of one of the enemy's guns, square over to the front, caused us to open
our eyes and turn them in that direction, when we saw directly above
the crest the smoke of the bursting shell, and heard its noise. In an
instant, before a word was spoken, as if that was the signal gun for
general work, loud, startling, booming, the report of gun after gun in
rapid succession smote our ears and their shells plunged down and
exploded all around us. We sprang to our feet. In briefest time the
whole Rebel line to the West was pouring out its thunder and its iron
upon our devoted crest. The wildest confusion for a few moments obtained
sway among us. The shells came bursting all about. The servants ran
terror-stricken for dear life and disappeared. The horses, hitched to
the trees or held by the slack hands of orderlies, neighed out in
fright, and broke away and plunged riderless through the fields. The
General at the first had snatched his sword, and started on foot for the
front. I called for my horse; nobody responded. I found him tied to a
tree, near by, eating oats, with an air of the greatest composure, which
under the circumstances, even then struck me as exceedingly ridiculous.
He alone, of all beasts or men near was cool. I am not sure but that I
learned a lesson then from a horse. Anxious alone for his oats, while I
put on the bridle and adjusted the halter, he delayed me by keeping his
head down, so I had time to see one of the horses of our mess wagon
struck and torn by a shell. The pair plunge--the driver has lost the
reins--horses, driver and wagon go into a heap by a tree. Two mules
close at hand, packed with boxes of ammunition, are knocked all to
pieces by a shell. General Gibbon's groom has just mounted his horse and
is starting to take the General's horse to him, when the flying iron
meets him and tears open his breast. He drops dead and the horses gallop
away. No more than a minute since the first shot was fired, and I am
mounted and riding after the General. The mighty din that now rises to
heaven and shakes the earth is not all of it the voice of the rebellion;
for our guns, the guardian lions of the crest, quick to awake when
danger comes, have opened their fiery jaws and begun to roar--the great
hoarse roar of battle. I overtake the General half way up to the line.
Before we reach the crest his horse is brought by an orderly. Leaving
our horses just behind a sharp declivity of the ridge, on foot we go up
among the batteries. How the long streams of fire spout from the guns,
how the rifled shells hiss, how the smoke deepens and rolls. But where
is the infantry? Has it vanished in smoke? Is this a nightmare or a
juggler's devilish trick? All too real. The men of the infantry have
seized their arms, and behind their works, behind every rock, in every
ditch, wherever there is any shelter, they hug the ground, silent,
quiet, unterrified, little harmed. The enemy's guns now in action are in
position at their front of the woods along the second ridge that I have
before mentioned and towards their right, behind a small crest in the
open field, where we saw the flags this morning. Their line is some two
miles long, concave on the side towards us, and their range is from one
thousand to eighteen hundred yards. A hundred and twenty-five rebel
guns, we estimate, are now active, firing twenty-four pound, twenty,
twelve and ten-pound projectiles, solid shot and shells, spherical,
conical, spiral. The enemy's fire is chiefly concentrated upon the
position of the Second Corps. From the Cemetery to Round Top, with over
a hundred guns, and to all parts of the enemy's line, our batteries
reply, of twenty and ten-pound Parrotts, ten-pound rifled ordnance, and
twelve-pound Napoleons, using projectiles as various in shape and name
as those of the enemy. Captain Hazard commanding the artillery brigade
of the Second Corps was vigilant among the batteries of his command, and
they were all doing well. All was going on satisfactorily. We had
nothing to do, therefore, but to be observers of the grand spectacle of
battle. Captain Wessels, Judge Advocate of the Division, now joined us,
and we sat down behind the crest, close to the left of Cushing's
Battery, to bide our time, to see, to be ready to act when the time
should come, which might be at any moment. Who can describe such a
conflict as is raging around us? To say that it was like a summer storm,
with the crash of thunder, the glare of lightning, the shrieking of the
wind, and the clatter of hailstones, would be weak. The thunder and
lightning of these two hundred and fifty guns and their shells, whose
smoke darkens the sky, are incessant, all pervading, in the air above
our heads, on the ground at our feet, remote, near, deafening,
ear-piercing, astounding; and these hailstones are massy iron, charged
with exploding fire. And there is little of human interest in a storm;
it is an absorbing element of this. You may see flame and smoke, and
hurrying men, and human passion at a great conflagration; but they are
all earthly and nothing more. These guns are great infuriate demons, not
of the earth, whose mouths blaze with smoky tongues of living fire, and
whose murky breath, sulphur-laden, rolls around them and along the
ground, the smoke of Hades. These grimy men, rushing, shouting, their
souls in frenzy, plying the dusky globes and the igniting spark, are in
their league, and but their willing ministers. We thought that at the
second Bull Run, at the Antietam and at Fredericksburg on the 11th of
December, we had heard heavy cannonading; they were but holiday salutes
compared with this. Besides the great ceaseless roar of the guns, which
was but the background of the others, a million various minor sounds
engaged the ear. The projectiles shriek long and sharp. They hiss, they
scream, they growl, they sputter; all sounds of life and rage; and each
has its different note, and all are discordant. Was ever such a chorus
of sound before? We note the effect of the enemies' fire among the
batteries and along the crest. We see the solid shot strike axle, or
pole, or wheel, and the tough iron and heart of oak snap and fly like
straws. The great oaks there by Woodruff's guns heave down their massy
branches with a crash, as if the lightning smote them. The shells swoop
down among the battery horses standing there apart. A half a dozen
horses start, they tumble, their legs stiffen, their vitals and blood
smear the ground. And these shot and shells have no respect for men
either. We see the poor fellows hobbling back from the crest, or unable
to do so, pale and weak, lying on the ground with the mangled stump of
an arm or leg, dripping their life-blood away; or with a cheek torn
open, or a shoulder mashed. And many, alas! hear not the roar as they
stretch upon the ground with upturned faces and open eyes, though a
shell should burst at their very ears. Their ears and their bodies this
instant are only mud. We saw them but a moment since there among the
flame, with brawny arms and muscles of iron wielding the rammer and
pushing home the cannon's plethoric load.
Strange freaks these round shot play! We saw a man coming up from the
rear with his full knapsack on, and some canteens of water held by the
straps in his hands. He was walking slowly and with apparent unconcern,
though the iron hailed around him. A shot struck the knapsack, and it,
and its contents flew thirty yards in every direction, the knapsack
disappearing like an egg, thrown spitefully against a rock. The soldier
stopped and turned about in puzzled surprise, put up one hand to his
back to assure himself that the knapsack was not there, and then walked
slowly on again unharmed, with not even his coat torn. Near us was a man
crouching behind a small disintegrated stone, which was about the size
of a common water bucket. He was bent up, with his face to the ground,
in the attitude of a Pagan worshipper before his idol. It looked so
absurd to see him thus, that I went and said to him, "Do not lie there
like a toad. Why not go to your regiment and be a man?" He turned up his
face with a stupid, terrified look upon me, and then without a word
turned his nose again to the ground. An orderly that was with me at the
time, told me a few moments later, that a shot struck the stone,
smashing it in a thousand fragments, but did not touch the man, though
his head was not six inches from the stone.
All the projectiles that came near us were not so harmless. Not ten
yards away from us a shell burst among some small bushes, where sat
three or four orderlies holding horses. Two of the men and one horse
were killed. Only a few yards off a shell exploded over an open limber
box in Cushing's battery, and at the same instant, another shell over a
neighboring box. In both the boxes the ammunition blew up with an
explosion that shook the ground, throwing fire and splinters and shells
far into the air and all around, and destroying several men. We watched
the shells bursting in the air, as they came hissing in all directions.
Their flash was a bright gleam of lightning radiating from a point,
giving place in the thousandth part of a second to a small, white, puffy
cloud, like a fleece of the lightest, whitest wool. These clouds were
very numerous. We could not often see the shell before it burst; but
sometimes, as we faced towards the enemy, and looked above our heads,
the approach would be heralded by a prolonged hiss, which always seemed
to me to be a line of something tangible, terminating in a black globe,
distinct to the eye, as the sound had been to the ear. The shell would
seem to stop, and hang suspended in the air an instant, and then vanish
in fire and smoke and noise. We saw the missiles tear and plow the
ground. All in rear of the crest for a thousand yards, as well as among
the batteries, was the field of their blind fury. Ambulances, passing
down the Taneytown road with wounded men, were struck. The hospitals
near this road were riddled. The house which was General Meade's
headquarters was shot through several times, and a great many horses of
officers and orderlies were lying dead around it. Riderless horses,
galloping madly through the fields, were brought up, or down rather, by
these invisible horse-tamers, and they would not run any more. Mules
with ammunition, pigs wallowing about, cows in the pastures, whatever
was animate or inanimate, in all this broad range, were no exception to
their blind havoc. The percussion shells would strike, and thunder, and
scatter the earth and their whistling fragments; the Whitworth bolts
would pound and ricochet, and bowl far away sputtering, with the sound
of a mass of hot iron plunged in water; and the great solid shot would
smite the unresisting ground with a sounding "thud," as the strong boxer
crashes his iron fist into the jaws of his unguarded adversary. Such
were some of the sights and sounds of this great iron battle of
missiles. Our artillerymen upon the crest budged not an inch, nor
intermitted, but, though caisson and limber were smashed, and guns
dismantled, and men and horses killed, there amidst smoke and sweat,
they gave back, without grudge, or loss of time in the sending, in kind
whatever the enemy sent, globe, and cone, and bolt, hollow or solid, an
iron greeting to the rebellion, the compliments of the wrathful
Republic. An hour has droned its flight since first the war began. There
is no sign of weariness or abatement on either side. So long it seemed,
that the din and crashing around began to appear the normal condition
of nature there, and fighting man's element. The General proposed to go
among the men and over to the front of the batteries, so at about two
o'clock he and I started. We went along the lines of the infantry as
they lay there flat upon the earth, a little to the front of the
batteries. They were suffering little, and were quiet and cool. How glad
we were that the enemy were no better gunners, and that they cut the
shell fuses too long. To the question asked the men, "What do you think
of this?" the replies would be, "O, this is bully," "We are getting to
like it," "O, we don't mind this." And so they lay under the heaviest
cannonade that ever shook the continent, and among them a thousand times
more jokes than heads were cracked.
We went down in front of the line some two hundred yards, and as the
smoke had a tendency to settle upon a higher plain than where we were,
we could see near the ground distinctly all over the fields, as well
back to the crest where were our own guns as to the opposite ridge where
were those of the enemy. No infantry was in sight, save the skirmishers,
and they stood silent and motionless--a row of gray posts through the
field on one side confronted by another of blue. Under the grateful
shade of some elm trees, where we could see much of the field, we made
seats of the ground and sat down. Here all the more repulsive features
of the fight were unseen, by reason of the smoke. Man had arranged the
scenes, and for a time had taken part in the great drama; but at last,
as the plot thickened, conscious of his littleness and inadequacy to the
mighty part, he had stepped aside and given place to more powerful
actors. So it seemed; for we could see no men about the batteries. On
either crest we could see the great flaky streams of fire, and they
seemed numberless, of the opposing guns, and their white banks of swift,
convolving smoke; but the sound of the discharges was drowned in the
universal ocean of sound. Over all the valley the smoke, a sulphury
arch, stretched its lurid span; and through it always, shrieking on
their unseen courses, thickly flew a myriad iron deaths. With our grim
horizon on all sides round toothed thick with battery flame, under that
dissonant canopy of warring shells, we sat and heard in silence. What
other expression had we that was not mean, for such an awful universe of
battle?
A shell struck our breastwork of rails up in sight of us, and a moment
afterwards we saw the men bearing some of their wounded companions away
from the same spot; and directly two men came from there down toward
where we were and sought to get shelter in an excavation near by, where
many dead horses, killed in yesterday's fight, had been thrown. General
Gibbon said to these men, more in a tone of kindly expostulation than of
command: "My men, do not leave your ranks to try to get shelter here.
All these matters are in the hands of God, and nothing that you can do
will make you safer in one place than in another." The men went quietly
back to the line at once. The General then said to me: "I am not a
member of any church, but I have always had a strong religious feeling;
and so in all these battles I have always believed that I was in the
hands of God, and that I should be unharmed or not, according to his
will. For this reason, I think it is, I am always ready to go where duty
calls, no matter how great the danger." Half-past two o'clock, an hour
and a half since the commencement, and still the cannonade did not in
the least abate; but soon thereafter some signs of weariness and a
little slacking of fire began to be apparent upon both sides. First we
saw Brown's battery retire from the line, too feeble for further battle.
Its position was a little to the front of the line. Its commander was
wounded, and many of its men were so, or worse; some of its guns had
been disabled, many of its horses killed; its ammunition was nearly
expended. Other batteries in similar case had been withdrawn before to
be replaced by fresh ones, and some were withdrawn afterwards. Soon
after the battery named had gone the General and I started to return,
passing towards the left of the division, and crossing the ground where
the guns had stood. The stricken horses were numerous, and the dead and
wounded men lay about, and as we passed these latter, their low, piteous
call for water would invariably come to us, if they had yet any voice
left. I found canteens of water near--no difficult matter where a battle
has been--and held them to livid lips, and even in the faintness of
death the eagerness to drink told of their terrible torture of thirst.
But we must pass on. Our infantry was still unshaken, and in all the
cannonade suffered very little. The batteries had been handled much more
severely. I am unable to give any figures. A great number of horses had
been killed, in some batteries more than half of all. Guns had been
dismounted. A great many caissons, limbers and carriages had been
destroyed, and usually from ten to twenty-five men to each battery had
been struck, at least along our part of the crest. Altogether the fire
of the enemy had injured us much, both in the modes that I have stated,
and also by exhausting our ammunition and fouling our guns, so as to
render our batteries unfit for further immediate use. The scenes that
met our eyes on all hands among the batteries were fearful. All things
must end, and the great cannonade was no exception to the general law of
earth. In the number of guns active at one time, and in the duration and
rapidity of their fire, this artillery engagement, up to this time, must
stand alone and pre-eminent in this war. It has not been often, or many
times, surpassed in the battles of the world. Two hundred and fifty
guns, at least, rapidly fired for two mortal hours. Cipher out the
number of tons of gunpowder and iron that made these two hours hideous.
Of the injury of our fire upon the enemy, except the facts that ours was
the superior position, if not better served and constructed artillery,
and that the enemy's artillery hereafter during the battle was almost
silent, we know little. Of course, during the fight we often saw the
enemy's caissons explode, and the trees rent by our shot crashing about
his ears, but we can from these alone infer but little of general
results. At three o'clock almost precisely the last shot hummed, and
bounded and fell, and the cannonade was over. The purpose of General Lee
in all this fire of his guns--we know it now, we did not at the time so
well--was to disable our artillery and break up our infantry upon the
position of the Second Corps, so as to render them less an impediment to
the sweep of his own brigades and divisions over our crest and through
our lines. He probably supposed our infantry was massed behind the crest
and the batteries; and hence his fire was so high, and his fuses to the
shells were cut so long, too long. The Rebel General failed in some of
his plans in this behalf, as many generals have failed before and will
again. The artillery fight over, men began to breathe more freely, and
to ask, What next, I wonder? The battery men were among their guns, some
leaning to rest and wipe the sweat from their sooty faces, some were
handling ammunition boxes and replenishing those that were empty. Some
batteries from the artillery reserve were moving up to take the places
of the disabled ones; the smoke was clearing from the crests. There was
a pause between acts, with the curtain down, soon to rise upon the great
final act, and catastrophe of Gettysburg. We have passed by the left of
the Second Division, coming from the First; when we crossed the crest
the enemy was not in sight, and all was still--we walked slowly along in
the rear of the troops, by the ridge cut off now from a view of the
enemy in his position, and were returning to the spot where we had left
our horses. General Gibbon had just said that he inclined to the belief
that the enemy was falling back, and that the cannonade was only one of
his noisy modes of covering the movement. I said that I thought that
fifteen minutes would show that, by all his bowling, the Rebel did not
mean retreat. We were near our horses when we noticed Brigadier General
Hunt, Chief of Artillery of the Army, near Woodruff's Battery, swiftly
moving about on horseback, and apparently in a rapid manner giving some
orders about the guns. Thought we, what could this mean? In a moment
afterwards we met Captain Wessels and the orderlies who had our horses;
they were on foot leading the horses. Captain Wessels was pale, and he
said, excited: "General, they say the enemy's infantry is advancing." We
sprang into our saddles, a score of bounds brought us upon the
all-seeing crest. To say that men grew pale and held their breath at
what we and they there saw, would not be true. Might not six thousand
men be brave and without shade of fear, and yet, before a hostile
eighteen thousand, armed, and not five minutes' march away, turn ashy
white? None on that crest now need be told that _the enemy is
advancing_. Every eye could see his legions, an overwhelming resistless
tide of an ocean of armed men sweeping upon us! Regiment after regiment
and brigade after brigade move from the woods and rapidly take their
places in the lines forming the assault. Pickett's proud division, with
some additional troops, hold their right; Pettigrew's (Worth's) their
left. The first line at short interval is followed by a second, and that
a third succeeds; and columns between support the lines. More than half
a mile their front extends; more than a thousand yards the dull gray
masses deploy, man touching man, rank pressing rank, and line supporting
line. The red flags wave, their horsemen gallop up and down; the arms of
eighteen thousand men, barrel and bayonet, gleam in the sun, a sloping
forest of flashing steel. Right on they move, as with one soul, in
perfect order, without impediment of ditch, or wall or stream, over
ridge and slope, through orchard and meadow, and cornfield, magnificent,
grim, irresistible. All was orderly and still upon our crest; no noise
and no confusion. The men had little need of commands, for the survivors
of a dozen battles knew well enough what this array in front portended,
and, already in their places, they would be prepared to act when the
right time should come. The click of the locks as each man raised the
hammer to feel with his fingers that the cap was on the nipple; the
sharp jar as a musket touched a stone upon the wall when thrust in
aiming over it, and the clicking of the iron axles as the guns were
rolled up by hand a little further to the front, were quite all the
sounds that could be heard. Cap-boxes were slid around to the front of
the body; cartridge boxes opened, officers opened their pistol-holsters.
Such preparations, little more was needed. The trefoil flags, colors of
the brigades and divisions moved to their places in rear; but along the
lines in front the grand old ensign that first waved in battle at
Saratoga in 1777, and which these people coming would rob of half its
stars, stood up, and the west wind kissed it as the sergeants sloped its
lance towards the enemy. I believe that not one above whom it then waved
but blessed his God that he was loyal to it, and whose heart did not
swell with pride towards it, as the emblem of the Republic before that
treason's flaunting rag in front. General Gibbon rode down the lines,
cool and calm, and in an unimpassioned voice he said to the men, "Do
not hurry, men, and fire too fast, let them come up close before you
fire, and then aim low and steadily." The coolness of their General was
reflected in the faces of his men. Five minutes has elapsed since first
the enemy have emerged from the woods--no great space of time surely, if
measured by the usual standard by which men estimate duration--but it
was long enough for us to note and weigh some of the elements of mighty
moment that surrounded us; the disparity of numbers between the
assailants and the assailed; that few as were our numbers we could not
be supported or reinforced until support would not be needed or would be
too late; that upon the ability of the two trefoil divisions to hold the
crest and repel the assault depended not only their own safety or
destruction, but also the honor of the Army of the Potomac and defeat or
victory at Gettysburg. Should these advancing men pierce our line and
become the entering wedge, driven home, that would sever our army
asunder, what hope would there be afterwards, and where the blood-earned
fruits of yesterday? It was long enough for the Rebel storm to drift
across more than half the space that had at first separated it from us.
None, or all, of these considerations either depressed or elevated us.
They might have done the former, had we been timid; the latter had we
been confident and vain. But, we were there waiting, and ready to do our
duty--that done, results could not dishonor us.