two batteries of the Fifth corps crown the steep ridge of Little Round Top. McGilvery, with his eight reserve batteries, occupies the position in which he rendered such valuable service the day before, from the Weikert house on the left to the depression which separates the base of Little Round Top from that of Cemetery Hill. This depression, which affords no good positions, separates him from the four batteries of the Second corps, placed by Major Hazzard in the rear of the infantry along the rocky line which gradually trends northward; one of them is placed halfway on the left; the other three, under Arnold, Cushing, and Brown, are located on the high ridge. Woodruff's regular battery occupies Ziegler's Grove. Finally, to the right of the front exposed to the enemy's fire a regular battery, and eight others belonging to the First and Eleventh corps, form under Major Osborne an irregular line turning north-westward and northward. The Union artillery is thus divided into three groups: McGilvery on the left, with forty-four pieces, along the prolongation of the slopes of Little Round Top; Hazzard in the centre, with thirty pieces, resting on Ziegler's Grove; Osborne to the right, on Cemetery Hill, with about fifty pieces, a large part of which, it is true, do not command a view of that portion of the line that is chiefly menaced. Finally, five reserve batteries hold themselves. ready to take the place of those it will be necessary to relieve. The Federals therefore have eighty pieces of artillery to reply to the enemy. In conformity with Hunt's orders, they wait a quarter of an hour before replying, in order to take a survey of the batteries upon which they will have to concentrate their fire. They occupy positions affording better shelter than those of the Confederates, but the formation of their line gives the latter the advantage of a concentric fire.

More than two hundred guns are thus engaged in this artillery combat, the most terrible the New World has ever witnessed. The Confederates fire volleys from all the batteries at once, whose shots, directed toward the same point, produce more effect than successive firing. On the previous day their projectiles passed over the enemy; they have rectified the elevation of their pieces and readily obtain a precision of aim unusual to them. The plateau occupied by the Federals forms a slight depression of the

VOL. III.-42

ground in the centre, which hides their movements, but affords them no shelter from the enemy's fire; the shells burst in the midst of the reserve batteries, supply-trains, and ambulances; the houses are tottering and tumbling down; the head-quarters of General Meade are riddled with balls, and Butterfield, his chief of staff, is slightly wounded. In every direction may be seen men seeking shelter behind the slightest elevations of the ground. Nothing is heard but the roar of cannon and the whistling of projectiles that are piercing the air. A still larger crowd of stragglers, wounded, and non-combatants than that of the day before is again making for the Baltimore turnpike with rapid haste.

In the mean while, the Federal infantry, motionless under this fire, stands the trial with remarkable composure. The artillerists are sustained by the excitement of the conflict, but they are also the most exposed. The men who are serving the guns must be relieved, and presently the guns themselves are successively dismounted. The reserve batteries come to take their places, silencing the guns of the enemy, who is advancing too boldly upon Gettysburg for the purpose of taking Cemetery Hill by enfilade. During this struggle, so desperate and murderous, despite the distance intervening between the combatants, Nature seems inclined to favor the Confederates, for a slight breeze from the north-east, driving the smoke over their positions, covers with a thick veil their batteries and the valley through which they are advancing to the assault. This assault, as we have stated, is directed against the salient point occupied by Hancock. It is against this point, therefore, that the Confederates should concentrate their fire, but, on the contrary, they scatter it along the whole extent of the enemy's line. This error was noticed with astonishment by the Union artillerists; so that when, a few years later, peace had brought them into close contact with their adversaries, General Hunt met General Long, Lee's secretary, who had formerly been his pupil at West Point, and asked him to explain the cause of it. "It was owing to the interference of the generals" (commanding the army corps and divisions), replied Long. In noticing this error he added: "I said to myself that you must have been entirely forgetful of the principles you had inculcated

upon us in your teachings." The losses of the Confederates, however, although inferior to those of the Unionists, are not the less severe. Longstreet's artillery has suffered greatly; Kemper's brigade, posted in the rear of Wilcox, loses in a few minutes more than two hundred men-a sacrifice that could easily have been avoided. Lee and Longstreet, always at the post of danger, visit the batteries in person under a shower of shells. The sight of them encourages the soldiers. They say to one another, "It is true that the latter does not approve the plan of battle, but he waits for the signal of attack with no less ardor." In the mean while, the ammunition-wagons being too much exposed, it becomes necessary to place them at a distance; hence a great difficulty in supplying the batteries, that have scarcely more than sixty rounds. apiece, including grape. The total amount in reserve being less than one hundred rounds, it becomes necessary, moreover, to economize the ammunition in future. Consequently, Colonel Alexander, hoping speedily to silence the Union guns, intends to give Pickett the signal of attack after a quarter of an hour's cannonade. But time is flying; the caissons are getting empty, while the fire of the Federals, concentrated upon certain points by Hunt's orders, is still as regular and precise as at the commencement. The matter, however, must be brought to a close; it is near two o'clock. Alexander writes to Pickett, saying that if he wishes to charge, the moment has arrived, notwithstanding the intensity of the enemy's fire, for he no longer hopes to be able to silence it. The latter calls upon Longstreet, but cannot obtain any instructions from this general, who is cruelly tried between his own convictions and the orders of his chief: he leaves him, stating that he is going to put his troops in motion; Longstreet makes no other reply except by nodding affirmatively. On returning to his division Pickett is at all events waiting for new directions or a favorable opportunity when an urgent message from Alexander decides him at last to give his soldiers the signal of attack. He is informed-what he might have found out himself in spite of the roaring of the Confederate cannon-that the enemy's guns scarcely make any reply. The Federal artillery appears to be silenced from the lack of ammunition. The opportunity so long waited for has therefore at last arrived-a

mistake which the assailants will soon find out to their sorrow. In fact, about a quarter-past two o'clock, Meade, believing that enough ammunition has been expended, and wishing to provoke the attack of the enemy, orders the firing to cease; Hunt, who is watching the battlefield in another direction, issues the same order at the same moment, and causes two fresh batteries, taken from the reserve in the rear of Hancock's line, to advance. For a while the voice of the Confederate cannon is alone heard.

But new actors are preparing to appear on the scene. Pickett has caused the object of the charge they are about to execute to be explained to his soldiers. As the ranks are re-forming many of them can no longer rise; the ground is strewn with the dead, the wounded, and others that are suffering from the heat, for a burning sun, still more scorching than that of the day before, lights up this bloody battlefield. But all able-bodied men are at their posts, and an affecting scene soon elicits a cry of admiration both from enemies and friends. Full of ardor, as if it were rushing to the assault of the Washington Capitol itself, and yet marching with measured steps, so as not to break its alignment, Pickett's division moves forward solidly and quietly in magnificent order. Garnett, in the centre, sweeping through the artillery line, leaves Wilcox behind him, whose men, lying flat upon the ground, are waiting for another order to support the attack. Kemper is on the right; Armistead is moving forward at double-quick to place himself on the left along the line of the other two brigades; a swarm of skirmishers covers the front of the division. The smoke has disappeared, and this small band perceives at last the long line of the Federal positions, which the hollow in the ground where they had sought shelter had, until then, hidden from its view. It moves onward full of confidence, convinced that a single effort will pierce this line, which is already wavering, and feeling certain that this effort will be sustained by the rest of the army. Taking its loss into consideration, it numbers no more than four thousand five hundred men at the utmost, but the auxiliary forces of Pettigrew, Trimble, and Wilcox raise the number of assailants to fourteen thousand. If they are all put in motion in time, and well led against a particular point of the Federal line, their effort may triumph over every obstacle and decide the

fate of the battle. Marching in the direction of the salient position occupied by Hancock, which Lee has given him as the objective point, Pickett, after passing beyond the front of Wilcox, causes each of his brigades to make a half-wheel to the left. This manœuvre, although well executed, is attended with serious difficulties, for the division, drawn up en échelon across the Emmettsburg road, presents its right flank to the Federals to such an extent that the latter mistake the three échelons for three successive lines.

The moment has arrived for the Federal artillery to commence firing. McGilvery concentrates the fire of his forty pieces against the assailants, the Federals even attributing the change in Pickett's direction to this fire-a wrong conclusion, for it is when he exposes the flank that the enemy's shots cause the greatest ravages in his ranks. If the thirty-four pieces of Hazzard bearing upon the salient position could follow McGilvery's example, this artillery, which Pickett thought to be paralyzed, would suffice to crush him. But, by order of his immediate chief, Hazzard has fired oftener and in quicker succession than Hunt had directed, and at the decisive moment he has nothing left in his caissons but grapeshot.* He is therefore compelled to wait until the enemy is within short range. Pickett, encouraged by his silence, crosses several fields enclosed by strong fences, which his skirmishers had not been able to reach before the cannonade; then, having reached the base of the elevation he is to attack, he once more changes his direction by a half-wheel to the right, halting to rectify his line. The Confederate artillery is endeavoring to support him, but is counting its shots, for it is obliged to be sparing of its ammunition: the seven light pieces intended to accompany the infantry, being wanted elsewhere, fail to appear at the very moment they should have pushed forward, and no other battery with sufficient supplies can be found to take their place.

But, what is still more serious, orders do not seem to have been. clearly given to the troops that are to sustain Pickett. On the left Pettigrew has put his men in motion at the first order, but, being posted in the rear of Pickett, he has a wider space of

* See Appendix, Note B.