A column of Rebels was moving along the Chambersburg road, and stood out in bold relief.
"Let Osborn pitch in the shells from his rifled pieces," said the Major.
General Howard surveyed them a moment and replied: "We might do them some damage, but we are not quite ready to bring on a general engagement. It isn't best to hurry. We shall have enough fighting before night."
The battle had not commenced in earnest. Lee was moving his troops towards the left. The Union pickets were posted along the Emmettsburg road; some were lying down in the wheat-fields beyond it, keeping up a steady interchange of shots with the Rebels. It was a favorable time to ride over the ground where the great contest was to take place.
The first division, General Ames's, of the Eleventh Corps, was north of the Baltimore pike, the third division, Schurz's, was on both sides of it, and the second division, Steinwehr's, in the cemetery, lying behind the stone wall, which forms its western boundary. Colonel Osborn's batteries were on the crest of the ridge, in position to fire over the heads of the infantry. Robinson's division of the First Corps was posted at the left of Steinwehr's, crossing the Taneytown road. Wadsworth's and Doubleday's divisions of the First were north of the Baltimore pike, to the right of General Ames, reaching to Culp's Hill, where they joined the Twelfth Corps.
Riding down the road towards Taneytown, I came upon General Stannard's brigade of nine months' Vermont boys, lying in the open field in rear of the cemetery. Occasionally a shell came over them from the Rebel batteries, by Blocher's. It was their first experience under fire. They were in reserve, knowing nothing of what was going on the other side of the hill, yet tantalized by a flank fire from the distant batteries. A short distance farther I came to General Meade's head-quarters, in the house of Mrs. Leister. General Meade was there surrounded by his staff, consulting maps and issuing orders. General Hancock's head-quarters' flag,—the tree-foil of the Second Corps,—was waving on the ridge southwest of the house. General Slocum's,—the star-flag,—was in sight, on a conical hill a half-mile eastward. The crescent flag of the Eleventh was proudly planted on the highest elevation of the cemetery. The Maltese cross of the Fifth Corps was a half-mile south, toward Round-top.
Turning into the field and riding to the top of the ridge, I came upon Hayes's division of the Second Corps, joining Robinson's of the First; then Gibbons's and Caldwell's of the Second, reaching to a narrow roadway running west from the Taneytown road to the house of Abraham Trostle, where, a half-mile in advance of the main line, was planted the diamond flag of the Third Corps, General Sickles. Pushing directly west, through a field where the grass was ripening for the scythe, I approached the house of Mr. Codori, on the Emmettsburg road. But it was a dangerous place just then to a man on horseback, for the pickets of both armies were lying in the wheat-field west of the road. General Carr's brigade of the Third Corps was lying behind the ridge near the house of Peter Rogers. Soldiers were filling their canteens from the brook in the hollow. Further down by the house of Mr. Wentz, at the corner of the narrow road leading east from the Emmettsburg road, and in the peach-orchards on both sides of it, were troops and batteries. The Second New Hampshire, the First Maine, and the Third Michigan were there, holding the angle of the line, which here turned east from the Emmettsburg road. Thompson's battery was behind Wentz's house. General Sickles had his other batteries in position along the narrow road, the muzzles of the guns pointing southwest. Ames's New York battery was in the orchard, and the gunners were lying beneath the peach-trees, enjoying the leafy shade. Clark's New Jersey battery, Phillips's Fifth Massachusetts, and Bigelow's Ninth Massachusetts were on the left of Ames. Bigelow's was in front of Trostle's house, having complete command and the full sweep of a beautiful slope beyond the road for sixty rods.
The slope descends to a wooded ravine through which winds a brook, gurgling over a rocky bed. Beyond the brook are the stone farm-house and capacious barn of John Rose, in whose door-yard were the Union pickets, exchanging a shot now and then with the Rebels of Longstreet's corps, south of Rose's, who were lying along the Emmettsburg road.
General Barnes's division of the Third Corps was in the woods south of the narrow road, and among the rocks in front of Weed's Hill.
Sickles had advanced to the position upon his own judgment of the fitness of the movement. He believed that it was necessary to hold the ravine, down to Round-top, to prevent the enemy from passing through the gap between that eminence and Weed's Hill.