THE THIRD DAY AT GETTYSBURG.
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two miles was covered by batteries already in line or going into position.They stretched— apparently in one unbroken mass—from opposite the townto the Peach Orchard, which bounded the view to the left, the ridges of whichwere planted thick with cannon. Never before had such a sight been wit-nessed on this continent, and rarely, if ever, abroad. What did it mean ? Itmight possibly be to hold that line while its infantry was sent to aid Ewell,or to guard against a counter-stroke from us, but it most probably meant anassault on our center, to be preceded by a cannonade in order to crush our
batteries and shake our infantry; atleast to cause us to exhaust our ammu-nition in reply, so that the assaultingtroops might pass in good conditionover the half mile of open ground whichwas beyond our effective musketry fire.With such an object the cannonadewould be long and followed immedi-ately by the assault, their whole armybeing held in readiness to follow upa success. From the great extent ofground occupied by the enemy’s bat-teries, it was evident that all the artil-lery on our west front, whether of thearmy corps or the reserve, must con-cur as a unit, under the chief of artil-lery, in the defense. This is provided forin all well-organized armies by specialrules, which formerly were contained in our own army regulations, but theyhad been condensed in successive editions into a few short lines, so obscureas to be virtually worthless, because, like the rudimentary toe of the dog’spaw, they had become, from lack of use, mere survivals — unintelligible exceptto the specialist. It was of the first importance to subject the enemy’sinfantry, from the first moment of their advance, to such a cross-fire of ourartillery as would break their formation, check their impulse, and drive themback, or at least bring them to our lines in such condition as to make theman easy prey. There was neither time nor necessity for reporting this toGeneral Meade , and beginning on the right, I instructed the clpefs of artil-lery and battery commanders to withhold their fire for fifteen or twenty miu-utes after the cannonade commenced, then to concentrate their fire with allpossible accuracy on those batteries which were most destructive to us—■ butslowly, so that when the enemy’s ammunition was exhausted, we should havesufficient left to meet the assault. I had just given those orders to the lastbattery on Little Round Top, when the signal-gun was fired, and the enemyopened with all his guns. From that point the scene was indescribablygrand. All their batteries were soon covered witli smoke, through which theflashes were incessant, whilst the air seemed filled with shells, whose sharpexplosions, with the hurtling of their fragments, formed a running accom-
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