ot, prepared to
follow the line of battle immediately in rear, looking cool, composed
and grand, his steel-gray eyes flashing the fire he felt in his soul.

The shelling from the enemy on the ridge in front had, up to this
time, been mostly confined to replying to our batteries, but as soon
as this long array of bristling bayonets moved over the crest and
burst out suddenly in the open, in full view of the cannon-crowned
battlements, all guns were turned upon us. The shelling from Round
Top was terrific enough to make the stoutest hearts quake, while the
battery down at the base of the ridge, in the orchard, was raking
Barksdale and Kershaw right and left with grape and shrapnell. Semmes'
Georgians soon moved up on our right and between Kershaw and Hood's
left, but its brave commander fell mortally wounded at the very
commencement of the attack. Kershaw advanced directly against little
Round Top, the strongest point in the enemy's line, and defended by
Ayer's Regulars, the best disciplined and most stubborn fighters in
the Federal army. The battery in the orchard began grapeing Kershaw's
left as soon as it came in range, the right being protected by a
depression in the ground over which they marched. Not a gun was
allowed to be fired either at sharpshooters that were firing on our
front from behind boulders and trees in a grove we were nearing, or
at the cannoneers who were raking our flank on the left. Men fell here
and there from the deadly minnie-balls, while great gaps or swaths
were swept away in our ranks by shells from the batteries on the
hills, or by the destructive grape and canister from the orchard. On
marched the determined men across this open expanse, closing together
as their comrades fell out. Barksdale had fallen, but his troops were
still moving to the front and over the battery that was making such
havoc in their ranks. Semmes, too, had fallen, but his Georgians never
wavered nor faltered, but moved like a huge machine in the face of
these myriads of death-dealing missiles. Just as we entered the woods
the infantry opened upon us a withering fire, especially from up
the gorge that ran in the direction of Round Top. Firing now became
general along the whole line on both sides. The Fifteenth Regiment
met a heavy obstruction, a mock-orange hedge, and it was just after
passing this obstacle that Colonel Dessausure fell. The center of the
Third Regiment and some parts of the other regiments, were partiall