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In my first article I declared that the invasion of
Pennsylvania was a movement that
General Lee and his council agreed should be defensive in tactics, while, of course, it was offensive in strategy: that the campaign was conducted on this plan until we had left
Chambersburg, when, owing to the absence of our cavalry, and our consequent ignorance of the enemy's whereabouts, we collided with them unexpectedly, and that
General Lee had lost the matchless equipoise that usually characterized him, and, through excitement and the doubt that enveloped the enemy's movements, changed the whole plan of the campaign, and delivered a battle under ominous circumstances.
I declared that the battle of the 2d was not lost through the tardiness of the First Corps, but through the failure of the troops ordered to co-operate to do so; that there was no order ever issued for a sunrise attack; that no such order could have been issued, and that the First Corps could not possibly have attacked at that time; that when it did attack its movement was weakened by the derangement of the directing brigade of support under
General Wilcox, and was rendered hopeless by the failure of
Ewell's Corps to co-operate, its line of battle having been broken through the advice of
General Early, and that in this attack
Hood's and
McLaws' Divisions did the best fighting ever done on any field, and encountered and drove back virtually the whole of the Army of the Potomac.
I held that the mistakes of the
Gettysburg campaign were:
First, the change of the original plan of the campaign, which was to so maneuvre as to force the
Federals to attack us; second,
