Page:Decisive Battles Since Waterloo.djvu/290

256 their positions bravely. Finally Meade silenced his guns in order to draw the enemy to the attack. Pickett believing the guns to be disabled, threw his soldiers forward on Ziegler's grove. Kemper moved on his right and Armistead on his left. McGilvery reopened with his battery of forty pieces, and taking Pickett's line in flank did tremendous damage. This did not stop the intrepid Southerners, and Pickett's three brigades advanced on the run, making one of the most magnificent charges in the history of war. Garnett, who led his brigade, fell dead with many of his men, before the withering fire of Gibbon's division. The Unionists were intrenched behind rocks and fences, where bullets could not reach them. Still Pickett pressed on, and crossed bayonets with Gibbon's men. Stannard's soldiers opened a murderous fire on Armistead's right. It recoiled, and Armistead threw it upon the brigades of Webb and Harrow. It pierced the first line and drove the Unionists back upon their second line of earthworks. Hancock and Gibbon sent forward their reserves. Harrow advanced his left and took Pickett in the rear.

Armistead pressed on, and captured Cushing's battery, which was posted in a clump of trees, and was killed with Gushing in the fight. Pettigrew, Archer, Scales, and Lane, who had advanced on Pickett's left, broke through the first Union line, and ascending the slopes, threw themselves against Hays' line. They could not pierce it and were driven back in confusion, leaving two thousand prisoners and fifteen stand of colors. Some of their regiments joined Pickett, who was still fighting. The entire fire of the Unionists was now concentrated on Pickett's men, and the division was simply annihilated; three thousand five hundred men and twelve stand of colors were lost. Wilcox, who should have assaulted Gibbon's right, had wandered off too far to the right, and had reached the