Fitzhugh Lee says of the second day, “Longstreet was attacking the Marye’s Hill of the position.”[137] At Fredericksburg, General Burnside attacked at Marye’s Hill in six or more successive assaults with some twenty or thirty thousand against three brigades under McLaws and Ransom and the artillery; he had about four hundred yards to march from his covered ways about Fredericksburg to Marye’s Hill. When his last attack was repulsed in the evening, he arranged and gave his orders for the attack to be renewed in the morning, giving notice that he would lead it with the Ninth Corps, but upon reports of his officers abandoned it. General Lee’s assaulting columns of fifteen or twenty thousand had a march of a mile to attack double their numbers, better defended than were the three brigades of Confederates at Marye’s Hill that drove back Burnside. The enemy on Cemetery Hill was in stronger position than the Confederates at Marye’s Hill.
Fitzhugh Lee writes in the volume already quoted,—
“Over the splendid scene of human courage and human sacrifice at Gettysburg there arises in the South an apparition, like Banquo’s ghost at Macbeth’s banquet, which says the battle was lost to the Confederates because some one blundered.”
Call them Banquo, but their name is Legion. Weird spirits keep midnight watch about the great boulders, while unknown comrades stalk in ghostly ranks through the black fastnesses of Devil’s Den, wailing the lament, “Some one blundered at Gettysburg! Woe is me, whose duty was to die!”
Fitzhugh Lee makes his plans, orders, and movements to suit his purpose, and claims that they would have given Gettysburg to the Confederates, but he is not likely to convince any one outside of his coterie that over the heights of Gettysburg was to be found honor for the South.
General Meade said that the suggestion to work towards his line of communication was sound “military sense.” That utterance has been approved by subsequent fair judgment, and it is that potent fact that draws the spiteful fire of latter-day knights.
Forty thousand men, unsupported as we were, could not have carried the position at Gettysburg. The enemy was there. Officers and men knew their advantage, and were resolved to stay until the hills came down over them. It is simply out of the question for a lesser force to march over broad, open fields and carry a fortified front occupied by a greater force of seasoned troops.
Referring to the proposed move around the Union left to cut the line of communication, a parallel in the Franco-German war is appropriate. When the manœuvres of the campaign had pushed Marshal MacMahon’s army back to the road between Paris and Metz, the latter fortified and occupied by the army under Marshal Bazaine, MacMahon hesitated between Paris and Metz, and was manœuvred out of position to a point north of the line. Von Moltke seized the opportunity and took position on the line, which gave him shorter routes east and west. So that MacMahon, to reach either point, must pass the German forces under Von Moltke. He made a brave effort to reach Metz, and Von Moltke, to maintain his advantage, was called to skilful manœuvre and several gallant affairs, but succeeded in holding his advantage that must call MacMahon to general engagement or surrender. Out-generalled, and with a demoralized army, he thought the latter his proper alternative.
The relative conditions of the armies were similar. The Union army, beaten at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, and drawn from its aggressive campaign to defensive work in Pennsylvania, had met disaster in its battle of the 1st. If it had been outgeneralled, and dislodged of position without further attack, it would have been in poor condition to come in aggressive battle against its adversary in well-chosen defensive grounds.
Again, in our own war, when the Union army carried the Confederate works west of Petersburg on the 2d of April, 1865, General Meade got his army together and was about to march east to finish his work by the capture of Petersburg. General Grant objected,—that the Confederates would retreat during the night; at Petersburg he would be behind them; in his then position he would be alongside of them, and have an even start, with better prospect to strike across their march and force them to general battle or surrender; and he ordered arrangements for the march west at daylight.