htfall. The fighting along a front
of nearly five miles in extent continued in a desultory manner until
about ten o'clock on the July night, when the firing for the most part
ceased, leaving the two armies in virtually the same position which
they had occupied the day before.

This signified, however, that thus far the advantage was on the Union
side; for on that side the battle was defensive. The Confederate army
had come to a wall, and must break through or suffer defeat. The
burden of attack rested on the Confederate side; but General Lee did
not flinch from the necessity. In the darkness of night both he and
the Union commanders made strenuous preparations for the renewal of
the struggle on the morrow.

On the morning of the third both armies seemed loath to begin the
conflict. This phenomenon is nearly always witnessed in the case of
really critical battles. It was so at Waterloo, and so at Gettysburg.
It seems that in such crises the commanders, well aware of what is to
come, wait awhile, as though each would permit the other to strike
first. As a matter of fact, the topmost crest of the Civil War had now
been reached; and from this hour the one cause or the other must
decline to the end.

The whole forenoon of the third of July was spent in preparations.
There was but little fighting, and that little was desultory. At
midday there seemed to be a lull along the whole line. Just afterward,
however, General Lee opened from Seminary Ridge with about one hundred
guns, directing his fire against the Union centre on Cemetery Hill.
There the counter position was occupied by the American artillery of
about equal strength, under command of General Hunt. The cannonade
burst out at one o'clock with terrific roar. Nothing like it had ever
before been seen or heard in the New World. Nothing like it, we
believe, had ever up to that time been witnessed in Europe. Certainly
there was no such cannonade at Waterloo. For about an hour and a half
this tremendous vomit of shot and shell continued. It was the hope of
General Lee to pound the Union batteries to pieces, and then, while
horror and death were still supreme in the Union centre, to thrust
forward an overwhelming mass of his best infantry into the gap, cut
Meade's army in two, plant the Confederate banner on the crest of the
Union battle line, and virtually then and there achieve the
independence of the Confederate States.

It seems that an action of General Hunt, about