Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1911-02-22

OnetS coming With Such momentum ana
evident desperation. The first line broke
as we reached it, ard rushed back
through the second line, stopping the
whole advance. We then poured in our
first fire, and ayailing ourselves OF such
shelter as the low bank OF the dry brook
afforded held the entire force at bay
for considerable time. and until our
reserves appeared on the ridge we had
left.
Had the enemy rallied quickly to
counter charge, its overwhelming num-
bers would have crushed US in a mo-
ment and we would have effected but a
slight pause in its advance. But the
ferocity of our onset seemed to paralyze
them for a time and though they pour
ed in a terrible and continuous fire from
kept at respectable distance from our
bayonets. until before the added fire of
our fresh reserves, they began to retire
and we were ordered back.
What Hancock had given us to do
was done thoroughly. The regiment had
stopped the enemy. held back its mighty
force and saved the position and probably
that battlefield. But at what q sacri-
flee. Nearly every officer was dead or
lay weltering with bloody wounds-our
gallant colonel and every field officer
among them. OF the 262 men who made
the charge. 215 lay upon the field. struck
down by rebel bullets; forty-seven men
were still in line and not a man was
missing. The annals of war contain no
parallel to this charge. In it's desperate
valor. complete execution, successful re-
suit and in it's sacrifice of men in pro-
tic history has no record with which it
can be compared"
Pickett's Famous Charge.
Maj. Gen. George E. Pickett was the
son of a Virginia planter and a grad
uate of West Point, the class of '46. He
served through the Mexican war as a
lieutenant. spent the next ten years on
Puget sound, resigned from the United
States army In 1851, was commissioned
brigadier general in the Confederate
as the Game Cock Brigade OF Vir-
ginia troops. In 1862 he was promoted
to major general, assigned to the COM
mand of a division in Longstreet's corps
with five brigades of Virginia and Geor-
gia troops.
At point on the second day of the
battle the Union artillery having been
commanded to hold its tire to let the
guns cool and save its ammunition, Gen.
Lee conceived the idea Of an assault.
Longstreet had no confidence in the plan,
but when the Union fire siackened Pick
EFT sought him personally and demanded
orders. Col. John 8. Nicolay and Col.
III
scribed the charge as follows:
"Longstreet. drawn one way by the
commands of his chief and the other by
his own convictions, seemed unable, in his
anguish of mind, to utter the fatal words
required of him. Pickett at last said,
Very well, ] shall go forward to which
Longstreet answered only with an aff1r-
native nod. The Union soldiers on Ceme-
terry Ridge now had the opportunity to
enjoy wonderful spectacle. No sight
so beautiful in a soldiers eyes, SO full Of
the pomp and circumstance of glorious
war. had ever before been seen upon this
continent as when Pickett led forth his
troops from behind the ridge, where they
had lain concealed, and formed them in
column for attack. There was nothing
like it possible in the swamps of the
Chickahominy. or the tangled thickets Of
the Rappahannock, or on the wooded
shores of the Rapidan. There no enemy
was visible half a musket-shot away;
but here. at distance of nearly mile
across a cultivated valley, part of which
was covered with waving grain and part
smooth in stubble fields. the whole irradi-
ated with the unclouded beams of the
July sun, an army formed itself in line of
battle under the eyes Of an appreciative
adversary, altogether some 1900 men.
They came forward with the steadiness
of troops on parade.