The herald., 1896-04-10
1HE FIELD OF GETTYSBURG
SECESSION WENT DOWN ON ITS BL00DY
SLOPES
n Lse Had Been Victorious the Confederate
Debt Would be Something Instead OF
Nothing = English Gold fiazarded on
Cemetery Ridge
Copyright, 1896. by John Clark Ridpath. !

The blood fiecked foam of the great
rebellion broke surf1ike over Cemetery
Ridge One of our poets has character
ized it as "a high tide" and the figure
is not unfit. When Armistead. with his
hat on his sword, went down among the
Union guns, it marked the supreme
touch of those forces which, beginning
with the plantations of the cavaliers,
rose in the domestic estate of the south,
linked itself with the Jeffersonian theory
Of government and became volcanic
if not glorioas-A;, the southern Confed-
eracy. What if Pickett's column had
gone headlong eror?
In the retrospect we see that it was
not an impossible thing. Longstreet,
who was about the only cool headed
man in that tremendous melee, thought
it impossible town with Lees method,
and the event vindicated his Judgment.
Strangely enough, on that day the north
did not imagine it possible for Lee to
be victorious. Neither did the north
suppose that the loss of the battle would
entail irreparable disaster in the field
or change the final results of the war.
The. leaders Of the southern Confeder-
acy made their greatest mistake in not
understanding this latent and irrevoca-
BILE determination of the northern people
to win the fight. 1t might take
years or IA, but the settled purpose of
the average Union man was to re-estab-
1ish the nation without the loss Of foot
Of soil or single prerogative of the
government. There never was we'll
developed doubt in the northern states
that the flag, would ultimately be re-
planted in uneqnivocal triumph through
out the Union. This sentiment, wide
spread and rock founded, might have
rallied and doubtless would have raj
lied and prevailed even if the Confeder-
ates had triumphed at Gettysburg. but
after SO years we may well recall the
peril Of that hour. and repeat the ques-
ton, What if Lee had won?
If Lee had won, he himself would
have become titanic. He would have
risen to anothersplane in military his
tory. No futurereverse or final failure
could then haxs dimmed his luster.
Moscow and Leipsic and Waterloo beat
in vain on the martial glory of Napo-
leon. There were great elements in the
character of Robert E. Lee. His personal
grandeur cannqt be doubted. His career
as a commander has been applauded by
all military critics. In the Memoirs
of Grant" one may perceive that the
man of Galena, not. given to weak jeal-
ousies, was touched on several instances
by the magnificent bearing and possibly
superior fame Cd. his rival.
If Lee had succeeded in, crushing
Hancock. in cutting Meades army in
two, in adding Gettysburg to the list of
his victories, his glory as a general must
have shone through the centuries.
If Lee had won, the Confederate debt
would probably have become something
instead Of nothing. Shylock Britannicus,
who had given his NOR " with the dou-
BILE hope Of disrupting . Union and
gaining for himself fl . monopoly
Of the American. cotton crol sd every
thing staked on Pickett 8 chai ke. Vicks-
burg also just then struck him in the
hollow side, and he resounded like
vacuum, but his great hazard was on
Cemetery Ridge. The British govern
ment was with him in hope, and so was
Franceb and SO was all the west of Eu-
rope. II the Confederacy could once gain
recognition, then his bonds, payable six
months afterward, would have value,
but if the Coufederacy should break and
recoil from that village graveyard then
the hazarded gold Of Britannicus must
be dissipated forever with the smoke
About the only unmixed blessedness
in the memories Of the civil war is the
happy yrecollecticn that the British bloat
who tried, on false information and
with false hopes, to purchase the dis
memberment Of the American Union
lost his money forever at Gettysburg.
He paid the bill. The two hours vol
cano Of Alexander's batteries, roaring
and exploding over Hunt and Hancock,
was an expensive sport which was liqui-
dated in full by Old Moneybags of Eng
land. We rejoice in the retrospect at his
1rreparable loss and modification, just
as he would have smiled from one of
his mutton chops to the other at our
discontinue and ruin if Lee had won
the battle.
On the other hand, Shylock Ameri-
,Canus was confirmed and made secure
BY the breaking Of Pickett's column. OF
certainty, much of the money which
was hazarded on our cause at home
and some that was given abroad-was
given with the patriotic design of up
holding the Union cause and building
yamprts about republican institutions,
but much more of it was given simply
and solely as speculation. There were
men who dickered in our sorrows, re-
5oiced in our disasters, bought our debt
In the dark days at a nominal figure,
got the bonds at every advantage to
themselves, and who, with their de-
sceulants, for more than 80 years have
fattened themselves to perfect fatness
1t the expense Of the American people.
They have without compunction eaten
the toll and drank the tears of the hum
BILE millions, but for whose energy and
forbearance the nightmare-still as
heavy as ever-would long since, by
some means. have been swept away.
The world knows how money behaves
itself in the presence of danger. The
world knows how specie in particular
lodges and hides at the first alarm and
how . people in every warlike crisis are
driven by necessity to help themselves