s of our lines of pickets, but there was little betokening any
general engagement. Occasionally a few of the skirmishers of the enemy,
would make a charge upon parts of our line forcing back the pickets, but
a gun from some one of our batteries would hastily send them to the rear
again. Doubtless it was for the purpose of disclosing the positions of
our batteries, that their dashes were made. Thus the day wore on until
four o'clock.

General Sickles, with the Third corps, had moved out beyond the general
line of battle nearly a mile, and had come upon the advance of the
enemy, where Longstreet, with one-third of the rebel army, was
concentrating his forces against the left flank, with the hope of
turning it and seizing the ridge.

The battle opened at once. Seven batteries of artillery opened upon
front and flank of the exposed corps, and large bodies of infantry in
column by division. The corps withstood the shock heroically, and was
soon strengthened by troops from the Second corps. Our artillery now
opened upon the rebels from the ridge, and hurled destruction upon them.
The valley was filled with bursting missiles, and the smoke rolled up in
huge columns. It was at this stage of the great battle that the Sixth
corps arrived on the ground, after its unparalleled march, and the Fifth
corps was at once ordered into the fight. For an hour the Sixth corps
was the reserve of the army, but even this reserve was soon called into
action.

The writer, while our corps waited for orders, rode along the front,
from where the Second and Third corps were engaged in their deadly
struggle with the enemy, across Cemetery Ridge and to the hill where, on
the right of the line, Slocum had established his head-quarters, and he
will attempt to describe the field as he saw it.

To form a correct idea of the position of the armies, one should imagine
two ranges of hills, between which was the valley and the village of
Gettysburgh.

These ridges are nearly parallel, and are from a mile to a mile and a
half asunder. Their course is not a direct line but curving. The ridge
on which our forces are posted, bend outward and backward, so that the
line is in the form of a half circle, fronting from the center, while
the rebels were forced to occupy an exterior line facing towards the
center.

At Gettysburgh several roads converge, first, on the right is the
Baltimore turnpike, next is the road to Taneytown, and further to the
left is the Em