Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 34.djvu/340

 332 Southern Historical Society Papers.

extend the line on the left. Then we swept onward again, straight for the Golgotha of Seminary Ridge, half a mile dis- tant, across the open plain. As we neared the Emmettsburg road, along which, behind piles of rails, the enemy's strong line of skimishers was posted, General Kemper called to me to give attention to matters on the left, while he went to see what troops those were coming up behind us. Glancing after him, I caught a glimpse of a small body of men, compact and solid as a wedge, moving swiftly to the left oblique, as if aiming to uncover Garnett's Brigade. They were Armistead's people, and as Kemper cantered down their front on his mettlesome sorrel they greeted him with a rousing cheer, which I know made his gallant heart leap for joy. At the same moment I saw a disorderly crowd of men breaking for the rear, and Pickett, vvilh Stuart Symington, Ned Baird. and others, vainly trying to stop the rout. And now the guns of Gushing and Abbott double- stocked by General Gibbon's express order, reinforced the terri- fic fire of the infantry behind the stone fence, literally riddling the orchard on the left of the now famous Cordori house, through which my regiment and some of the others passed.

"DON'T CROWD, BOYS" "PRETTY HOT" "PERFECTLY REDICULOUS."

While clearing this obstruction, and as we were getting into shape again, several things were impressed on my memory. First, the amusement it seemed to afford Orderly Waddy For- ward, who might, if he pleased, have stayed behind with the horses, to see me duck my head as a ball whizzed in an ace of my nose ; next, to see Captain Lewis, of Company C, looking as lazy and lackadaiscal, and, if possible, more tired and bored than usual, carrying his sword point foremost over his shoulder, and addressing his company in that invariable plaintive tone, half command, half entreaty, "Don't crowd, boys; don't crowd." "Pretty hot, Captain," I said in passing. "It's redicklous, Colonel; perfectly redicklous" which, in his vocabularly, meant as bad as bad could be ; then Captain Tom Hodges directing my attention to a splendid looking Federal officer, magnificently mounted, straining his horse at full speed along the crest of a hill a hundred yards in our front, and both