Westways: A Village Chronicle

by S. Weir Mitchell

He was instantly obeyed. As he went with it to the front near to the wall, followed by Penhallow, he said, "It is my last canister, colonel. I can't see well."

Dimly seen figures in the dense smoke were visible here and there some two hundred yards away, with flutter of reeling battle-flags in the smoke, while more and more swiftly the wedge of men came on, losing terribly by the fire of the men at the wall along the lines.

Cushing stood with the lanyard of the percussion trigger in his hand. It seems inconceivable, but the two men smiled. Then he cried, "My God!"—his figure swayed, he held his left hand over a ghastly wound in his side, and as he reeled pulled the lanyard. He may have seen the red flash, and then with a bullet through the open mouth fell dead across the trail of his gun.

For a moment Penhallow was the only officer of rank near the silent battery. Where Cushing's two guns came too near the wall, the men moved away to the sides leaving an unguarded space. Checked everywhere to right and left, the assailants crowded on to the clump of trees and to where the Pennsylvania line held the stone wall. Ignorant of the ruin behind them, the grey mass came on with a rush through the smoke. The men in blue, losing terribly, fell back from a part of the wall in confusion—a mere mob—sweeping Webb, Penhallow and others with them, swearing and furious. Two or three hundred feet back they stopped, a confused mass. General Webb, Haskell and other officers rallied them. The red flags gathered thicker, where the small units of many commands stood fast under the shelter of a portion of the lost wall. Penhallow looked back and saw the Massachusetts flags—our centre alone had given way. The flanks of the broken regiments still held the wall and poured in a murderous fire where the splendid courage of the onset halted, unwilling to fly, unable to go on.

Webb, furious, rallied his men, while Penhallow, Haskell and Gibbon vainly urged an advance. A colour-sergeant ran forward and fell dead. A corporal caught up the flag and dropped. A Confederate general leaped over the deserted wall and laid a hand on Cushing's gun. He fell instantly at the side of the dead captain, as with a sudden roar of fury the broken Pennsylvanians rolled in a disordered mass of men and officers against the disorganized valour which held the wall.

The smoke held—still holds, the secret of how many met the Northern men at the wall; how long they fought among Cushing's guns, on and over the wall, no man who came out of it could tell. Penhallow emptied his revolver and seizing a musket fought the brute battle with the men who used fists, stones, gun-rammers—a howling mob of blue and grey. And so the swaying flags fell down under trampling men and the lost wall was won. The fight was over. Men fell in scores, asking quarter. The flanking fires had been merciless, and the slope was populous with dead and wounded men, while far away the smoke half hid the sullen retreat of the survivors. The prearranged mechanism of war became active. Thousands of prisoners were being ordered to the rear. Men stood still, gasping, breathless or dazed. As Penhallow stood breathing hard, from the right wing, among the long silent dead of Cemetery Hill, arose a wild hurrah. It gathered volume, rolled down the long line of corps after corps, and died away among the echoes of the Pennsylvania hills. He looked about him trying to recover interest. Some one said that Hancock and Gibbon were wounded. The rush of the mêlée had carried him far down the track of the charge, and having no instant duty he sat down, his clothes in tatters. As he recovered strength, he was aware of General Meade on horseback with an aide. The general, white and grave, said to Haskell, "How has it gone here?"

An officer cried, "They are beaten," showing two flags he held.

Meade said sharply: "Damn the flags! Are the men gone?"

"Yes, sir, the attack is over."

He uncovered, said only, "Thank God!" gave some rapid orders and rode away beside the death-swath, careful, as Penhallow saw, to keep his horse off of the thirty scattered flags, many lying under or over the brave who had fought and lost in this memorable charge.