5. General Burnside lost his place by his disaster at Fredericksburg, and was followed in command of the Army of the Potomac by General Joseph Hooker. This gallant commander was as signally beaten at Chancellorsville on May 2d and 3d. No battle of any age conferred greater honor upon the victors; but in the loss of Stonewall Jackson the South was deprived of a leader whose place could not be supplied. North Carolina was never more gloriously vindicated than on this famous field, and ex-Governor Graham, who was then in Richmond, said, a few days afterwards, in the Confederate States Senate, that half the men killed and wounded at Chancellorsville belonged to North Carolina regiments.
6. So astonishing was the result of this battle, and so crushing its effects upon the Federal authorities, that General Lee again resolved upon an invasion of the North. The invasion proved a failure, and after several severe battles General Lee was forced to return, with his defeated army, to Virginia. It was on that last dread day, the 3d of July, at Gettysburg, that he discovered that even his incomparable infantry could not accomplish everything he desired.
7. Thirty thousand of the bravest and best, who had so long made the Army of Northern Virginia unconquerable, were lost to our cause forever. Among the North Carolinians, Generals Pender and Pettigrew, Colonels Burgwin, Marshall and Isaac E. Avery were slain, and a host of subalterns likewise perished.
8. Another great disaster happened at this time in the surrender of Vicksburg, Mississippi, with the army there under command of General Pemberton, involving as it did the occupation of so large a portion of the Confederacy. These great losses, occurring as they did on the same day, and so vitally affecting our strength, were never retrieved, and from that day Southern fortunes waned, with occasional flickerings of hope, until the close at Appomattox.
9. But many gallant struggles were yet to be made. On different fields the great forces of the Union were to be bravely repelled, but the ranks of General Lee's army were so much thinned that it became daily more impossible to confront the increasing horde that gathered against it from all civilized nations. But the policy of attrition and exhaustion was not to be seen in full force until the next year.
10. During the month of June, Colonel Spear's cavalry raid in Hertford and Northampton counties was driven back by General M. W. Ransom, and, beyond this, there were no movements of a hostile character in the State limits during the year.
QUESTIONS.
1. In what condition was the South in 1863?
2. How was the port of Wilmington specially important to the Confederacy? Who was in command at this place?
3. What North Carolinians are mentioned as having risen to prominence?