But now to Gettysburg. That great battle could not be described in the space of a lecture. I shall select from the myriad of thrilling incidents which rush over my memory but two.[6] The first I relate because it seems due to one of the bravest and knightliest soldiers of the Union army. As my command came back from the Susquehanna River to Gettysburg, it was thrown squarely on the right flank of the Union army. The fact that that portion of the Union army melted was no disparagement either of its courage or its lofty American manhood, for any troops that had ever been marshaled, the Old Guard itself, would have been as surely and swiftly shattered. It was that movement that gave to the Confederate army the first day's victory at Gettysburg; and as I rode forward over that field of green clover, made red with the blood of both armies, I found a major-general among the dead and the dying. But a few moments before, I had seen the proud form of that magnificent Union officer reel in the saddle and then fall in the white smoke of the battle; and as I rode by, intensely looking into his pale face, which was turned to the broiling rays of that scorching July sun, I discovered that he was not dead. Dismounting from my horse, I lifted his head with one hand, gave him water from my canteen, inquired his name and if he was badly hurt. He was General Francis C. Barlow, of New York. He had been shot from his horse while grandly leading a charge. The ball had struck him in front, passed through the body and out near the spinal cord, completely paralyzing him in every limb; neither he nor I supposed he could live for one hour. I desired to remove him before death from that terrific sun. I had him lifted on a litter and borne to the shade in the rear. As he bade me good-bye, and upon my inquiry what I could do for him, he asked me to take from his pocket a bunch of letters. Those letters were from his wife, and as I opened one at his request, and as his eye caught, as he supposed for the last time, that wife's signature, the great tears came like a fountain and rolled down his pale face; and he said to me, "General Gordon, you are a Confederate; I am a Union soldier; but we are both Americans; if you should live through this dreadful war and ever see my wife, will you not do me the kindness to tell my wife for me that you saw me on this field? Tell her for me, that my last thought on earth was of her; tell her for me that you saw me fall in this battle, and that her husband fell, not in the rear, but at the head of his column; tell her for me, general, that I freely give my life to my country, but that my unutterable grief is that I must now go without the privilege of seeing her once more, and bidding her a long and loving farewell." I at once said: "Where is Mrs. Barlow, general? Where could I find her?" for I was determined that wife should receive that gallant husband's message. He replied: "She is very close to me;