Red Lodge daily news combined with Carbon County news., 1933-06-21

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Could they hold their gains on the
morrow and drive through the hun.
dred PAGES to triumph At four
o'clock the next morning guns boom
out their demand for an answer
The battle Is on. Artillery fire
blasts their front and rakes their
TANKS. Musket fire throws a dead
ly leaden hail into them from al
most every angle. Their position
becomes an inferno. They charge
into a binding sheet of ALARMS
fire; they reel back, reform, charge,
and are hurled back again. Again
they reform and charge once more.
AT last, almost literally blasted from
the field, the bugles sound the
mournful notes of the retreat and
General Meade holds the ground un-
challenged.
Pickett's charge will ever live in
the minds of men as the climactic
episode of Gettysburg; but military
men agree that In the mace It
held, in the fefceness of the as
saults that we're made. In the car.
mage that was wrought, the attack
made by the men whom Stonewall
Jackson had led at Bull Run. Antie-
tam, Fredericksburg, and Chancel-
louisville deserves an equal place in
the annals of war. That attack last.
ed six hours. Pickett's charge
moved out at three o'clock, reached
high water mark at 800, began It's
retreat at $40, and was off the
field a little after four o'clock.
AS a military spectacle, that con
Guiding act has never been excelled.
Its prelude was played by 300 guns,
as battery answered battery across
the gently rolling fields over which
the historic charge was to sweep.
Every position seems to have
broken out with guns everywhere,
and from Round Top to Cemetery
Hill Is like a blazing Volcano re
ported n officer. 1.-THE grand roar
of nearly the whole artillery of both
armies burst In on the silence al
most as suddenly as the full notes
of an organ would fill a church."
wrote another.
In an hour and a half the Fed.
erals slackened their fire, so that
their guns might cool, wrecked bat
teries be replaced, and the at
mosphere allowed to clear.
Forty-two Confederate regiments
move out. Pickett leads them, with
his own division In the center. The
charge begins with the precision of
dress parade. A murmur of admIra-
tion sweeps the Union line. And
then Its artillery opens again with
every ounce of its reinforced power.
Presently torn by shot and shell
the charging host comes within rifle
range. They press on. They are
within $50 yards of their goal, fac
Ing death In q thousand forms.
End of the Bloody Fight.
Pickett's men melt like snow on
a hot day, but a second and a third
wave sweeps on. They face double
canister at ten PAGES, but they ST.
lence the guns that fire them. Into
Webb's rifle pits they leap and over
the b~arricade. Armistead and his
men vault over the stone wall. He
falls mortally wounded. The mo-
mentum Of the charge wanes and
dies.
Raked with fire and cross-fire.
there is nothing to do but fall back.
But they return across the sanguin-
airy field In such fashion that the re
pulse does not become a rout. Out
of the 1890 men of Pickett's divi-
sion, not more than 1000 return. OF
the Is field officers and four gen
erals, only Pickett and one lieuten-
ant colonel escape unscathed.
The Battle of Gettysburg Is end
ed. AS n walks over the scene
and tries to measure the courage
of the men who fought here, he
comes to understand why there
is pride In every American heart
that the battle field is now a mill
tary park, and that 1t was dedicated
In immortal words by Abraham Lin
coin.
The fine generosity of the Federal
government, that knows no North
and no South In the marking of
these hallowed acres, cements in
the ilrmest bonds of history the
and daughters of those whose
bravery and courage made the field
the sacred spot 1t is.
First established by the Gettys-
burg Battle Field Memorial associa.
ton In 1864, taken over by the gov
eminent In 1895, more adequately
marked by the Gettysburg National
commission, the park now con
slsts of $3.50 acres of government
owned land. 1t has 22h miles of
avenues, in addition to the state
and county highways that traverse
II. In 1t there are SO statues, in
addition to nearly 500 other monu-
ments. There are also 1,410 bronze
and iron tablets and 1923 granite
markers on pedestals, while 419
mounted cannon, calssons and linn
bers show the artillery position of