The

United States, the President under whose leadership the national history had come to a close. But the Federal lines were not broken. third day of Gettysburg made clear that with equality of position and with substantial equality in numbers there was no better fighting material in the army of the grey than in the army of the blue. The advance of Pickett's division to the crest of Cemetery Ridge marked the high tide of the Confederate cause. Longstreet's men were not able to prevail against the sturdy defence of Hancock's second corps and when, on the Fourth of July, Lee's army took up its line of retreat to the Potomac, leaving behind it thousands of dead and wounded, the calm judgment of Lee and his associates must have made clear to them that the cause of the Confederacy was lost. The army of Northern Virginia had shattered itself against the defences of the North, and there was for Lee no reserve line. For a long series of months to come, Lee, magnificent engineer officer that he was, and with a sturdy persistency which withstood all disaster, was able to maintain defensive lines in the Wilderness, at Cold Harbor, and in front of Petersburg, but as his brigades crumbled away under the persistent and unceasing attacks of the army of the Potomac, he must have realised

long before the day of Appomattox that his task was impossible. What Gettysburg decided in the East was confirmed with equal emphasis by the fall of Vicksburg in the West. On the Fourth of July, 1863, the day on which Lee, defeated and discouraged, was taking his shattered army out of Pennsylvania, General Grant was placing the Stars and Stripes over the earthworks of Vicksburg. The Mississippi was now under the control of the Federalists from its source to the mouth, and that portion of the Confederacy lying to the west of the river was cut off so that from this territory no further cooperation of importance could be rendered to the armies either of Johnston or of Lee.

Lincoln writes to Grant after the fall of Vicksburg giving, with his word of congratulation, the admission that he (Lincoln) had doubted the wisdom or the practicability of Grant's movement to the south of Vicksburg and inland to Jackson. "You were right," said Lincoln, "and I was wrong.

On the 19th of November, 1863, comes the Gettysburg address, so eloquent in its simplicity. It is probable that no speaker in recorded history ever succeeded in putting into so few words so much feeling, such suggestive thought, and such

Address delivered at the dedication of the bemetery at Gettysting.

Four scose and seven years ago our fathers brought forth tion, conceives in Liberty,

on this continent, a new na=

and dedicated

to the proposition that all men are cre

ated equal.

Now we are engagen in a great cu're war, testing whether that nation, or any mate ations po conceived and po dedicated, canlong englure. We and met on a great battle field of that war. We have come to dedicats a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might liver. To is atten gether fitting and proper that we should

do this.

But, in a

larger sense, we can not dedis

cats we can not consecration we can not The bravo mew, live

hallows this

ground, ing and dead, who struggles here, have cons secrated to, for above our, •poor power to adds or detract, the world will little note, nor long remember whoo we pay here, but it can

Dover

forget what they did her. It is for as the living, nother, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fou= gho her have thus far so nobly advanced s do is rather for us to be here dedication to the great tasks remaining beforeus - that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the fast full measure of devotion__that highly resolve that these dead shall now have dewe en vain - that this nation, God, shall have as new birth of frees dom- and that government of the people, by the people, for the peoplo, shall not pers ish from the earth.

we

here

under

November 19. 1.863,

Abraham Lincole.

high idealism. The speech is one that children can understand and that the greatest minds must admire.

There was disappointment that Meade had not shown more energy after Gettysburg in the pursuit of Lee's army and that some attempt, at least, had not been made to interfere with the retreat across the Potomac. Military critics have in fact pointed out that Meade had laid himself open to criticism in the management of the battle itself. At the time of the repulse of Pickett's charge, Meade had available at the left and in rear of his centre the sixth corps which had hardly been engaged on the previous two days, and which included some of the best fighting material in the army. It has been pointed out more than once that if that corps had been thrown in at once with a countercharge upon the heels of the retreating divisions of Longstreet, Lee's right must have been curled up and overwhelmed. If this had happened, Lee's army would have been so seriously shattered that its power for future service would have been inconsiderable. Meade was accepted as a good working general but the occasion demanded something more forcible in the way of leadership and, early in 1864, Lincoln sends for the man who by his success in the West had