss being
more known to me are given in more detail, there
is abundant evidence that the Federals, with their
heavy columns of troops massed behind their bat-
teries, and fearfully exposed to artillery fire, suffered
a loss as unprecedented as was the valour which,
for the first time in its existence, the Grand Army
of the Potomac on this occasion displayed.

JULY 4.
A steady downpour of rain from a low brooding
leaden sky—a day in keeping with the fortunes of
the nation whose once joyous national holiday,
the 80th since the acknowledgment by England
of its independence, was rolling gloomily
,and
unobserved away ; the sight in every grove and

stopped,
though only for a short season—a halt was
permitted—food and absence of rain exercised their
restorative influence, but as we set forward again in
the afternoon the pertinacious downpour was re-
sumed. Another wretched night, passed half on
the march, half in a saturated wheat field, another
long day's march, and on the night of the 6th we
reached the little town of Hagerstown, distant
about five miles from the Potomac.

RICHMOND, July 28.
Upon the 14th inst., the army of General Lee,
which had lain passive in the neighbourhood of
Hagerstown since the evening of the 6th, courting
ar ac tr ho
se
sr
the t han
Potomac expec inntgo
Virginia. att ck ,
Two atsa
kwi
e tt withdraw
n
there were many circumstances which moved
General Lee. In the first place, the same unprece-
dented weather which had accompanied almost the
whole of his march into Pennsylvania continued
until the end, and the heavy downpour of rain
which ushered in the month of July and had been
scarcely intermitted for 14 days, pursued and pelted
us mercilessly as we again approached the Poto-
mac, swelling the river until it threatened to burst
its banks, and driving the quartermasters and corn-
missaries of the army almost to distraction. Secondly,
there was difficulty in finding mills which, in the
swollen condition of the streams that fed them,
could be made available for grinding wheat, and
supplying the army with flour. Thirdly, the dis-
astrous and unexpected tidings of the fall of Vicks-
burg and Port Hudson, coming on the top of the
failure of General Lee's Pennsylvanian campaign,
induced him to abandon the hazardous measure,
which he at one time contemplated, of again ad-
' vancing against the enemy, flushed as he was with
the triumph of having for almost the first time in
this war repulsed a Confederate attack, and inspirited
beyond expression by the fall of Vicksburg. But at
r.• less serious moment it would be laughable to read
the feigned indignation of the Northern press at the
lathes of Ueneral Mead?, in not gobbling up General
Lee and his army. In the history of all previous re.
treats from the Anabasis of Xenophon up to.the pre-
sent hour, never was army withdrawn with so little
molestation from its enemy as General Lee's. That
there was considerable anxiety entertained by Gene-
rals Lee and Longstreet during the night of the 3d
and the day of the 4th of July, in regard to the pos-
sibility of General Meade's assuming the offensive, I
am far from denying. But such anxiety was early
dispelled by the capture of a Federal courier bearing
despatches, which announced that on the night of
the 4th General Meade's headquarters would be at
Westminster, or in other words, at a point much
nearer to Washington than Gettysburg, and at
which the indications are that a strong position had
been selected by General Meade, where, but for the
attack which he was obliged to accept at Gettys-
burg, it was his intention to have made his final '
stand.

How cumbrous and unwieldy a machine was the
reflect that be advanced into Pt
army of General Lee will be evbindseynitvatboisalflorwuh.bo
unknown and indefinite period, with immense
connectedordn ordnance c
we
ittrha itnhse
Commissary and Quartermaster-
,
a( abldt hwo
tghh
vast
ssuuffinc
ieenst loyf
General's Depart-
ments. stores immense)
por tation of the Confederate Arm, v
merits. It is a mistake to suppose thiast tuhneusturasniisy-
scanty and limited. Compared with the sumptuous
trains and countless sutlers that pa
Federal hosts, the Confederates,
it is
tree, carry
the
ylittle
indeed; but it is not likely that the war economy
pursued for the last two years by the Federal Go-
vernment will be accepted as furnishing any other
prece
cut to ruin. lam assured, however, by co
dent for European nations than themshpoertteenstt
and experienced judges that the Confederate trans-
portation trains rather exceed than fall short of the
Stonewall Jackson's corps, now for the
European average. Specially is this the case with with
most part
under Eweli's command, which under its famous
leaderfrequently undertook campaign. ibnrtmhealligirhatiebsst
marching order, but of which the n
were large and cumbrous, and scrupulously guarded
at all times by the ceaseless vigilance of General
Jackson himself. But on this occasion General Lee,
in addition to his own very sufficient trains, had
accumulated in Pennsylvania an amount of farming
wagons which is so variously estimated that I dare
not assign a figure to it, but which, from personal
observation, I can state to have been very conside-
rable indeed. These wagons were principally at-
tached to the Corps of Gen. Ewell, who was always
in the van as we entered Pennsylvania, and their vast
aggregate heightened the difficulty of adopting one
of the possible plans which I indicated in my letter
from Hagerstown, and which by some empirics
General Lee has been blamed for not selecting. I
allude to the plan of falling back into the gorge of
the South Mountain, and there awaiting an attack
from General Meade. This course was rendered im-
possible—first, by the premature engagement be-
tween Hill and Ewell and the two Army Corps of the
Federals on July 1; and secondly, by the distance
which separated Gen. Ewell and his vast transpor-
tation trains from the bulk of Lee's army. It is still
the opinion of the best and wisest heads that Gen.
Lee, in resolving to attack Meade's strong position
at Gettysburg, played for a mighty stake which he
was justified in thinking he could win, and which,
in point of fact, he was within an ace of winning.
How nearly the Confederates succeeded in driving
their opponents from the heights is probably fully
known only to Gen. Meade and Gen. Halleck; but
some measure of the damage inflicted upon the
Federal army may be taken by one who witnessed
the faintness and feebleness of Gen, Meade's pur-
suit. With the exception of a brief canrionaile be-
tween some of the Federal cavalry and the rearguard
of Gen. Ewell on the sth, pursuit there was none.
Some damage was done to Gen. Ewell's train, prin-
cipally,' believe, through the agency of Pennsylva-
nian citizens ; but altogether there were not 100
wagons destroyed. Gen. Lee returned to the rginian side of the Potomac with 5,000 Federal pri-
soners; with his immense trains all but uninjured ;
with an amount of Pennsylvanian waggons and
horses which I dare not attempt to estimate ; with-
out the loss of a caisson or a gun, except two, which
were abandoned because the horses broke down ;
without paying any other toll than that which was
exacted in the three days of battle at Gettysburg,
and for which no doubt full value was given by the
Federal army; and with his own army in such
heart and spirits as I have never seen excelled.
Considerable credit is due to the engineer depart-
ment of Gen. Lee's army for the ingenuity which
they displayed in building, with great rapidity, the
pontoon bridge at Falling Waters (about four miles
from Williamsport), which upon the 13th and 14th
inst. conveyed Gen. Lee's army trains and most of
his army across the Potomac. During our absence
in Pennsylvania the Confederate pontoon bridge,
which had been left in the Potomac and was insuf-
ficiently guarded, was, as some say, 1:4- the inhabi-
tants of Martinsburg, and, as others, by the inhabi-
tants of Hagerstown, in great measure destroyed.
It will be recollected that General Lee's army
reached Hagerstown on the evening of the 6th. For
some days we lay there without thought of further
retreat, but when the calamitous tidings from
Vicksburg and Port Hudson overtook us, and when
simultaneously the rain continued to descend, it was
deemed advisable to stand once more upon Vir-
ginian soil instead of striking deeper into Mary-
land in pursuit of an enemy who had obviously no
intentionwhom h
im anotheraba
assailing him in his
fight couldof
oanttlayekhienggbuts, abnyd
followingoutof
own chosen position. It be-
came abundantlY evident, when by slow and
tardy meiches, pr
last day o
protracted from the 3d of July
(the
of battle) until the 11th, when the
Federal army began to
approach
Hagerstown
in
force, General Meade drew near to General Lee
hope of a
I t on by General
that no
again,
was broug gagement could
reconnoitred our position near
general
of a few hastily
only
consisted Hagerstown, look of
which cons not liking the
thrown up breast works, and
It)
iee
e. indulged
he F
Federals
unlessra is
ply dili-
gently began to p
it, fell back for two miles, a
according to their almost
acco
gently spade and pickaxe,
bow frequently,
It
invariable practice. It is singular
since General Lee assumed command in
Virginia,
13 months ago, the Confederates, in the numerous
battles which have occurred, have
been the as"
il-
ants. For seven days in the battles around Rich-
mond they acted always on the offanstve ; it was the
s.
et,
same in the series of battles which extingui 1