Edward Alfred Pollard, The lost cause; a new Southern history of the War of the Confederates ... Drawn from official sources and approved by the most distinguished Confederate leaders.

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[409] was at last to break the ominous silence with a sound of conflict such as was scarcely ever before heard on earth. It was a death-like silence. At 12. 30, P. M., the shrill sound of a Whitworth gun pierced the air. Instantly more than two hundred cannon belched forth their thunder at one time. It was absolutely appalling. An officer writes: “The air was hideous with most discordant noise. The very earth shook beneath our feet, and the hills and rocks seemed to reel like a drunken man. For one hour and a half this most terrific fire was continued, during which time the shrieking of shell, the crash of falling timber, the fragments of rocks flying through the air, shattered from the cliffs by solid shot, the heavy mutterings from the valley between the opposing armies, the splash of bursting shrapnell, and the fierce neighing of wounded artillery horses, made a picture terribly grand and sublime.”

Into this scene of death moved out the Confederate column of assault. Pickett's division proceeded to descend the slope of hills and to move across the open ground. The front was thickly covered with skirmishers; then followed Kemper's and Garnett's brigades, forming the first line, with Armistead in support. On the flanks were-Heth's division, commanded by Pettigrew, of Hill's corps, and Wilcox's brigade of McLaw's corps, the former on the left, the latter on the right of the Virginians. Pickett led the attack. The five thousand Virginians descended the hill with the precision and regularity of a parade. As they reached the Emmittsburg road, the Confederate guns, which had fired over their heads to cover the movement, ceased, and there stood exposed these devoted troops to the uninterrupted fire of the enemy's batteries, while the fringe of musketry fire along a stone wall marked the further boundary of death to which they marched. No halt, no waver. Through half a mile of shot and shell pressed on the devoted column. It was no sudden impetus of excitement that carried them through this terrible ordeal ; it was no thin storm of fire which a dash might penetrate and divide. In every inch of air was the wing of death. Against the breadth of each man's body reared the red crest of Destruction.

Steadily the Virginians press on. The name of Virginia was that day baptized in fire, and illuminated forever in the temple of History. There had been no such example of devotion in the war. Presently wild cries ring out; the smoke-masked troops are in the enemy's works; there is a hand-to-hand contest, and again and again the Confederate flag is lifted through the smoke over the shrinking columns of the enemy. Garnett is dead. Misted is mortally wounded. Kemper is shot down. Every brigadier of the division is killed or wounded. But Pickett is unscathed in the storm; his flashing sword has taken the key of the enemy's position, and points the path of the conflict through his broken columns; the glad shout of victory is already heard; and on the distant hill of observation,