been
hidden from view during the cannonade. In another moment, out of the
lifting smoke there appeared, beautiful and terrible, the picked
thousands of the Southern army advancing to the assault. They advanced
in three lines, each over a mile long, and in perfect order. Pickett's
Virginians held the centre, with on their left the North Carolinians of
Pender and Pettigrew, and on their right the Alabama regiments of
Wilcox; and there were also Georgian and Tennessee regiments in the
attacking force. Pickett's division, however, was the only one able to
press its charge home.

The Confederate lines came on magnificently. As they crossed the
Emmetsburg Pike the eighty guns on the Union crest, now cool and in good
shape, opened upon them, first with shot and then with shell. Great gaps
were made every second in the ranks, but the gray-clad soldiers closed
up to the centre, and the color-bearers leaped to the front, shaking and
waving the flags. The Union infantry reserved their fire until the
Confederates were within easy range, when the musketry crashed out with
a roar; the big guns began to fire grape and canister.

On came the Confederates, the men falling by hundreds, the colors
fluttering in front like a little forest; for as fast as a color-bearer
was shot, some one else seized the flag from his hand before it fell.
The North Carolinians were more exposed to the fire than any other
portion of the attacking force, and they were broken before they reached
the line. There was a gap between the Virginians and the Alabama troops,
and this was taken advantage of by Stannard's Vermont brigade and a
demi-brigade under Gates of the Twentieth New York, who were thrust
forward into it. Stannard changed front with his regiments and attacked
Pickett's forces in flank, and Gates continued the attack. When thus
struck in the flank the Virginians could not defend themselves, and they
crowded off toward the centre to avoid the pressure. Many of them were
killed or captured; many of them were driven back: but two of the
brigades, headed by General Armistead, forced their way forward to the
stone wall on the crest, where the Pennsylvania regiments were posted
under Gibbon and Webb.

The Union guns fired to the last moment, until of the two batteries
immediately in front of the charging Virginians every officer but one
had been struck. One of the mortally wounded officers was young Cushing,
a brother of the hero of the _Albemarle_ fig