owded out of their places by the
enemy, and, with one company of the Sixty-ninth, they form with the
remainder of Colonel Smith's command at the stone fence. At the same
instant Colonel Hall's Third Brigade and the regiments of the First
under Devereaux and other officers, as if by instinct, rush to Webb's
assistance, while Colonel Stannard moves two regiments of the Vermont
Brigade to strike the attacking column in the flank.

"And now is the moment when the battle rages most furiously.
Armistead, with a hundred and fifty of his Virginians, is inside our
lines; only a few paces from our Brigade Commander, they look each
other in the face. The artillery of the enemy ceases to fire, and the
gunners of their batteries are plainly seen standing on their
caissons to view the result, hoping for success, while Pettigrew's
Division, failing to support Pickett, halts as if terrified at the
scene. This is the soldiers' part of the fight; tactics and
alignments are thrown to one side. No effort is made to preserve a
formation. Union men are intermingled with the enemy, and in some
cases surrounded by them, but refusing to surrender. Rifles, bayonets
and clubbed muskets are freely used, and men on both sides rapidly
fall.

"This struggle lasts but a few moments, when the enemy in the front
throw down their arms, and rushing through the line of the
Seventy-second, hasten to the rear as prisoners without a guard,
while others of the column who might have escaped, unwilling to risk
a retreat over the path by which they came, surrendered. The battle
is over, the last attack of Lee at Gettysburg is repulsed, and the
highest wave of the Rebellion has reached its farthest limit, ever
after to recede.

"General Armistead, who was in the Confederate front, fell mortally
wounded, close to the colors of the Seventy-second. One of the men of
that regiment, who was near him, asked permission of the writer (Col.
Chas. H. Banes, Adjutant Philadelphia Brigade), to carry him out of
the battle, saying, 'He has called for help as THE SON OF A WIDOW, an
order was given to take him to an ambulance, and when his revolver
was removed from his belt, it was seen that he had obeyed his own
command, 'to give them the cold steel,' as no shot had been fired
from it.

"At th