Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Three).djvu/45

 then slackening as if batteries were silenced; then breaking out again with renewed violence; and from time to time something like an echo of a Union cheer or a rebel yell. Owing to a projecting spur of Cemetery Ridge, we on the cemetery itself could not see what was happening on our extreme left—nothing but the rising clouds of white smoke. Neither did the sounds we heard indicate which side had the advantage in the battle. But looking to our rear we observed how regiment after regiment was taken from our right wing to be hurried as quickly as possible toward the left of the army as reinforcement. The fire grew more furious from minute to minute, and about half after six, the roar of the battle actually seemed to indicate that our line was yielding. A moment later Captain Dilger of my artillery, who had gone to the ammunition train to get a new supply, came galloping up Cemetery Hill in great agitation with the report that the enemy had overwhelmed the Third Corps in the peach orchard and pressing after our flying troops had pierced our left center; that his musket balls were already falling into our ammunition train, and that unless the rebels were beaten back at once, they would attack us in the rear and take us prisoners in half an hour. It was a moment of most anxious suspense. But it did not last long. Loud and repeated Union cheers on our left, which could be heard above the din of battle, told us that relief had come in time and had rolled back the hostile wave. General Meade had skillfully used the advantage afforded us by the “interior line” in rapidly shifting forces from one point to another as the necessities of the moment required, and thus succeeded in meeting the assault of the enemy with superior numbers. As evening came the battle on the left sank into a lull and we were assured that, although the enemy had gained some ground, we had won a secure lodgment on the Round Tops, owing to