he
flower of the Rebel army was concentrated; it was there that the
heaviest shock beat upon, and shook, and even sometimes crumbled, our
lines.

"We had some shallow rifle-pits, with barricades of rails from the
fences. The Rebel line, stretching away miles to the left, in
magnificent array, but strongest here--Pickett's splendid division of
Longstreet's corps in front, the best of A. P. Hill's veterans in
support--came steadily, and as it seemed resistlessly, sweeping up. Our
skirmishers retired slowly from the Emmitsburg road, holding their
ground tenaciously to the last. The Rebels reserved their fire till they
reached this same Emmitsburg road, then opened with a terrific crash.
From a hundred iron throats, meantime, their artillery had been
thundering on our barricades.

"Hancock was wounded; Gibbon succeeded to the command--an approved
soldier, and ready for the crisis. As the tempest of fire approached
its height, he walked along the line, and renewed his orders to the men
to reserve their fire. The Rebels--three lines deep--came steadily up.
They were in point-blank range.

"At last the order came! From thrice six thousand guns there came a
sheet of smoky flame, a crash, a rush of leaden death. The line
literally melted away; but there came the second, resistless still. It
had been our supreme effort; on the moment we were not equal to another.

"Up to the rifle-pits, across them, over the barricades--the momentum of
their charge, the mere machine-strength of their combined action, swept
them on. Our thin line could fight, but it had not weight enough to
oppose to this momentum. It was pushed behind the guns. Right on came
the Rebels. They were upon our guns--were bayoneting the gunners--were
waving their flags over our pieces.

"But they had penetrated to the fatal point. A storm of grape and
canister tore its way from man to man, and marked its track with corpses
straight down their line! They had exposed themselves to the enfilading
fire of the guns on the western slope of Cemetery Hill; that exposure
sealed their fate.

"The line reeled back--disjointed already--in an instant in fragments.
Our men were just behind the guns. They leaped forward upon the
disordered mass; but there was little need of fighting now. A regiment
threw down its arms, and, with colors at its head, rushed over and
surrendered. All along the field smaller detachments did the same.
Webb's brigade brought in eight hundred: taken