, only to be hurled back and broken,
Carleton rode out down the hill and on the plain into the wheat field.
Then and there, seeing the awful debris, came the conviction that the
rebellion had seen its highest tide, and that henceforth it would be
only ebb.

When is a battle over, and how can one know it? That night, Friday,
and the next day, Saturday, Carleton felt satisfied that Lee was in
full retreat, though General Meade did not seem to think so.
Carleton's face was now set Bostonwards. Not being able to use the
army telegraph, he gave his first thought to reaching the railroad.
The nearest point was at Westminster, twenty-eight miles distant, from
which a freight-train was to leave at 4 P. M.

Rain was falling heavily, but with Whitelaw Reid as companion,
Carleton rode the twenty-eight miles in two hours and a half. Covered
with mud from head to foot, and soused to the skin, the two riders
reached Westminster at 3.55 P. M. As the train did not immediately
start, Carleton arranged for the care of his beast, and laying his
blanket on the engine's boiler, dried it. He then made his bed on the
floor of the bumping car, getting some sleep of an uncertain quality
before the train rolled into Baltimore.

At the hotel on Sunday morning he was seized by his friend, E. B.
Washburn, Grant's indefatigable supporter and afterwards Minister to
France, who asked for news. Carleton told him of victory and the
retreat of Lee. "You lie," was the impulsive answer. Washburn's nerves
had for days been under a strain. Then, after telling more, Carleton
telegraphed a half-column of news to the _Journal_ in Boston. This
message, sent thence to Washington, was the first news which President
Lincoln and the Cabinet had of Gettysburg. After a bath and hoped-for
rest, Carleton was not allowed to keep silence. All day, and until the
train was entered at night for New York, he was kept busy in telling
the good news.

The rest of the story of this famous "beat," as newspaper men call it,
is given in Carleton's own words to a Boston reporter, a day or two
before the celebration of his golden wedding in February, 1896:

"Monday I travelled by train to Boston, writing some of my story as I
rode along, and wiring ahead to the paper what they might expect from
me. When I reached the office I found Newspaper Row packed with
people, just as you will see it now on election night, and every one
more than anxious for details.

"It was too late, ho