Men fire into each other's faces, not five feet apart. There are bayonet-thrusts, sabre-strokes, pistol-shots; cool, deliberate movements on the part of some,—hot, passionate, desperate efforts with others; hand-to-hand contests; recklessness of life; tenacity of purpose; fiery determination; oaths, yells, curses, hurrahs, shoutings; men going down on their hands and knees, spinning round like tops, throwing out their arms, gulping up blood, falling; legless, armless, headless. There are ghastly heaps of dead men. Seconds are centuries; minutes, ages; but the thin line does not break!
The Rebels have swept past the Vermont regiments. "Take them in flank," says General Stannard.
The Thirteenth and Sixteenth swing out from the trench, turn a right angle to the main line, and face the north. They move forward a few steps, pour a deadly volley into the backs of Kemper's troops. With a hurrah they rush on, to drive home the bayonet. The Fifteenth, Nineteenth, Twentieth Massachusetts, and Seventh Michigan, Twentieth New York, Nineteenth Maine, One Hundred Fifty-First Pennsylvania, and other regiments catch the enthusiasm of the moment, and close upon the foe.
The Rebel column has lost its power. The lines waver. The soldiers of the front rank look round for their supports. They are gone,—fleeing over the field, broken, shattered, thrown into confusion by the remorseless fire from the cemetery and from the cannon on the ridge. The lines have disappeared like a straw in a candle's flame. The ground is thick with dead, and the wounded are like the withered leaves of autumn. Thousands of Rebels throw down their arms and give themselves up as prisoners.
How inspiring the moment! How thrilling the hour! It is the high-water mark of the Rebellion,—a turning-point of history and of human destiny!
Treason had wielded its mightiest blow. From that time the Rebellion began to wane. An account of the battle, written on the following day, and published on the 6th of July in the Boston Journal, contains the following passage:—
"The invasion of the North was over,—the power of the Southern Confederacy broken. There at that sunset hour I could discern the future; no longer an overcast sky, but the clear, unclouded starlight,—a country redeemed, saved, baptized, consecrated anew to the coming ages.
"All honor to the heroic living, all glory to the gallant dead! They have not fought in vain, they have not died for naught. No man liveth to himself alone. Not for themselves, but for their children; for those who may never hear of them in their nameless graves, how they yielded life; for the future; for all that is good, pure, holy, just, true; for humanity, righteousness, peace; for Paradise on earth; for Christ and for God, they have given themselves a willing sacrifice. Blessed be their memory forevermore!"
