Soon after this, our cares about all these smaller matters suddenly fell out of sight. That fierce musketry broke out again along the lines, in the woods, in front. It increased in fury, especially on the right. Very soon reports began to float back that the Federals were heavily overlapping A. P. Hill’s right, and things looked dangerous. Then it was rumored that some of Hill’s right regiments were beginning to give way, under the resistless weight of the columns hurled upon him and round his flank. We could quickly perceive this to be true by the sound of the firing, which came nearer to us and passed toward the left. This immediately threw our crowd into a fever of excitement; the idea of lying there, doing nothing, when our men were falling back, was intolerable. Every artillery man thought that if his battery could only get in, it would be all right. We knew what a difference it would instantly make, if all these silent guns could be sweeping the columns of the enemy. We would soon stop them, we thought! We just ached for orders to come but they did not. Still the news came, “impossible to get artillery in;” and loud and deep were the angry complaints of some, and curses of others, and great the disgust of all at our forced inaction. One fellow near me, voiced the feelings of us all—“If we can’t get in there, or Longstreet don’t get here pretty quick, the devil will be to pay.”
Arrival of the First Corps
In the midst of this anxious and high wrought feeling, an excited voice yelled out, “Look out down the road. Here they come!” We were driven nearly wild with excited joy, and enthusiasm by the blessed sight of Longstreet’s advance division coming down the road at a double quick, at which pace, after the news of Hill’s critical situation reached them, they had come for two miles and a half. The instant the head of his column was seen the cries resounded on every side, “Here’s Longstreet. The old war horse is up at last. It’s all right now.”
On, the swift columns came! Crowding up to the road, on both sides, we yelled ourselves nearly dumb to cheer them as they swept by. Hearty were the greetings as we recognized acquaintances and friends and old battle comrades in the passing columns. Specially did the “Howitzers” make the welkin ring when Barksdale’s Mississippi Brigade passed. This was the brigade to which our battery had long been attached, to which we were greatly devoted, with whom we had often fought, and admired as one of the most splendid fighting corps in the army. And loud was the cheer the gallant Mississippians flung back to the “Howitzers.”
Everything broke loose as General Longstreet in person rode past. Like a fine lady at a party, Longstreet was often late in his arrival at the ball, but he always made a sensation and that of delight, when he got in, with the grand old First Corps, sweeping behind him, as his train.
This was our own Corps, from which we had been separated for some months. The very sight of the gallant old veterans, as they poured on, was enough to make all hearts perfectly easy. Our feeling of relief was complete and as the Brigades disappeared into the woods in the direction of Hill’s breaking right, where the thunder of their still heroic resistance to overwhelming odds was roaring, we all felt, “Thank God! it’s all right now! Longstreet is up!”
And it was all right. The first brigades as they got up formed, and rushed right in, one after another, to check the advance of the enemy. And as they successively went in we could hear the musketry grow more angry and fierce. Before very long, a crashing peal of musketry broke out with a fury that made what we had been hearing before seem like pop-crackers. Our crowd quickly perceived that the sound was receding from us; at the same time the bullets,—which had been falling over among us entirely too lively to be pleasant to fellows who were not shooting any themselves,—stopped coming. We knew what this meant; Longstreet was putting his Corps in, and they were driving the enemy. Soon, to confirm our ideas, lines of Federal prisoners, from Hancock’s Corps, they told us, came by, and Longstreet’s wounded began to pass. These fellows told us that our Corps had gone in like a whirlwind, had already recovered Hill’s line, gone beyond it, and were forcing the Federals back.
They said Hancock’s Corps was doubled up, and being torn to pieces and they thought we would “bag the whole business.”
The Love that Lee Inspired in the Men He Led
All this was very nice and we were expressing our delight in the usual way. Just then, an officer rode up who told us a bit of news, that made us feel more like tears than cheers, and put every fellow’s heart into his mouth. He said that just before, General Lee had come in an ace of being captured. A body of the enemy had pushed through a gap in our line and unexpectedly come right upon the old General, who was quietly sitting upon his horse. That, these fellows could with perfect ease have taken, or shot him, but that he had quietly ridden off, and the enemy not knowing who it was, made no special effort to molest him.