“I recall to mind a young man from Florida who told me his history. His name was Perkins, and he was scarcely twenty years old. The only son of aged parents, he had in vain endeavored to escape service. Tracked everywhere by the agents of the Richmond government, he had been forced to take up the musket, and had done his duty so well that he had been rapidly promoted to sergeant. In the last charge of the day before, he had had his left heel carried away by a piece of shell, and his right hand shattered by a canister shot. One amputation, at least, probably two, was what he had to expect; and yet he did not complain. But when he spoke of his aged parents awaiting his return, and of the sad condition in which he would re-enter the paternal home, his smile was more heart-breaking than any complaint. In order that his wounds might be sooner dressed, one of my aids, Lieutenant Houghton, let him have his horse, at the risk of marching on foot if we moved before he was returned. “The next night we passed in the rain. It always rains on the day after a great battle. On the morning following we discovered the enemy to be in full retreat. Seeing that the attack he expected did not come off, and fearing for the safety of his communications with the Potomac, General Lee could do nothing else but retire through the mountains, which he did during the night of the 4th and 5th of July. Then only began that disorder in his columns, and that confusion, the picture of which has been somewhat exaggerated; an almost inevitable consequence, besides, to that kind of a movement. Our cavalry began to harass him on the flanks, while the 6th Corps, having remained intact, pressed on his rear-guard. “The difficulties that General Sedgwick met in the Fairfield pass, where the enemy had intrenched, probably made General Meade fear that a direct pursuit would entail too great loss of time in the mountains. So, instead of following Lee in the valley of the Cumberland, he decided to march on a parallel line, to the east of the South Mountains.” An Honest Man General E. P. Alexander, Chief of Artillery of Longstreet’s Corps, tells of a trade that occurred during the retreat from Gettysburg: “Near Hagerstown I had an experience with an old Dunkard which gave me a high and lasting respect for the people of that faith. My scouts had had a horse transaction with this old gentleman, and he came to see me about it. He made no complaint, but said it was his only horse, and as the scouts had told him we had some hoof-sore horses we should have to leave behind, he came to ask if I would trade him one of those for his horse, as without one his crop would be lost.