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| George Pickett. |
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[71]
Lee's superior artillery force was placed in advantageous positions, and at noon he had one hundred and forty-five cannon in battery along the line occupied by Longstreet and Hill.
Meade, too, had been preparing for the expected shock of battle.
General Hunt, his chief of artillery, had worked all night in arranging the great guns from Cemetery Hill to little Round Top, where it was evident the blow was to be given, and he judiciously posted artillery in reserve under Colonel R. O. Tyler.1
at midday there was an ominous silence, during which General Lee entered Pennsylvania College building, which he was using for a hospital, ascended to the cupola, and, in violation of the acknowledged principles of honor in military life, stood under the sacred yellow flag which all civilized warriors respect as a protection to the sick and wounded, and where he was sure of safety from personal harm, and with his field-glass leisurely reconnoitered Meade's position.2 his observations there determined him to aim his chief blow at Hancock's position on Cemetery Hill, and, giving the signal at one o'clock, one hundred and fifteen of his cannon opened a rapid cross fire upon the devoted point.
Just behind it was Meade's Headquarters, where shot and shell made many a pit and furrow in the grounds around it, and endangered the life of every living thing connected with it.3 a hundred National guns replied, and for the space of two hours the thunders of more than two hundred cannon shook Gettysburg and the surrounding country with their fearful detonations.
Then, like a stream of fiery lava, the Confederate infantry, in a line full three miles in length, preceded by a host of skirmishers, flowed swiftly over the undulating plain, threatening to consume every obstacle in its track.
Behind this assaulting column was a heavy reserve.
Pickett, with his Virginians, led the van in a charge upon Cemetery Hill, supported on his right by Wilcox's brigade, and on his left by a brigade of North Carolinians, of Heth's division, commanded
by General Pettigrew; in all about fifteen thousand strong.
The batteries had now ceased firing — Meade's first, because his available ammunition was failing, and there was a momentary lull in the tempest.
1 the batteries of Bancroft, Dilger, Eakin, Wheeler, Hill, and Taft, under Major Osborne, were placed in the Cemetery, where the kind and thoughtful General Howard had caused the tombstones, and such monuments as could possibly be moved, to be laid flat on the ground, to prevent their being injured by shot and shell. On the left of the Cemetery, near Zeigler's Grove, were Hancock's batteries, under Woodruff, Brown, Cushing, Arnold, and Rorty, commanded by Captain Hazzard. Next to these, on the left, was Thomas's battery, with those of Thompson, Phillips, Hart, Rauth, Dow, Ames, and Sterling, under McGilvray, in reserve. On the extreme left were the batteries of Gibbs and Hazlett, the latter now commanded by Lieutenant Rittenhouse.
2 testimony of officers of the College.
3 Samuel Wilkeson, then a correspondent of a New York journal, made the following record of the scene at Headquarters, of which he was an eye-witness: “every size and form of shell known to British and to American gunnery, shrieked, whirled, moaned, and whistled, and wrathfully fluttered over our ground. As many as six in a second, constantly two in a second, bursting and screaming over and around Headquarters, made a very hell of fire that amazed the oldest officers. They burst in the yard (see picture on page 63)--burst next to the fence, on both sides' garnished, as usual, with hitched horses of aids and orderlies. The fastened animals reared and plunged with terror. Then one fell, and then another--sixteen lay dead and mangled before the firing ceased, still fastened by their halters. These brute victims of a cruel War touched all hearts. . . . . a shell tore up the little step at the Headquarters cottage, and ripped bags of oats as with a knife. Another carried off one of its two pillars. Soon a spherical case burst opposite the open door-another ripped through the low garret. . . . . shells through the two lower rooms. A shell in the chimney that fortunately did not explode. Shells in the yard; the air thicker and fuller, and more deafening with the howling and whirring of. These infernal missiles.”
it seems proper here to say that the correspondents of the public press, and the artists of the illustrated papers, justly rank among the heroes of the War. They braved every hardship and peril of the War — often under fire, and in the most dangerous positions during battles, in the business of their vocation as observers and recorders of events. And it is interesting to observe how accurate, as a General rule, were the descriptions of many of these Froissarts of the Civil War, even in the statistics of battles. They were generally able and conscientious men, and to them the future historian and romancer must look for the most vivid and picturesque features of that great drama of the nineteenth century.
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