THE FIRST DAY AT GETTYSBURG.
BY HENRY J. HUNT, BREVET MAJOR-GENERAL, U. S. A., CHIEF OF ARTILLERY OF THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC.

BUFORD'S CAVALRY OPPOSING THE CONFEDERATE ADVANCE UPON GETTYSBURG.

THE battles of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville raised the confidence of the Cavalry Army of Northern Virginia to such a height as to cause it subordinate officers and soldiers to believe that, as opposed to the Army of the Potomac, they were equal to any demand that could be made upon them. Their belief in the superiority of the Southerner to the Northerner as a fighter was no longer, as at the beginning of the war, a mere provincial conceit, for it was now supported by signal successes in the field. On each of these two occasions the Army of the Potomac had been recently reorganized under a new general, presumably abler than his predecessor and possessing the confidence of the War Department, and the results were crowing victories for the Confederates. Yet at Fredericksburg defeat was not owing to any lack of fighting qualities on the part of the Federal soldiers, but rather to defective leadership.

At Chancellorsville both qualities were called in question. In none of the previous battles between these armies had the disparity of numbers been so great. The Federal general had taken the initiative, his plan of operations was excellent, and his troops were eager for battle. The Confederates could at first oppose but a portion of their inferior force to the attack of greatly superior numbers, and the boats of the Federal commander, that "the Army of Northern Virginia was the legitimate property of the Army of the Potomac," seemed in a fair way to be justified, when at first contact the advantages already were thrown away by the assumption of a timid, defensive attitude. Lee's bold offensive, which followed immediately on this exhibition of weakness, the consequent rout of a Federal army-corps, and the subsequent retreat of the whole army, a large portion of which had not been engaged, confirmed the exultant Confederates in their conviction-which now became an article of faith-that both in combat and in generalship the superiority of the Southerner was fully established. The Federal soldiers