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THE GREAT CHARGE AND

The enemy’s position seemed to have broken ont with guns everywhere,and from Round Top to Cemetery Hill was blazing like a volcano. The airseemed full of missiles from every direction. The severity of the fire maybe illustrated by the casualties in my own battalion under Major Huger.

Under my predecessor, General S. D. Lee, the battalion had made a repu-tation at the Second Manassas and also at Sharpsburg. At the latter battleit had a peculiarly hard time fighting infantry and superior metal nearly allday, and losing about eighty-five men and sixty horses. Sharpsburg they

called “ artillery hell.” At Gettysburg thelosses in the same command, including theinfantry that volunteered to help servethe guns, were 144 men and 116 horses,nearly all by artillery fire. Some parts ofthe Federal artillery suffered in the sameproportion under our fire. 1 heard of onebattery losing 27 out of 36 horses in 10minutes.

Before the cannonade opened I had madeup my mind to give Pickett the order toadvance within fifteen or twenty minutesafter it began. But when I looked at thefull development of the enemy’s batteries,and knew that his infantry was generallyprotected from our fire by stone walls andswells of the ground, I could not bringmyself to give the word. It seemed madness to launch infantry into thatfire, with nearly three-quarters of a mile to go at midday under a July sun.I let the 15 minutes pass, and 20, and 25, hoping vainly for somethingto turn up. Then I wrote to Pickett: “ If you are coming at all you mustcome at once, or I cannot give you proper support; but the enemy’s firehas not slackened at all; at least eighteen guns are still firing from thecemetery itself.” Five minutes after sending that message, the enemy’sfire suddeidy began to slacken, and the guns in the cemetery limbered upand vacated the position.

We Confederates often did such things as that to save our ammunition foruse against infantry, but I had never before seen the Federals withdraw theirguns simply to save them up for the infantry fight. So I said, “If he doesnot run fresh batteries in there in five minutes, this is our fight.” I lookedanxiously with my glass, and the five minutes passed without a sign of W >eon the deserted position, still swept by our fire, and littered with dead menand horses and fragments of disabled carriages. Then I wrote Pickett,urgently: “For God ’s sake, come quick. The eighteen guns are gone ; comequick, or my ammunition won’t let me support you properly.”

I afterward heard from others what took place with my first note to Pickett.

Pickett took it to Longstreet, Longstreet read it, and said nothing. Pickettsaid, “ General, shall I advance ? ” Longstreet, knowing it had to be, but

MAJOR-GENERAL CADMUS M. WILCOX, C. S. A.FROM A PHOTOGRAPH.