Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 05.pdf/286

Rh troops that had been on the extreme right of the Federal army until 2 o'clock P. M., about which time they were ordered to the left, and who were barely able to reach the Round Top in time to save it from the assaulting column. Had the movement begun even two hours sooner, that point, which Meade says was the key-point to his whole position, and the possession of which by us would have prevented him from holding any of the ground, would have fallen into the possession of Hood's men with little or no contest; for Sykes' troops, that saved that point from capture, had not then started from the enemy's right. Even the muses, which it is presumed General Longstreet did not cite, could not have speeded them enough to secure their arrival at the Round Top in time, if the assault on it had begun when they were two or three miles away.

The attempt to show that the same result that did happen would have followed an attack at sunrise or at any other hour in the forenoon, is an utter failure. It is sought to sustain it by the testimony of Federal officers, by detaching scraps of their testimony from the context, in order to give them a different meaning from that intended by the parties testifying. Here is what is said on that head in the article:

In his testimony, General Sickles say: