Once more, after a vivid description of the first day’s battle, in which Buford with his cavalry division, Doubleday with the First Corps, and Howard with the Eleventh, checked the rebel advance, but at last, after heroic fighting, were overwhelmed and driven back in a disorder which in some brigades resembled a rout, the Comte de Paris recognizes, in the choice of position on which the Union troops were rallied, something beyond the will and wisdom of man.

“A resistless impulse seems to spur it (the rebel army) on to battle.  It believes itself invincible.  There is scorn of its adversary; nearly all the Confederate generals have undergone the contagion.  Lee himself, the grave, impassive man, will some day acknowledge that he has allowed himself to be influenced by these common illusions.  It seems that the God of Armies had designated for the Confederates the lists where the supreme conflict must take place:  they cheerfully accept the alternative, without seeking for any other.”

All the world knows now that the position in the “lists” thus “designated” to the Union army was almost an equivalent for the thousands of men kept idle and useless elsewhere.  To a certain extent the conditions of Fredericksburg are reversed, and the Confederates, in turn, must storm lofty ridges lined with artillery.

Of those days of awful suspense, the 3d, 4th, and 5th of July, the French historian gives but a faint idea in the following words:  “In the mean while, the North was anxiously awaiting for the results of the great conflict.  Uneasiness and excitement were perceptible everywhere; terror prevailed in all those places believed to be within reach of the invaders.  Rumors and fear exaggerated their number, and the remembrance of their success caused them to be deemed invincible.”

When, therefore, the tidings came, “The rebel army totally defeated,” with other statements of the victory too highly colored, a burden was lifted from loyal hearts which the young of this generation cannot gauge; but with the abounding joy and gratitude there were also, in the breasts of hundreds of thousands, sickening fear and suspense which must remain until the fate of loved ones was known.

In too vivid fancy, wives and mothers saw a bloody field strewn with still forms, and each one asked herself, “Could I go among these, might I not recognize his features?”

But sorrow and fear shrink from public observation, while joy and exultation seek open expression.  Before the true magnitude of the victory at Gettysburg could be realized, came the knowledge that the nation’s greatest soldier, General Grant, had taken Vicksburg and opened the Mississippi.