On this second day Lee's men had gained a slight advantage. They had taken Round Top and held it for two hours. They had at least proven that it could be done. They had driven in the lines on the Federal left. The Southern Commander still believed his men could do the impossible. Longstreet begged his Chief that night to withdraw and choose another field. Lee ordered the third day's fight. On his gray horse he watched Pickett lead his immortal charge and fall back down the hill. He rode quietly to the front, rallying the broken lines. He made no speech. He uttered no bombast. He calmly lifted his hand and cried: "Never mind--boys!" To his officers he said: "It's all my fault. We'll talk it over afterward. Let every good man rally now." His army had never known a panic. The men quietly fell into line and cheered their Commander. To an English officer on the field Lee quietly said: "This has been a sad day for us, Colonel--a sad day; but we can't expect always to gain victories." Lee had lost twenty thousand men and fourteen generals. Meade had lost twenty-three thousand men and seventeen generals. Lee withdrew his army across the swollen Potomac, carrying away his guns and all the prisoners he had taken. General Meade had saved the North, but Lee's army was still intact, on its old invincible lines in Virginia, sixty-five thousand strong. The news from Gettysburg crushed the soul of Davis. He had hoped with this battle to end the war, and stop the frightful slaughter of our noblest men, North and South. His Commissioner, Alexander H. Stephens, was halted at Fortress Monroe and sent back to Richmond with an insulting answer. So bitter was Lee's disappointment that he offered his resignation to Davis. The President at once wrote a generous letter in which he renewed the expressions of his confidence in the genius of his Commanding General and begged him to guard his precious life from undue exposure. Gettysburg was but one of the appalling calamities which crushed the hopes of the Confederate Chieftain on this memorable fourth of July, 1863. On the recovery of Joseph E. Johnston from his wound at Seven Pines he was assigned to the old command of Albert Sidney Johnston in the West. His department included the States of Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and North Carolina. He entered on the duties of his new and important field--complaining, peevish, sulking. On the day before his departure Mrs. Davis visited his wife and expressed to General Johnston the earnest wish of her heart for her husband's success. "I sincerely hope, General," she said cordially, "that your campaign will be brilliant and successful." The General pursed the hard lines of his mouth. "I might succeed if I had Lee's chances with the army of Northern Virginia."