chime in volleys of small arms. For one hour and a half this most terrific fire was continued, during which time the shrieking of shells, the crashing of falling timber, the fragments of rock flying through the air, shattered from the cliffs by solid shot, the heavy mutterings from the valley between the opposing armies, the splash of bursting shrapnel, and the fierce neighing of wounded artillery-horses made a picture terribly grand and sublime.

But there was now to occur a scene of moral sublimity and heroism unequalled in the war. The storming party was moved up-Pickett's division in advance, supported on the right by Wilcox's brigade, and on the left by Heth's division, commanded by Pettigrew. With steady measured tread the division of Pickett advanced upon the foe. Never did troops enter a fight in such splendid order. Their banners floated defiantly in the breeze as they pressed across the plain. The flags which had waved amid the wild tempest of battle at Gaines' Mill, Frazer's Farm, and Manassas, never rose more proudly. Kemper, with his gallant men, leads the right; Garnett brings up the left; and the veteran Armistead, with his brave troops, moves forward in support. The distance is more than half a mile. As they advance the enemy fire with great rapidity-shell and solid shot give place to grape and canister the very earth quivers beneath the heavy roar-wide gaps are made in this regiment and that brigade. The line moves onward, cannons roaring, grape and canister plunging and ploughing through the ranks, bullets whizzing as thick as hail-stones in winter, and men falling as leaves fall in the blasts of autumn.

As Pickett got well under the enemy's fire, our batteries ceased firing, for want, it is said, of ammunition. It was a fearful moment-one in which was to be tested the pride and mettle of glorious Virginia. Into the sheets of artillery fire advanced the unbroken lines of Picketts' brave Virginians. They have reached the Emmettsburg road, and here they meet a severe fire from heavy masses of the enemy's infantry, posted behind the stone fence, while their artillery, now free from the annoyance of our artillery, turn their whole fire upon this devoted band. Still they remain firm. Now again they advance. They reach the works-the contest rages with intense

fury-men fight almost hand to hand-the red cross and the "stars and stripes" wave defiantly in close proximity. A Federal officer dashes forward in front of his shrinking columns, and with flashing sword, urges them to stand. General Pickett, seeing the splendid valor of his troops, moves among them as if courting death. The noble Garnett is dead, Armistead wounded, and the brave Kemper, with hat in hand, still cheering on his men falls from his horse. But Kemper and Armistead have already planted their banners in the enemy's works. The glad shout of victory is already heard.*

But where is Pettigrew's division-where are the supports? The raw troops had faltered and the gallant Pettigrew himself had been wounded in vain attempts to rally them. Alas, the victory was to be relinquished again. Pickett is left alone to contend with the masses of the enemy now pouring in upon him on every side. Now the enemy move around strong flanking bodies of infantry, and are rapidly gaining Pickett's The order is given to fall back, and our men commence the movement, doggedly contesting for every inch of ground. The enemy press heavily our retreating line, and many noble spirits who had passed safely through the fiery ordeal of the advance and charge, now fall on the right and on the left.

rear.

This division of Virginia troops, small at first, with ranks now torn and shattered, most of the officers killed or wounded, no valor able to rescue victory from such a grasp, annihilation or capture inevitable, slowly, reluctantly, fell back. It was

* A correspondent of a Yankee paper thus alludes to the traces of the struggle at the Cemetry:

"Monuments and headstones lie here and there overturned. Graves, once carefully tended by some loving hand, have been trampled by horses' feet until the vestiges of verdure have disappeared. The neat and well-trained shrubbery has vanished, or is but a broken and withered mass of tangled brushwood. On one grave lies a dead artillery horse fast decomposing under a July sun. On another lie the torn garments of some wounded soldier, stained and saturated with his blood. Across a small headstone, bearing the words "To the memory of our beloved child, Mary," lie the fragments of a musket, shattered by a cannon shot. In the centre of the space enclosed by an iron fence and containing a half-dozen graves, a few rails are still standing where they were erected by our soldiers and served to support the shelter tents of a bivouacking squad. A family shaft has been broken to fragments by a shell, and only the base remains, with a portion of the inscription thereon. Stone after stone felt the effect of the feu d'enfer that was poured upon the crest of the hill. Cannon thundered, and foot and horse soldiers trampled over the sleeping-places of the dead. Other dead were added to those who are resting there, and many a wounded soldier still lives to remember the contest above those silent graves."

not given to these few remaining brave men to accomplish human impossibilities. The enemy dared not follow them beyond their works. But the day was already lost.

The field was covered with Confederates slowly and sulkily retiring in small broken parties under a heavy fire of artillery. There was no panic. Never did a commanding general behave better in such trying circumstances than did Lee. He was truly great in disaster. An English colonel who witnessed the fight, says: "I joined General Lee, who had, in the meanwhile, come to the front on becoming aware of the disaster. General Lee was perfectly sublime. He was engaged in rallying and encouraging the broken troops, and was riding about a little in front of the wood quite alone-the whole of his staff being engaged in a similar manner further to the rear. His face, which is always placid and cheerful, did not show signs of the slightest disappointment, care, or annoyance, and he was addressing to every soldier he met a few words of encouragement, such as, 'All this will come right in the end; we'll talk it over afterwards; but, in the meantime, all good men must rally. We want all good and true men just now,' &c. He spoke to all the wounded men that passed him, and the slightly wounded he exhorted 'to bind up their hurts and take up a musket' in this emergency. Very few failed to answer his appeal, and I saw many badly wounded men take off their hats and cheer him."

"It is difficult," says the same intelligent spectator, "to exaggerate the critical state of affairs as they appeared about this time. If the enemy or their general had shown any enterprise there is no saying what might have happened. General Lee and his officers were evidently fully impressed with a sense of the situation; yet there was much less noise, fuss, or confusion of orders, than at any ordinary field day; the men, as they were rallied in the wood, were brought up in detachments and lay down quiet and coolly in the positions assigned to them."

At night the Confederate army held the same position from which it had driven the enemy two days previous. The starry sky hung over a field of hideous carnage. In the series of engagements a few pieces of artillery were captured by the Confederates and nearly seven thousand prisoners taken, two thousand of whom were paroled on the field. Our loss in killed,

wounded, and prisoners, was quite ten thousand. The enemy's loss probably exceeded our own, as the Yankees were closely crowded on the hills, and devoured by our artillery fire. The information of the enemy's loss is perhaps most accurately obtained from the bulletin furnished by his Surgeon-general, which stated that he had something over twelve thousand Yankee wounded under his control. Counting one killed for four wounded, and making some allowance for a large class of wounded men who had not come under the control of the officers referred to, we are justified in stating the enemy's loss in casualties at Gettysburg as somewhere between fifteen and eighteen thousand. Our loss, slighter by many thousands in comparison, was yet frightful enough. On our side Pickett's division had been engaged in the hottest work of the day, and the havoc in its ranks was appaling. Its losses on this day are famous, and should be commemorated in detail. Every brigadier in the division was killed or wounded. Out of twentyfour regimental officers, only two escaped unhurt. The Ninth Virginia went in two hundred and fifty strong and came out with only thirty-eight men.

Conspicuous in our list of casualties was the death of Majorgeneral Pender. He had borne a distinguished part in every engagement of this army, and was wounded on several occasions while leading his command with admirable gallantry and ability. Brigadier-generals Barksdale and Garnett were killed, and Brigadier-general Semmes mortally wounded, while leading their troops with the courage that had always distinguished them. The brave and generous spirit of Barksdale had expired, where he preferred to die, on the ensanguined field of battle. Of this "haughty rebel," who had fallen within their lines, the Yankees told with devilish satisfaction the story that his end was that of extreme agony, and his last words were to crave, as a dying boon, a cup of water, and a stretcher from an ambulance boy. The letter of a Yankee officer testifies that the brave and suffering hero declared with his last breath that he was proud of the cause he died fighting for; proud of the manner in which he received his death; and confident that his countrymen were invincible.

The fearful trial of a retreat from a position far in the enemy's country was now reserved for General Lee. Happily

he had an army with zeal unabated, courage intrepid, devotion unchilled; with unbounded confidence in the wisdom of that great chieftian who had so often led them to victory. The strength of the enemy's position; the reduction of our ammunition; the difficulty of procuring supplies, these left no choice but retreat.

On the night of the 4th, General Lee's army began to retire by the road to Fairfield, without any serious interruption on the part of the enemy. In passing through the mountains, in advance of the column, the great length of the trains exposed them to attack by the enemy's cavalry, which captured a number of wagons and ambulances; but they succeeded in reaching Williamsport without serious loss.

They were attacked at that place on the 6th, by the enemy's cavalry, which was gallantly repulsed by General Imboden. The attacking force was subsequently encountered and driven off by General Stuart, and pursued for several miles in the direction of Boonsboro'. The army, after an arduous march, rendered more difficult by the rains, reached Hagerstown on the afternoon of the 6th and morning of the 7th July.*

*The following official communication from General Lee illustrates the unreliability of despatches emanating from Yankee generals :

HEADQUARTERS ARMY NORTHERN VIRGINIA, 21st July, 1863.

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GENERAL S. COOPER, Adjutant and Inspector-General C. S. A., Richmond, Va. : General-I have seen in Northern papers what purported to be an official despatch from General Meade, stating that he had captured a brigade of infantry, two pieces of artillery, two caissons, and a large number of small arms, as this army retired to the south bank of the Potomac, on the 18th and 14th inst.

This despatch has been copied into the Richmond papers, and as its official character may cause it to be believed, I desire to state that it is incorrect. The enemy did not capture any organized body of men on that occasion, but only stragglers and such as were left asleep on the road, exhausted by the fatigue and exposure of one of the most inclement nights I have ever known at this season of the year. It rained without cessation, rendering the road by which our troops marched to the bridge at Falling Waters very difficult to pass, and causing so much delay that the last of the troops did not cross the river at the bridge until 1 P. M. on the 14th. While the column was thus detained on the road, a number of men, worn down with fatigue, lay down in barns and by the roadside, and though officers were sent back to -arouse them, as the troops moved on, the darkness and rain prevented them from finding all, and many were in this way left behind. Two guns were left in the road. The horses that drew them became exhausted, and the officers went forward to procure others. When they returned, the rear of the column had passed the guns so far that it was deemed unsafe to send back for them, and they were thus lost. No arms, cannon, or prisoners were taken by the enemy in battle, but only such as were left