'Pride Was Repelled By Sterner Pride'

In Gettysburg: The Last Invasion (Alfred A. Knopf, 2013), the historian Allen C. Guelzo quotes the nineteenth-century English Liberal statesman Richard Cobden, who asked, “If the United States go wrong what hope have we of the civilized world in our turn?” Guelzo replies: “Preventing that wrong turn was what the preservation of the Union was about. Emancipating American slaves would remove the cause of that wrong, and make the Union worth preserving. But neither of them would be possible without the triumph of the Union armies. And Gettysburg would be the place where the armies of the Union would receive their greatest test, and the Union its last invasion.” The question and Guelzo’s answer are always worth pondering. Are Americans willing to stand with the Union troops on Cemetery Ridge during Pickett’s Charge? This “greatest test” came on July 3, 1863, the third day of battle. The northernmost incursion by Confederate forces, into southeastern Pennsylvania, was repulsed, marking…