Waterbury evening Democrat., 1904-11-12

the major, takes hold of the Black Hats. Morrow, heroic colonel of the Wolverines, with every one of his field and staff officers, sooner or later, is shot. One after another five Michi- gan sergeants are killed while keeping aloft the sacred colors. Hoosiers, too, and the Seventh Wisconsin are fear fully pelted. Chapman Biddle's brig ade, on their left, is hurled back. Baxter is fairly swamped out to their right, and, farther still to the north, Ramseur, Rodes and O'Neal, with triumphant host of yelling confeder- ates, have doubled Robinson's des- perately battling division, swept its fragments away; and, with despair in his heart, Howard realizes that the day is lost, that only by the fiercest fight ing and the best of luck can he hope to save the remnant of Reynolds left wing that all the morning held so grandly.
 Then it is that the Iron Brigade, still clinging to the McPherson wood, gets the word to fall back to it's right rear, ! is that they find their comrades of the Sixth Wisconsin sternly facing the coming storm despite the fact that everything seems sweeping away be- yond them; and Dawes, their acting colonel, pointing backward into the low ground, shows to the brigade com mander's astonished gaze that even Gettysburg is practically lost, and through that town lies their line of re- treat--the only way to save those precious guns.
 Four o'clock, and still the batteries of Hall and Stewart, with three hard pounded brigades, hold their ground on the ridge. while the valley behind them is fast filling with Ewell's mad1y exultant men, driving Towards beaten divisions before them. To hang on longer is simply madness Beginning at the right, therefore, stern and si- lent, the devoted brigades give ground slowly, still facing the foe, still firing low and we'll. The crush comes as the streams of wounded thicken at the outskirts of the town, merging with the fugitives of the Eleventh corps, and the roads and streets are i blocked by batteries, ambulances, stray caissons and ammunition wagons, ali in full retreat. The pinch of the fight, the crowning hour of the day, the bloodiest battle of all the 40 hours of thrilling combat, is here on the slope to the north of the seminary, where, from the teeth of the foe, from the midst of their slaughtered horses, the { ,f Ina t~,H Hrnc y.Hr rxy<4 their pets, their comrades in every 1 fight and field, the black-mouthed, l smoking, heated, still laundering guns of battery "B.'' ,S4
 1 Davis and iDaaiieltwo fighting southern brigadiefs they are riding ma0ly among their fpowder-stained men; driving thenHa on in the face of { those stubborn wild westerners: point ing their swords at the crippled guns whe<e men are straining at the wh eels and slashing at the harness of the slaughtered horses. s.Get those guns!'' snrleA the leaders. Square accounts l for the battle-fiags lost in the cut! But, between the surging rush of Caro- lina. Mississippi and Georgia, with the supporting Virginians at their back l ing slowly away down the. pike, there still interposes that stern, indomftable magnificent line in blue--all that Is left of the Iron Brigade--as, front to the foe, closing ever on it's colors, vol leying steadily, defantly, unfinching- l ly into the very face of it's outnumber- ing, yet respectful, pursuers, 1t backs away over the ridge, leaving over 3 i third of it's membership strewing its tracks, another third having already been borne bleeding away toward the towp, and so, as the sun goes down on the tremendous day, so, slowly, stead fly, wrapped in clouds of it's own bat 1 tie smoke, the eastern brigade dcscendH ! to the plain, the Sixth last to halt in I the streets of the town and toScheer to the echo the cause of the flag, while the guns once more unlimber, on the rise of Cemetery Hill, as though daring the foemen to come on and take them. No wonder the Badgers grip hands with the Wolverines, they that remain. Almost 500 of the Michigan men went into the fight by the side of the vet erans. Only 100 are left in line when at last the day is done. Fully 300 have been shot down on the field; some few have been captured. In officers alone their dead outnumber those of the rest of the brigade. Of the Black Hatg surviving there stand now but 70.
 And they might have cut you of entirely" says Doubleday, as he rides among the remnants. halting along the wooded hillside, east of their rescued guns. "Buford saw, what you couldn't l see through the smoke, that two bri- gades were sweeping down south of the seminary to intercept you. He formed his squadgons to charge. They saw 1t, by jove! and halted and formed squares to resist him, and that saved you. Capt. Benton, wish you would ride over and present my compliments and thanks to Gen, Buford. He's just moving off past that stone farm house , wonder down in the valley" And so i ended the dav.