Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Three).djvu/49

 on our side, had retaken the positions held by the enemy during the night.

And then came that interval of perfect stillness of which most of the descriptions of the battle of Gettysburg have so much to say. That the battle should have come to a short stop would have surprised nobody. But when that stop lengthened from minute to minute, from half hour to half hour, and when it settled down into a tranquillity like the peaceful and languid repose of a warm midsummer morning in which one might expect to hear the ringing of the village church-bells, there was something ominous, something uncanny, in these strange, unexpected hours of profound silence so sharply contrasting with the bloody horrors which had preceded, and which were sure to follow them. Even the light-hearted soldiers, who would ordinarily never lose an opportunity for some outbreak of an hilarious mood, even in a short moment of respite in a fight, seemed to feel the oppression. Some sat silently on the ground munching their hard-tack, while others stretched themselves out seeking sleep, which they probably would have found more readily had the cannon been thundering at a distance. The officers stood together in little groups discussing with evident concern what this long-continued calm might mean. Could it be that Lee, whose artillery in long rows of batteries had been silently frowning at us all the morning, had given up his intention to make another great attack? If not, why had he not begun it at an earlier hour, which unquestionably would have been more advantageous to him?

Suddenly the riddle was solved. About one o'clock the long hush was broken by the booming of two guns fired in rapid succession on the enemy's right, where Longstreet's Corps stood. And at once this signal was answered by all the batteries of the Confederate army, about 130 cannon, that could be