e day on which Meade succeeded Hooker in the
Federal command, the Confederate semicircle, now formed by Lee's
whole army, stretched from Chambersburg on the west, through Carlisle
on the north, to York on the east; while the massed Federals were
still in Maryland, near Middletown and Frederick, thirty miles
south of Gettysburg, and only forty miles northwest of nervous
Washington.

Hooker's successor, George G. Meade, was the fifth defender of
Washington within the last ten months. Luckily for the Union, Meade
was a sound, though not a great, commander, and his hands were
fairly free. Luckily again, he was succeeded in command of the Fifth
Corps by George Sykes, the excellent leader of those magnificent
regulars who fought so well at Antietam and Second Manassas. The
change from interference to control was made only just in time
at Washington; for three days after Meade's free hand began to
feel its way along the threatened front the armies met upon the
unexpected battlefield of Gettysburg.

Lee in Pennsylvania was in the midst of a very hostile population
and facing superior forces which he could only defeat in one of
two difficult ways: either by a sudden, bewildering, and unexpected
attack, like Jackson's and his own at Chancellorsville, or by an
impregnable defense on ground that also favored a victorious
counter-attack and the subsequent crushing pursuit. But there was
no Jackson now; and the nature of the country did not favor the
bewildering of Federals who were fighting at home under excellent
generals well served by a competent staff and well screened by cavalry.
So the "fog of war" was quite as dense round Lee's headquarters as
it was round Meade's on the first of July, when Lee found that his
chosen point of concentration near Gettysburg was already occupied
by Buford's cavalry, with infantry and some artillery in support.
The surprise--and no very great surprise--was mutual. The Federals
were found where they could stand on their defense in a very strong
position if the rest of their army could come up in time. And Lee's
only advantage was that, having already ordered concentration round
the same position, he had a few hours' start of Meade in getting
there.

Each commander had intended to make the other one attack if possible;
and Meade of course knew that Lee, with inferior numbers and vastly
inferior supplies, could not afford to stay long among gathering
enemies in the hostile North without decisive