The Star of Gettysburg: A Story of Southern High Tide

by Joseph A. Altsheler

The figure of Lee in the height and fullness of victory was imposing. An English general who saw him, and who also saw all the famous men of his time, wrote long afterward that he was the only great man he had ever seen who looked all his greatness. Tall, strongly built, with thick gray hair, a short gray beard, clipped closely, ruddy complexion and blue eyes, he was as careful in dress as Jackson had been careless. He spoke with a uniform politeness, not superficial, but from the heart, and his glance was nearly always grave and benevolent.

General Lee in these warm days of late spring occupied a large tent. Even when the army was not on the march he invariably preferred tents to houses, and now Harry saw nearly all the famous Southern generals in the east passing through that door. There was Longstreet, blue of eye like Lee, full bearded, thick and powerful, and proud of his horsemanship, in which he excelled.

Ewell, too, stumped in on his crutches, vigorous, enthusiastic, but never using profane language where Lee was. And there was A. P. Hill, of soldierly slenderness and of fine, pleasing manner; McLaws, who had done so well at Antietam; Pickett, not yet dreaming of the one marvelous achievement that was to be his; Old Jubal Early, as he was familiarly called, bald, bearded, rheumatic, profane, but brave and able; Hood, tall, yellow-haired; Pender, the North Carolinian, not yet thirty, religious like Jackson, and doomed like him to fall soon in battle; Tieth, Edward Johnson, Anderson, Trimble, Stuart, as gay and dandyish as ever; Ramseur, Jones, Daniel, young Fitzhugh Lee; Pendleton, Armistead, and a host of others whose names remained memorable to him. They were all tanned and sun-burned men. Few had reached early middle age, and the shadows of death were already gathering for many of them.

But the high spirits of the Southern army merely became higher as they began to make rapid but secret preparation for departure. The soldiers did not know where they were going, except that it was into the North, and they began to discuss the nature of the country they would find there. Harry took the message to the Invincibles to pack and march. Colonel Talbot and Lieutenant-Colonel St. Hilaire reluctantly dropped their unfinished game, put up the chessmen, and in an hour the Invincibles—few, but trim and strong—were marching to a position farther up the river.

The corps of Longstreet was to lead the way, and it would march the next morning. Harry now knew that the army would advance by way of the Shenandoah valley. The Northern troops had been raiding in the great valley and again had retaken Winchester, the pleasant little city so beloved of Jackson. Harry shared the anger at this news that Jackson would have felt had he been alive to hear it.

Harry was well aware, however, that the army could not slip away from its opponent. Hooker, still in command, was watching on the heights across the river, and there were the captive balloons hovering again in the sky. But the spirit of the troops was such that they did not care whether their march was known or not.

Harry and Dalton were awake early on the morning of the third of June, and they saw the corps of Longstreet file silently by, the bugle that called them away being the first note of the great and decisive Gettysburg campaign. They were better clothed and in better trim than they had been in a long time. They walked with an easy, springy gait, and the big guns rumbled at the heels of the horses, fat from long rest and the spring grass. They were to march north and west to Culpeper, fifty miles away, and there await the rest of the army.

Harry and Dalton felt great exhilaration. Movement was good not only for the body, but for the spirit as well. It made the blood flow more freely and the brain grow more active. Moreover, the beauty of the early summer that had come incited one to greater hope.

The great adventure had now begun, but it was not unknown to Hooker and his watchful generals on the other shore. The ground was dry and they had seen a column of dust rise and move toward the northwest. Their experienced eyes told them that such a cloud must be made by marching troops, and the men in the balloons with their glasses were able to catch the gleam of steel from the bayonets of Longstreet's men as they took the long road to Gettysburg.

Hooker had good men with him. He, too, as he stood on the left bank of the Rappahannock, was surrounded by able and famous generals, and others were to come. There was Meade, a little older than the others, but not old, tall, thin, stooped a bit, wearing glasses, and looking like a scholar, with his pale face and ragged beard, a cold, quiet man, able and thorough, but without genius. Then came Reynolds, modest and quiet, who many in the army claimed would have shown the genius that Meade lacked had it not been for his early death, for he too, like Pender, would soon be riding to a soldier's grave. And then were Doubleday and Newton and Hancock, a great soldier, a man of magnificent presence, whose air and manner always inspired enthusiasm, soon to be known as Hancock the Superb; Sedgwick, a soldier of great insight and tenacity; Howard, a religious man, who was to come out of the war with only one arm; Hunt and Gibbon, and Webb and Sykes, and Slocum and Pleasanton, who commanded the cavalry, and many others.