General George C. Meade was appointed his successor on June 28.  Striking due north with all speed, ably supported by a remarkable group of corps-commanders and the veteran Army of the Potomac handsomely reinforced and keenly eager to fight, Meade brought Lee to bay near the village of Gettysburg, and after three days of terrific fighting, in which the losses of the two armies aggregated over forty-five thousand men, on the 3d of July he defeated Lee’s army and turned it rapidly southward.  This was the most decisive battle of the war, and the most bloody, finally lost by Lee through his making the same mistake that Burnside did at Fredericksburg, in attacking equal forces intrenched on a hill.  Nothing was left to Lee but retreat across the Potomac, and Meade—­an able but not a great captain—­made the mistake that McClellan had made at Antietam in not following up his advantage, but allowing Lee to escape into Virginia.

To cap the climax of Union success, on the 4th of July General Ulysses S. Grant, who had been operating against Vicksburg on the Mississippi during four months, captured that city, with thirty-two thousand prisoners, and a few days later Port Hudson with its garrison fell into his hands.  The signal combination of victories filled the North with enthusiasm and the President with profoundest gratitude.  It is true, Meade’s failure to follow and capture Lee was a bitter disappointment to Lincoln.  The Confederate commander might have been compelled to surrender to a flushed and conquering army a third larger than his own, had Meade pursued and attacked him, and the war might perhaps virtually have ended.  Yet Lee’s army was by no means routed, and was in dangerous mood, while Meade’s losses had been really larger than his; so that the Federal general’s caution does not lack military defenders.  Nevertheless, he evidently was not the man that had been sought for.

More than two years had now elapsed since the Army of the Potomac had been organized by McClellan, and yet it was no nearer the end which the President, the war minister, the cabinet, and the generals had in view,—­the capture of Richmond.  Thus far, more than one hundred thousand men had been lost in the contest which the politicians had supposed was to be so brief.  Not a single general had arisen at the East equal to the occasion.  Only a few of the generals had seen important military service before the war, and not one had evinced remarkable abilities, although many had distinguished themselves for bravery and capacity to manage well an army corps.  Each army commander had failed when great responsibilities had been imposed upon him.  Not one came up to popular expectation.  The great soldier must be “born” as well as “made.”