Westways: A Village Chronicle Part 67

A mile away, far on Lee's right, on the low ridge in front of his position, a flash of light was seen. As the round ring of smoke shot out from the cannon, the colonel remembered the little Leila's delight when he blew smoke rings as they sat on the porch. Instantly a second gun spoke. The two sh.e.l.ls flew over our line and lit far to the rear, while at once along Lee's position a hundred and fifty guns rang out and were instantly answered by our own artillery from Round Top to Cemetery Hill. General Hunt beside him replying to the quick questions he put, said, "We could not place over seventy-five guns-not room enough."

"Is that all? They are distributing their favours along our whole front."

At once a vast shroud of smoke rose and hid both lines, while out of it flew countless sh.e.l.l and roundshot. At first most of the Confederate missiles flew high and fell far behind our Crest. The two officers were coolly critical as they stood between the batteries.

"He must think our men are back of the guns like his own. The wall and bushes hide them."

"The fuses are too long," said Hunt quietly. "That's better and worse," he added, as a sh.e.l.l exploded near by and one of Woodruff's guns went out of action and the ground was strewn with the dead and wounded. "We shall want some of your guns."

Penhallow went in haste to the rear. What he saw was terrible. The iron hail of sh.e.l.ls fell fast around him on the wide open s.p.a.ce or even as far away as the hospital tents. On or near the Taneytown road terror-stricken wagon-drivers were flying, ammunition mules were torn to pieces or lying mangled; a sh.e.l.l exploded in a wagon,-driver, horses and a load of bread were gone. Horses lay about, dead or horribly torn; one horse hitched to a tree went on cropping gra.s.s. Penhallow missed nothing. He was in the mood peril always brought. Men said he was a slow, sure thinker, and missed seeing things which did not interest him. Now he was gay, tuned to the highest pitch of automatic watchfulness, as this far-sent storm of bursting sh.e.l.ls went over and past the troops it was meant to destroy. Hurrying through it he saw the wide slope clear rapidly of what was left of active life. He laughed as a round shot knocked a knapsack off a man's back. The man unhurt did not stay to look for it. Once the colonel dropped as a sh.e.l.l lit near him. It did not explode. He e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, "Pshaw," and went on. He came near the Taneytown road to find that his artillery had suffered. A score of harnessed horses lay dead or horribly mangled. His quick orders sent up to the front a dozen guns. Some were horsed, some were pulled with ropes by the cheering, eager cannoneers. Their way was up the deserted slope, "well cleared by the enemy," thought Penhallow with a smile. Once he looked back and saw the far flight of a sh.e.l.l end in or near an ambulance of the wounded beyond the Taneytown road.

During his absence gun after gun had been disabled and a caisson exploded; the gun crews lay dead or wounded. What more horribly disturbed Penhallow was the hideous screams of the battery horses. "Ah! the pity of it. They had no cause to die for-no duty-no choice." As he a.s.sisted in replacing the wreckage of the guns, he still heard the cries of the animals who so dumb in peace found in torture voices of anguish unheard before-unnatural, strange. The appalling tempest of sh.e.l.ls screamed on and on, while the most of them fell beyond the Crest. Penhallow looked up to note their flight. They darted overhead shrill-voiced or hissing. There was a white puff of smoke, a red flash, and an explosion.

General Gibbon, coming back from the long line of his corps, said, "My men have suffered very little, but the headquarters behind them are in ruin. Meade has moved back." As he spoke the sh.e.l.ls began to fall on the Crest.

"They seem to be more attentive to us," said the battery Captain Woodruff. "Thought we'd catch it!"

"Horrible!-Those horses, Gibbon," said Penhallow.

At last there seemed to be more concentrated firing on the Crest. Many sh.e.l.ls fell near the imperfect wall-shelter of the crouching men, while others exploded among the lines to left or right in the bushes.

"They are doing better now, confound them!" said the young general coolly. "Our men at the wall seem disturbed.

"Come with me," he said to Penhallow and Haskell of the Staff, who had just joined them.

They went down in front of the guns to where behind the low wall lay the two thin lines of the Pennsylvania regiments. He spoke to the Colonel of the 71st, who with other officers was afoot encouraging the men.

"Keep cool, boys," said Gibbon.

The men laughed. "Oh, we're all right, General, but we ain't cool."

Gibbon laughed. "Let us go over the wall and try to see a little better," said Penhallow.

A hundred yards beyond the lines they sat down. The ceaseless rain of shot and sh.e.l.l from both sides went over them, the canopy of smoke being so high above that the inters.p.a.ce between the lines was now more or less visible. Far beyond them our skirmish outposts were still motionless on guard; and yet further farms and houses, some smoking in ruin, lay among the green fields along the Emmitsburg Pike.

"It is pretty safe here," said the Corps Commander, while far above them the sh.e.l.ls sang their war notes.

Penhallow looked back. "They've got the range-there goes one of the guns-oh! and another."

"Let's go back," said Gibbon, rising, "we are too safe here."

They laughed at his reason and followed him, Haskell remarking on the lessening of the fire. As they moved about the forty-foot s.p.a.ces between the disabled batteries, the last cannon-ball rolled by them and bounded down the slope harmless. At once there was movement,-quick orders, officers busy, as fresh cannon replaced the wrecked pieces. Many of the unhurt cannoneers lay down utterly exhausted. The dead were drawn aside, while the wounded crawled away or were cared for by the stretcher-bearers and surgeons. Meanwhile the dense, hot, smoke-pall rose slowly and drifted away. The field-gla.s.ses were at once in use.

"It is half-past two," said General Hunt; "what next? Oh! our skirmishers are falling back."

"They are going to attack," said Haskell, "and can they mean our whole line-or where?"

The cannoneers were called to their pieces, and silently expectant the little group waited on the fateful hour, while the orderly quiet of discipline was to be seen on the Crest. The field-gla.s.ses of the officers were searching with intense interest the more and more visible vale.

"Pretty plain now, Gibbon," said Hunt.

"Yes, we are in for it."

"They are forming," said Penhallow. A line appeared from the low swell of ground in front of Lee's position-then a second and a third. Muskets and bayonets flashed in the sun.

"Can you make out their flags?" asked Gibbon, "or their numbers?"

"Not the flags." He waited intent, watchful. No one spoke-minute after minute went by. At last Penhallow answered. "A long line-a good half mile-quite twelve thousand-oh, more-more. Now they are advancing en echelon."

To left, to right, along our lines was heard the thud, thud, of the ramrods, and percussion-cap boxes were slid around the waist to be handy. Penhallow and others drew their pistols. The cannon were now fully replaced, the regimental flags unrolled, and on the front line, long motionless, the trefoil guidons of the two divisions of the Second Corps fluttered feebly. The long row of skirmishers firing fell back more and more rapidly, and came at last into our lines.

Penhallow said, turning to Gibbon, "They have-I think-they have no supporting batteries-that is strange." Haskell and Gibbon had gone as he spoke and the low crest was free at this point of all but the artillery force. To left, the projecting clump of trees and the lines of the Second Corps-all he could see-were ominously quiet.

Gibbon came back to the crest. He said, "We may need backing if they concentrate on us; here our line is too thin." And still the orderly grey columns came on silently, without their usual charging-yell.

"Ah!" exclaimed Penhallow without lowering his gla.s.s, as he gazed to our left. The clamour of cannon broke out from little Round Top.

"Rifles!" exclaimed Gibbon. "Good!" Their left made no reply, but seemed to draw away from the fire.

"I can see no more," said the Colonel, "but they stopped at the Emmitsburg road."

The acrid odour of musketry drifted across the field as he turned to gaze at the left wing of the fast coming onset. Far to our right they came under the fire of Cemetery Hill and of an advanced Ma.s.sachusetts regiment. He saw the blue flags of Virginia sway, fall, and rise no more, while scattered and broken the Confederates fled or fell under the fury of the death messages from above the long-buried dead of the village graves. "Now then, Cus.h.i.+ng!" cried Hunt, and the guns on the Crest opened fire.

It was plain that the long Confederate lines, frayed on each flank, had crowded together making a vast wedge of attack. Then all along our miles of troops a crackle of musketry broke out, the big guns bellowing. The field was mostly lost to view in the dense smoke, under which the charging-force halted and steadily returned the fire.

"I can't see," cried Cus.h.i.+ng near by.

"Quite three hundred yards or more," said the colonel, "and you are hurt, Cus.h.i.+ng. Go to the rear." The blood was streaming down his leg.

"Not I-it is nothing. Hang those fellows!" A New York battery gallantly run in between disabled guns crowded Cus.h.i.+ng's cannon. He cried, "Section one to the front, by hand!"

He was instantly obeyed. As he went with it to the front near to the wall, followed by Penhallow, he said, "It is my last canister, colonel. I can't see well."

Dimly seen figures in the dense smoke were visible here and there some two hundred yards away, with flutter of reeling battle-flags in the smoke, while more and more swiftly the wedge of men came on, losing terribly by the fire of the men at the wall along the lines.

Cus.h.i.+ng stood with the lanyard of the percussion trigger in his hand. It seems inconceivable, but the two men smiled. Then he cried, "My G.o.d!"-his figure swayed, he held his left hand over a ghastly wound in his side, and as he reeled pulled the lanyard. He may have seen the red flash, and then with a bullet through the open mouth fell dead across the trail of his gun.

For a moment Penhallow was the only officer of rank near the silent battery. Where Cus.h.i.+ng's two guns came too near the wall, the men moved away to the sides leaving an unguarded s.p.a.ce. Checked everywhere to right and left, the a.s.sailants crowded on to the clump of trees and to where the Pennsylvania line held the stone wall. Ignorant of the ruin behind them, the grey ma.s.s came on with a rush through the smoke. The men in blue, losing terribly, fell back from a part of the wall in confusion-a mere mob-sweeping Webb, Penhallow and others with them, swearing and furious. Two or three hundred feet back they stopped, a confused ma.s.s. General Webb, Haskell and other officers rallied them. The red flags gathered thicker, where the small units of many commands stood fast under the shelter of a portion of the lost wall. Penhallow looked back and saw the Ma.s.sachusetts flags-our centre alone had given way. The flanks of the broken regiments still held the wall and poured in a murderous fire where the splendid courage of the onset halted, unwilling to fly, unable to go on.

Webb, furious, rallied his men, while Penhallow, Haskell and Gibbon vainly urged an advance. A colour-sergeant ran forward and fell dead. A corporal caught up the flag and dropped. A Confederate general leaped over the deserted wall and laid a hand on Cus.h.i.+ng's gun. He fell instantly at the side of the dead captain, as with a sudden roar of fury the broken Pennsylvanians rolled in a disordered ma.s.s of men and officers against the disorganized valour which held the wall.

The smoke held-still holds, the secret of how many met the Northern men at the wall; how long they fought among Cus.h.i.+ng's guns, on and over the wall, no man who came out of it could tell. Penhallow emptied his revolver and seizing a musket fought the brute battle with the men who used fists, stones, gun-rammers-a howling mob of blue and grey. And so the swaying flags fell down under trampling men and the lost wall was won. The fight was over. Men fell in scores, asking quarter. The flanking fires had been merciless, and the slope was populous with dead and wounded men, while far away the smoke half hid the sullen retreat of the survivors. The prearranged mechanism of war became active. Thousands of prisoners were being ordered to the rear. Men stood still, gasping, breathless or dazed. As Penhallow stood breathing hard, from the right wing, among the long silent dead of Cemetery Hill, arose a wild hurrah. It gathered volume, rolled down the long line of corps after corps, and died away among the echoes of the Pennsylvania hills. He looked about him trying to recover interest. Some one said that Hanc.o.c.k and Gibbon were wounded. The rush of the melee had carried him far down the track of the charge, and having no instant duty he sat down, his clothes in tatters. As he recovered strength, he was aware of General Meade on horseback with an aide. The general, white and grave, said to Haskell, "How has it gone here?"

An officer cried, "They are beaten," showing two flags he held.

Meade said sharply: "d.a.m.n the flags! Are the men gone?"

"Yes, sir, the attack is over."

He uncovered, said only, "Thank G.o.d!" gave some rapid orders and rode away beside the death-swath, careful, as Penhallow saw, to keep his horse off of the thirty scattered flags, many lying under or over the brave who had fought and lost in this memorable charge.