"Within a Stone's Throw of Independence" at Gettysburg.
Our series of papers on Gettysburg — a summing up of which we may take an early opportunity of making — cannot be carefully studied by the unprejudiced student of history without an overwhelming conviction that if General Lee's orders had been properly carried out at Gettysburg, we would have won that field, crushed General Meade's army, rescued Maryland, captured Washington and Baltimore, and dictated terms of peace on Northern soil.
General Lee himself said, with a good deal of feeling, in conversation with some gentlemen in Lexington, Va. , not long before his death : "If I had had Stonewall Jackson at Gettysburg I should have won there a great victory, and if we had reaped the fruits within our reach, we should have established the Independence of the Confederacy."
We verily believe that the verdict of impartial History will be that the Confederates would have won Gettysburg, and Independence, but for the failure of one man.
But it is not generally known that just at this crisis England was on the eve of recognizing the Confederacy, and was only prevented from doing so by our defeat at Gettysburg. The story is thus told by an English statesman, as quoted by the London Morning Advertiser:
"I am able to speak with knowledge on this subject ; and I affirm, without fear of contradiction, that Mr. Disraeli, although never committing himself — as Mr. Gladstone and Lord John Russell did — to the principles for which the Southern Confederacy was fighting, always regarded ' recognition' as a possible card to play, and was quite prepared, at the proper moment, to play it. The moment seemed to have come when General Lee invaded the Federal States, after having shattered the strength of the Northern invasion. At that time it was notorious that the bulk of the Tory party and more than half of the Ministerialists were prepared for such a step. Mr. Lindsay's resolution on the subject had failed, Mr. Roebuck's eloquence had been equally ineffectual. But in the face of the repeated triumphs of the Southern army, and the possible occupation of the capital by General Lee's troops, it seemed hopeless to restrain the pent-up feelings of the House of Commons, and Mr. Disraeli saw his opportunity.
"I had frequent conversations with him on the subject, and I per-
