Then the Federal skirmishers down in the valley began fitfully firing; and the waiting masses on the Federal slopes began to watch more intently still. "Here they come! Here comes the infantry!" The blue ranks stirred a little as the men felt their cartridge boxes and the sockets of their bayonets. The calm warnings of the officers could be heard all down the line of Gibbon's magnificent division, which stood straight in Pickett's path. "Steady, men, steady! Don't fire yet!"For a very few, tense minutes Pickett's division disappeared in an undulation of the ground. Then, at less than point-blank range, it seemed to spring out of the very earth, no longer in three lines but one solid mass of rushing gray, cresting, like a tidal wave, to break in fury on the shore. Instantly, as if in answer to a single word, Hunt's guns and Gibbon's rifles crashed out together, and shot, shell, canister, and bullet cut gaping wounds deep into the dense gray ranks. Still, the wave broke;and, from its storm-blown top, one furious tongue surged over the breastwork and through the hedge of bayonets. It came from Armistead's brigade of stark Virginians. He led it on; and, with a few score men, reached the highwater mark of that last spring tide.
When he fell the tide of battle turned; turned everywhere upon that stricken field; turned throughout the whole campaign; turned even in the war itself.
As Pickett's men fell back they were swept by scythe-like fire from every gun and rifle that could mow them down. Not a single mounted officer remained; and of all the brave array that Pickett led three-fourths fell killed or wounded. The other fourth returned undaunted still, but only as the wreckage of a storm.
Lee's loss exceeded forty per cent of his command. Meade's loss fell short of thirty. But Meade was quite unable to pursue at once when Lee retired on the evening of the fourth. The opposing cavalry, under Pleasonton and Stuart respectively, had fought a flanking battle of their own, but without decisive result. So Lee could screen his retreat to the Potomac, where, however, his whole supply train might have been cut off if its escort under the steadfast Imboden had not been reinforced by every teamster who could pull a trigger.
Gettysburg and Vicksburg, coming together, of course raised the wildest expectations among the general public, expectations which found an unworthy welcome at Government headquarters, where Halleck wrote to Meade on the fourteenth: "The escape of Lee's army has created great dissatisfaction in the mind of the President." Meade at once replied: "The censure is, in my judgment, so undeserved that I most respectfully ask to be immediately relieved from the command of this army." Wiser counsels thereupon prevailed.
Lee and Meade maneuvered over the old Virginian scenes of action, each trying to outflank the other, and each being hampered by having to send reinforcements to their friends in Tennessee, where, as we have seen already, Bragg and Rosecrans were now maneuvering in front of Chattanooga. In October (after the Confederate victory of Chickamauga) Meade foiled Lee's attempt to bring on a Third Manassas. The campaign closed at Mine Run, where Lee repulsed Meade's attempted surprise in a three-day action, which began on the twenty-sixth of November, the morrow of Grant's three days at Chattanooga.
From this time forward the South was like a beleaguered city, certain to fall if not relieved, unless, indeed, the hearts of those who swayed the Northern vote should fail them at the next election.