The Sun.
London, England, 1863-08-18 00:00:00

TEEM BATT:

rose as it were out of the ground, until the spec-
tator, a prey to that whimsical caprice which at
moments of fierce and absorbing excitement seizes
on men's minds, found himself wandering in thought
to strange and far-off scenes, to happy valleyshich
had never seen war, and vaguely speculating how
their echoes would awake and respond to such a
thunderous din.
Precisely at
O'clock, responsive to the warning
summons of two signal guns, the 140 pieces in the
Confeerate centre and right opened fire; nor were
tleir voices hushed until 40 minutes after 2. Then
came General Pickett's turn, and nobly did he
spring to the head of his undaunted men, and mar-
shal them to the attack. With long floating locks,
with a seeming recklessness, which is, perhaps,
partly assumed, but which stamps him of the Murat
type, General Pickett, of more demonstrative
courage than other generals, but not less unflinch-
ing than his own sword, seemed as he advanced to
lead his men into the very jaws of death. Slowly
emerging into the open ground, with shells
singularly ineffective, as it seemed to me (consider-
ing the apparently murderous precision with which
they all burst) cracking and snapping over them at
every stride, Genet.). Pickett's men seemed to take
hours to surmount the mite of interval which divided
them from the Federal batteries. At length their
destination is reached ; with a wild yell they spring
into the Yankee earthworks; astride of each Federal
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vance is a complete success, and for a few moments
breath is drawn more freely, but the quick eye of
General Longstreet discerns that Pettigrew's divi-
sion, upon whose almost simultaneous advance de-
pends the retention by Pickett of the captured guns,
is in confusion. Upon their left Pettigrew's men
when close up to the Yankee batteries, perceive a
large column of Federals descending the hill to
flank them. Retaining that fatal habit of
thinking for themselves which is so pernicious to a
soldier, the Confederates first halted, then got into
confusion, then broke and fell back. The
frightful damage from grape and:canister which,
shrinking at this perilous moment, they could
not but sustain, was compared by an eye-witness
of both scenes to the punishment inflicted on
the Federals from the heights of Fredericksburg
in December last. In vain did General
Longstreet send Major Latrobe to General Petti-
grew, shortly before the latter's troops broke, urging
him, in military language, "to refuse his left"—
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was shot as he sped on his message, and on foot he
could not get up to General Pettigrew in sufficient
time to instruct and guide him. When Pettigrew
and his men fell back, the flanking column of
Yankees, meeting with no resistance, swept round
until they approached and overlapped Pickett.
Then, and not till then, he commenced to give way.
" Hide, blushing glory, hide" the cost of that re-
treat. Out of a division of 4,300 men he brought
out, in the first instance, about 1,500, though I be-
lieve that another 1,000 straggled in the next day.
His three Brigadier-Generals lay dead or desperately
wounded upon the field ; out of all his field officers
only one major came out unwounded; 11 out of the
13 colours which he carried into action were lost.
Since the commencement of this war I know of no
division on either side which has ever made so
resolute an advance, or been so rudely and mur-
derously handled. Long will the 3d of July be
remembered in anguished Virginia, from which
State almost all Pickett's division was drawn. Gen.
Pickett and his staff, all of whom miraculously
escaped, were torn by grief at the loss of friends
known for a lifetime, but doubly and trebly en-
deared by the common perils and sufferings of these
last two years.
Bat if at an earlier stage of this letter I fancied
that less than his usual calmness was visible in
General Lee's face, all trace of cloud and anxiety
passed away in this the hour of our deepest gloom.
Riding from knot to knot of the stragglers, with
kind, firm, calm words encouraging the disheartened,
rallying every man who could carry a musket or was
only slightly wounded, he infused confidence and
spirit into his men at the moment which of all
others is most trying to volunteers. General Will-
cox, riding up to him, with tears in his eyes, ex-
claimed, " General, I have tried to rally my men,
but as yet they will not stand." General Lee re-
sponded, " Never mind, General, the fault is all
mine. All that you have to do is- to help me to
remedy it so far as you can," If any testimony to
the affection and confidence inspired by General
Lee were wanting, it might be found in the cheers
issuing from the interior of ambulances as they
passed him, bearing their ghastly load of wounded
to the rear. This scene was witnessed by Colonel
Fremantle, of the Coldstream Guards, who has
returned to England, leaving behind him many a
friend in the Confederate army, which he has ac-
companied for the last three weeks.
After the repulse of General Pickett's division
the struggle was virtually over. It is true that on
the extreme Confederate left General Johnson, of
Ewell's corps, captured a hill which would have
been important had complete success attended
Longatreet's attack. As it was, both armies,
fiear-
fully exhausted by their losses, fell back on the night
of the 3d, to commence on both sides preparations
for retreat on the 4th ; the initiative in retreating,
as was subsequently believed, having been taken by
General Meade. The incidents of the day's battle,
the struggles of individual companies, which, to
borrow Napoleon's expression, " belong rather to
the biography of a regiment than the history of an
army," would fill a volume. Suffice it to say. that
while the particulars of the Confederate loss being
more known to me are given in more detail, there
is abundant evidence that the Federals, with their
heavy columns of troops massed behind their bat-
teries, and fearfully exposed to artillery fire, suffered
a loss as unprecedented as was the valour which,
for the first time in its existence, the Grand Army
of the Potomac on this occasion displayed.