HILL AND HETH KNEW CONDITIONS.
Colonel Talcott also says that Hill and Heth did not know-that the enemy held Gettysburg. If he will read their reports he will see that they say they knew it; and A. P. Hill says that on the day before he sent a courier to General Lee informing him of it. I admit that Colonel Talcott, in making this statement about ignorance of the enemy, follows General Lee's first report, which is contradicted by his second report. The first report says that "finding ourselves unexpectedly confronted by the Federal army it became a matter of difficulty to withdraw through the mountains with our large trains." The fine Italian hand of a lawyer is manifest here. Roth Hill and Heth say they knew the enemy held Gettysburg; if so, the meeting could not have been unexpected. Nor does the report explain why General Lee could not save his trains without a battle, when he saved them with small loss after losing a battle.
Nor does this report explain why Ewell, with Rodes' and Early's Divisions, was marching away from Gettysburg on the morning of July 1st, if the army had been ordered, as it says, to concentrate at Gettysburg. Colonel Taylor's book says the order was for the concentration at Cashtown. He contradicts the first report, which says Gettysburg. It is clear the absence of three brigades of cavalry with Stuart had nothing to do with bringing on or losing the battle. Ewell and Early had at least 2,000 cavalry with them, and General Lee had kept two brigades of cavalry with him. Nobody can show that General Lee did, or omitted to do, anything on account of his ignorance of the situation of the Northern army. As General Lee says that he had not intended to fight a battle unless attacked, it made no difference to him if the enemy were at Gettysburg, if they were not interrupting him; all he had to do was to be ready when they came. His whole army would have been concentrated at Cashtown, or in supporting distance, that evening if Hill and Heth had not gone off on an excursion and dispersed it. It is not credible that General Lee should have stayed two days in Maryland, on the Potomac, and in the shadow of South Mountain, with Hooker's army on the other side and in the gaps, with
