Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 14.
Reverend J. William Jones, Ed.

[442] had marked out for Lee the necessity for inception in attack, and his was not a nature to hesitate when the time for action had come, nor were his the men to cause a feeling of doubt in the heart of their commander. After the first day's engagement, favorable to the Confederate arms, calmly and with a soldier's eye he viewed the difficulties to be overcome, estimating at their full value the advantages to be gained by possible success, weighing well the resources at his command, and relying upon his trusty soldiery to do all that men might do, he determined upon a continuance of the contest. And so for two more days of bloodshed, from here at Culp's Hill, there upon the cemetery slopes, and further on, where the grand charge of Pickett and his Virginians was met by the storm of shot and shell that swept them, even at the moment of victory, from existence, and further still, to where in the far distance Round Top frowns at the extreme left of the Federal line, with all the appliances of modern warfare brought into play, the fierce attack and desperate resistance in very revelry of death, went on. Gallantly, most gallantly, had the men of his command responded to Lee's appeal, but the work demanded was beyond human performance. And when, on the morning of the fourth, the day dawn came to look upon the dead that along these slopes in thousands lay cold and stark together, upon the wounded and the dying crowded close in ranks unnumbered in the hospitals at the rear, upon the thinned and wasted remnant of the host that for three long days had striven in the very jaws of death for victory, upon every feature of the scene, ready as that remnant was for renewal of the contest, there was impressed the evidence, plain now, though unacknowledged then, that the beginning of the end had come. What matters it that Lee, as, he fell back sorely wounded, presented a front so bold, and an array so compact that even the stout hearts of Meade and his lieutenants hesitated to strike at the foe in retreat! What matter the days of the Wilderness, the gallant charge of Lookout Heights, or the dreary hours in the trenches at Petersburg! It was here that the chief act of the great drama was played—all that went before the prelude; all else the sequel.

The military mind and the popular heart have united in selecting this as the one battlefield whose distinctive features are to be preserved by enduring monuments that will tell to future ages and to coming generations the story that was writ in their father's blood. Memorial stones, recording brilliant deeds and bold achievement, with tributes to the dead upon the field of honor, are to be seen on