fever, uttered a groan.

But the chief sound was a blended note made by the turning of wheels,
and the hoofs of horses sinking in the soft earth. The officers gave
but few orders, and the cavalrymen who rode on either flank looked
solicitously into the wagons now and then to see how their wounded
friends fared, though they seldom spoke. The darkness they did not mind,
because they were used to it, and the rain and the coolness were a relief,
after three days of the fiercest battle the American continent had ever
known, fought in the hottest days that the troops could recall.

Thus Lee's army drew its long length from the fatal field of Gettysburg,
although his valiant brigades did not yet know that the clump of trees
upon Cemetery Hill had marked the high tide of the Confederacy. All that
memorable Fourth of July, following the close of the battle they had lain,
facing Meade and challenging him to come on, confident that while the
invasion of the North was over they could beat back once more the
invasion of the South.

They had no word of complaint against their great commander, Lee.
The faith in him, which was so high, remained unbroken, as it was
destined to remain so to the last. But men began to whisper to one
another, and say if only Jackson had been there. They mourned anew
that terrible evening in the Wilderness when Lee had lost his mighty
lieutenant, his striking arm, the invincible Stonewall. If the man in
the old slouch hat had only been with Lee on Seminary Ridge it would now
be the army of Meade retreating farther into the North, and they would be
pursuing. That belief was destined to sink deep in the soul of the South,
and remain there long after the Confederacy was but a name.