The Star of Gettysburg: A Story of Southern High Tide, Joseph A. Altsheler [best value ebook reader txt] 📗

cannon but the armies were motionless. The day was hotter than either of those that had gone before. The sun, huge and red, poised in the heavens, shot down fiery rays in millions. Harry gasped for breath, and when at last he spoke in the stillness his voice sounded loud and harsh in his own ears.

"What does it mean, George?" he said.

"I don't know, but I think they are massing behind us for a charge."

"Not against the sixty or seventy thousand men and the scores of cannon on those heights?"

"Maybe not yet. It's likely there will be a heavy artillery fire first. Yes, I'm right! There go the guns!"

One cannon shot was followed by many others, and then for a while a tremendous cannonade raged along the front of the armies, but it too died, the smoke lifted, and then came the breathless, burning heat again.

The fire of the sun and of the battle entered Harry's brain. The valley, the town, the hills, the armies, everthing swam in a red glare. The great pulses leaped in his throat. He was anxious for them to go on, and get it over. Why were the generals lingering when there was a battle to be finished? Half the day was gone already and nothing was decided.

Conscious that he was about to lose control of himself he clasped his hands to his temples and pressed them tightly. At the same time he made a mighty effort of the will. The millions of black specks that had been dancing before his eyes went away. The solid earth ceased to quiver and settled back into its place, careless of the armies that trampled over it. Again he clearly saw through his glasses the long lines of men in blue along the slopes and on the crest of Cemetery Hill. He marked, too, there, at the highest point, a clump of trees waving their summer green in the hot sunshine. Turning his glasses yet further he saw the massed artillery on Little Round Top, and the gunners leaning on their guns. A house, set on fire purposely or by shells, was burning brightly, like some huge torch to light the way to death.

"You told me they were preparing for a charge," he said to Dalton.

"So they are, Harry. Pickett's men, who have not been here long, are forming up in the rear, but their advance will be preceded by a cannonade. You can see them wheeling guns into line."

Lee, with Hill and Longstreet, had recently ridden along the lines followed by the older staff officers, and often shells and the bullets of sharpshooters had struck about them, but they remained unhurt. Now Lee stopped at one of his old points of observation. It was now about one o'clock in the afternoon, and as the last gun took its place the whole artillery of the Southern army opened with a fire so tremendous that Harry felt the earth trembling, and he was compelled to put his fingers in his ears lest he be deafened.

A storm of metal flew across the valley toward the Northern ranks, but the guns there did not reply yet. The Union troops lay close behind their intrenchments and mostly the storm beat itself to pieces on the side of the hill. The smoke soon became so great that Harry could not tell even with glasses what was going on in the enemy's ranks, but he inferred from the fact that they were not yet replying that they were not suffering much.

But in a quarter of an hour the tremendous cannonade was suddenly doubled in volume. The Union guns were now answering. Two hundred cannon facing one another across the valley were fighting the most terrible artillery duel ever known in America. The air was filled with shells, shot, grape, shrapnel, canister and every form of deadly missile.

Harry and Dalton sprang to cover, as some of the shells struck about them, but they stood up again when they saw that Lee was talking calmly with his generals.

The Southern fire was accurate. General Meade's headquarters were riddled. Many important officers were wounded, but the Northern gunners, superb always, never flinched from their guns. They fell fast, but others took their places. Guns were dismounted but those in the reserve were brought up instead.

The appalling tumult increased. The shells shrieked as they flew through the air in hundreds, and shrapnel and grape whined incessantly. Harry thought it in very truth the valley of destruction, and it was a relief to him when he received an order to carry and could turn away for a little while. He saw now in the rear the brigades of Pickett which were forming up for the charge, about four thousand five hundred men who had not yet been in the battle, while nearly ten thousand more, under Trimble, Pettigrew and Wilcox, were ready to march on their flanks. Pickett's men were lying on their arms patiently waiting. The time had not quite come.

When Harry came back from his errand the cannonade was still at its height. The roar was continuous, deafening, shaking the earth all the time. A light wind blew the smoke back on the Southern position, but it helped, concealing their batteries to a certain extent, while those of the North remained uncovered.

The Northern army was now suffering terribly, although its infantry stood unflinching under the fire. But the South was suffering too. Guns were shattered, and the deadly rain of missiles carried destruction into the waiting regiments. Harry saw Lee and Longstreet continually under the Union fire. They visited the batteries and encouraged the men. Showers of shells struck around them, but they went on unharmed. Wherever Lee appeared the tremendous cheering could be heard amid the roar of the guns.

Now the Southern artillerymen saw that their ammunition was diminishing fast. Such a furious and rapid fire could not be carried on much longer, and Lee sent the word to Pickett to charge. Harry stood by when the men of Pickett arose—but not all of them. Some had been struck by the shells as they lay on the ground and had died in silence, but their comrades marched out in splendid array, and a vast shout arose from the Southern army as they strove straight into the valley of death.

Harry shouted with the rest. He was wild with excitement. Every nerve in him tingled, and once more the black specks danced before his eyes in myriads. Peace or war! Right or wrong! He was always glad that he saw Pickett's charge, the charge that dimmed all other charges in history, the most magnificent proof of man's courage and ability to walk straight into the jaws of death.

The dauntless Virginians marched out in even array, stepping steadily as if they were on parade, instead of aiming straight at the center of the Union army, where fifty thousand riflemen and a hundred guns were awaiting them. Their generals and those of the supporting divisions rode on their flanks or at their head. Besides Pickett, Garnett, Wilcox, Armistead, Pettigrew and Trimble were there.

The Southern cannon were firing over the heads of the marching Virginians, covering them with their fire, but the light breeze strengthened a little, driving away the smoke. There they were in the valley, visible to both friend and foe, marching on that long mile from hill to hill. The Southern army shouted again, and it is true that, at this moment, the Union ranks burst into a like cry of admiration, at the sight of a foe so daring, men of their own race and country.

But Harry never took his eyes for a moment from Pickett's column. He was using his glasses, and everything stood out strong and clear. The sun was at the zenith, pouring down rays so fiery that the whole field blazed in light. The nature of the ground caused the Virginians to turn a little, in order to keep the line for the Union center, but they preserved their even ranks, and marched on at a steady pace.

Harry began to shout again, but in an instant or two he saw a line of fire pass along the Union front. Forty guns together opened upon the charging column, and Hancock at the Union center, seeing and understanding the danger, was heaping up men and cannon to meet it.

The shells began to crash into the ranks of the Virginians and the ten thousand on their flanks. Men fell in hundreds and now the batteries on Little Round Top added to the storm of fire. The clouds of smoke gathered again, but the wind presently scattered them and Harry, waiting in agony, saw Pickett's division marching straight ahead, never faltering.

But he groaned when he saw that there was trouble on the flanks. The men of Pettigrew, exhausted by the great efforts they had already made in the battle, wavered and lost ground. Another division was driven back by a heavy flank attack. Others were lost in the vast banks of smoke that at times filled the valley. Only the Virginians kept unbroken ranks and a straight course for the Union center.

Pickett paused a few moments at the burning house for the others to get in touch with him, but they could not do so, and he marched on, with Cemetery Hill now only two hundred yards away. The covering fire of the Southern cannon had ceased long since. It would have been as dangerous now to friend as to foe. Harry, watching through his glasses, uttered another cry. Pickett and his men were marching alone at the hill. Half of them it seemed to him were gone already, but the other half never paused. The fire of a hundred guns had been poured upon them, as they advanced that deadly mile, but with ranks still even they rushed straight at their mark, the Union center.

Then Harry saw all the slopes and the crest of Cemetery Hill blaze with fire. The Virginians were near enough for the rifles now, and the bullets came in sheets. Harry saw it, and he groaned aloud. He no longer had any hope for those brave men. The charge could not succeed!

Yet he saw them rush into the Union ranks and disappear. A group in gray, still cleaving through the multitude, reappeared far up the slope, and then burst, a little band of a few dozen men, into the very heart of the Union center, the point to which they had been sent.

A battle raged for a few minutes under the clump of trees where Hancock had stood directing. There Armistead, who had led them, his hat on the point of his sword, fell dead among the Northern guns, and Cushing, his brave foe who commanded the battery, died beside him. All the others fell quickly or were taken. A few hundreds on the slopes cut their way back through the Union army and reached their own. Pickett, preserved by some miracle, was among them.

Harry gasped and threw down his glasses. Now he knew that the words Shepard had spoken to him the night before at the spring were true. The Southern invasion had been rolled back forever.

He looked at General Lee, who on foot had been watching the charge. The impenetrable mask was gone for a moment, and his face expressed deep emotion. Then the great soul reasserted itself and mounting his horse went forward to meet the fugitives and encourage them. He rode back and forth among them, and Harry heard him say once:

"All will come right in the end. We'll talk it over afterward, but meanwhile every good man must rally. We want all good and true men just now."

His manner was that of a father to his children, and, though they had failed, the spontaneous cheers again burst forth wherever he passed. The wounded as they were carried to the rear raised themselves up to see him, and their cheers were added to the others.

Harry never forgot anything that he saw or heard then. Although the battle, in effect, was over, the Northern artillery, roaring and thundering triumphantly, was sending its shells across the valley and upon Seminary Ridge. But he did not think anything of them, even when they struck near him. It would be days before he could feel fear again. He heard Lee say to an officer who rode up, and stated, between sobbing breaths, that his