42 The Devil’s Den

The day came, the armies awoke, and, standing up, looked at each other. They were all there, or soon would be, one hundred and sixty thousand men face to face—ninety thousand for the North, seventy thousand for the South.

The sun, slow and majestic, rose above the hills; its light in sheaves of red and yellow fell over the two armies. The brilliant rays lingered in the crannies of the rocks, and gilded the bodies of the dead. The night dews dried up, the vapours were gone, and the air felt pure and fresh. There was Gettysburg, looking from our lines like the peaceful country town it had always been before yesterday, with its trim houses and the red gold of the young sun shining on dome and cupola.

The two armies gazed at each other curiously and without hostility. The fierceness, the bitterness, the hatred that marked this war in common with other wars, was not theirs. Such emotions were for the people behind them; their own, if they had felt them, had long since disappeared in the shock of battle. The soldiers on the opposite hill were enemies, veterans like themselves, worthy of respect; it was not for them to malign men who might soon prove themselves their conquerors.

Shaftoe and I stood side by side. Neither had slept in that night between battles, but I did not feel the need of rest. I had forgotten such things in the deep satisfaction that followed the rescue of Elinor.

We rubbed the vapours from our eyes and turned our faces to the west, where stood the Army of Northern Virginia, glittering in the sunlight. A bird alighted on a bush near us, and, unafraid of armies, began to pour out a stream of song. Shaftoe looked at him as he sung, full-throated, upon his bough, and repeated aloud:

I said nothing. I had long since ceased to be surprised at anything this common soldier said or did; and I knew, moreover, that the American common soldier was not always like the common soldier of other countries.

“Why don’t they begin?” I asked at length.

Shaftoe did not answer. He seemed deep in thought.

Another hour passed, and then another; still no movement. The armies stretched themselves and took deep breaths. The sound of a rifle shot came presently from a point down the line, and was followed soon by another, and after that by others, in a fitful, desultory way, as if not really in earnest. There was nothing inspiring in the reports, no expression of energy; merely a lazy crackle like a tired salute. It did not stir the two armies, which continued to stare at each other in the same embarrassed way.

On went the sun in its slow, red majesty. The embarrassed pause, to which the crackling fire of the skirmishers formed no interruption, did not cease, and the skirmishing was unheeded. Another hour passed, and then another, and the armies did not move. The skirmishing in the wood increased in dignity. It was not now an intermittent crackle, but a steady crash, swelling and falling in volume, and unceasing. It was no longer a skirmish going on there, it was a battle; but to the main armies it was only an incident. The sun climbed on, reaching the zenith, and the armies yet stood there; it passed toward the west. One o’clock came, two o’clock, three o’clock, and still they did not move.

During all these long hours, when the two armies stood face to face and attentive, the telegraph wires clicked over thousands of miles, as they had clicked the night before, asking the same question, “What news of the armies?” and the answer, “Nothing,” always came back to the tired man at Washington, as it came to all others. The one hundred and sixty thousand men who looked at each other, and were to decide the fate of the thirty millions, were hidden from the rest of the world.

The afternoon was of dazzling brightness. The sunlight streamed over everything. The smoke from the combat in the woods was only a single blur. The armies simmered in the heat.

But the time had come. An important division of the Southern army arrived, delayed two hours by a mistaken order.

At mid-afternoon four brigades of the Southern army moved forward to attack the Peach Orchard—place of pleasant name and bloody memory—and the frowning rocks of the Devil’s Den.

A succession of flashes burst from the Peach Orchard, followed by a heavy, rolling crash, a sound now familiar and old. The Northern artillery was filing a remonstrance against the Southern advance.

The Southern batteries answered the remonstrance; a vast flame flared out as the rifles took up the appeal, and the line of fire leaped up and down the front of the two armies like a blaze, running along the edge of a tinder-dry forest.

The battle extended with incredible rapidity. The rival generals saw their men meet around Little Round Top, and then disappear in the smoke bank of their own firing. Above the fighting cloud on the slopes rose the dark, tower-like dome of this summit, a massive rock dominating the southern end of the field and seeming to say to the two armies, “Who keeps me keeps the victory.” Here troops were already climbing the last slope.

The Northern commander-in-chief, still watching, saw the streams of fire from the great guns, and then the Southern troops were beaten back from the edge of the crest, but not to retreat. Tenacity was allied with their dash. They attacked again, and then the thickening smoke hid the summit and the lower ridges, and the men struggling upon them, from the commander. Within this whirling cloud the combat for Little Round Top assumed a most desperate phase—a vast, confused, overlapping struggle among the rocks, where the lines could not be retained, and soldiers sometimes climbed trees to get shots at each other, feeling no hate, but the desire to kill.

There is a hill along the line of battle, with dark and shaggy hollows in its western side, forming a kind of crater, almost a cavern, sharp rocks rising up at its mouth like rows of jagged and broken teeth. It is a forbidding place, even when the sun shines in it, and one does not like to linger there; the air has a kind of chill in it, and you grow sombre. The sharp rocks threaten like the shark’s teeth they are, and the ground is cold.

This place is called the Devil’s Den, and few names are more fitting.

A Northern general filled the Devil’s Den on the morning of July 2d with sharpshooters—men who could hide themselves on the ground behind a stone and pick out on the enemy’s body the exact spot where they intended the bullet to hit; men who could count, in the evening after the battle, the number they had killed with as much pleasure and as much freedom from remorse as if they had been hunters shooting rabbits. They were grand masters of their craft, cool and experienced, quick of eye and hand, and believed to be wholly without conscience; therefore they were to be trusted.

Shaftoe and I stood behind some rocks just above this crater, and whenever the battle let us, we watched the sharpshooters in it with both curiosity and aversion.

They had been impatient at the slow movements of the Southern army, and grumbled as the long hours of sunshine passed and brought nothing. They wanted to hear the bullets singing; to see the white puffs of smoke rise, and the men, their chosen targets, fall at so many hundred yards, proof of their skill. They could not be truly happy until this, which was meat and drink to them, began, and they felt that they were treated unfairly.

They were lying down behind the rocks, examining their slender-barrelled rifles, which they prized as wife and children, rising up now and then for a better look at the distant lines of the Southern army; a group of men tanned to a russet brown by the sun; thin, sinuous, and fierce-eyed, like forest Indians. There was a great range of age; the one on the right was nearly sixty years old, and another near him was not twenty. The youth, Hunter, was more impatient than the others. His impatience became anger, and he cursed the troops because they would not come within range of his rifle.

“Save your breath, Hunter; you’ll need it soon to cool your rifle,” said the old man.

“Do you suppose, Wilson, that I want to lie here all day on my stomach, frying like a turtle on a griddle, waiting for the rebels?” replied Hunter.

“Why don’t you send a letter to Lee telling him you’re tired of waiting?” asked a third man, Watson.

Hunter’s only reply was an angry snarl. The others laughed.

“Hunter’s going to do like the Indians, and carry a stick with a notch in it for every man that he’s killed,” said Wilson.

Hunter was staring at the Southern lines. His was not a good face to look at; it was too long and narrow, and his greenish eyes were set close together like two peas in a pod. He had already made a good record at his trade, though, compared with some of his comrades, he was a novice. But he had his ambitions.

The sun shone into Hunter’s eyes and inflamed them. The heat seemed to creep from his eyes into his brain, and he saw things through a curious red mist. Naturally morose, his temper grew angrier at the long wait; he felt of his rifle which he loved, a weapon with a barrel longer than usual and a beautifully carved stock. He held it up and admired it, then fitted the stock to his shoulder and took aim at imaginary objects.

“Hunter’s in love with his gun,” said a comrade. “See how he’s fondling it!”

Hunter scorned to reply. Besides, he scarcely seemed to hear. He was too much occupied with his rifle. He admired it hugely. He believed it to be the most beautiful weapon in the world, and the sense of ownership that he felt, as I could see, was peculiarly satisfying. This increased his desire to use it, to devote it to the purpose for which it was made. The gun had acquired a power over him, a sort of fascination, like that of a snake, and it seemed to rebuke him because he did not find the opportunity for use. So he felt apparently that it had cause for complaint against him, and his impatience and anger grew as the sunlight broadened and stillness yet reigned over the valley and slopes. He put the gun down. The barrel was hot to his touch under the burning rays, but he could not escape its reproach. He picked it up again, and it continually urged him on; the urging agreed so well with his feelings that he scarcely needed it. He began to measure the distance to the nearest Southern soldiers, and wonder if he could not get a shot. He lay flat on his stomach and calculated the horizontal line to an officer, apparently a colonel, whom he could see on the opposite slope. Unconsciously he began to squirm forward, dragging himself with the elbows and muscular motion of his body. He forgot his comrades; his eyes were full of savage fire, and the lust of blood was in his veins.

“Look at Hunter, turning himself into a rattlesnake!” suddenly cried Wilson.—“What are you doing there, Hunter? Come back, and don’t waste your bullets on the air. You’ll have plenty need for ’em soon.”

Hunter came back, but he apologized to his rifle, and whispered to it that the chance would come yet. Then he stroked the long steel barrel and looked down the sights again to see that there was no mistake. He was muttering to himself, but the others did not notice it.

The sun was very hot to Hunter. While the ground in the Devil’s Den was cold to his touch, the heat poured directly upon his head, and he was restless as if he had a fever. Nothing could satisfy him but the use of his gun, the beloved weapon, which had been lying idle too long, and was complaining. He pulled himself forward again, not wishing to rise up and walk, as the sharpshooters were to form an ambush, and this time his comrades did not rebuke him, since they, too, were becoming extremely impatient. He reached the edge of the Den and lay there for a while, looking more than ever like a rattlesnake sunning himself on a rock. He raised himself up a little presently, and shouted:

“They are coming!”

He was transfigured. His eyes glittered and his face showed joy. The rifle shots began to crash farther up the line, and above them soon rose the roar of the artillery. With these sounds the transformation of the Devil’s Den became complete. All its sloth was shed like a shell, and it was filled with sinuous, strenuous forms, sliding from rock to rock, and thrusting forward long rifle barrels, seeking a shot. Hunter already had taken possession of the outermost rock, and when the Southern troops came within range he picked a man and fired. The soldier fell, and Hunter’s eyes expressed ferocious satisfaction. The sun burned into his brain, and the good shot inflamed it. He patted his rifle approvingly, and then quietly reloaded. He was enjoying himself, and he felt that he was a true sharpshooter, worthy of his company. He loaded and fired as fast as he could pick a target, and his breast expanded with savage joy.

All the men in the Devil’s Den were busy. Those rocks became a nest of hornets, and they were stinging the flanks of the Southern army, persistent, insatiable, and always drawing blood.

The fire that came from the Devil’s Den was not in volleys, nor was it a regular succession of shots. It was an intermittent crackle, each man pulling the trigger as he secured his aim. They did not intend to waste lead. They were there not merely to shoot but to hit. They were no amateurs, burning powder just for the sake of the flash and the blaze. They said but little; seldom was anything heard in the Devil’s Den save the crackle of the rifle fire and the heavy breathing of the men. The roar of the battle became continuous and thunderous. Vast clouds of smoke drifted over the field and hid most of it. The sharpshooters in the Devil’s Den, despite their deadly work, were unnoticed so far. They lay there among the rocks, and stung and stung. Now and then a shell flew over their heads and shrapnel struck near, but none fell among them, and they rejoiced at their immunity. They were willing for the other side to have all the danger. They were not there to secure any of the glory of the war, or to give the other fellow a chance. They wanted all the chances to be their own, and they were burdened by no scruples. Their attitude was precisely that of the man toward the partridge that he hunts.

Hunter’s face became inflamed, and was as red as the setting sun. The muzzle of his rifle smoked continually with his rapid firing.

“Look at Hunter!” cried Wilson, in the course of a lull. “Did you ever see such a face and eyes? He’s breathing too much of his own rifle smoke! It’s got powder in it, and it’s gone to his brain!”

The men would have noticed Hunter more closely, but at that moment the battle flamed afresh, and the voices were lost in the roar of the batteries and the rolling crash of the rifle fire, which gave delight to the sharpshooters, and incited them to preternatural activity.

The dense columns of the Southerners, marching to attack the hills, presented their flanks to the sharpshooters, and the target was as fine and large as the most ruthless of ambushed marksmen could wish. The men in the Devil’s Den sent a stream of bullets into the solid masses, loading and firing in silence, unnoticed yet, because they were lost in the vast battle that converged around them, and because they kept under cover of the rocks, with the Indian-like precaution of sharpshooters, who neglect no chances.

A cloud of whitish brown smoke from the rifles hung over the Devil’s Den and hid it. The cloud was punctuated by many flashes of red fire, and the rattle of the shots from the rocks was like the continued explosion of packs of giant firecrackers. Never had the Devil’s Den deserved so well its name. It was filled with men who were earning their pay.

“Stop firing, and let the smoke lift a little,” called out Wilson presently. “If we can’t see, we’ll waste our bullets!”

The thought of sending bullets at a vague target was unendurable to Wilson.

“Hold your fire!” he called out again. “Who is it that keeps on peppering away?—Stop that, I tell you, Hunter, or I’ll club you with your own gun! Are you crazy?”

Hunter yielded, though sullenly. Perhaps he would not have stopped at all if he had not wished to give his gun time to cool. He looked affectionately at the rifle, and seemed to feel that both it and he were doing well that day. They could congratulate each other. The look on his face was that of the unredeemed savage. Hardened and merciless as all the men were, some of them shrank from him.

“I told you that Hunter was inhaling too much powder smoke,” said Wilson, looking curiously at the young man. “And it isn’t a healthy diet.—Is your head hot, Hunter?”

Hunter made no reply, but began to count the bullets in his ammunition pouch. There was no time to talk now. Many bullets were yet in the pouch; yonder were the Southern columns as dense as ever, and here was his beloved rifle, crying out to be used again. There was work for him to do.

The cloud of smoke lifted, and the sharpshooters saw the enemy clearly again; they resumed their fire, and breathed sighs of satisfaction when they saw that the target was nearer. The poorest among them could scarcely miss it at so short a range. The activity of the Devil’s Den was redoubled. It spouted flame, and the well-aimed bullets cut gashes in the Southern lines. So much fire, a fire so deadly, was bound to attract attention in time, and presently a shell refused to pass over the Devil’s Den like its predecessors, but dropped there among the rocks, hurling many pieces of hot and jagged steel among the sharpshooters. These men did not cry out when they were struck; they left on the ground their dead, who were no longer of any use, and the wounded attended to their own wounds, while the others continued their fire with the same coolness and accuracy.

The Devil’s Den belched much destruction, but now it was receiving a sinister attention in return. It was a plague, and the Southern artillery undertook to apply the cure. Two streams of fire met in the canopy of smoke that overhung it—one the flash of the rifles held by the sharpshooters, and the other the bursting of the Southern shells hurled at the Devil’s Den.

The sharpshooters grew angry; they were paying too high a price for their opportunities; besides, the scream of the shells and shrapnel over their heads was so unearthly that it might have upset the nerves of men less experienced than themselves. But they were thankful that they were not so raw. Nevertheless, they neglected no precautions; they burrowed under the rocks, and some of them succeeded in protecting themselves from the searching shells. They lay flat upon the ground, and their faded uniforms were almost the colour of the rocks and dirt. Only their eager eyes were visible, and always in the first rank, nearest the enemy, was Hunter. He seemed happy. This activity, the bursting of the shells about him, the incessant roar of the battle, and above all the report of his own rifle, soothed somewhat the flame in his head, but he breathed continuously the powder smoke made by his firing, and soon he forgot his comrades, everything except the red battle in front, and the advancing masses, into which he sent his bullets with regularity and precision.

The Devil’s Den was growing hot. Each moment added to the desert of its name. One third of the sharpshooters had fallen, and the fragments of burst shells still smoked. The odours were unpleasant, but the activity of the remaining sharpshooters atoned for the destruction of the others. They were enraged at their losses, and gave their rifles no rest. Stung themselves, they stung with more fury.

Two shells burst simultaneously in the Devil’s Den, and there was wreck among the sharpshooters.

“It’s time to go!” shouted Wilson. “We’re sharpshooters, and we’re not expected to form a solid line against artillery.”

All the men who could, rose to go, except one. Hunter was crawling forward, and aiming at an officer. He had watched that man and others, and he believed that he and his good gun would slay them all. He had no thought of going. He was oblivious to everything, except his quarry. Suddenly he uttered a cry of anger and grief. A piece of a bursting shell had broken his rifle in his hand.

“Hunter, you fool, come away!” cried Wilson.

Hunter snatched up the rifle of a fallen man and went on with his work. His brain was red hot now.

“Hunter, are you crazy?” cried Wilson, in amazement. “Come on!”

Hunter did not reply. He would never fire again. A shell had burst low down and directly over his head.

The Southern troops in one of their charges took the Devil’s Den hill and passed on, driving us before them, but help came to us at last, and then we held our new ground, although we could not drive them back.

The tranquil sun was setting, not varying a minute from the allotted time because of the terrible struggle that whirled about the little town; it cast a deep glow over all the field, and the swelling columns of smoke were shot through with a tinge of red, the red of the guns deepened by the red of the peaceful skies.

The armies were as heedless of the sun as the sun was of them; its splendours of scarlet and gold passed unseen. The two commanders still lifted up their regiments and hurled them at each other, and men without malice fought as if they had some precious hate to avenge.

The Southern troops who had shown such valour began at last to display less energy in the attack. They ceased the advance, very slowly and full of anger, hesitating at first, and then retreating. Above them frowned the summit of Little Bound Top, untaken and threatening, crowded with its guns, which contributed their share to the shower of metal thrown upon the brave men who had failed.

The line rolled back upon itself like a carpet, but the slopes were lined with their dead. Victory rested with us at the south end of the field, but elsewhere the battle still raged with unbroken energy. The growing darkness was lighted up by the blazing gunpowder, and fresh regiments and brigades were sent into the vortex. At these points, fate or chance, or whatever it may be, still lingered over its decision, seeming to enjoy the slow doubt, and to prolong it, as if it were a delicate morsel. The Southern attack cut our squares in some places, was driven back at others, and the line of battle began to zigzag like a drunken man.

The sun shot down, the twilight darkened into night, and, seen against the black background, the redness of the battle grew. Every cannon-flash was magnified, and each rifle shot made a spout of fire. The area of flame began to contract at last, the roar of the battle became irregular, and I saw that the energy of the combatants was waning. The flame vanished, the thunder ceased, and the day’s struggle was over. Exhaustion and the night conquered at last, but there was no decisive result. The final decree, which we believed ought to be given, was withheld, and we sank down to await another day of combat.

It was ten o’clock when the second day’s struggle ceased, but our second day was better than our first, although there was no exultation in the soul of Meade as he rode through his lines in the moonlit night and looked upon the awful scene of ruin and desolation. Twenty thousand of his men had fallen. The muster roll of his dead and wounded was already large enough to constitute an army. The Southern attack had failed at the main points, but it had succeeded at others, and it would come again. Meade, as he looked at the hills held by the Southern troops and saw their camp fires still burning, knew that Lee had not delivered his last blow; he would attack again on the morrow.

Shaftoe and I came out of the smoke, still together, still unhurt, but exhausted. I stopped a moment to look over the theatre of the vast conflict and try to gain some comprehension of the day’s events.

“What has happened?” I asked.

“Nothing,” replied the veteran. “Forty thousand men have been killed or wounded, but nothing has happened yet.”

It was with no sense of cruelty, or even indifference, that he spoke. His was strictly the military meaning. He intended to say that forty thousand men had fallen, and no decision had been reached. The issue of the battle was as uncertain now as it was when it began. In silence we went to the nearest camp fire. A great passing of souls was the chief impression yet made upon me by Gettysburg.

The night advanced, the moon shone, the stars glittered in the sky of blue, and the work of the generals went on. The ravages of the cannon balls were repaired by new lines. The contents of the ammunition wagons, which for the last two days had been pouring out powder and ball in a continuous stream, like grain from a mill, were measured. Breastworks were built and cannon examined.

I went toward the rear as soon as my duties would permit me, and there I found Elinor at work among the wounded. “She has been worth as much to us as any soldier on the field to-day,” said a surgeon to me. It was a brave face that she turned to me, though pale from work and the sights of that day. “I knew that you would come back safely,” she said, and then she smiled a little, and added, “Call it my woman’s intuition.”

We talked, in the few minutes that she could spare, about the chances of the battle, and I told her my belief that we would win on the morrow. “Another day!” she said; “surely that will end it!” Then I left her, knowing how much she was needed among the hurt, but I felt stronger, because I knew that a woman’s prayers for my safety followed me.

The Soutbern army arose the next morning sore and angry, feeling that it had not won the success it deserved on the day before, but prepared, whenever its general called, to go back and take the triumph yet denied.

The day was bright and burning, like the two just before it. The battle had begun already, and this third beginning was made by us. Before, the North waited for the South.

Our artillery opened fire at daybreak on the Southern left, which occupied the same positions taken the day before from the North. The South, for a little while, contented itself without answer, but the volume of the firing grew fast, and their interest began to increase.

The Southern regiments, thus attacked, were the old soldiers of Stonewall Jackson, who had always taken them to victory. They were without a single cannon; though the fire of batteries was turned upon them, they could reply only with rifles, and at close quarters. More troops were coming to the aid of their enemies; none came to them. They wondered why they were thus neglected. They could hear the sound of no battle elsewhere, but their wonder and their isolation never caused them to flinch for a moment.

The day grew hotter than its predecessors and the long morning lingered on. The battle at the North swelled and roared, but the bulk of the Army of Northern Virginia still rested on the slopes, and we wondered why it did not move to the help of Jackson’s men.

“What do you think of it?” I asked as I lay on Cemetery Hill.

“Why is Lee waiting, do you mean?” answered Shaftoe.

“Yes.”

“I’d rather tell you my thoughts after the battle. Then I can make them fit,” replied the cautious veteran.

Two hours, three hours, four hours, and more passed, and the murmur of inquiry in both armies grew.

Now, Jackson’s soldiers, who had been fighting their long and lonely battle, were oppressed with a terrible grief. They began to feel that they would have to yield, to give back; they, the unbeaten, would be beaten. They made superhuman efforts to hold their ground, but they began to slip back, only an inch or two at first, but an inch or two was too much.

The inch or two grew to feet, and then to yards. Their backward movement was slow, but it did not cease. It could not. The crushing weight driven against them was never withdrawn, and to stand was not now a question of bravery, merely of strength; the reduced lines, strive as they might, could not bear the load. Those who would not retreat were taken; infolded by our numerous brigades, and threatened with annihilation, they were compelled to surrender. Arms and colours were lost. It became a day doubly tragic for Jackson’s men. The survivors could neither preserve their weapons nor their flags.

They looked for help, but, seeing none, abandoned the thought of it, and back they went still farther in the smoke, leaving more prisoners, knowing the certainty of defeat for them—a defeat that was without disgrace, yet full of pain.

It was eleven o’clock, and the noon hour was coming. The battle, waged so fiercely at the north end of the line, ceased. A silence, strange, even weird, settled over the field. No shots were heard. Even the rumble of men sank to a murmur. The clouds of smoke were lifting, and through them came the burning sun.

The silence grew heavier, as if the two combatants suffered a paralysis from long and gigantic exertions, or had become appalled by their own work. The sun, like a huge ball of glowing red-hot copper, sailed on toward the zenith, unpitying. The day was breathless.

The silence, so strange, so oppressive, was broken at last by a cannon shot; it was followed quickly by five or six others, and the flames leaped up from a house and several stacks of straw between the Virginians, under Pickett, the newly arrived division, now lying on Seminary Ridge, and our lines, burning brightly and rapidly, set on fire by the cannon shot. We saw by the light the forms of their skirmishers creeping forward among the rocks and hillocks, and then we heard the crackle of their rifles. The fire of the cannon increased and spread from battery to battery the vast amphitheatre resounded with the reports. “The cover for some movement,” I said to myself.

The cannonade swelled into tremendous volume, and again the amphitheatre rested beneath the canopy of smoke which now seemed natural to it, and through and beneath this canopy flew the incessant showers of steel. The spectacle was brilliant and majestic. The flames, with the sunlight shining upon them, glittered in many colours, and the house burned like a torch that led the van.

The cannonade died after a while, and the hot guns began to cool. The sharpshooters ceased. Their fire was doing no damage, and they could not afford to waste ammunition now. The bottoms of the Southern caissons and ammunition chests were growing alarmingly near; the battle had been long, and enough powder had been burned and shot fired to equip a magazine. Then we waited again, and all the smoke floated away. The theatre of the battle-to-be was unchanged. The arena was ready, and only the actors waiting; but silence came once more, and the impatient ceased to question, knowing its idleness.

Noon passed, and then another hour. The sun hung overhead, pouring a flood of burning rays upon the valley, the slopes, and the sombre towers of the Round Tops.

A cannon shot sounded on the right of the Southern line; the single note echoed and rolled with sinister suggestion in all that vast stillness. After one minute of intense waiting, it was followed by a second cannon shot, rolling and reverberating like the first. It was a signal, and both armies knew its meaning. Those two cannon shots said, “Be on your guard!”

The time was one o’clock.

Before the smoke of the two shots melted into the sky, one hundred and thirty-eight Southern cannon, massed at the southern end of their line and fired all at once, hurled a storm of steel and iron upon our army. The first cannonade had been without result, but this was bigger and closer, and the Southern generals believed that it would not fail. The North, before silent, replied with more than a hundred guns, and our cannoneers, refreshed by their rest, worked with skill and speed. More than two hundred and fifty cannon were engaged, and the greatest artillery duel ever known in America had begun.

The Southern batteries, in action, were more numerous, and their fire was concentric, but our men were better sheltered, and we had sixty or eighty cannon in reserve that we could bring up if needed. All the factors of a mighty duel were present, and none was neglected. A light wind sprang up and drove the smoke back over the valley and the Southern batteries, partially hiding them and the line of attack from us, but exposing our position and enabling the enemy to see the destruction there. Men were falling, supply trains were overturned and ambulances shattered, houses within our lines torn in pieces, Meade’s headquarters among them, and great guns dismounted. Our soldiers not engaged were hiding behind every projection, hugging Mother Earth to escape the fire from sevenscore wide, hot mouths across the valley. Meade and Hancock were passing among the men, encouraging them, and watching the cannonade. Fresh guns were hurried up to take the place of those shattered or dismounted; new cannoneers succeeded the fallen, and the cannon duel went on.

The Southern gunners increased the speed of their volley firing, and we followed with an equal increase. Great as was the roar of the exploding gunpowder, it could not drown the lash of the projectiles through the air, the shrill discord of sound made by the shells, the shrapnel, the canister, the solid shot, and all the other missiles hurled by two hundred and fifty guns, worked at the supreme speed of skilled cannoneers.

But the Southern generals yet felt the old uncertainty, and there was good cause for it. Our resistance exceeded all their anticipations, and the dwindling stock of ammunition was heavy on their minds. They calculated the distance across the valley, looked at their brigades lying around the slopes, and then up at the sun that marked the advancing afternoon. They noticed presently a decline in our fire, and they hoped that it would cease, crushed by the superior fire of the South. It did not cease, yet most of the old swiftness and spirit seemed to be gone. They began to feel that the time had come. There were still doubt and hesitation among them, a belief by some that the attack should be made; by others that it should be postponed; but the order was sent to Pickett and his Virginians to come.

The splendid brigades rose up for the task.

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