490 Lee's unmolested retreat. [isea to remain as prisoners. That single desperate charge ended alike the battle and the campaign of invasion. The exhaustion and loss in three consecutive days of battle was such that Meade and his council of generals decided to rest on the following day, July 4, to await the intentions of the enemy. Lee, on his part, was only too glad of the respite. During the day he continued to present a bold front, but as darkness fell he began a hasty retreat, and his rear-guard disappeared before daylight of the 5th. His loss amounted to 36,000 killed, wounded, and missing ; that of the Federals was 23,000. Meade at once began a pursuit, which proved him to be a cautious rather than a brilliant commander. Heavy rains fell during the next few days, swelling the waters of the Potomac so as to render fording impossible; and a Unionist detachment partly de- stroyed the pontoon bridge which the enemy had used in his northward march. The Confederate army was again, as it had been a year before, in imminent danger. President Lincoln was intensely anxious that the opportunity should be seized to annihilate it and end the war; and General Halleck's dispatches conveyed his wishes in unmistakeable lan- guage. " Push forward and fight Lee before he can cross the Potomac," he telegraphed to Meade on the 7th. At the same time he communicated to him a note from the President, that Vicksburg had surrendered to Grant on July 4. By the 12th Lee had gained a strong position near, but still north of, the Potomac. There he was compelled to wait for the river to fall; and Meade reported that he would attack on the 13th. But at the last moment a council of war decided otherwise; and by the morning of the 14th the Confederate army had found means to cross the river and escape. Retreat and pursuit continued, with occasional engagements, but no decisive battle ; and by the end of the month the opposing armies again lay north and south of the Rappahannock in central Virginia. From that time until the wintry weather put an end to military operations, the plans and movements of the opposing generals form an intricate game of strategy, highly interesting to military students, but leading to no important or decisive result. The dead and wounded of the Unionist army, as well as those aban- doned by Lee, were humanely cared for at Gettysburg; and, with a happy inspiration, the Governor of Pennsylvania, in co-operation with the governors of all other loyal States whose troops took part in the conflict, caused a portion of the battle-field to be transformed into a national cemetery, in which the fallen soldiers found orderly burial, and which was in due time embellished with monuments to their heroism, as well as by all the skill with which landscape art can enhance the loveliness of nature. It was dedicated to its sacred use on November 19, 1863 ; and the address which President Lincoln delivered during that imposing ceremonial has become a classic in American
