O, the din and the roar, and these thirty thousand Rebel wolf cries!
What a hell is there down that valley!

These ten or twelve thousand men of the Third Corps fight well, but it
soon becomes apparent that they must be swept from the field, or perish
there where they are doing so well, so thick and overwhelming a storm of
Rebel fire involves them. It was fearful to see, but these men, such as
ever escape, must come from that conflict as best they can. To move down
and support them with other troops is out of the question, for this
would be to do as Sickles did, to relinquish a good position, and
advance to a bad one. There is no other alternative--the Third Corps
must fight itself out of its position of destruction! What was it ever
put there for?

In the meantime some other dispositions must be made to meet the enemy,
in the event that Sickles is overpowered. With this Corps out of the
way, the enemy would be in a position to advance upon the line of the
Second Corps, not in a line parallel with its front, but they would come
obliquely from the left. To meet this contingency the left of the Second
Division of the Second Corps is thrown back slightly, and two Regiments,
the 15th Mass., Col. Ward, and the 82nd N. Y., Lieut. Col. Horton, are
advanced down to the Emmetsburg road, to a favorable position nearer us
than the fight has yet come, and some new batteries from the artillery
reserve are posted upon the crest near the left of the Second Corps.
This was all Gen. Gibbon could do. Other dispositions were made or were
now being made upon the field, which I shall mention presently. The
enemy is still giving Sickles fierce battle--or rather the Third Corps,
for Sickles has been borne from the field minus one of his legs, and
Gen. Birney now commands--and we of the Second Corps, a thousand yards
away, with our guns and men are, and must be, still idle spectators of
the fight.

The Rebel, as anticipated, tries to gain the left of the Third Corps,
and for this purpose is now moving into the woods at the west of Round
Top. We knew what he would find there. No sooner had the enemy gotten a
considerable force into the woods mentioned, in the attempted execution
of his purpose, than the roar of the conflict was heard there also. The
Fifth Corps and the First Division of the Second were there at the right
time, and promptly engaged him; and there, too, the battle soon became
general and obstinate. Now the roar of battle has b