Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America. Vol. 3.
Henry Coppee , LL.D., Ed.

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[663] against him at a distance of two hundred yards, while the shot and shell of McGilvery take his line again in flank, causing frightful gaps in its ranks, killing at times as many as ten men by a single shot.

Before narrating the terrible encounter that is impending we must give a sketch of the ground which is about to be so desperately disputed. In the prolongation at the south-west of the hillock properly called Cemetery Hill stands the plateau designated by Lee as the objective point of the attack, which we shall call Ziegler's Grove, from the name of a small wood which descends the slope opposite to Gettysburg. The ridge of this plateau, the summit of which is very level, is bordered at the west by rocks which project from the soil, sometimes to a height of four or five feet, forming a wall, as on the summit of Culp's Hill. The wood is defended by Woodruff's guns, posted along the lower edge, masking the right of the Third division of the Second corps, commanded by Hays. Farther on, the natural wall affords the latter strong defensive positions; fifty yards south of the wood, above a spring called Bryan's Well, it is crowned for a distance of nearly three hundred yards by an ordinary stone wall. Back of this line is deployed the remainder of Hays' infantry; two batteries are posted along the ridge. To the left the wall follows a westerly course, of about eighty yards, to form a junction with another ridge emerging from the soil. Gibbon's division, whose front is four hundred and fifty yards in length, is covered by another wall surmounted by a common post-and-rail fence. Owen's brigade, commanded by General Webb, is on the right, in an angle above Hays' position, Hall in the centre. About one hundred yards farther up the wall terminates abruptly behind the small wood, an intrenchment prolonging the line of the fence in the direction of the level grounds which Birney occupies, and which are covered by the Federal artillery. In the salient angle formed by the wood Doubleday has placed Stannard's brigade. The four brigades are ranged in two lines: three batteries, posted along the ridge near the second line, fire over the first, their front being flanked by Hays on the right and Birney on the left.

Seeing their adversaries advancing against these formidable