The Battle of Gettysburg as reported by the New York Times:
The Great Battles
Splendid Triumph of the Army of the Potomac
Rout of Lee's Forces on Friday
The Most Terrible Struggle of the War
Tremendous Artillery Duel
Repeated Charges of the Rebel Columns Upon Our Position
Every Charge Repulsed with Great Slaughter
The Death of Longstreet and Hill
Our Cavalry Active on the Enemy's Flank
The Rebel Retreat Cut Off
Chambersburgh in Our Possessions
Advance of the Militia Under Gen. Smith to Important Positions
The Rebel Pontoon Bridge at Williamsport Destroyed
The Contents of the Captured Dispatches from Jeff, Davis to Lee
A Peremptory Order for the Rebel Army to Return to Virginia
Official Dispatches From Gen. Meade
Special to The New York Times
Washington, Saturday, July 4-10:10 A.M.
The following has just been received:
Headquarters Army of Potomac, Major-Gen. Halleck, General-in-Chief:
The enemy opened at 1 P.M. from about one hundred and fifty guns, concentrated upon my left centre, continuing without intermission for about three hours, at the expiration of which time, he assaulted my left centre twice, being upon both occasions, handsomely repulsed, with severe loss to him, leaving in our hands nearly three thousand prisoners.
Among the prisoners is Brig. Gen. Armstead and many Colonels and officers of lesser rank.
The enemy left many dead upon the field, and a large number of wounded in our hands.
The loss upon our side has been considerable. Maj.-Gen. Hancock and Brig.-Gen. Gibson were wounded.
After the repelling of the assaults, indications leading to the belief that the enemy might be withdrawing, a reconnaissance was pushed forward from the left and the enemy found to be in force.
At the present hour all is quiet.
My cavalry have been engaged all day on both flanks of the enemy, harassing and vigorously attacking him with great success, not withstanding they encountered superior numbers of both of cavalry and infantry.
The army is in fine spirits.
George G. Meade
Maj.-Gen. Commanding
Washington, Sunday, July 5 -- 4 P. M.
The latest official dispatch received here, up to this hour, from Gen. Meade, is dated at Headquarters Army of Potomac, 7 A.M., July 4, which merely states that the enemy had withdrawn from his position, occupied for attack, on Friday. The information in the possession of Gen. Meade, at that hour, did not develop the character of the enemy's movement, whether it was a retreat or a maneuvre for other purposes.
Reliable information received here to-day asserts that Gen. Lee's Headquarters were at Cashtown yesterday afternoon, and further represents that the rebels were fortifying at Newman's Cut in the South Mountains, apparently to cover a retreat.
Later official dispatches are expected this evening.
Second Dispatch
Headquarters Army of Potomac
July 4 -- Noon
Maj.-Gen. Halleck:
The position of affairs is not materially changed since my last dispatch of 7 A.M.
We now hold Gettysburgh.
The enemy has abandoned large numbers of his killed and wounded on the field.
I shall probably be able to give you a return of my captures and losses before night, and a return of the enemy's killed and wounded in our hands.
George G. Meade, Major-General
Third Dispatch
Headquarters Army Potomac, July 4 -- 10 P. M.
To Maj.-Gen. Halleck:
No change of affairs since my dispatch of noon
Geo. G. Meade, Major-General
Fourth Dispatch
Washington, Monday, July 6 -- 12:30 A. M.
The following is the latest official dispatch:
Headquarters Army of the Potomac
Sunday, July 5 -- 8:30 A. M.
Major-Gen. Halleck: The enemy returned under cover of the night and the heavy rain, in the direction of Fairfield and Cashtown.
Our cavalry are in pursuit.
I cannot give you the details of our captures in prisoners, colors, and arms.
Upward of twenty battle-flags will be turned in from one corps.
My wounded and those of the enemy are in our hands.
GEO. G. Meade, Major-General
The President to the Country
Washington, D. C., July 4 -- 10:30 A. M.
The President announces to the country that news from the Army of the Potomac, up to 10 P.M. of the 3d , is such as to cover that army with the highest honor; to promise a great success to the cause of the Union, and to claim the condolence of all for the many gallant fallen; and that for this, he especially desires that on this day He, whose will, not ours, should ever be done, be everywhere remembered and reverenced with profoundest gratitude.
(Signed) A. Lincoln
The Great Battle of Friday
Our Special Telegrams from the Battle-Field
Near Gettysburgh, Saturday, July 4
Another great battle was fought yesterday afternoon, resulting in a magnificent success to the National arms.
At 2 o'clock P. M. , Longstreet's whole corps advanced from the rebel centre against our centre. The enemy's forces were hurled upon our position by columns in mass, and also in lines of battle. Our centre was held by Gen. Hancock, with the noble old Second army corps, sided by Gen. Doubleday's division of the First corps.
The rebels first opened a terrific artillery bombardment to demoralize our men, and then moved their forces with great impetuosity upon our position. Hancock received the attack with great firmness, and after a furious battle, lasting until 5 o'clock, the enemy were driven from the field, Longstreet's corps being almost annihilated.
The battle was a most magnificent spectacle. It was fought on an open plain, just south of Gettysburgh, with not a tree to interrupt the view. The courage of our men was perfectly sublime.
At 5 P.M. what was left of the enemy retreated in utter confusion. leaving dozens of flags, and Gen. Hancock, estimated at least five thousand killed and wounded in the field.
The battle was fought by Gen. Hancock with splendid valor. He won imperishable honor, and Gen. Meade thanked him in the name of the army and the country. He was wounded in the thigh, but remained on the field.
The number of prisoners taken is estimated at 3,000, including at least two Brigadier- Generals -- Olmstead, of Georgia, and another- both wounded.
The conduct of our veterans was perfectly magnificent. More than twenty battle flags were taken by our troops. Nearly every regiment has one. The Nineteenth Massachusetts captured four. The repulse was so disastrous to the enemy, that Longstreet's corps is perfectly used up. Gen. Gibson was wounded in the shoulder. Gen. Webb was wounded and remained on the field. Col. Hammell, of the Sixty-sixth New-York, was wounded in the arm.
At 7 o'clock last evening, Gen. Meade ordered the Third corps, supported by the Sixth, to attack the enemy's right, which was done, and the battle lasted until dark, when a good deal of ground had been gained.
During the day Ewell's corps kept up a desultory attack upon Slocum on the right, but was repulsed.
Our cavalry is to-day playing savagely upon the enemy's flank and rear.
L. L. Crounse
From Another Correspondent
Gettysburgh, Friday, July 3
The experience of all the tried and veteran officers of the Army of the Potomac tells of no such desperate conflict as has been in progress during this day. The cannonading of Chancelorsville, Malvern and Manassas were pastimes compared with this. At the headquarters, where I write, sixteen of the horses of Gen. Meade's staff officers were killed by shell. The house was completely riddled. The Chief of Staff Gen. Butterfield, was knocked down by a fragment of case-shot. Col. Dickinson, Assistant Adjutant General, had the bone of his wrist pierced through by a piece of shell. Lieut. Oliver, of Gen. Butterfield's Staff, was struck in the head; and Capt. Carpenter, of Gen. Meade's escort, was wounded in the eye.
While I write the ground about me is covered thick with rebel dead, mingled with our own. Thousands of prisoners have been sent to the rear, and yet the conflict still continues.
The losses on both sides are heavy. Among our wounded officers are Hancock, Gibbon and a great many others whose names I feel restrained from publishing without being assured that they are positively in the list of casualties.
It is near sunset. Our troops hold the field, with many rebel prisoners in their hands. The enemy has been magnificently repulsed for three days - repulsed on all sides- most magnificently to-day. Every effort made by him since Wednesday morning to penetrate Meade's lines has been foiled. The final results of the action, I hope to be able to give you at a later hour this evening.
S. Wilkson
Dispatch to the Associated Press
Headquarters Army of the Potomac, Friday, July 3 -- 6 A. M.
The enemy's guns opened on our left wing at daylight, apparently to feel our position. They found us "at home," and soon suspended operations. They also endeavored to push forward their front on our right, steadily drove them back for half an hour, when the enemy were reinforced, and a portion of the Sixth corps was sent to its support.
Failing in this, the enemy opened a heavy cannonade all along the line. The attack on the right is believed to have been a feint to cover a more formidable flank movement on the left. The cannonading is now heavy in that direction, and appears to be extending.
The Third Corps suffered greatly yesterday. The number of wounded is heavy, with a large number of officers. No estimate can be formed of the killed at this writing.
Heavy musketry has opened now on our right again and cannonading on our left is slackening. The enemy are fighting with the greatest desperation. Nothing can surpass the vigor and precision of our artillery.
Yesterday, the rebels took two of our guns, for want of horses and infantry support, but the division (Humphrey's, I think) rallied and recaptured them. We took one from the enemy.
Comparatively few prisoners have been taken on either side up to this hour.
Ten o'clock A. M. -- The cannonading has slackened. Rebel prisoners say when their infantry charged our left-wing batteries yesterday, the massacre was beyond parallel. Some of the guns were masked, and did not open until the enemy were within canister range.
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Lincoln's Gettysburg Address
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us --that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion-- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
The Emancipation Proclamation
By the President of the United States of America A PROCLAMATION
I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America, and Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy thereof, do hereby proclaim and declare that hereafter, as heretofore, the war will be prosecuted for the object of practically restoring the constitutional relation between the United States, and each of the states, and the people thereof, in which states that relation is, or may be suspended or disturbed.
That it is my purpose, upon the next meeting of Congress to again recommend the adoption of a practical measure tendering pecuniary aid to the free acceptance or rejection of all slave-states, so called, the people whereof may not then be in rebellion against the United States, and which states [and] may then have voluntarily adopted, or thereafter may voluntarily adopt, immediate, or gradual abolishment of slavery within their respective limits; and that the effort to colonize persons of African descent [with the consent] upon this continent, or elsewhere, [with the previously obtained consent of the governments existing there elsewhere,] will be continued.
That on the first day of January in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any state, or designated part of a state, the people whereof thenceforward, and forever free; and the executive government of the United States [including the military and naval authority thereof] will, during the continuance in office of the present incumbents, recognize [and maintain the freedom of] such persons, as being free, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.
That the executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States, and parts of states, if any, in which the people thereof respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any state, or the people thereof shall, on that day be, in good faith represented in the Congress of the United States, by members chosen thereto, at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such state shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such state, and the people thereof, are not then in rebellion against the United States.
That attention is hereby called to an Act of Congress entitled "An Act to make an additional Article of War" Approved March 13, 1862, and which act is in the words and figure following:
"Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled. that hereafter the following shall be promulgated as an additional article of war for the government of the Army of the United States, and shall be obeyed and observed as such:
Article-. All officers or persons in the military or naval services of the United States are prohibited from employing any of the forces under their respective commands for the purpose of returning fugitive from service or labor, who may have escaped from any persons to whom such service or labor is claimed to be due and any officer who shall be found guilty by a court martial of violating this article shall be dismissed from the service.
SEC.2. And be it further enacted, that this act shall take effect from and after its passage."
Also to the ninth and tenth sections of an act entitled "An Act to suppress Insurrection, to punish Treason and Rebellion, to seize and confiscate property of rebels, and for other purposes," approved July 17, 1862, and which sections are:
"SEC. 9. And be it further enacted, that all slaves of persons who shall hereafter be engaged in rebellion against the government of the United States, or who shall in any way give aid or comfort thereto, escaping from such persons and taking refuge within the lines of the army; and all slaves captured from such persons or deserted by them and coming under the control of the government of the United States; and all slaves of such persons found [or] being within any place occupied by rebel forces and afterwards occupied by the forces of the United States, shall be deemed captives of war, and shall be forever free of their servitude, and not again held as slaves.
"SEC. 10. And be it further enacted, That no slave escaping into any State, Territory, or the District of Columbia, from any other State, shall be delivered up, or in any way impeded or hindered of his liberty, except for crime, or some offence against the laws, unless the person claiming said fugitive shall first make oath that the person to whom the labor or service of such fugitive is alleged to be due is his lawful owner, and has not borne arms against the United States in the present rebellion, nor in any way given aid and comfort thereto; and no person engaged in the military or naval service of the United States shall, under any pretence whatever, assume to decide on the validity of the claim of any person to the service or labor of any other person, or surrender up any such person to the claimant, on pain of being dismissed from the service."
And I do hereby enjoin upon and order all persons engaged in the military and naval service of the United States to observe, obey, and enforce, within their respective spheres of service, the act and sections above recited.
And the executive will [in due time] [at the next session of congress] recommend that all citizens of the United States who shall have remained loyal thereto throughout the rebellion, shall (upon the restoration of the constitutional relation between the United States, and their respective states, and people, if that relation shall have been suspended or disturbed) be compensated for all losses by acts of the United States, including the loss of slaves.
A.L.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the City of Washington, this twenty second day of September, in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and sixty two, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty seventh.
Abraham Lincoln [signature]
By the President:
William H. Seward
Secretary of State
Garrison's abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator.
Union General T. Sherman
Union General U. S. Grant
By the President of the United States of America A PROCLAMATION
I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America, and Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy thereof, do hereby proclaim and declare that hereafter, as heretofore, the war will be prosecuted for the object of practically restoring the constitutional relation between the United States, and each of the states, and the people thereof, in which states that relation is, or may be suspended or disturbed.
That it is my purpose, upon the next meeting of Congress to again recommend the adoption of a practical measure tendering pecuniary aid to the free acceptance or rejection of all slave-states, so called, the people whereof may not then be in rebellion against the United States, and which states [and] may then have voluntarily adopted, or thereafter may voluntarily adopt, immediate, or gradual abolishment of slavery within their respective limits; and that the effort to colonize persons of African descent [with the consent] upon this continent, or elsewhere, [with the previously obtained consent of the governments existing there elsewhere,] will be continued.
That on the first day of January in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any state, or designated part of a state, the people whereof thenceforward, and forever free; and the executive government of the United States [including the military and naval authority thereof] will, during the continuance in office of the present incumbents, recognize [and maintain the freedom of] such persons, as being free, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.
That the executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States, and parts of states, if any, in which the people thereof respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any state, or the people thereof shall, on that day be, in good faith represented in the Congress of the United States, by members chosen thereto, at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such state shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such state, and the people thereof, are not then in rebellion against the United States.
That attention is hereby called to an Act of Congress entitled "An Act to make an additional Article of War" Approved March 13, 1862, and which act is in the words and figure following:
"Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled. that hereafter the following shall be promulgated as an additional article of war for the government of the Army of the United States, and shall be obeyed and observed as such:
Article-. All officers or persons in the military or naval services of the United States are prohibited from employing any of the forces under their respective commands for the purpose of returning fugitive from service or labor, who may have escaped from any persons to whom such service or labor is claimed to be due and any officer who shall be found guilty by a court martial of violating this article shall be dismissed from the service.
SEC.2. And be it further enacted, that this act shall take effect from and after its passage."
Also to the ninth and tenth sections of an act entitled "An Act to suppress Insurrection, to punish Treason and Rebellion, to seize and confiscate property of rebels, and for other purposes," approved July 17, 1862, and which sections are:
"SEC. 9. And be it further enacted, that all slaves of persons who shall hereafter be engaged in rebellion against the government of the United States, or who shall in any way give aid or comfort thereto, escaping from such persons and taking refuge within the lines of the army; and all slaves captured from such persons or deserted by them and coming under the control of the government of the United States; and all slaves of such persons found [or] being within any place occupied by rebel forces and afterwards occupied by the forces of the United States, shall be deemed captives of war, and shall be forever free of their servitude, and not again held as slaves.
"SEC. 10. And be it further enacted, That no slave escaping into any State, Territory, or the District of Columbia, from any other State, shall be delivered up, or in any way impeded or hindered of his liberty, except for crime, or some offence against the laws, unless the person claiming said fugitive shall first make oath that the person to whom the labor or service of such fugitive is alleged to be due is his lawful owner, and has not borne arms against the United States in the present rebellion, nor in any way given aid and comfort thereto; and no person engaged in the military or naval service of the United States shall, under any pretence whatever, assume to decide on the validity of the claim of any person to the service or labor of any other person, or surrender up any such person to the claimant, on pain of being dismissed from the service."
And I do hereby enjoin upon and order all persons engaged in the military and naval service of the United States to observe, obey, and enforce, within their respective spheres of service, the act and sections above recited.
And the executive will [in due time] [at the next session of congress] recommend that all citizens of the United States who shall have remained loyal thereto throughout the rebellion, shall (upon the restoration of the constitutional relation between the United States, and their respective states, and people, if that relation shall have been suspended or disturbed) be compensated for all losses by acts of the United States, including the loss of slaves.
A.L.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the City of Washington, this twenty second day of September, in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and sixty two, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty seventh.
Abraham Lincoln [signature]
By the President:
William H. Seward
Secretary of State
Garrison's abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator.
Union General T. Sherman
Union General U. S. Grant
