e curtain down, soon to rise upon the great
final act, and catastrophe of Gettysburg. We have passed by the left of
the Second Division, coming from the First; when we crossed the crest
the enemy was not in sight, and all was still--we walked slowly along in
the rear of the troops, by the ridge cut off now from a view of the
enemy in his position, and were returning to the spot where we had left
our horses. General Gibbon had just said that he inclined to the belief
that the enemy was falling back, and that the cannonade was only one of
his noisy modes of covering the movement. I said that I thought that
fifteen minutes would show that, by all his bowling, the Rebel did not
mean retreat. We were near our horses when we noticed Brigadier General
Hunt, Chief of Artillery of the Army, near Woodruff's Battery, swiftly
moving about on horseback, and apparently in a rapid manner giving some
orders about the guns. Thought we, what could this mean? In a moment
afterwards we met Captain Wessels and the orderlies who had our horses;
they were on foot leading the horses. Captain Wessels was pale, and he
said, excited: "General, they say the enemy's infantry is advancing." We
sprang into our saddles, a score of bounds brought us upon the
all-seeing crest. To say that men grew pale and held their breath at
what we and they there saw, would not be true. Might not six thousand
men be brave and without shade of fear, and yet, before a hostile
eighteen thousand, armed, and not five minutes' march away, turn ashy
white? None on that crest now need be told that _the enemy is
advancing_. Every eye could see his legions, an overwhelming resistless
tide of an ocean of armed men sweeping upon us! Regiment after regiment
and brigade after brigade move from the woods and rapidly take their
places in the lines forming the assault. Pickett's proud division, with
some additional troops, hold their right; Pettigrew's (Worth's) their
left. The first line at short interval is followed by a second, and that
a third succeeds; and columns between support the lines. More than half
a mile their front extends; more than a thousand yards the dull gray
masses deploy, man touching man, rank pressing rank, and line supporting
line. The red flags wave, their horsemen gallop up and down; the arms of
eighteen thousand men, barrel and bayonet, gleam in the sun, a sloping
forest of flashing steel. Right on they move, as with one soul, in
perfect order, without impedi