ment of ditch, or wall or stream, over
ridge and slope, through orchard and meadow, and cornfield, magnificent,
grim, irresistible. All was orderly and still upon our crest; no noise
and no confusion. The men had little need of commands, for the survivors
of a dozen battles knew well enough what this array in front portended,
and, already in their places, they would be prepared to act when the
right time should come. The click of the locks as each man raised the
hammer to feel with his fingers that the cap was on the nipple; the
sharp jar as a musket touched a stone upon the wall when thrust in
aiming over it, and the clicking of the iron axles as the guns were
rolled up by hand a little further to the front, were quite all the
sounds that could be heard. Cap-boxes were slid around to the front of
the body; cartridge boxes opened, officers opened their pistol-holsters.
Such preparations, little more was needed. The trefoil flags, colors of
the brigades and divisions moved to their places in rear; but along the
lines in front the grand old ensign that first waved in battle at
Saratoga in 1777, and which these people coming would rob of half its
stars, stood up, and the west wind kissed it as the sergeants sloped its
lance towards the enemy. I believe that not one above whom it then waved
but blessed his God that he was loyal to it, and whose heart did not
swell with pride towards it, as the emblem of the Republic before that
treason's flaunting rag in front. General Gibbon rode down the lines,
cool and calm, and in an unimpassioned voice he said to the men, "Do
not hurry, men, and fire too fast, let them come up close before you
fire, and then aim low and steadily." The coolness of their General was
reflected in the faces of his men. Five minutes has elapsed since first
the enemy have emerged from the woods--no great space of time surely, if
measured by the usual standard by which men estimate duration--but it
was long enough for us to note and weigh some of the elements of mighty
moment that surrounded us; the disparity of numbers between the
assailants and the assailed; that few as were our numbers we could not
be supported or reinforced until support would not be needed or would be
too late; that upon the ability of the two trefoil divisions to hold the
crest and repel the assault depended not only their own safety or
destruction, but also the honor of the Army of the Potomac and defeat or
victory at Gettysburg. Should