43 High-water Mark

It was mid-afternoon. The sun, hotter than ever, filled the valley with fiery rays, flashed along swords and bayonets, and glowed in the wheat fields, where the gold was slashed with red. The rocks burned.

The cannonade sank to a few stray shots, like funeral guns; then it ceased, and, driven by the wind, the canopy of smoke floated away, like an awning suddenly drawn back on invisible rollers. The whole battlefield leaped into the light.

A cry of admiration arose from the two armies. We saw the magnificent division of Pickett standing there, amid the sea of the dead, calm, untroubled, their ranks even, about to give the salute. We knew that these were soldiers. We were soldiers ourselves, and we did not withhold applause. Then we turned to our guns.

“They are coming,” I said.

“We are ready,” replied Shaftoe.

I saw them distinctly as they marched toward us in the burning sunlight, descending the slopes in solid array, silent, superb in order and bearing, aflame with ardour, their eyes on the far hills, where stood their enemy, four thousand five hundred men, ready to march through gates of fire.

It was a massive column, strong, enduring, and linked together as if made of flexible steel. The men felt the swell of muscle and tightening of sinew like whipcord as they stepped in their pride, and the ranks rose and fell with the sweep of the ground, their arms catching the sunlight and throwing far gleams. The hot air which bore upon its breath the smell of burned powder, stinging their faces and filling their lungs, fed the flame of battle already burning so brightly in their veins. I knew as they marched so steadily what they felt, and for the moment I could march with them.

“Plant your feet deep, Henry,” said Shaftoe.

“Yes, they still come,” I replied.

The blood was leaping in my veins. Many voices rang in my ears. The men out there were my kindred. I was bone of their bone; I, too, was of the South, and I wished for a moment that they might succeed. They were worthy of it—men without fear, gentlemen, unafraid. Then the feeling passed.

A general almost involuntary movement occurred in our army. It seemed to contract, to cover less space, but to thicken and deepen, as if, preparing to receive a blow, it would gather its full strength at the threatened point. There was the sound of moving cannon, the clink of bullets, the sigh of the ramrod in the barrel when the charge was driven home, and the mutter of men talking, as they chose shrapnel and canister.

The Virginians gave their salute, and turned their eyes once more to their enemy. They saw in the dazzling sunlight the long lines of our army, the solid array of batteries, the mouths of many cannon, but they felt no fear. I watched them, unable to take my eyes away.

They swung forward again with long, easy steps, heads erect, shoulders back, the hot air upon their faces and the sunlight pouring upon their heads. They knew that they drew all eyes; they knew that the battle had been fought so far without them, and marking well the spot in the great concave wall of blue and black before them, at which they intended to strike, they came with measured tread. Pickett himself led. Kemper took the right and Armistead the left. Other columns of men, ten thousand in number, formed on the flanks. But the Virginians were the sword blade that was to be driven home to the hilt. They were to win the victory for the South, and the others were to help them keep it.

The light of the sun turned to fire; all its rays seemed to be poured upon the valley which held so many dead. It was like an arena, and these Virginians were the gladiators, kept for the last and best act. They knew the greatness and danger of their task, but felt that it was an increase of honour. Their two brigades marched steadily toward us, facing the position held by Hancock, every eye on the spot chosen for the blow.

The field was still silent, save for the advance of the Virginians. The wounded raised themselves up to see; the sun beat down on the faces of the dead; the marching soldiers stepped lightly over them, and in our lines sixty thousand men looked on.

Forward they came across the valley, Pickett measuring the distance with his eye, and the men marching with the long, easy stride of the open-air Virginian. Handfuls of smoke lingered among the clefts and rocks, or floated off before the light wind. The sun was pitiless. Its heat inclosed all the field, and entered the blood of the Virginians. It burned them, and urged them to action. The red sprang into their eyes. Our lines melted into one great blue blur, and there was a haze between. The Southern shells began to fly over their heads, and the roar of the cannon swelled behind them. The Virginians paid no heed. It was the covering fire of their comrades. Those were friendly shells sounding in their ears, and the threat of the shrapnel was for their foe, not for them.

We were silent. The rifles were at rest. The cannon mouths facing the Virginians, in sombre rows, were voiceless. They may have thought that those cannon had been crushed, overwhelmed by the fire of the South, and the gunners slain; but on they came into the valley, keeping their ranks over the rough ground, a sword blade of tempered steel balanced for the final stroke. Well did they deserve the cry of admiration uttered by both armies!

The smoke from the guns of their comrades began to float about them. The valley again became dim. The sun was veiled, but the intensity of the heat was not relaxed. The air grew thick and sulphurous, and the men breathed heavily. But there was no faltering among the Virginians. They marched as to a review. The general commanding half wheeled to the left, and they wheeled too as if on parade and came on. The smoke from the guns behind them passed far over their heads, and was banking up in front into a great bluish wall that rose up and hid us. It seemed to quiver suddenly, and was then hurled aside by a stream of fire. The report of forty heavy cannon, massed directly before them, roared in the ears of the Virginians, and the shells and shrapnel slashed their ranks. Before the light of the flash died, and the smoke closed again over the gap, they saw our gunners bending over the guns, and to right and left, curving away in a vast semicircle, thousands and thousands of riflemen, some standing behind stone fences, some behind hasty walls of earth, some in the open—but all ready.

They saw then that our artillery had not been crushed. It was there, with its gunners waiting. One hundred cannon and fifty thousand rifles would pour their fire upon the four thousand five hundred Virginians. But they did not falter. They were still gentlemen, unafraid. This was a great task, but they would not flinch it. They closed their ranks over the fallen, and marched on into the heart of the smoke and flame.

It must have seemed to these heroic men that they were truly marching through gates of fire. The wall of smoke that stood in front of them was rent continuously now by the blasts of the cannon. Solid shot beat upon them, shell and shrapnel burst among them, and the canister flew in their faces. In their ears was always the roaring of guns, and the fiercer cry of the missiles. Behind them they left the long red trail of their dead.

The fire of a whole army converged upon this column, battery following battery, and now and then a half dozen firing together in one huge gush of metal, while always the shell and shrapnel flew to the mark. The Virginians had been in the sunlit open for all to see, and our gunners marked well their course, lashing their squares with intersecting showers, and increasing the speed of their fire as the Virginians came nearer. The batteries worked like smooth and deadly machines. None spoke there save the chiefs, who gave sharp orders, but the cannoneers breathed hard and fast as they served their pieces with naked brown arms, upon which the great muscles bunched up in knots under the strain.

The Virginians did not turn. They advanced directly into the storm which swelled out to meet them, and began the ascent of our slopes. Their numbers were melting, their squares were dwindling, incessantly shorn away by the cannon fire, but their ranks were unbroken, the living stepping in place of the dead, and on they came to the music of the guns.

I saw these men again, through the film of smoke and fire, and again my heart swelled, for I knew that they had not flinched. There they were in the red haze, coming as straight as ever. I looked a question at Shaftoe. He did not speak; his voice could not have been heard then, and he looked back the reply: “I see; they will not stop!” Once more I felt that sense of pride. These were of my own South, and Americans, too, like those of the North.

The Virginians wheeled again, and this time toward the right. Over their heads the Southern shells were still flying, though slowly now. The bottoms of the ammunition chests were in plain view, and the spirit of the Southern cannonade, from lack of material, declined; yet it was a time when powder and shell were most needed by them.

The Virginians looked up now and then, when the shells flew over their heads, and perhaps they noticed their fewness, but they took no alarm from it, approaching with the same steady valour and resolved purpose. But they needed less space at every step. The heat of the fire into which they marched was increasing. It licked through the lines, clipped off the companies, and ate into the heart of the brigades. There was a steady compression of the squares, closing up over their losses; the solidity remained, but the size decreased. A wonderful cutting down of the division had occurred since its start a few hundred yards back, but there was no decrease in its speed. The men swung their shoulders once to see if their supports—the ten thousand—were there, but they did not find them. “Lost in the smoke!” thought the Virginians. The forty-five hundred were alone marching against our entire army. The fifty thousand rifles facing them might become sixty thousand, seventy thousand; the hundred cannon might turn to two hundred, and the Virginians knew it, but their stride was unbroken, though they were now on the rocky slopes, and their object was still the same—the heart of our force.

That fire in front served as a beacon; otherwise they would have been infolded in the smoke and blinded by it. They could see neither to right nor left, but they did not look that way. Their gaze was always in front, and the light ahead never failed. It was the light of destruction, but it was there and it was a beacon.

We marked the steady advance of the Virginians, and wondered at it. Exceptional courage had become common in this war, but we had not seen before such an exhibition as this. The admiration shown by us, when the Virginians first appeared, increased, but it did not diminish by one particle the activity of our men with the guns, and as the hostile lines approached, the fire upon them rapidly grew heavier, fresh cannon, which had been short of all but canister, opening and doubling the volume of projectiles thrown into the faces of the advancing men.

Then I heard a shrill crash which displaced for a moment the roar of the cannon in my ears. It was a new note, angrier and sharper than that of the great guns—the voice of countless rifles, and the bullets flew among the Virginians, cutting down their squares twice as fast as before. The wall of fire in their front broadened and rose. No chance for the smoke bank to settle down now! It was blown away always by the cannon and rifles. Perhaps the thoughts of some of the Virginians as they marched reached back to their own Virginia hillsides, which they now knew few would ever see again, but it was only a brief memory, and their minds turned again to the enemy before them. They had crossed some fields, inclosed by strong fences, yet these obstacles did not even break their order, and they were now at the foot of our hill that they were to attack. They swung their shoulders again to feel for their supports, but still they were not there. The ten thousand seemed hopelessly lost in the smoke, and the Virginians began to climb the hill.

Our lines were only two hundred yards away, and, beyond, the Virginians saw their destination, the heart of the Northern army, a little grove of trees, oaks, gnarled and dwarfed, fit emblems of the stern soil on which they grew. These were the distinguishing mark of a narrow plateau, bounded on the west by rocks rising four or five feet, placed there by Nature, like a wall. Across the same plateau ran a stone fence, from whose shelter batteries were blazing, and in a second direction ran another. Rocks and fences were lined with troops, and their crests were aflame. The scrubby trees seemed to be surrounded with strong fortifications, and the goal of the Virginians was high. They saw it all by the light of the guns, the plateau, the dwarfed oaks in their summer green, the walls and fences, the batteries piled against each other, and the great army bending forward to meet them. The whistle of the friendly shells over their heads was lost in the hostile crash.

The Virginians began to discharge their rifles, shooting steadily and straight, replying at last to the fire which had so long beat upon them. But their own approach made of them a better target. The vast fire of small arms bent upon them increased, the bullets from thousands and tens of thousands of rifles flying straight at the column—a fire that filled the air with singing lead and beat upon the Virginians like a storm, deadly, incessant, pitiless. The red trail that they left behind them widened, the squares melted half away, our army infolded them, the cannon and the rifles crashed upon them from the front, from the right, from the left. Never before had men marched into such a fire. Behind them only stood no foes, but the Virginians had no thought of going that way. Before them waved the scrubby oaks, their green turned red in the cannon glare; around them was a sea of hostile faces, a flood that poured on them, but they did not falter.

They were still in compact squares, closing up of their own accord, and pressed together by the fire of our army, that now struck them on three sides. They felt the Northern enemy at their throat, and, stretching their muscles, they threw him off, only to see him pressing down again with the same force and weight. They marched on, cleaving the way, loading and firing their rifles, sending volley after volley, which seemed to be lost in the heaving wall of blue, and keeping their eyes steadily fixed on the clump of trees which they had chosen for their goal. They never looked back now at the red trail they left, but, heads yet erect, pushed on in the deepening fire.

Their generals were still alive—Pickett, Armistead, Garnett, Kemper, and the others. They pointed with their swords through the red mist toward the trees, and the mangled squares of the Virginians, gathering themselves anew, rushed on at double speed. Garnett, who led the first brigade, dropped dead on the slope. His men paused a moment and fired, their bullets covering with black spots the stone wall that sheltered the Northern troops just before them. Then their comrades pressed on from behind, and all sprang forward together, raising a tremendous shout, for they were now about to come to close quarters.

Some of our troops shrank back, not afraid, but amazed at this red body of men hurled among us, as if utterly reckless of death. It reminded them of nothing so much as a dripping sword blade thrust forward with vehement force. It was cutting its way through all obstacles, a wonderful exhibition of courage and daring. Hancock, the ever-ready, suddenly brought up a fresh division and poured a new fire upon the flank of the Virginians, slashing their lines and littering the ground with their fallen, but it made no difference with their course. A solid, compact mass, they hurled themselves like a single huge cannon shot upon us.

A deep shiver ran through our army, and the squares burst apart beneath the blow. Then the mighty mass recovered and threw itself upon the Virginians.

But it was impossible to stop this bolt, shot with so much force. The Virginians pierced our front lines and drove at those behind. They were mad with the fury of the moment, still a cohesive body, red and dripping, fierce and indomitable, surrounded and pressed by overwhelming numbers, but unafraid, their lines flaming with the fire of their rifles, their bayonets flashing, and still cleaving their way to the heart of our force. Our breath was on their faces. Bayonets crossed with theirs, but beyond stood the trees that they had marked as their halting place, and they would not stop. Everything was in a flame to them. They could hear invisible drums beating them on, and the projectiles played the same tune.

Our generals redoubled the attack; they whirled into line guns that had been resting; troops not yet in the battle were rushed into the mass; from the clump of trees marked by the Virginians as their prize, Cushing and his cannon opened fire. Some of the brigades, turning about, closed in from behind, and the Virginians pressed on, the centre of a gigantic combat that inclosed them, a turmoil of men fighting hand to hand, of smoke and flame gushing from many cannon and rifles, of the crash of artillery, of blood, sweat, cries, and death.

The Virginians shook off for a moment the mass that clung to them, but it hurled itself back, heavier, more crushing than ever. Their steps became slower, the trees seemed farther away, the clouds of smoke strangled them, the flames burned their faces, the streams of projectiles slashed their ranks, and the sunlight, piercing at times through the smoke, showed the shattered squares dissolving like mists under that frightful fire. A groan arose from the Virginians. But few of their squares were left. The trees, waving their green boughs in the gentle wind, were only a little distance away. But they had not been reached. Beneath these boughs stood the guns of Cushing, firing upon the enemy as fast as the cannoneers could load them.

“Come!” shouted the fiery Armistead, snatching off his hat and raising it on the point of his sword.

He rushed forward upon the cannon. A few men, sevenscore perhaps, followed him. The others were smothered by the hostile mass, which poured over them, wave after wave, like a flood.

Northern troops rushed in before Armistead. He and his sevenscore cut through them, but all were mingled in a turmoil, a confused, struggling heap, and the cannon feared to fire where friend and foe alike would be the target.

A fierce combat began before the guns, a medley of rifle and pistol shots, of metal ringing on metal, of shouts, cries, and oaths, and a pillar of flame and smoke inclosed it all.

The Virginians passed through, Armistead still at their head, and sprang upon Cushing’s guns. They had reached the trees, the heart of our army, but only a hundred of them were there. Over them waved the green foliage, and before them, eye to eye, were the Northern men.

The gunners and the soldiers supporting them threw themselves upon the little band of Virginians, and they fought over the cannon. Armistead, shot through by many bullets, fell, and Cushing fell beside him. There, with the hot July sun on their faces, they lay, dying under the clump of trees, the high-water mark of the South.

The little band that came were overwhelmed, slain, or captured. From the battle slope behind them, through which they had passed, rose all the sounds of conflict. The others were not able to follow. Our troops had closed in again and shut the way. These Virginians who had not yet reached the trees might have turned back, but they would not. They stood there, in the centre of our army, firing their rifles, their flags planted on captured breastworks, unable to come forward, refusing to go backward, all their generals killed but Pickett, all their field officers fallen, save one lieutenant-colonel; three generals, fifteen field officers down, yet refusing to yield.

They no longer hoped for a triumph. Its impossibility was evident to all, but the spirit of resistance was strong. They had not come so far merely to surrender. They heard their enemies shouting to them to yield, but the cries made no impression upon them, and with rifles pointed in every direction they faced the shells and bullets. Their squares were crumbling fast. The close lines around them were contracting, and soon they would need but little space.

There was a tremendous discharge of artillery into their ranks, and a great cloud of smoke settled over the Virginians. Before it raised, some bodies of men burst through and joined them. They were friends, fragments of the supports which had been lost in the cannon smoke, and were fighting at the wrong place. Detached from their comrades, these wandered at last toward the Virginians, and, breaking through the circle of foes, united themselves with the remnants of Pickett’s men. There they stood together, cheered by the partnership, yet lost in the mass of enemies who converged upon them, the odds as great as ever.

The Virginians and their new comrades could see but dimly. The smoke was in their eyes, the heat was still in their blood, but there was no longer any hope, any anticipation of victory. Nothing was left for them but to stand to the last, and that they prepared to do. Their numbers were decreasing so fast that soon they must disappear wholly. The force pressing upon them was so great that their own fire made no impression upon it. The attack had failed for the South, and with it the entire battle. Yet they fought, while the ring around them, a mass of many thousand men, pressed closer and closer, infolding and crushing them.

Now the smoke that hung in a vast bank over Cemetery Hill was kindly blotting out the difference between friend and foe, and from the tangle and density came some of the Southerners, cast forth as it were from a cloud of fire; stragglers here, a company there, disordered groups, scorched and battered survivors.

I was one of those in the great circle that pressed upon the Virginians, and upon the few who joined them at the last moment. I had never lost my admiration for these brave men and their wonderful march, but I did not forget that they were my official enemies. As the figures of those who yet lived shot out of the smoke bank, I found myself face to face with a tall man, whose long white hair was flying about his head.

“Surrender, major!” I cried; “it is I—Kingsford!”

Major Titus Tyler looked at me a moment as if he did not recognise me, like one dazed, then he dropped his sword, and suddenly burst out weeping.

“Where are the others, Henry?” he cried; “am I the only one left alive?”

I looked for his comrades, and I could not answer him. I saw nothing but our army, and the smoke, and the flash of the firing which inclosed and compressed the last of the Southern column. The major put his hands before his eyes and said not another word.

The ring of blue drew its coils tighter and tighter and crushed the Virginians. The firing sank suddenly, the smoke lifted a little, and when we looked again we saw no enemy.

Out of the forty-five hundred who came up the hill, only one thousand went back to the Southern army.

* * * *

When the fragments of the Virginians burst out of the fire and smoke, the Southern leaders on Seminary Ridge knew that the battle was over, and the last blow had failed; but the reserves advanced and met the fugitives, the batteries were ready, and the Army of Northern Virginia, calm and threatening, bade us come if we would.

Fortune, wavering for three days, had given her decree at last. The South had lost; the North had won.

But the South was still defiant. She stood upon her hill, arms in hand, and said to us, “Touch me if you dare!”

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