"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 Massachusetts
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, Cushing!" 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 Cushing near by.
"Quite three hundred yards or more," said the colonel, "and you are hurt,
Cushing. 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 Cushing's cannon.
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