into battle with skirmishers well advanced to the front, but as confidently as if going to a review with two grand armies for spectators. It was The Third out. indeed a gallant sight to see these solid columns go forward, brigade after brigade, battery following battery, as, with flags fluttering in the breeze and bayonets flashing in the sun, the two divisions of Humphreys and Birney began deploying along the Emmettsburg road in front and taking position between the peach orchard and the Devil's Den to their rear, thus putting an elbow in the general line. In vain we try to imagine one of Napoleon's or Wellington's marshals taking it upon himself to post his troops independently of his commander. It now appears that General Sickles did this regardless of whether he was thwarting the plans of the general-in-chief or not, or whether indeed by so doing he was overthrowing the whole theory of delivering a strictly defensive battle. Instead of allowing Meade his initiative, we find Sickles actually compelling his superior to follow his lead, not under the stress of some sudden emergency, but deliberately, defiantly. Not that he had penetrated Lee's designs. By no means. Had he done so we should be all the more amazed at his hardihood in going out with his ten thousand men to resist the onslaught of twenty thousand or more. But the whole corps was not enough to occupy the ground selected. When the right division (Humphreys') reached the road, it had left a space of not less than three-fourths of a mile between itself and the left of the Second Corps. That flank was therefore in the air. The left division (Birney's), or most of it, was formed nearly at right angles with the first, showing a front of three brigades facing south, and posted in a line much broken by the natural features of the ground, which grow more and more rugged in proportion as Round Top is neared. Though stronger, by reason of the natural defences, this flank was a fourth of a mile from Round Top. While this was going on out at the front, the Sixth and last Union Corps (Sedgwick's) was coming up behind the main position, worn down with marching thirty-six miles almost without a halt. The Fifth had already arrived, also with its men greatly fatigued. The situation, therefore, had so far improved, in that the enemy's delays 10 had given time for the whole Union. army to assemble, though the two belated corps were scarcely in fighting trim. Scarcely had Birney's men time to look about them when the booming of a single gun gave notice that the long-expected battle had begun. 1 On the night of the first, the Confederate right did not extend much, if any, south of the Hagerstown, or Fairfield, road. As the fresh troops came up they were used in extending the line southward. Anderson's division was the first to move down to Hill's left. It was his skirmishers that first became engaged with Sickles'. 2 We have seen Meade first planning an attack on that side, which was why he was drawing troops over there. He designed having the Third Corps occupy the position vacated by Geary, however, and so directed. 3 In consequence of his exhausted condition, from incessant marching and fighting, Buford was to be relieved by other troops. * General Daniel E. Sickles, commanding the Third Corps. 5 The enemy were seeking to mask their movements to the Union left behind these skirmishers. The peach-orchard knoll was Sickles' bugbear. He thought it much to be preferred to the position he was in. It was, however, fully commanded from Little Round Top. 7 This refers to the swale next north of Little Round Top. Though forming part of Reynolds' command, Sickles was halted between Taneytown and Emmettsburg by Meade's order. 'Sickles claimed at first that he could not find the position assigned him, namely, that vacated by Geary. The force of this plea will be best appreciated by old soldiers. But in the following remarks all such clumsy pretexts are thrown to the winds; he here takes praise to himself for ignoring his commanding officer. It might be called a plea for insubordination. " "It may have been imprudent to advance and hold Longstreet at whatever sacrifice, but wasn't it worth a sacrifice to save the key of the position? What were we there for? Were we there to count the cost in blood and men, when the key of the position at Gettysburg was within the enemy's grasp?" (How did Sickles know this ?) "What little I know of conduct on a battlefield I learned from Hooker and Kearney." (Kearney was a strict disciplinarian.) What would Hooker or Kearney have done, finding themselves in an assailable, untenable position, without orders from headquarters as to their dispositions for battle, when they saw masses of the enemy marching to seize a vital point? Would they have hesitated? Would they have sent couriers to headquarters and asked for instructions what to do? Never, never! Well, I learned war from them, and I didn't send any. I simply advanced on to the battlefield and seized Longstreet by the throat and held him there."- Sickles' Music Hall Speech, Boston, 1886. 10 John Stark's famous maxim, that one fresh man in battle is worth two fatigued ones, will be heartily endorsed by all who have seen it put to the test. VIII THE SECOND OF JULY Continued AT this signal all the enemy's batteries opened in succession, and for a space a storm of shot and shell tore through Sickles' lines with crushing Fighting begins. effect. His own guns, posted partly in the orchard, partly along the crossroad, on the high knoll behind it, that is to say, in the very spot selected by Lee in advance for his own,-began to lose both horses and men, nor were the infantry able to shelter themselves from the cross-fire of fifty-four pieces of artillery, some of which were killing men at both sides of the angle with the same shot.1 Not many minutes had elapsed before every man on the ground, from general to private soldier, felt that a wretched blunder had been committed in thrusting them out there. By and by the cannonade slackened. This was sufficient notice to old soldiers that something |