Richmond planet. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1883-1938, 1905-03-18

GETTYSBURG is PRACTICALLY
LOST.
Fairchfld's arm is smashed at the ell
bow; and Stevens, mis- lieutenant col
onel, is instantly killed. so Mansfield.
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, ana, farther still to the north,
Ramseur, Rodes and O'Neal. with a
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
clinSing TO the Mcpherson wood. gets
the word to fall \ to its right rear.
covering the Cashtown pike. There il
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 Dave their acting
colonel, pointing baci ard into the
low ground, shows tot brigade COM
mander's astonished axe that even
Gettvshurq is ,oes aud
through that own lies thtir 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 madly
eXultant men, driving Towards beaten
divisions before them. To hang on
longer is simply madness. Beginning
at the right. therefore. stern and ST
lent, the devoted brigades give
ground slowly. still facing the foe, still
| firing low and well. 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
! blocked by batteries. ambulances, stray
| caissons and ammunition wagons, ali.
| in full retreat. The pinch of the fight,
| the browning 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
men of the west essay to drag and save
| their pets, their comrades in every
fight and field, the black-mouthed,
smoking, heated. still numbering guns
| of battery "B."
| Davis and Daniel-two fighting
southern brigadiers they-are riding
madly among their powder-stained
men; driving them on in the face of
those stubborn wild westerners; point
ing their swords at the crippled guns.
where men are straiuing at the VIII cells
| and slashing at the harness of the
slaughtered horses. Get those guns,"
Shrek the leaders. ''Square accounts
Tor the batue-nags lost IN the cut!"
But, between Tie surs$ng rush OF Caro-
lima, Mississippi ana 4eorgia, with the
supporting NTsinians at their back,
and that battle-scarred battery limp
ing slowly away down the pie, there
still mterposes that stern, indomitable,
Magnificent line in blue-ail that is
| at or the Iron Brigade-as, front 70
ne Zoe, closing ever on its coiots, vol
teylAg steadily, defiantly, uniiinching-
] ~ mo the very face OF its outnumb er-
ing. yet respectful, pursuers, it bacAs
away over the ridge, leaving over d
third OF its membership strewing it's
tracks, another third having already
been borne bleeding away toward the
town, and so, as the sun goes down on
the tremendous day, SO, slowly, stead
| lily, wrapped in clouds of it's own bat
tie smoke, the eastern brigade descends
to the plain, the Sixth last to halt in
the streets of the town and to cheer to
| The echo the cause OF the flag, while
the guns once more unlimber, on the
rise of Cemetery Hill, as though daring
the foelnen 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
Grams. 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
l their dead outnumber those of the rest
OF the brigade. OF the Black Hat
| surviving there stand now but 20.
? And they might have cut you of
entirely" says Doubleday, as he rides
among the remnants. hating along the
wooded hillside, east of tn cir rescued
guns. "Buford saw, what you couldn't
see through the smoke, that two bril-
sgades were sweeping down south OF the