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Causes of Lee's Defeat at Gettysburg.
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corps in the assault on the enemy's lines." It is also evident that Gen. Heth had not read the report of General Lee, which appeared in the July No., 1876, of the Southern Historical Society Papers, in which he says, in speaking of the fight on the 2nd of July: "General Ewell had directed General Rodes to attack in concert with Early, covering his right, and had requested Brigadier-General Lane, then commanding Pender's division, to co-operate on the right of Rodes.  *   *   *  General Lane was prepared to give the assistance required of him, and so informed General Rodes; but the latter deemed it useless to advance after the failure of Early's attack." And further: "In this engagement our loss in men and officers was large. Major Generals Hood and Pender, Brigadier-Generals Jones, Semmes, G. T. Anderson, and Barksdale, and Col. Avery (commanding Hoke's brigade) were wounded, the last two mortally. Generals Pender and Semmes died after their removal to Virginia."

In his "Memorandum" (August No., 1877, of the Southern Historical Society Papers), Colonel Walter H. Taylor, in speaking of the fight on the 3d of July says: "Had Hood and McLaws followed or supported Pickett, and Pettigrew and Anderson have been advanced, the design of the commanding-General would have been carried out—the world would not be so at a loss to understand what was designed by throwing forward, unsupported, against the enemy's stronghold, so small a portion of the army." Now I happen to know, as one who had his horse shot under him in that celebrated charge, by the enemy which flanked us on the left, that Pettigrew, with his wounded hand in a sling, did advance Heth's division, and that very gallantly. After such a declaration, strange to say, Col. Taylor, in his "second paper" (September No., 1877, of the Southern Historical Society Papers), admits that Pettigrew advanced on the left of Pickett, and that he witnessed it. I suppose he was at the time on the left of the assaulting column with General Lee, who, he states, "finally took position about the Confederate centre, on an elevated point, from which he could survey the field and watch the result of the movement." The Colonel states further, that from that position to the left, "to one who observed the charge, it appeared that Pettigrew's line was not a continuation of that of Pickett's, but that it advanced in echelon." Further on he adds: "The assaulting column really consisted of Pickett's division—two brigades in front, and one in the second line as a support, with the brigade of Wilcox in the rear of its right to protect that flank; while Heth's division moved forward on Pickett's left. in echelon, or with the alignment so imperfect and so drooping on the left as to appear in echelon, with Lane's and Scales' brigades in rear of its right." This statement does great injustice to Heth's division, under Pettigrew, as the line was neither drooping nor did it move in echelon. Colonel Taylor seems not