Men fired in each others faces; there were bayonet thrusts, cutting with sabres, hand to hand contests, oaths, curses, yells and hurrahs. The second corps fell back behind the guns to allow the use of grape and double canister, and as it tore through the rebel ranks at only a few paces distant the dead and wounded were piled in ghastly heaps. Still on they came up to the very muzzles of the guns; they were blown away from the cannon's mouth but yet they did not waver. Pickett had taken the key to the position and the glad shout of victory was heard, as, the very impersonation of a soldier, he still forced his troops to the crest of Cemetery Ridge. Kemper and Armistead broke through Hancock's line, scaled the hill and planted their flags on its crest. Just before Armistead was shot, he placed his flag upon a captured cannon and cried "Give them the cold steel, boys!"; but valor could do no more, the handful of braves had won immortality but could not conquer an army. Pettigrew's weak division was broken fleeing and almost annihilated. Wilcox, owing to his great mistake in separating his column was easily routed, and Stannard's Vermonters thrown into the gap were creating havoc on Pickett's flank. Pickett, seeing his supports gone, his generals, Kemper, Armistead and Garnett killed or wounded, every field officer of three brigades gone, three-fourths of his men killed or captured, himself untouched but broken-hearted, gave the order for retreat, but band of heroes as they were they fled not; but amidst that still continuous, terrible fire they slowly, sullenly, recrossed the plain,—all that was left of them, but few of five thousand.
Thus ended the greatest charge known to modern warfare. Made in a most unequal manner against a great army and amidst the most terrific cannonade known in wars, and yet so perfect was the discipline, so audacious the valor that had this handful of Virginians been properly supported they would perhaps have rendered the Federal position untenable, and possibly have established the Southern Confederacy. While other battle-fields are upturned by the plough and covered with waving grain, Cemetery Ridge will forever proudly uphold its monuments telling of glory both to the Blue and the Gray, and our children's children while standing upon its crest will rehearse again of Pickett's wonderful charge.
THE PATRIOT, SAMUEL ADAMS.
By Edward P. Guild.
