One of the first marks of a capacity for leadership is the power to choose men, and Meade now showed this conspicuously. He had lost Reynolds, his main dependence, a loss that no doubt affected greatly the fortunes of the first day’s battle; he replaced Reynolds with a young officer whom it was necessary to push over the heads of several seniors; but a better selection could not have been made. Of the splendid captains whom the long agony of the Army of the Potomac was slowly evolving, probably the best as an all-round soldier was Winfield Scott Hancock. Since his West Point training, finished in 1844,[254] he had had wide and thorough military experience, climbing laboriously from colonel to corps commander, winning out from each grade to the next higher through faithful and able service. He could deal with figures; was diligent over papers and office drudgery; he was a patient drill-master--all these, and at the same time so dashing and magnetic in the field that he early earned the title “The Superb.”[255] His vigor, moreover, was tempered by judgment. [Illustration: BEGINNING OF INFANTRY ENGAGEMENT, JULY 1, 10 A.M.] Hancock it was whom Meade now sent forward from Taneytown, thirteen miles away, when he was anxiously gathering in his host, to lead the hard-pressed left wing; he was to judge whether the position should be held, as Reynolds had thought, or a retirement attempted toward the surveyed lines of Pipe Creek. The apparition on Cemetery Hill, just before four o’clock, July 1st, of Hancock upon his sweating charger, was equal to a reinforcement by an army corps. Fugitives halted; fragments of formations were welded into proper battle-lines. In the respite given by Ewell, so ill-timed for Lee, the shattered First and Eleventh corps found breathing-space and plucked up heart. At six o’clock they were joined by the Twelfth Corps, that of the steadfast Slocum. Hancock, now feeling that there were troops enough for the present, and resolute leaders, galloped back to report to his chief. Upon his report Meade concentrated everything toward Cemetery Hill, the troops plodding through the moonlit night. Meade himself reached the field an hour past midnight, gaunt and hollow-eyed through want of sleep,[256] but clear in mind and stout of heart. At dawn of July 2d the Second Corps, at the head of which Gibbon had taken Hancock’s place, and the Third Corps, Sickles, were at hand. At noon arrived the Fifth, and soon after the Sixth, Sedgwick having marched his men thirty-four miles in eighteen hours.