"With a hurrah they rush on!"
I rode along the lines, and beheld the field by the light of the gleaming stars. The dead were everywhere thickly strown. How changed the cemetery! Three days before, its gravelled walks were smooth and clean; flowers were in bloom; birds carolled their songs amid the trees; the monuments were undefaced; the marble slabs pure and white. Now there were broken wheels and splintered caissons; dead horses, shot in the neck, in the head, through the body, disembowelled by exploding shells, legs broken, flesh mangled and torn; pools of blood, scarlet stains on the headstones, green grass changed to crimson; marble slabs shivered; the ground ploughed by solid shot, holes blown out by bursting shells; dead men lying where they had fallen, wounded men creeping to the rear; cries and groans all around me! Fifty shells a minute had fallen upon that small enclosure. Not for a moment was there thought of abandoning the position. How those batteries of Osborne and Wainwright, of the Eleventh and First Corps, had lightened and thundered! There were scores of dead by the small house where the left of the Rebel line advanced, lying just as they were smitten down, as if a thunderbolt had fallen upon the once living mass!
An English officer, who saw the battle from the Rebel lines, thus says of the repulse:—
"I soon began to meet many wounded men returning from the front; many of them asked in piteous tones the way to a doctor, or an ambulance. The further I got the greater became the number of the wounded. At last I came to a perfect stream of them flocking through the woods in numbers as great as the crowd in Oxford Street in the middle of the day.... They were still under a heavy fire; the shells were continually bringing down great limbs of trees, and carrying further destruction amongst their melancholy procession. I saw all this in much less time than it takes to write it, and although astonished to meet such a vast number of wounded, I had not seen enough to give me an idea of the real extent of the mischief.
"When I got close up to General Longstreet, I saw one of his regiments advancing through the woods in good order; so, thinking I was just in time to see the attack, I remarked to the General that 'I wouldn't have missed this for anything.' Longstreet was seated on the top of a snake-fence, in the edge of the wood, and looking perfectly calm and unperturbed. He replied, 'The devil you wouldn't! I would like to have missed it very much; we've attacked and been repulsed. Look there!'
"For the first time I then had a view of the open space between the two positions, and saw it covered with Confederates slowly and sulkily returning towards us in small broken parties....
"I remember seeing a general (Pettigrew I think it was) come up to him and report that he was unable to bring his men up again. Longstreet turned upon him and replied with some sarcasm: 'Very well,—never mind, then, General; just let them remain where they are. The enemy is going to advance, and will spare you the trouble.' ...
"Soon afterward I joined General Lee, who had in the mean while come to the front, on becoming aware of the disaster. He was engaged in rallying and in encouraging the troops, and was riding about a little in front of the woods quite alone, the whole of his staff being engaged in a similar manner further to the rear. His face, which is always placid and cheerful, did not show signs of the slightest disappointment, care, or annoyance; and he was addressing to every soldier he met a few words of encouragement, such as, 'All this will come right in the end; we will talk it over afterwards,—but in the mean time all good men must rally. We want all good men and true men just now,' &c.... He said to me,'This has been a sad day for us, Colonel,—a sad day; but we can't expect always to gain victories.' ... I saw General Wilcox (an officer who wears a short round jacket and a battered straw hat) come up to him, and explain, almost crying, the state of his brigade. General Lee immediately shook hands with him, and said, cheerfully, 'Never mind, General. All this has been my fault,—it is I that have lost this fight, and you must help me out of it in the best way you can.'"[52]
It was past eleven o'clock in the evening when I rode up from the gory field, over the ridge, where the Second Corps had stood like a wall of adamant. Meade's head-quarters were in a grove, east of the small house where he established himself at the beginning of the battle. The fire had been too hot at Mrs. Leister's. Meade was sitting on a great flat boulder, listening to the reports of his officers, brought in by couriers. It was a scene which lives in memory: a dark forest,—the evening breeze gently rustling the green leaves over our heads,—the katydids and locusts singing cheerily,—the bivouac fires glimmering on the ground, revealing the surrounding objects,—the gnarled trees, torn by cannon-shot,—the mossy stones,—the group of officers,—Williams, Warren, Howard (his right sleeve wanting an arm), Pleasanton, as trim as in the morning; Meade stooping, weary, his slouched hat laid aside, so that the breeze might fan his brow.
"Bully! bully! bully all round!" said he; and then turning to his chief of staff, Humphrey, said, "Order up rations and ammunition."