142 Nortn Carotina Troops, 1861-’65.

and soon reaching the ridge on which the Turnpike ran, he
wheeled to the left and moved up towards Cordori’s House.
By this movement he presented his flank to the batteries
posted on Little Round Top and received a severe enfilading
fire, while General Stannard, whose division was in his imme-
diate front, threw out two Vermont regiments to contest the
ground with him. But Colonel Alexander had _ himself
hastily followed with a battery of artillery and opened on
this force with spirit, in a measure dispersing it and neutral-
izing its power for serious work. But still it could not be
entirely driven off, and when Kemper, on the extreme right,
having passed to the east of Cordori’s house, moved by the
left flank to close up with Garrett’s Brigade, the Vermonters
also moved by the flank to keep pace with him, and continued
to annoy him. As the line advanced there loomed up in the
distance the works it was to assault.

Immediately in front of Archer’s Brigade and Pickett’s
left lay the projecting stone wall standing out into the valley,
and held by Webb’s Brigade of Gibbon’s Division; and op-
posite the Confederate left was the retired wall held by Hays’
Division, with Smyth’s Brigade towards the cemetery and
Sherrill’s Brigade between that and Webb. This part of
the wall was eighty yards behind the front of the projection
held by Webb.

South of the projection Hall’s and Harrow’s Brigades con-
tinued the Federal line, behind breastworks of rails covered
with earth and with rifle pits and shallow trenches in their
front. Further on were Stannard’s and other brigades of Dou-
bleday’s Division. On the crest of the hill, a few yards behind

the line of works, was thickly massed the artillery. Skirmish- —

ers lay out several hundred yards in front in the clover and
grass, while a first line of infantry held a strong fence along
the pike in front of Hays and a low stone wall further. down
the valley, and lay concealed in the grass in the intervening
space. At the stone wall and breastworks was a second line
in readiness to receive the attack, while behind the artillery,
some thirty paces off, was still another, occupying higher
ground and protected by the backbone of the ridge, and

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Tue PerrigREw—PickETT CHARGE. 143

further on the flanks were heavy masses of infantry ready to
be concentrated if occasion required.

As the Confederate line moved forward, in constant sight,
momentarily drawing nearer to the point of attack, all was
expectation and anxiety along the Federal front. The heavy
artillery fire of the Confederates had ceased and the demoral-
ization incident to it rapidly gave place to a feeling of reas-
surance and determination. While it had destroyed the
two batteries in the rear of Webb, leaving only one piece that
could be worked, the guns in rear of Hay’s division were in
better condition, and Howard’s fresh battery had been
brought up and posted on the slope of Cemetery Hill. And so
it happened that while the troops on the Confederate right
were fortunately not subjected to an artillery fire from the
front and were exposed only to an enfilading fire from the ex-
treme left of the Federal line, it was far different with Pet-
tigrew’s command, the batteries in his front being well served,
firing first solid shot, then shell and spherical case—and at
last canister-—double charged, as Pettigrew’s line drew nearer
and nearer.

The movement of the Confederates was made in quick
time over a clear field, beneath the burning rays of a fiery
July sun, and was attended with considerable fatigue and ex-
haustion. But those veterans who had been trained to the
vicissitudes of war well knew that at the final assault, dash
and vigor would be necessary, and they therefore husbanded
their strength and moved forward steadily and resolutely un-
der the galling fire that was rapidly thinning their ranks.
Speaking of the troops in front of Hay’s Division, General
Bachelder says that when they had reached a position “half
way across the plain they encountered a terrible artillery fire,
but against which, as a man presses against a blinding storm,
they moved steadily on as if impelled by a will greater than
their own—some mighty unseen power which they could not
resist.

“Solid shot ploughed through their ranks, spherical case
rattled in their midst and canister swept them by hundreds
from the field, yet on they pressed unflinchingly.

It was an awful experience to pass nearly a mile across an