d Ewell's success, costing the Union the life
of its gallant General Reynolds, commanding the First Corps; the second
day, when, back and forth by the Devil's Den, Hood on one side and Dan
Sickles on the other, fought their men as soldiers had never fought on
the American continent before; and the third day, when for an hour a
hundred cannon on Seminary Ridge belched hell-fire at a hundred cannon
on Cemetery Ridge, prelude, in the natural key, to Pickett's
death-defying charge.

"A thousand fell where Kemper led,
A thousand died where Garnett bled.
In blinding flame and strangling smoke
The remnant through the batteries broke
And crossed the works with Armistead."

The Union army was for the first time fighting a great battle on Union
soil. The homes of many who were engaged stood within sound of the
Gettysburg cannon. As the Confederates did in many other engagements,
the Federals here felt that they were repelling an invader, and they
fought accordingly, with a grim iron resisting power which they had
never displayed before.

Great praise was due to General Hancock, and perhaps still more to
General Howard, for early perceiving the strength of Cemetery Hill as a
defensible position. On the first day, after General Reynolds had
fallen at his post of duty with the First Corps, General Doubleday, next
in command, was on the point of ordering a retreat, the attack seeming
too fearful to be withstood. But Howard, coming up with the Eleventh
Corps and assuming command of the field, overruled Doubleday, and, by
enforcing a most stubborn resistance against Hill's and Ewell's
desperate onsets, probably saved Cemetery Hill from capture
that evening.

So far as has ever yet been made apparent, every plan which Lee formed
for the battle of Gettysburg, every order which he gave, was wise and
right. We do not except even his management on the third day. It is easy
to find fault with dispositions when they have failed of happy results.
Men have said that instead of attacking in front on that day Lee should
have drawn Ewell from the left and thrown him to Longstreet's right,
manoeuvring Meade out of his position. But in this matter, too, Lee's
judgment was probably good. Changing his plan of attack would have been
a partial confession of defeat, to some extent disheartening his men.
The Union Sixth Corps, fresh and free, General John Sedgwick at its
head, was sure to have pounced on any troops seeki