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THE GREAT CHARGE AND

was the last of them. The conflict hardly seemed to last five minutes beforethey were melted away, and only disorganized stragglers pursued by a mod-erate fire were coming back. Just then, Wilcox’s brigade passed by us, mov-ing to Pickett’s support. There was no longer anything to support, and withthe keenest pity at the useless waste of life, I saw them advance. The men,as they passed us, looked bewildered, as if they wondered what they wereexpected to do, or why they were there. However, they were soon haltedand moved back. They suffered some losses, and we had a few casualtiesfrom canister sent at them at rather long range.

From the position of our guns the sight of this conflict was grand andthrilling, and we watched it as men with a life-and-death interest in theresult. If it should be favorable to us, the war was nearly over; if against us,we each had the risks of many battles yet to go through. And the eventculminated with fearful rapidity. Listening to the rolling crashes of mus-ketry, it was hard to realize that they were made up of single reports, andthat each musket-shot represented nearly a minute of a man’s life in thatstorm of lead and iron. It seemed as if 100,000 men were engaged, and thathuman life was being poured out like water. As soon as it appeared that theassault had failed, we ceased firing in order to save ammunition in case theenemy should advance. But we held our ground as boldly as possible, thoughwe were entirely without support, and very low in ammunition. The enemygave us an occasional shot for a while and then, to our great relief, let us rest.About that time General Lee , entirely alone, rode up and remained with me fora long time. He then probably first appreciated the full extent of the disasteras the disorganized stragglers made their way back past us. The Comte deParis, in his excellent account of this battle, remarks that Lee , as a soldier,must at this moment have foreseen Appomattox—that he must have realizedthat he could never again muster so powerful an army, and that for thefuture he could only delay, but not avert, the failure of his cause. Howeverthis may be, it was certainly a momentous tiling to him to see that superbattack end in such a bloody repulse. But, whatever his emotions, there wasno trace of them in his calm and self-possessed bearing. I thought at thetime his coming there very imprudent, and the absence of all his staff-officersand couriers strange. It could only have happened by his express intention-I have since thought it possible that he came, thinking the enemy might fol-low in pursuit of Pickett, personally to rally stragglers about our guns andmake a desperate defense. He had the instincts of a soldier within himas strongly as any man. Looking at Burnside’s dense columns swarmingthrough the fire of our guns toward Marye’s Hill at Fredericksburg, he hadsaid: “ It is well war is so terrible or we would grow too fond of it.”soldier could have looked on at Pickett’s charge and not burned to be in it. Tohave a personal part in a close and desperate fight at that moment would, Ibelieve, have been at heart a great pleasure to General Lee , and possibly hewas looking for one. We were here joined by Colonel Fremantle of He 1Majesty’s Coldstream Guards, who was visiting our army. He afterwardpublished an excellent account of the battle in u Blackwood,” and described