they stopped, a
confused mass. General Webb, Haskell and other officers rallied them. The
red flags gathered thicker, where the small units of many commands stood
fast under the shelter of a portion of the lost wall. Penhallow looked
back and saw the Massachusetts flags--our centre alone had given way.
The flanks of the broken regiments still held the wall and poured in a
murderous fire where the splendid courage of the onset halted, unwilling
to fly, unable to go on.

Webb, furious, rallied his men, while Penhallow, Haskell and Gibbon
vainly urged an advance. A colour-sergeant ran forward and fell dead. A
corporal caught up the flag and dropped. A Confederate general leaped
over the deserted wall and laid a hand on Cushing's gun. He fell
instantly at the side of the dead captain, as with a sudden roar of fury
the broken Pennsylvanians rolled in a disordered mass of men and officers
against the disorganized valour which held the wall.

The smoke held--still holds, the secret of how many met the Northern men
at the wall; how long they fought among Cushing's guns, on and over the
wall, no man who came out of it could tell. Penhallow emptied his
revolver and seizing a musket fought the brute battle with the men who
used fists, stones, gun-rammers--a howling mob of blue and grey. And so
the swaying flags fell down under trampling men and the lost wall was
won. The fight was over. Men fell in scores, asking quarter. The flanking
fires had been merciless, and the slope was populous with dead and
wounded men, while far away the smoke half hid the sullen retreat of the
survivors. The prearranged mechanism of war became active. Thousands of
prisoners were being ordered to the rear. Men stood still, gasping,
breathless or dazed. As Penhallow stood breathing hard, from the right
wing, among the long silent dead of Cemetery Hill, arose a wild hurrah.
It gathered volume, rolled down the long line of corps after corps, and
died away among the echoes of the Pennsylvania hills. He looked about him
trying to recover interest. Some one said that Hancock and Gibbon were
wounded. The rush of the _melee_ had carried him far down the track of
the charge, and having no instant duty he sat down, his clothes in
tatters. As he recovered strength, he was aware of General Meade on
horseback with an aide. The general, white and grave, said to Haskell,
"How has it gone here?"

An officer cried, "They are beaten," showing two flags he held.

Mea