The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-07-04
NOT the TUNING porNr.

NOT THE TURNING POINT.
Gettysburg has been incorrectly de-
scribed as battle las decisive in its char
acter and as far-reaching in its results as
Waterloo" This is absurd It was
severe repulse to Lee: nothing more. Our
total losses were 2, 900, while Lees were
%. AS, and our army was too much shaken
TO deliver counter blow at the enemy.
Lee offered Meade battle all the next day
as boldly as he did Mcclellan after Ante
tam; he retreated without serious molesta-
ton to Hagerstown, and, finding the
Potomac impossible, he turned and
offered battle there q week after Gettys-
burg. Lee recrossed into Virginia at
his leisure; reinforced Bragg with 5000
men in September and Meade never struck
him again in general engagement until the
next May, under Grant, in the Wilderness.
Lee had been repulsed in his scheme of
Northern invasion at Gettysburg Just as
he had the year before at Antietam, but
he had paralyzed the Army of the Potomac
for the rest of the season and had post
poned all movements against Richmond
until the next year. Lees army was not
badly shattered, for he sent Longstreet
with 1900 men to Bragg and won Chicka-
manga: he forced Meade back from the
Rappahannock to Bull Run in October
and the next spring this same Confederate
army fought with the military yirility
and valor of Its best days, so that the
t1f< nff Tofr II sr1o% al
after Gettysburg, looked down on far
blacker defeat to the Army of the Potomac
than Gettysburg was 10 the Confederates.
To call Gettysburg the turning point of
the rebellion is absurd. The real dis
asters to the rebellion were not Antietam
and Gettysburg. where the Union victors
lost more men and material than the
enemy, but were Fort Donelson, Vicks-
burg, Chickamauga, Chattanooga, Atlanta
and Nashville, which stood for the loss
of both military advantages of position
and situation. In the judgment of Gen.
Longstreet the real turning point in
the war was not Gettysburg, but Chicka-
manga, where the failure of Bragg to
pursue the defeated Federal army under
Rosecrans and to reap the full fruits of
his victory "dispelied our last chance for
the triumph of the Confederate cause"
Chickamauga was no mere repulse; it
was tremendous Union defeat. which
cost US 1900 killed and wounded, and put
half of our whole army to fight Had
Bragg energetically pursued his advantage
we would have been driven out of Chatta-
nooga, the prize of the campaign, dispersed
and forced to surrender at discretion or
starve speedily in the barren mountains,
and the victorious Confederate army would
have been able to water their horses in
the Ohio, but Bragg threw away
his advantage, fddle-faddled until
Grant arrived, gathered reinforcements
and supplies, renewed our clutch upon
Chattanooga and placed it beyond re-
covery. After the loss of Chattanooga was
thus assured by Bragg's neglect, Long
street declares he told JEFF Davis that the
fall of the Confederacy could not be
averted; success had been made impossible
and that further continuance of the war
was murder. That Gettysburg might have
been made the turning point of the re-
bellion is thus admirably set forth by Lin
coin in letter written to Meade after the
escape of Lee, but never sent.
'You fought and beat the enemy at Gettys-
burg, and, of course, TO say the least, his loss
was great yours. He retreated and you
did not, as it seemed to me, pressingly pursue
him; but food in the river detained him till
by slow degrees you were again upon him.
You had at least 10000 veteran troops with
you and IS many more raw ones within sup
porting distance, all in addition to those who
fought with you at Gettysburg, while it
was not possible that he had received q single
recruit, and yet you stood and let the
food run down, bridges DO built, and the
enemy move away at his leisure without
attacking him. Again, my dear Gem
eral, ! do not believe you appreciate the
magnitude OF the misfortune involved in
Lees escape. He was within your easy grasp,
and to have closed upon him would, In connec-
ton with other late successes, have ended the
war. As it is, the war will be prolonged in
definitely. If you could not safely attack Lee
last Monday, how can you possibly do so south
OF the river, where you can take with you very
few more than two-thirds OF the force you then
had in hand7 1t would be unreasonable to ex-
peet, and do not expect, that you can now
effect much. Your golden opportunity is gone,
and l am distressed immsasurably because
of it,"