General Early, upon hearing General Johnson's infantry engaged, sent forward Hayes' Louisiana and Hoke's North Carolina brigades. The troops, advancing as a storming party, quickly passed over a ridge and down a hill. In a valley below they met two lines of the Federals posted behind stonewalls. These they charged. At the charge the Federals broke and fled up the hill closely pursued by our men. It was now dark; but Hayes and Avery, still pursuing, pushed the enemy up the hill and stormed the Cemetery heights.

The contest here was intensely exciting and terrible. The gloom of the falling night was lighted up by the flashes of the enemy's guns. Thirty or forty pieces, perhaps more, were firing grape and canister with inconceivable rapidity at Early's column. It must have been that they imagined it to have been a general and simultaneous advance, for they opened on our men in three or four directions besides that which they were attacking.

Hayes' and Hoke's brigades pressed on and captured two or three lines of breastworks and three or four of their batteries of artillery. For a few moments every gun of the enemy on the heights was silenced; but, by the time General Hayes could get his command together, a dark line appeared in front of them and on either flank a few yards off. The true situation soon became clear. The Yankees were bringing up at least a division to retake the works. General Hayes, being unsupported by the troops on his right (which were from Hill's corps), was compelled to fall back.

Major-general Rodes commenced to advance simultaneously with General Early. He had, however, more than double the distance of Early to go, and being unsupported by the troops on his right, who made no advance, he consequently moved slower than he would have done had he been supported. Before reaching the enemy's works Early had been repulsed, and so General Rodes halted, thinking it useless to attack since he was unsupported.

When the second day closed this was the position of Ewell's corps. Johnson's left had gained important ground, part of it being a very short distance from the top of the mountain, which, if once gained, would command the whole of the enemy's position; but his right had made no progress. Early's

attack, almost a brilliant success, had produced no results, and he occupied nearly his former position. Rodes, having advanced nearly half-way to the enemy's works, and finding there good cover for his troops, remained in his advanced position.

But we must take the reader's attention to another part of the field, where a more dramatic circumstance than Early's momentary grasp of victory had occurred.

General Hill had been instructed to threaten the centre of the Yankee line, in order to prevent reinforcements being sent to either wing, and to avail himself of any opportunity that might present itself to attack.

On the right of Hill's corps and the left of Longstreet, being joined on to Barksdale's brigade of McLaw's division, was Wilcox's brigade, then Perry's, Wright's, Posey's, Mahone's. At half-past five o'clock Longstreet commenced the attack, and Wilcox followed it up by promptly moving forward; Perry's brigade quickly followed, and Wright moved simultaneously with him. The two divisions of Longstreet's corps soon encountered the enemy, posted a little in rear of the Emmetsburg turnpike, which winds along the slope of the range upon which the enemy's main force was concentrated. After a short but spirited engagement, the enemy was driven back upon the main line upon the crest of the hill. McLaw's and Hood's divisions made a desperate assault upon their main line; but, owing to the precipitate and very rugged character of the slope, were unable to reach the summit.

After Barksdale's brigade, of McLaw's division, had been engaged for some time, Wilcox, Wright, and Perry, were ordered forward, encountering a line of the enemy, and soon putting them to rout. Still pressing forward, these three brigades met with another and stronger line of the enemy, backed by twelvepieces of artillery. No pause was made. The line moved. rapidly forward and captured the artillery.

Another fresh line of battle was thrown forward by the enemy. Wright had swept over the valley under a terrific fire from the batteries posted upon the heights, had encountered the enemy's advance line, and had driven him across the Emmetsburg pike, to a position behind a stone wall, or fence, which runs parallel with the pike, and about sixty or eighty

yards in front of the batteries on the heights, and immediately under them. Here the enemy made a desperate attempt to retrieve his fortunes. The engagement lasted for fifteen or twenty minutes. Charging up the steep sides of the mountains, the Confederates succeeded in driving the enemy from behind the wall at the point of the bayonet. Rushing forward with a shont, they gained the summit of the heights, driving the enemy's infantry in disorder and confusion into the woods beyond.

The key of the enemy's position was for a moment in our hands. But the condition of the brave troops who had wrested it by desperate valor, had become critical in the extreme. Wilcox, Perry, and Wright, had charged most gallantly over a distance of more than three-quarters of a mile, breaking two or three of the enemy's lines of battle, and capturing two or three batteries of artillery. Of course, our lines were greatly thinned, and our troops much exhausted. No reinforcements were sent this column by the Lieutenant-general commanding. The extent of their success was not instantly appreciated. A decisive moment was lost.

Wright's little brigade of Georgians had actually got in the enemy's entrenchments upon the heights. Perceiving, after getting possession of the enemy's works, that they were isolated-more than a mile from support-that no advance had been made on their left, and just then seeing the enemy's flanking column on their right and left flanks rapidly converg ing in their rear, these noble Georgians faced about, abandoning all the guns they had captured, and cut their way back to our main lines, through the enemy, who had now almost entirely surrounded them.

The results of the day were unfortunate enough. Our troops had been repulsed at all points save where Brigadier-general Stewart held his ground. A second day of desperate fighting and correspondingly frightful carnage was ended. But General Lee still believed himself and his brave army capable of taking these commanding heights, and thus to be able to dictate a peace on the soil of the free States.