“HEADQUARTERS ARMY
NORTHERN VIRGINIA,
“CHAMUERSBURG, PA., June
27lh, 1863.
“General Orders No. 73.
“The commanding general has observed with marked
satisfaction the conduct of the troops on the march, and confidently
anticipates results commensurate with the high spirit they have manifested. No
troops could have displayed greater fortitude, or better performed the arduous
marches of the past ten days. Their conduct in other respects has, with few
exceptions, been in keeping with their character as soldiers, and entitles them
to approbation and praise.
“There have, however, been instances of forgetfulness on the
part of some, that they have in keeping the yet unsullied reputation of the
army, and that the duties exacted of us by civilization and Christianity are
not less obligatory in the country of the enemy than in our own.
“The commanding general considers that no greater disgrace
could befall the army, and through it, our whole people, than the perpetration of
the barbarous outrages upon the innocent and defenseless, and the wanton
destruction of private property, that have marked the course of the enemy in
our own country. Such proceedings not only disgrace the perpetrators and all
connected with them, but are subversive of the discipline and efficiency of the
army and destructive of the ends of our present movements. It must be
remembered that we make war only upon armed men, and that we cannot take
vengeance for the wrongs our people have suffered without lowering ourselves in
the eyes of all whose abhorrence has been excited by the atrocities of our
enemy, and offending against Him to whom vengeance belongeth, without whose
favor and support our efforts must all prove in vain.
“The commanding general, therefore, earnestly exhorts the troops
to abstain with most scrupulous care from unnecessary or wanton injury to
private property; and he enjoins upon all officers to arrest and bring to
summary punishment all who shall in any way offend against the orders on this
subject.
“R. E. Lee, General.”
We have no additional news from the battle-field, except the
following dispatch from Winchester:
“Our loss is estimated at 10,000. Between 3000 and 4000 of our
wounded are arriving here to-night. Every preparation is being made to receive
them.
“Gens. Scales and Pender have arrived here wounded, this
evening. Gens. Armistead, Barksdale, Garnett, and Kemper are reported killed.
Gens. Jones, Heth, Anderson, Pettigrew, Jenkins, Hampton, and Hood are reported
wounded.
“The Yankees say they had only two corps in the fight on
Wednesday, which was open field fighting. The whole of the Yankee force was
engaged in the last three days’ fighting. The number is estimated at 175,000.
“The hills around Gettysburg are said to be covered with the
dead and wounded of the Yankee Army of the Potomac.
“The fighting of these four days is regarded as the severest
of the war, and the slaughter unprecedented; especially is this so of the
enemy.
“The New York and Pennsylvania papers are reported to have
declared for peace.”
But the absence of dispatches from Gen. Lee himself is
beginning to create distrust, and doubts of decisive success at Gettysburg. His
couriers may have been captured, or he may be delaying to announce something
else he has in contemplation.
The enemy's flag of truce boat of yesterday refused to let
us have a single paper in exchange for ours. This signifies something — I know
not what. One of our exchanged officers [sic] says he heard a Northern officer
say, at Fortress Monroe, that Meade’s loss was, altogether, 60,000 men; but
this is not, of course, reliable. Another officer said Lee was retiring, which
is simply impossible, now, for the flood.
But, alas! we have sad tidings from the West. Gen. Johnston
telegraphs from Jackson, Miss., that Vicksburg capitulated on the 4th inst.
This is a terrible blow, and has produced much despondency.
The President, sick as he is, has directed the Secretary of War
to send him copies of all the correspondence with Johnston and Bragg, etc., on
the subject of the relief of Pemberton.
The Secretary of War has caught the prevailing alarm at the
silence of Lee, and posted off to the President for a solution — but got none.
If Lee falls back again, it will be the darkest day for the Confederacy we have
yet seen.
SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's
Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 372-4
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