THE SECOND DAY AT GETTYSBURG.

295

Marches, especially the night marches, were trying and had caused muchstraggling.

All this morning Meade was busily engaged personally or by his staff inrectifying his lines, assigning positions to the commands as they came up,hatching the enemy, and studying the field, parts of which we have described11:1 general terms. We now refer the reader to the map [p. 299] to aid ourfurther description of some necessary even if tedious details. Near theWestern base of Cemetery Hill is Ziegler’s G rove. From this grove the dis-tance nearly due south to the base of Little Round Top is a mile and a half.A Well-defined ridge known as Cemetery Ridge follows this line from Ziegler’sfor 900 yards to another small grove, or clump of trees, where it turns sharplyt° the east for 200 yards, then turns south again, and continues in a directfine toward Round Top, for 700 yards, to George Weikert’s. So far the ridgeis smooth and open, in full view of Seminary Ridge opposite, and distantfrom 1400 to 1600 yards. At Weikert’s, this ridge is lost in a large body ofr °cks, hills, and woods, lying athwart the direct line to Round Top, andforcing a bend to the east in the Taney town road. This rough space alsostretches for a quarter of a mile or more ivest of this direct line, toward Plumfrun. Toward the south it sinks into low marshy ground which reaches to thebase of Little Round Top, half a mile or more from George Weikert’s. The^est side of this broken ground was wooded through its whole extent from110 rth to south. Between this wood and Plum Run is an open cleared spaceyards wide—a continuation of the open country in front of Cemeteryfridge ; Plum Run flows south-easterly toward Little Round Top, then makesa bend to the south-west, where it receives a small stream or “branch” from^etninary Ridge. In the angle between these streams is Devil’s Den, a bold,r ocky height, steep on its eastern face, and prolonged as a ridge to the west.If is 500 yards due west of Little Round Top, and 100 feet lower. The north-ei 'u extremity is composed of huge rocks and bowlders, forming innumerabledevices and holes, from the largest of which the hill derives its name. PlumHun valley is here marshy but strewn with similar bowlders, and the slopes offhe Round Tops are covered with them. These afforded lurking-places for aMultitude of Confederate sharp-shooters whom, from the difficulties of the§ v ound, it was impossible to dislodge, and who were opposed by similarMethods on our part; so that at the close of the battle these hiding-places,a,1| d especially the “ Den ” itself, were filled with dead and wounded men.bhis kind of warfare was specially destructive to Hazlett’s battery on Roundbop, as the cannoneers had to expose themselves in firing, and in one easeffrree were shot in quick succession, before the fourth succeeded in discharg-es the piece. A cross-road connecting the Taneytown and Emmitsburgr °ads runs along the northern base of Devil’s Den. From its Plum Runtossing to the Peach Orchard is 1100 yards. For the first 400 yards of thisdistance, there is a wood on the north and a wheat-field on the south of the10a d, beyond which the road continues for 700 yards to the Emmitsburg roadalong Devil’s Den ridge, which slopes on the north to Plum Run, on the south1° Plum Branch. From Ziegler’s Grove the Emmitsburg road runs diago-