of my General so early in the action of the 3d of July, leaving
important duties which, in the unreasoning excitement of the moment I in
part assumed, enabled me to do for the successful issue, something which
under other circumstances would not have fallen to my rank or place.
Deploring the occasion for taking away from the division in that moment
of its need its soldierly, appropriate head, so cool, so clear, I am yet
glad, as that was to be, that his example and his tuition have not been
entirely in vain to me, and that my impulses then prompted me to do
somewhat as he might have done had he been on the field. The encomiums
of officers, so numerous and some of so high rank, generously accorded
me for my conduct upon that occasion--I am not without vanity--were
gratifying. My position as a staff officer gave me an opportunity to see
much, perhaps as much as any one person, of that conflict. My
observations were not so particular as if I had been attached to a
smaller command; not so general as may have been those of a staff
officer to the General commanding the army; but of such as they were, my
heart was there, and I could do no less than to write something of them,
in the intervals between marches and during the subsequent repose of the
army at the close of the campaign. I have put somewhat upon these
pages--I make no apology for the egotism, if such there is, of this
account--it is not designed to be a history, but simply _my account_ of
the battle. It should not be assumed, if I have told of some
occurrences, that there were not other important ones. I would not have
it supposed that I have attempted to do full justice to the good conduct
of the fallen, or the survivors of the 1st and 12th Corps. Others must
tell of them. I did not see their work. A full account of _the battle as
it was_ will never, can never be made. Who could sketch the changes,
the constant shifting of the bloody panorama? It is not possible. The
official reports may give results as to losses, with statements of
attacks and repulses; they may also note the means by which results were
attained, which is a statement of the number and kind of the forces
employed, but the connection between means and results, the mode, the
battle proper, these reports touch lightly. Two prominent reasons at
least exist which go far to account for the general inadequacy of these
official reports, or to account for their giving no true idea of what
they assume to describe--the literary infirmity of the reporters and
their not seeing themselves and their commands as others would have seen
them. And factions, and parties, and politics, the curses of this
Republic, are already putting in their unreasonable demands for the
foremost honors of the field. "Gen. Hooker won Gettysburg." How? Not
with the army in person or by infinitesimal influence--leaving it almost
four days before the battle when both armies were scattered and fifty
miles apart! Was ever claim so absurd? Hooker, and he alone, won the
result at Chancellorsville. "Gen. Howard won Gettysburg!" "Sickles saved
the day!" Just Heaven, save the poor Army of the Potomac from its
friends! It has more to dread and less to hope from them than from the
red bannered hosts of the rebellion. The states prefer each her claim
for the sole brunt and winning of the fight. "Pennsylvania won it!" "New
York won it!" "Did not Old Greece, or some tribe from about the sources
of the Nile win it?" For modern Greeks--from Cork--and African Hannibals
were there. Those intermingled graves along the crest bearing the names
of every loyal state, save one or two, should admonish these geese to
cease to cackle. One of the armies of the country won the battle, and
that army supposes that Gen. Meade led it upon that occasion. If it be
not one of the lessons that this war teaches, that we have a country
paramount and supreme over faction, and party, and state, then was the
blood of fifty thousand citizens shed on this field in vain. For the
reasons mentioned, of this battle, greater than that of Waterloo, a
history, just, comprehensive, complete will never be written.
By-and-by, out of the chaos of trash and falsehood that the newspapers
hold, out of the disjointed mass of reports, out of the traditions and
tales that come down from the field, some eye that never saw the battle
will select, and some pen will write what will be named _the history_.
With that the world will be and, if we are alive, we must be, content.
Already, as I rode down from the heights, nature's mysterious loom was
at work, joining and weaving on her ceaseless web the shells had broken
there. Another spring shall green these trampled slopes, and flowers,
planted by unseen hands, shall bloom upon these graves; another autumn
and the yellow harvest shall ripen there--all not in less, but in higher
perfection for this poured out blood. In another decade of years, in
another century, or age, we hope that the Union, by the same means, may
repose in a securer peace and bloom in a higher civilization. Then what
matter if it lame Tradition glean on this field and hand down her
garbled sheaf--if deft story with furtive fingers plait her ballad
wreaths, deeds of her heroes here? or if stately history fill as she
list her arbitrary tablet, the sounding record of this fight? Tradition,
story, history--all will not efface the true, grand epic of Gettysburg.
FRANK A. HASKELL.
_To H. M. Haskell._
Footnotes:
[1] _History of the Second Army Corps in the Army of the Potomac_ (New
York, 1886), pp. 512, 513.
[2] _Annual Report of the Adjutant General of the State of Wisconsin for
1865_ (Madison, 1866), pp. 510, 511.
[3] Columbus (Wis.) _Democrat_, May 27, 1895.
[4] Colonel Harvey Boyd McKeen, of Pennsylvania, commander of the Third
Brigade.
[5] Columbus (Wis.) _Democrat_, May 27, 1895.
[6] Upon the Portage Public Library's copy of the original pamphlet
edition, Hon. A. J. Turner wrote the following explanatory note:
"The within description of the 'The Battle of Gettysburg' was written by
Colonel Frank A. Haskell who was on the staff of General John Gibbon, to
his brother at Portage, Wisconsin. It was submitted to me soon after, in
the _State Register_ office, but its great length rendered its
publication in our columns quite impossible. The article was written
from the 'Head Quarters of the Army of the Potomac,' but bore no date,
although it was during the same month as the battle, and was written by
Colonel Haskell in the intervals of the march, and was a private letter
without design of publication--A. J. TURNER."
Transcriber's Notes:
Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_.
The following misprints have been corrected:
"attiude" corrected to "attitude" (page 101)
"altogther" corrected to "altogether" (page 157)
"divison" corrected to "division" (page 179)
Other than the corrections listed above, printer's inconsistencies in
spelling and hyphenation usage have been retained.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Battle of Gettysburg, by Frank Aretas Haskell