Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 37.djvu/142

134 The difficulty of getting a move on General Longstreet was found to be as great as on the previous day. He confesses that he shrunk from the task before him, and intrusted its execution to subordinates. The positions for the guns were selected by the artillery officers, and General Pickett was charged with the duty of arranging the lines behind the batteries. It was two o'clock when these arrangements were completed.

The assaulting column was formed under cover of a wood. It consisted of Pickett's division, with two brigades, Kemper's and Garnett's in front and Armistead's as a support in rear. Heth's division, under Pettigrew, was formed in two lines on Pickett's left, with a space of several hundred yards between the two, and two brigades of Fender's division under Trimble formed in rear and in supporting distance of Pettigrew.

Wilcox's brigade from Anderson's division was ordered to move on Pickett's right flank and in his rear as a protection to that flank.

The whole number of troops composing the assaulting column was between fourteen and fifteen thousand. The distance between the two opposing lines on Pickett's front was about fourteen hundred yards, and the column was directed towards a Salient of the Federal line on Cemetery Heights, occupied by Hancock with two divisions under Hays and Gibbon, Hays being nearest the Cemetery. Pickett's division was to guide the assaulting column, and to strike the desired point it was necessary to oblique slightly to the left. As the opposing lines were not exactly parallel, and Pickett's right was nearer the enemy than Pettigrew's left, it was designed that the movement on the left should be accelerated, so that the two divisions should arrive together and strike the Salient at the same time.

The ground occupied by McLaws and Hood and their advanced brigades was much nearer the Federal lines than where Pickett formed, and the positions occupied by the fifth and sixth Federal corps were also in advance of Hancock's line, so that the Confederate advance was exposed to a fire from the right as well as from the front.

On the Federal side, Hays' and Gibbon's divisions were posted along the crest of Cemetery Hill, facing to the west. A