The Neihart herald. [volume] (Neihart, Mont.) 1890-1901, 1896-04-04
GETTYSBURG FIELD.
Secession Went Down on Its
Bloody Slopes.
IF LEE HAD BEEN VICTORIOUS

Tho Confederate Debt Would BE some-
thing Instead of Nothing English Gold (
Haxarded on Cemetery Ridge - Sedan
Was In View of Little Round Top.
ICopyright 1895, by John Clark Ridpath.l
"
The blood f1ecked foam of the great
rebellion broke surfiike over Cemetery
Ridge. One Of our poets has character
ized 1t 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 glorious-in the southern Confed
eracy What if Pickett's column had
gone headlong over?
| 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
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 4
years or Ia, but the settled purpose of
the average Union man was to re-estab-
lish the nation without the loss of a foot
Of soil or single prerogative of the
government. There never was well
developed doubt in the northern states
that the flag would ultimately be re-
planted in unequivocal 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 80 years we may well recall the
peril of that hour and repeat the ques
tion, What if Lee had won?
II Lee had won, he himself would
have become titanic. He would have
risen to another plane in military his
tory. No future reverse or final failure
could then have dimmed his luster.
Moscow and Leipsic and Waterloo beat
in vain on the martial glory of Napo-
leon. There were great elements i'll the
character of Robert E. Lee. His personal
grandeur cannot be doubted His career
as 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 of his rival.
If Lee had succeeded in crushing
Hancock, in cutting Meade's army in
two, in adding Gettysburg to the list of
his victories, his glory as general must
have shone through the centuries.
If Lee had won, the Confederate debt
would probably have become something
instead Of nothing. Shylock Britannicns,
who had given his money with the dou-
BILE hope Of disrupting the Union and
gaining for himself future monopoly
Of the American cotton crop, had every
thing staked on Pickett's S charge. Vicks-
burg also just then struck him in the
hollow side, and he resounded like a
vacuum, but his great hazard was on
Cemetery Ridge. The British govern.
ment was with him in hope, and SO was
France, and SO was all the west of Eu-
| TO fola III nnro fyai n
recognition, then his bonds, payable six
months afterward, would have value,
but if the Confederacy should break and
recoil from that village graveyard ther
the hazarded gold of Britannicus must
be dissipated forever with the smoke.
About the only unmixed blessednesl
in the memories Of the civil war is thu
happy recollection that the British bloa
who tried, on false information ant
with false hopes, to purchase the dis
memberment of the American UnioI
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 hi
irreparable loss and modification, jus
as he would have smiled from one o
his mutton chops to the other at ou
discontinue and ruin if Lee had woi
the battle.
On the other hand, Shylock Ameri
canus was confirmed and made secur
by the breaking of Pickett's column. O
a certainty, much Of the money whicl
was hazarded on our cause at home
and some that was given abroad-wa
given withthe patriotic design Of up
holding the Union cause and building
ramparts about republican institutions
but much more Of it was given simpl
and solely as speculation. There wer
men who dickered in our SORROWS, re
joiced in our disasters, bought our deb
in the dark days at a nominal figure
got the bonds at every advantage t
themselves. and who, with their de
scendants, for more than 30 years hav
fattened themselves to perfect fatnes
at the expense Of the American people
They have without compunction cate
the toll and drank the tears Of the hum
BILE millions, but for whose energy an
forbearance tho nightmare-still q
hoavv an evor-wou1d long since h