Instances of courage.
I will mention a few instances of individual coolness and bravery exhibited in the charge.
In the 53d Virginia Regiment, I saw every man of Company F (
Captain Henry Edmunds, now a distinguished member of the
Virginia bar) thrown flat to the earth by the explosion of a shell from
Round Top, but every man who was not killed or desperately wounded sprang to his feet, collected himself and moved forward to close the gap made in the regimental front.
A soldier from the same regiment was shot on the shin; he stopped in the midst of that terrific fire, rolled up his trousers leg, examined his wound, and went forward even to the rock fence.
He escaped further injury, and was one of the few who returned to his friends, but so bad was his wound that it was nearly a year before he was fit for duty.
When
Kemper was riding off, after asking
Armistead to move up to his support,
Armistead called him, and, pointing to his brigade, said: ‘Did you ever see a more perfect line than that on dress parade?’
It was, indeed, a lance head of steel, whose metal had been tempered in the furnace of conflict.
As they were about to enter upon their work,
Armistead, as was invariably his custom on going into battle, said: ‘Men, remember your wives, your mothers, your sisters and you sweethearts.’
Such an appeal would have made those men assault the ramparts of the infernal regions.
