Thirty thousand magnificent men had been killed and mangled.
The report from Chancellorsville drifted slowly and ominously northward. The White House was still. The dead were walking beside the lonely, tall figure who paced the floor in dumb anguish, pausing now and then at the window to look toward the hills of Virginia.
Lee's fame now filled the world and the North shivered at the sound of it.
Volunteering had ceased. But the cannon were still calling for fodder. The draft was applied. And when it was resisted in fierce riots, the soldiers trained their guns on their own people. The draft wheel was turned by bayonets and the ranks of the army filled with fresh young bodies to be mangled.
Hooker fell before Lee's genius and Meade took his place.
The Confederate Government, flushed with its costly victories, once more sought a political sensation by the invasion of the North. Lee marched his army of veterans into Pennsylvania.
At Gettysburg he met Meade.
The first day the Confederates won. They drove the blue army back through the streets of the village and their gallant General, John F. Reynolds, was killed.
The second day was one of frightful slaughter. The Union army at its close had lost twenty thousand men, the Confederate fifteen thousand.
The moon rose and flooded the rocky field of blood and death with silent glory. From every shadow and from every open space through the hot breath of the night came the moans of thousands and high above their chorus rang the cries for water.