ution can we enumerate; but is
there a child who does not know that Bunker Hill sounded the death-knell
of English rule in the land? And now, but twenty years since the
greatest conflict of modern times was closed at Appomattox, how few can
we readily recall of the scores of blood-stained battle-fields on which
our friends and neighbors fought and fell; but is there one, old or
young, cultured or ignorant, of the North or of the South, that cannot
speak of Gettysburg? But what is Gettysburg either in its first day's
Federal defeat, or its second day's terrible slaughter around Little
Round Top, without the _third_ day's immortal charge by Pickett and
his brave Virginians. In it we have the culmination of the Rebellion. It
took long years after to drain _all_ the life-blood from the foe,
but never again did the wave of Rebellion rise so gallantly high as when
it beat upon the crest of Cemetery Ridge.

The storming of the heights of Inkerman, the charge of the noble Six
Hundred, the fearful onslaught of the Guards at Waterloo, the scaling of
Lookout Mountain,--have all been sung in story, and perhaps always will
be; but they all pale beside the glory that will ever enshroud the
heroes who, with perhaps not literally "cannon to right of them" and
"cannon to left of them," but with a hundred cannon belching forth death
in _front_ of them, hurled themselves into the centre of a great
army and had victory almost within their grasp.

To describe this charge, we will go back to the evening of the 2nd of
July, and recall upon what basis the cautious Lee could undertake so
fearful a responsibility. The victorious Southrons fresh from their
triumphs at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville had entered the North
carrying consternation and dismay to every hamlet, with none to oppose;
their forward march was one of spoil, and it was not till the 1st of
July that they met their old foemen, the Army of the Potomac, in the
streets of Gettysburg, and after a fierce conflict drove them back. The
second day's conflict was a terrible slaughter, and at its close the
Federal Army, although holding its position, was to a certain extent
disheartened. Many of our best generals and commanding officers were
killed or wounded, scores of regiments and batteries were nearly wiped
out, Sickles' line was broken and driven in and its position was held by
Longstreet. Little Round Top, the key of the position, was held only at
a frightful loss of life, and