Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 5.djvu/286

274 these brigades were struggling through the withering fire, and in a few moments were abreast with Garnett. At 25 yards from the wall Garnett was shot from his horse. Kemper had fallen and Armistead had been killed, but officers and men rushed for the wall and planted their standards. The fighting at this line was desperate, and hand to hand. But the conflict was too unequal to avail the gallant survivors of Garnett and Kemper and Armistead. Of the three brigades scarcely a picket line was left to grapple with the battle array of their foe. The remnant gave up the fight and left the field. If Wilcox could have reached the wall with his gallant Alabamians, the fight might have been prolonged—it might have been successful. But to reach that stone wall Wilcox must march through the fire that shot to pieces the brigades of Kemper, Garnett and Armistead. General Wilcox says that he reached the foot of the hill; that he could not see a man whom he was sent to support; that he was subjected to such an artillery fire from front and both flanks that he went back in search of a battery; that he could find none; that returning to his brigade he regarded further advance useless and ordered a retreat.

On the left, Pettigrew and Trimble carried their battle to the Emmitsburg road and to the advanced line. Archer’s brigade, on Garnett’s immediate left, had 13 color-bearers shot one after another in gallant efforts to plant the colors of his five regiments on the stone wall. The direction of the Federal line was oblique to the general line of advance. Pettigrew’s line was exposed longest to the front and flank fire, and at the Emmitsburg road he had suffered more severely than Pickett s brigades. When Pettigrew was yet 150 yards from the Emmitsburg road, says General Trimble, who was about that distance in his rear, &quot;They seemed to sink into the earth from the tempest of fire poured into them.&quot; Although wounded, Pettigrew led his line across the