The critical moment.
At the critical moment, in respone to a request from
Kemper,
Armistead, bracing himself to the desperate blow, rushed forward to
Kemper's and
Garnett's line, delivered his fire, and with one supreme effort planted his colors on the famous rock fence.
Armistead himself, with his hat on the point of his sword, that his men might see it through the smoke of battle, rushed forward, scaled the wall, and cried: ‘Boys, give them the cold steel!’
By this time, the
Federal hosts lapped around both flanks and made a counter advance in their front, and the remnant of those three little brigades melted away.
Armistead himself had fallen, mortally wounded, under the guns he had captured, while the few who followed him over the fence were either dead or wounded.
The charge was over, the sacrifice had been made, but, in the words of a Federal officer: ‘
Banks of heroes they were; they fled not, but amidst that still continuous and terrible fire they slowly, sullenly recrossed the plain—all that was left of them—but few of the five thousand.’
