54 Ten Years of my Life. 



at Hagerstown, only a few miles from the glorious battle-field 

 of Antietam. 



The consternation at Washington beggers description. The 

 President called out a hundred thousand men more, to serve 

 for six months, and to be levied from the next threatened 

 States— Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New York, which State 

 was to furnish seventy thousand men. 



Many sighed now for Mvlellan, for they discovered that 

 their favourite, ' Fighting Joe/ though a very brave man and 

 good commander of a corps, was no strategist. At the eleventh 

 hour he was relieved by General Meade, who at once attacked 

 the rebels, the nth (German) Corps and the ist being in ad- 

 vance. Howard had to fall back before an overwhelming 

 force, to a position near Gettysburg, of which the centre was 

 the cemetery, waiting for reinforcements. A great battle en- 

 sued on the 2nd of June, and the Germans fought gloriously, 

 well supported on their left by the 3rd Corps, under General 

 Sickles, who here lost one leg by a spent cannon-ball 



The battle was renewed on the 3rd ; the rebels were every- 

 where repulsed, and retired on the morning of the 4th, pursued 

 by the victorious troops. Though Meade did not succeed 

 either "in annihilating Lee or in preventing him from recrossing 

 the Potomac, and retreating towards the Rapidan, he was not 

 blamed and treated as a traitor as McClellan had been, but 

 praised deservedly as the saviour of Maryland, Pennsylvania, 

 and Washington, though he had lost not less than twenty-three 

 thousand men in dead, wounded, and missing. The Potomac 

 army took their old position on the Rappahanoc. 



1 judge it necessary to give a short sketch of these impor- 

 tant events, as there resulted from them others which occurred 

 in Nev/ York, and in which Salm and myself were involved. 



The military enthusiasm of the people had, as said before, 

 much abated, and recruits were not to be had, notwithstanding 

 the enormous bounties which were paid, Soldiers the Gov- 

 ernment, however, must have, and a draft was ordered. This 

 measure was very obnoxious to the people, and became still 

 more so to the poorer classes, in consequence of a most foolish 

 law, which permitted drafted people to buy themselves oft by 

 paying three hundred dollars. , 



