ries
at the Round Top. Behind this ridge was soon to assemble an army, if
not the largest, yet the grandest, best disciplined, best equipped of
all time, with an incentive to do successful battle as seldom falls to
the lot of an army, and on its success or defeat depended the fate of
two nations.

There was a kind of intuition, an apparent settled fact, among the
soldiers of Longstreet's corps, that after all the other troops had
made their long marches, tugged at the flanks of the enemy, threatened
his rear, and all the display of strategy and generalship had been
exhausted in the dislodgement of the foe, and all these failed, then
when the hard, stubborn, decisive blow was to be struck, the troops of
the first corps were called upon to strike it. Longstreet had informed
Lee at the outset, "My corps is as solid as a rock--a great rock. I
will strike the blow, and win, if the other troops gather the fruits
of victory." How confident the old "War Horse," as General Lee called
him, was in the solidity and courage of his troops. Little did he know
when he made the assertion that so soon his seventeen thousand men
were to be pitted against the whole army of the Potomac. Still, no
battle was ever considered decisive until Longstreet, with his
cool, steady head, his heart of steel and troops who acknowledged no
superior, or scarcely equal, in ancient or modern times, in endurance
and courage, had measured strength with the enemy. This I give, not
as a personal view, but as the feelings, the confidence and pardonable
pride of the troops of the 1st corps.

As A.P. Hill and Ewell had had their bout the day before, it was a
foregone conclusion that Longstreet's time to measure strength was
near at hand, and the men braced themselves accordingly for the
ordeal.

A ridge running parallel with that behind which the enemy stood, but
not near so precipitous or rugged, and about a mile distant, with a
gentle decline towards the base of the opposite ridge, was to be
the base of the battle ground of the day. This plain or gentle slope
between the two armies, a mile in extent, was mostly open fields
covered with grain or other crops, with here and there a farm house,
orchard and garden. It seems from reports since made that Lee had not
matured his plan of battle until late in the forenoon. He called
a council of war of his principal Lieutenant to discuss plans and
feasibilities. It was a long time undecided whether Ewell should lead