advise its immediate cessation and preparation for the assault which would certainly follow. The headquarters building, immediately behind the ridge, had been abandoned, and many of the horses of the staff lay dead. Being told that the general had gone to the cemetery, I proceeded thither. He was not there, and on telling General Howard my object, he concurred in its propriety, and I rode back along the ridge, ordering the fire to cease. This was followed by a cessation of that of the enemy, under the mistaken impression that he had silenced our guns, and almost immediately his infantry came out of the woods and formed for the assault. On my way to the Taneytown road to meet the fresh batteries I had ordered up, I met Major Bingham, of Hancock's staff, who informed me that General Meade's aids were seeking me with orders to "cease firing"; so I had only anticipated his wishes. The batteries were found and brought up, and Fitzhugh's, Cowan's, and Parsons's put in near the clump of trees. Meantime the enemy advanced, and McGilvery opened an oblique destructive fire, reënforced by that of Rittenhouse's six rifle-guns from Round Top, which were served with remarkable accuracy, enfilading Pickett's lines. The Confederate approach was magnificent, and excited our

admiration; but the story of that charge is so well known that I need not dwell upon it, further than concerns my own command. The steady fire from McGilvery and Rittenhouse, on their right, caused Pickett's men to "drift" in the opposite direction, so that the weight of the assault fell upon the positions occupied by Hazard's batteries. I had counted

COLONEL ELIAKIM SHERRILL. COMMANDING THE THIRD BRIGADE OF HAYS'S DIVISION, SECOND CORPS, KILLED ON THE THIRD DAY.

on an artillery cross-fire that would stop it before it reached our lines, but, except a few shots here and there, Hazard's batteries were silent until the enemy came within canister range. They had, unfortunately, exhausted their longrange projectiles during the cannonade, under the orders of their corps-commander, and it was too late to replace them. Had my instructions been followed here, as they were by McGilvery, I do not believe that Pickett's division would have reached our line. We lost not only the fire of one-third of our guns, but the resulting cross-fire which would have doubled its value. The prime fault was in the obscurity of our army regulations as to the artillery, and the absence of all regulations as to the proper relations of the different arms of service to each other. On this occasion it cost us much blood, many lives, and for a moment endangered the success of the battle. Soon after Pickett's repulse, Wilcox's, Wright's, and Perry's brigades were moved forward, but under the fire of the batteries in Gibbon's front and the fire of McGilvery's and Rittenhouse's guns, they soon fell back. The losses in the batteries of the Second Corps were very heavy. Rorty and Cushing were killed and Woodruff mortally wounded at their guns. So great was the destruction of men and horses, that Cushing's and Woodruff's United States and Brown's and Arnold's Rhode Island batteries were consolidated to form two serviceable ones. VOL. XXXIII.-61.

proceeded to Round Top and pushed out skirmishers to feel the enemy in its front. An advance to the Plum Run line of the troops behind it would have brought them directly in front of the numerous batteries which crowned the Emmettsburg Ridge, commanding that line and all the intervening ground; a further advance, to the attack, would have brought them under additional heavy flank fires. McCandless's brigade, supported by Nevin's, was, however, pushed forward, under cover of the woods, which protected them from the fire of all these batteries; it crossed the Wheat-field, cleared the woods, and had an encounter with a portion of Benning's brigade, which was retiring. Hood's and McLaws's divisions were falling back under Longstreet's orders to their strong position, resting on Peach Orchard and covering Hill's line. It needs but a moment's examination of the official map to see that our troops on the left were locked up. As to the center, Pickett's and Pettigrew's assaulting divisions had formed no part of A. P. Hill's line, which was practically intact. The idea that there must have been "a gap of at least a mile" in that line, made by throwing forward these divisions, and that a prompt advance from Cemetery Ridge would have given us the line itself, or at least the artillery in front of it, was a delusion. A prompt counter-charge after a combat between two small bodies of men is one thing; the change from the defensive to the offensive of an army, after an engagement at a single point, is quite another. This was not a "Waterloo defeat" with a fresh army to follow it up, and to have made such a change to the offensive, on

MAJOR-GENERAL ALFRED PLEASONTON, COMMANDING THE CAVALRY CORPS AT GETTYSBURG.

the assumption that Lee had made no provision against a reverse, would have been rash in the extreme. An advance of twenty thousand men from Cemetery Ridge in the face of the hundred and forty guns then in position would have been stark madness; an immediate advance from any point, in force, was simply impracticable, and before due preparation could have been made for a change to the offensive, the favorable moment-had any resulted from the repulse- would have passed away.

Whilst the main battle was raging, a sharp cavalry combat took place on our right between Stuart's command of four and Gregg's of three brigades; but Jenkins's Confederate brigade was soon thrown out of action from lack of ammunition, and two only of Gregg's were engaged. Stuart had been ordered to cover

MONUMENT ON THE FIELD OF THE
CAVALRY FIGHT BETWEEN THE FORCES
OF GENERAL D. MCM. GREGG AND
GENERAL J. E. B. STUART. (FROM
A PHOTOGRAPH BY TIPTON.)

Ewell's left and was proceeding towards the Baltimore pike, where he hoped to create a diversion in aid of the Confederate infantry, and in case of Pickett's success to fall upon the retreating Federal troops. From near Cress's Ridge, two and a half miles east of Gettysburg, Stuart commanded a view of the roads

enforcements, and Gregg, then near the Baltimore pike, brought him Custer's brigade and Pennington's and Randol's batteries. The artillery soon drove the Confederates out of Rummel's, and Griffin's Confederate battery from its position. Both sides brought up reënforcements and the battle swayed from side to side of the interval. Finally the Federals were pressed back, and Lee and Hampton, emerging from the wood, charged, sword in hand, through a destructive artillery fire, for the falling back of the Federals had uncovered their batteries. They were met by Custer's and such other mounted squadrons as could be thrown in; a mêlée ensued, in which Hampton was se