retire upon the main line--the first drops, the heralds of the storm,
sounding on our windows. Then the thunders of our guns, first Arnold's
then Cushing's and Woodruff's and the rest, shake and reverberate again
through the air, and their sounding shells smite the enemy. The General
said I had better go and tell General Meade of this advance. To gallop
to General Meade's headquarters, to learn there that he had changed them
to another part of the field, to dispatch to him by the Signal Corps in
General Gibbon's name the message, "The enemy is advancing his infantry
in force upon my front," and to be again upon the crest, were but the
work of a minute. All our available guns are now active, and from the
fire of shells, as the range grows shorter and shorter, they change to
shrapnel, and from shrapnel to canister; but in spite of shells, and
shrapnel and canister, without wavering or halt, the hardy lines of the
enemy continue to move on. The Rebel guns make no reply to ours, and no
charging shout rings out to-day, as is the Rebel wont; but the courage
of these silent men amid our shots seems not to need the stimulus of
other noise. The enemy's right flank sweeps near Stannard's bushy crest,
and his concealed Vermonters rake it with a well-delivered fire of
musketry. The gray lines do not halt or reply, but withdrawing a little
from that extreme, they still move on. And so across all that broad open
ground they have come, nearer and nearer, nearly half the way, with our
guns bellowing in their faces, until now a hundred yards, no more,
divide our ready left from their advancing right. The eager men there
are impatient to begin. Let them. First, Harrow's breastworks flame;
then Hall's; then Webb's. As if our bullets were the fire coals that
touched off their muskets, the enemy in front halts, and his countless
level barrels blaze back upon us. The Second Division is struggling in
battle. The rattling storm soon spreads to the right, and the blue
trefoils are vieing with the white. All along each hostile front, a
thousand yards, with narrowest space between, the volleys blaze and
roll; as thick the sound as when a summer hail-storm pelts the city
roofs; as thick the fire as when the incessant lightning fringes a
summer cloud. When the Rebel infantry had opened fire our batteries soon
became silent, and this without their fault, for they were foul by long
previous use. They were the targets of the concentrated Rebel bullets,
and some of them had expended all their canister. But they were not
silent before Rhorty was killed, Woodruff had fallen mortally wounded,
and Cushing, firing almost his last canister, had dropped dead among his
guns shot through the head by a bullet. The conflict is left to the
infantry alone. Unable to find my general when I had returned to the
crest after transmitting his message to General Meade, and while riding
in the search having witnessed the development of the fight, from the
first fire upon the left by the main lines until all of the two
divisions were furiously engaged, I gave up hunting as useless--I was
convinced General Gibbon could not be on the field; I left him mounted;
I could easily have found him now had he so remained--but now, save
myself, there was not a mounted officer near the engaged lines--and was
riding towards the right of the Second Division, with purpose to stop
there, as the most eligible position to watch the further progress of
the battle, there to be ready to take part according to my own notions
whenever and wherever occasion was presented. The conflict was
tremendous, but I had seen no wavering in all our line. Wondering how
long the Rebel ranks, deep though they were, could stand our sheltered
volleys, I had come near my destination, when--great heaven! were my
senses mad? The larger portion of Webb's brigade--my God, it was
true--there by the group of trees and the angles of the wall, was
breaking from the cover of their works, and, without orders or reason,
with no hand lifted to check them, was falling back, a fear-stricken
flock of confusion! The fate of Gettysburg hung upon a spider's single
thread! A great magnificent passion came on me at the instant, not one
that overpowers and confounds, but one that blanches the face and
sublimes every sense and faculty. My sword, that had always hung idle by
my side, the sign of rank only in every battle, I drew, bright and
gleaming, the symbol of command. Was not that a fit occasion, and these
fugitives the men on whom to try the temper of the Solinzen steel? All
rules and proprieties were forgotten; all considerations of person, and
danger and safety despised; for, as I met the tide of these rabbits, the
damned red flags of the rebellion began to thicken and flaunt along the
wall they had just deserted, and one was already waving over one of the
guns of the dead Cushing. I ordered these men to "halt," and "face
about" and "fire," and they heard my voice and gathered my meaning, and
obeyed my commands. On some unpatriotic backs of those not quick of
comprehension, the flat of my sabre fell not lightly, and at its touch
their love of country returned, and, with a look at me as if I were the
destroying angel, as I might have become theirs, they again faced the
enemy. General Webb soon came to my assistance. He was on foot, but he
was active, and did all that one could do to repair the breach, or to
avert its calamity. The men that had fallen back, facing the enemy, soon
regained confidence in themselves, and became steady. This portion of
the wall was lost to us, and the enemy had gained the cover of the
reverse side, where he now stormed with fire. But Webb's men, with their
bodies in part protected by the abruptness of the crest, now sent back
in the enemies' faces as fierce a storm. Some scores of venturesome
Rebels, that in their first push at the wall had dared to cross at the
further angle, and those that had desecrated Cushing's guns, were
promptly shot down, and speedy death met him who should raise his body
to cross it again. At this point little could be seen of the enemy, by
reason of his cover and the smoke, except the flash of his muskets and
his waving flags. These red flags were accumulating at the wall every
moment, and they maddened us as the same color does the bull. Webb's men
are falling fast, and he is among them to direct and encourage; but,
however well they may now do, with that walled enemy in front, with more
than a dozen flags to Webb's three, it soon becomes apparent that in
not many minutes they will be overpowered, or that there will be none
alive for the enemy to overpower. Webb, has but three regiments, all
small, the 69th, 71st and 72d Pennsylvania--the 106th Pennsylvania,
except two companies, is not here to-day--and he must have speedy
assistance, or this crest will be lost. Oh, where is Gibbon? where is
Hancock?--some general--anybody with the power and the will to support
that wasting, melting line? No general came, and no succor! I thought of
Hayes upon the right, but from the smoke and war along his front, it was
evident that he had enough upon his hands, if he stayed the in-rolling
tide of the Rebels there. Doubleday upon the left was too far off and
too slow, and on another occasion I had begged him to send his idle
regiments to support another line battling with thrice its numbers, and
this "Old Sumpter Hero" had declined. As a last resort I resolved to see
if Hall and Harrow could not send some of their commands to reinforce
Webb. I galloped to the left in the execution of my purpose, and as I
attained the rear of Hall's line, from the nature of the ground and the
position of the enemy it was easy to discover the reason and the manner
of this gathering of Rebel flags in front of Webb. The enemy, emboldened
by his success in gaining our line by the group of trees and the angle
of the wall, was concentrating all his right against and was further
pressing that point. There was the stress of his assault; there would he
drive his fiery wedge to split our line. In front of Harrow's and Hall's
Brigades he had been able to advance no nearer than when he first halted
to deliver fire, and these commands had not yielded an inch. To effect
the concentration before Webb, the enemy would march the regiment on his
extreme right of each of his lines by the left flank to the rear of the
troops, still halted and facing to the front, and so continuing to draw
in his right, when they were all massed in the position desired, he
would again face them to the front, and advance to the storming. This
was the way he made the wall before Webb's line blaze red with his
battle flags, and such was the purpose there of his thick-crowding
battalions. Not a moment must be lost. Colonel Hall I found just in
rear of his line, sword in hand, cool, vigilant, noting all that passed
and directing the battle of his brigade. The fire was constantly
diminishing now in his front, in the manner and by the movement of the
enemy that I have mentioned, drifting to the right. "How is it going?"
Colonel Hall asked me, as I rode up. "Well, but Webb is hotly pressed
and must have support, or he will be overpowered. Can you assist him?"
"Yes." "You cannot be too quick." "I will move my brigade at once."
"Good." He gave the order, and in briefest time I saw five friendly
colors hurrying to the aid of the imperilled three; and each color
represented true, battle-tried men, that had not turned back from Rebel
fire that day nor yesterday, though their ranks were sadly thinned, to
Webb's brigade, pressed back as it had been from the wall, the distance
was not great from Hall's right. The regiments marched by the right
flank. Col. Hall superintended the movement in person. Col. Devereux
coolly commanded the 19th Massachusetts. His major, Rice, had already
been wounded and carried off. Lieut. Col. Macy, of the 20th Mass., had
just had his left hand shot off, and so Capt. Abbott gallantly led over
this fine regiment. The 42d New York followed their excellent Colonel
Mallon. Lieut. Col. Steele, 7th Mich., had just been killed, and his
regiment, and the handful of the 59th N. Y., followed their colors. The
movement, as it did, attracting the enemy's fire, and executed in haste,
as it must be, was difficult; but in reasonable time, and in order that
is serviceable, if not regular, Hall's men are fighting gallantly side
by side with Webb's before the all important point. I did not stop to
see all this movement of Hall's, but from him I went at once further to
the left, to the 1st brigade. Gen'l Harrow I did not see, but his
fighting men would answer my purpose as well. The 19th Me., the 15th
Mass., the 32d N. Y. and the shattered old thunderbolt, the 1st
Minn.--poor Farrell was dying then upon the ground where he had
fallen,--all men that I could find I took over to the right at the
_double quick_.
As we were moving to, and near the other brigade of the division, from
my position on horseback I could see that the enemy's right, under
Hall's fire, was beginning to stagger and to break. "See," I said to the
men, "See the _chivalry_! See the gray-backs run!" The men saw, and as
they swept to their places by the side of Hall and opened fire, they
roared, and this in a manner that said more plainly than words--for the
deaf could have seen it in their faces, and the blind could have heard
it in their voices--_the crest is safe_!
The whole Division concentrated, and changes of position, and new
phases, as well on our part as on that of the enemy, having as indicated
occurred, for the purpose of showing the exact present posture of
affairs, some further description is necessary. Before the 2d Division
the enemy is massed, the main bulk of his force covered by the ground
that slopes to his rear, with his front at the stone wall. Between his
front and us extends the very apex of the crest. All there are left of
the White Trefoil Division--yesterday morning there were three thousand
eight hundred, this morning there were less than three thousand--at this
moment there are somewhat over two thousand;--twelve regiments in three
brigades are below or behind the crest, in such a position that by the
exposure of the head and upper part of the body above the crest they can
deliver their fire in the enemy's faces along the top of the wall. By
reason of the disorganization incidental in Webb's brigade to his men's
having broken and fallen back, as mentioned, in the two other brigades
to their rapid and difficult change of position under fire, and in all
the division in part to severe and continuous battle, formation of
companies and regiments in regular ranks is lost; but commands,
companies, regiments and brigades are blended and intermixed--an
irregular extended mass--men enough, if in order, to form a line of four
or five ranks along the whole front of the division. The twelve flags of
the regiments wave defiantly at intervals along the front; at the stone
wall, at unequal distances from ours of forty, fifty or sixty yards,
stream nearly double this number of the battle flags of the enemy. These
changes accomplished on either side, and the concentration complete,
although no cessation or abatement in the general din of conflict since
the commencement had at any time been appreciable, now it was as if a
new battle, deadlier, stormier than before, had sprung from the body of
the old--a young Phoenix of combat, whose eyes stream lightning,
shaking his arrowy wings over the yet glowing ashes of his progenitor.
The jostling, swaying lines on either side boil, and roar, and dash
their flamy spray, two hostile billows of a fiery ocean. Thick flashes
stream from the wall, thick volleys answer from the crest. No threats or
expostulation now, only example and encouragement. All depths of passion
are stirred, and all combatives fire, down to their deep foundations.
Individuality is drowned in a sea of clamor, and timid men, breathing
the breath of the multitude, are brave. The frequent dead and wounded
lie where they stagger and fall--there is no humanity for them now, and
none can be spared to care for them. The men do not cheer or shout; they
growl, and over that uneasy sea, heard with the roar of musketry, sweeps
the muttered thunder of a storm of growls. Webb, Hall, Devereux, Mallon,
Abbott among the men where all are heroes, are doing deeds of note. Now
the loyal wave rolls up as if it would overleap its barrier, the crest.
Pistols flash with the muskets. My "Forward to the wall" is answered by
the Rebel counter-command, "Steady, men!" and the wave swings back.
Again it surges, and again it sinks. These men of Pennsylvania, on the
soil of their own homesteads, the first and only to flee the wall, must
be the first to storm it. "Major--, _lead_ your men over the crest, they
will follow." "By the tactics I understand my place is in rear of the
men." "Your pardon, sir; I see _your_ place is in rear of the men. I
thought you were fit to lead." "Capt. Sapler, come on with your men."
"Let me first stop this fire in the rear, or we shall be hit by our own
men." "Never mind the fire in the rear; let us take care of this in
front first." "Sergeant, forward with your color. Let the Rebels see it
close to their eyes once before they die." The color sergeant of the 72d
Pa., grasping the stump of the severed lance in both his hands, waved
the flag above his head and rushed towards the wall. "Will you see your
color storm the wall alone?" One man only starts to follow. Almost half
way to the wall, down go color bearer and color to the ground--the
gallant sergeant is dead. The line springs--the crest of the solid
ground with a great roar, heaves forward its maddened load, men, arms,
smoke, fire, a fighting mass. It rolls to the wall--flash meets flash,
the wall is crossed--a moment ensues of thrusts, yells, blows, shots,
and undistinguishable conflict, followed by a shout universal that makes
the welkin ring again, and the last and bloodiest fight of the great
battle of Gettysburg is ended and won.
Many things cannot be described by pen or pencil--such a fight is one.
Some hints and incidents may be given, but a description or picture
never. From what is told the imagination may for itself construct the
scene; otherwise he who never saw can have no adequate idea of what such
a battle is.
When the vortex of battle passion had subsided, hopes, fears, rage, joy,
of which the maddest and the noisiest was the last, and we were calm
enough to look about us, we saw that, as with us, the fight with the
Third Division was ended, and that in that division was a repetition of
the scenes immediately about us. In that moment the judgment almost
refused to credit the senses. Are these abject wretches about us,
whom our men are now disarming and driving together in flocks, the
jaunty men of Pickett's Division, whose steady lines and flashing arms
but a few moment's since came sweeping up the slope to destroy us? Are
these red cloths that our men toss about in derision the "fiery Southern
crosses," thrice ardent, the battle flags of the rebellion that waved
defiance at the wall? We know, but so sudden has been the transition, we
yet can scarce believe.
[Illustration: Battle of Gettysburg--Final attack, July 3
(Compiled by C E. Estabrook)]
Just as the fight was over, and the first outburst of victory had a
little subsided, when all in front of the crest was noise and
confusion--prisoners being collected, small parties in pursuit of them
far down into the fields, flags waving, officers giving quick, sharp
commands to their men--I stood apart for a few moments upon the crest,
by that group of trees which ought to be historic forever, a spectator
of the thrilling scene around. Some few musket shots were still heard in
the Third Division; and the enemy's guns, almost silent since the
advance of his infantry until the moment of his defeat, were dropping a
few sullen shells among friend and foe upon the crest. Rebellion
fosters such humanity. Near me, saddest sight of the many of such a
field and not in keeping with all this noise, were mingled alone the
thick dead of Maine and Minnesota, and Michigan and Massachusetts, and
the Empire and Keystone States, who, not yet cold, with the blood still
oozing from their death-wounds, had given their lives to the country
upon that stormy field. So mingled upon that crest let their honored
graves be. Look with me about us. These dead have been avenged already.
Where the long lines of the enemy's thousands so proudly advanced, see
how thick the silent men of gray are scattered. It is not an hour since
these legions were sweeping along so grandly; now sixteen hundred of
that fiery mass are strewn among the trampled grass, dead as the clods
they load; more than seven thousand, probably eight thousand, are
wounded, some there with the dead, in our hands, some fugitive far
towards the woods, among them Generals Pettigrew, Garnett, Kemper and
Armstead, the last three mortally, and the last one in our hands. "Tell
General Hancock," he said to Lieutenant Mitchell, Hancock's
aide-de-camp, to whom he handed his watch, "that I know I did my
country a great wrong when I took up arms against her, for which I am
sorry, but for which I cannot live to atone." Four thousand, not
wounded, are prisoners of war. More in number of the captured than the
captors. Our men are still "gathering them in." Some hold up their hands
or a handkerchief in sign of submission; some have hugged the ground to
escape our bullets and so are taken; few made resistance after the first
moment of our crossing the wall; some yield submissively with good
grace, some with grim, dogged aspect, showing that but for the other
alternative they could not submit to this. Colonels, and all less grades
of officers, in the usual proportion are among them, and all are being
stripped of their arms. Such of them as escaped wounds and capture are
fleeing routed and panic stricken, and disappearing in the woods. Small
arms, more thousands than we can count, are in our hands, scattered over
the field. And these defiant battle-flags, some inscribed with "First
Manassas," the numerous battles of the Peninsula, "Second Manassas,"
"South Mountain," "Sharpsburg," (our Antietam), "Fredericksburg,"
"Chancellorsville," and many more names, our men have, and are showing
about, _over thirty of them_.
Such was really the closing scene of the grand drama of Gettysburg.
After repeated assaults upon the right and the left, where, and in all
of which repulse had been his only success, this persistent and
presuming enemy forms his chosen troops, the flower of his army, for a
grand assault upon our center. The manner and result of such assault
have been told--a loss to the enemy of from twelve thousand to fourteen
thousand, killed, wounded and prisoners, and of over thirty
battle-flags. This was accomplished by not over six thousand men, with a
loss on our part of not over two thousand five hundred killed and
wounded.
Would to Heaven General Hancock and Gibbon could have stood there where
I did, and have looked upon that field! It would have done two men, to
whom the country owes much, good to have been with their men in that
moment of victory--to have seen the result of those dispositions which
they had made, and of that splendid fighting which men schooled by their
discipline, had executed. But they are both severely wounded and have
been carried from the field. One person did come then that I was glad to
see there, and that was no less than Major General Meade, whom the Army
of the Potomac was fortunate enough to have at that time to command it.
See how a great General looked upon the field, and what he said and did
at the moment, and when he learned of his great victory. To appreciate
the incident I give, it should be borne in mind that one coming up from
the rear of the line, as did General Meade, could have seen very little
of our own men, who had now crossed the crest, and although he could
have heard the noise, he could not have told its occasion, or by whom
made, until he had actually attained the crest. One who did not know
results, so coming, would have been quite as likely to have supposed
that our line there had been carried and captured by the enemy--so many
gray Rebels were on the crest--as to have discovered the real truth.
Such mistake was really made by one of our officers, as I shall relate.
General Meade rode up, accompanied alone by his son, who is his
aide-de-camp, an escort, if select, not large for a commander of such an
army. The principal horseman was no bedizened hero of some holiday
review, but he was a plain man, dressed in a serviceable summer suit of
dark blue cloth, without badge or ornament, save the shoulder-straps of
his grade, and a light, straight sword of a General or General staff
officer. He wore heavy, high-top boots and buff gauntlets, and his soft
black felt hat was slouched down over his eyes. His face was very white,
not pale, and the lines were marked and earnest and full of care. As he
arrived near me, coming up the hill, he asked, in a sharp, eager voice:
"How is it going here?" "I believe, General, the enemy's attack is
repulsed," I answered. Still approaching, and a new light began to come
in his face, of gratified surprise, with a touch of incredulity, of
which his voice was also the medium, he further asked: "_What! Is the
assault already repulsed?_" his voice quicker and more eager than
before. "It is, sir," I replied. By this time he was on the crest, and
when his eye had for an instant swept over the field, taking in just a
glance of the whole--the masses of prisoners, the numerous captured
flags which the men were derisively flaunting about, the fugitives of
the routed enemy, disappearing with the speed of terror in the
woods--partly at what I had told him, partly at what he saw, he said,
impressively, and his face lighted: "Thank God." And then his right hand
moved as if it would have caught off his hat and waved it; but this
gesture he suppressed, and instead he waved his hand, and said "Hurrah!"
The son, with more youth in his blood and less rank upon his shoulders,
snatched off his cap, and roared out his three "hurrahs" right heartily.
The General then surveyed the field, some minutes, in silence. He at
length asked who was in command--he had heard that Hancock and Gibbon
were wounded--and I told him that General Caldwell was the senior
officer of the Corps and General Harrow of the Division. He asked where
they were, but before I had time to answer that I did not know, he
resumed: "No matter; I will give my orders to you and you will see them
executed." He then gave direction that the troops should be reformed as
soon as practicable, and kept in their places, as the enemy might be mad
enough to attack again. He also gave directions concerning the posting
of some reinforcements which he said would soon be there, adding: "If
the enemy does attack, charge him in the flank and sweep him from the
field; do you understand." The General then, a gratified man, galloped
in the direction of his headquarters.