and then at other times you could be a mile off and it was barely noticeable.
'Just wait' Hancock muttered, glasses trained on Johnson's men. 'Dear God, a half hour is all I ask.'
The silence that had hung over the field for the last ten minutes was shattered when a field piece, one of Wiedrich's guns at the tip of the salient on the north slope, fired. A second later the gun to its left kicked back. The salvo raced across the northern and western slope of Cemetery Hill, jumping to Stewart's battery, then Dilger's, and continued.
The first of the shells sparked, igniting in the air near the seminary above a knot of officers. Geysers of dirt shot up; the line seemed to be smothered under a curtain of fire.
'Thirty-eight… thirty-nine…' one of his staff was counting, voice pitched high with excitement
'Forty-three!'
As the explosion from the last gun on the left drifted away, a cheer echoed along the line and within seconds one of Wiedrich's Napoleons finished reloading and cut loose with a second round.
'With the guns on the east flank of this hill, we roust have sixty pieces, sir!' one of his staff cried excitedly.
'And enough ammunition for a half hour at this rate of fire,' Howard replied laconically.
Hancock caught a glimpse of Henry galloping past the gatehouse. Several limber wagons were coming up the road, horses covered with sweat, crews lashing teams that were obviously blown, barely able to walk up the final slope. Henry, waving his hat, reined in, pointing for them to cut off the road. Gunners leapt off the wagons; stragglers on the road were pressed into service, helping to tear down the fence flanking it.
From the crest, Henry's guns were tearing into the advancing line with brutal accuracy. In the still evening air, the smoke was quickly banking up around the hill, but the gunners knew enough to keep depressing their barrels and cutting fuses shorter.
Hancock turned to look back down the Emmitsburg Road and then over to the Baltimore Pike. He had sent word down the former to Dan Sickles to bring up his Third Corps, the same order going to Slocum and the two divisions of his Twelfth Corps coming up the Baltimore Pike from Littlestown.
The Emmitsburg Road was rapidly turning into part of the battlefield. Buford's skirmishers lined the post and rail fence, trading shots with Confederate infantry clear down to a distant rise crowned with a peach orchard.
Baltimore Pike was in chaos, jammed with hundreds of stragglers who would dodge into the woods at the sight of'a provost patrol, then step back out and press on, mingling with the walking wounded, all of them instinctively heading as far away as possible from the carnage.
And there was no relief in sight
6:30 PM
SEMINARY RIDGE
'I'm going back down there,' Lee snapped to his staff.
Mounting, he spared a final glance toward Anderson's division. A gale of artillery fire swept over them as the forward brigade advanced into canister range, men struggling to get over the heavy fences lining the pike toward Emmitsburg.
He ordered several of his staff to wait at headquarters across the road from the seminary, edged out onto the road into Gettysburg, and set off at a swift canter, guards of his headquarters company swinging ahead and to either flank, carbines and revolvers drawn.
The road into town was a shambles, covered with the litter of war, upended caissons, overturned ambulances, dead horses, dead men, wounded, both Union and Confederate, lying to either side waiting for help, cast-off rifles, cartridge boxes, blanket rolls, uniform jackets, a broken banjo. Hundreds of torn paper cartridges covered the road, and clinging over it all was the heavy sulfur stench of burnt powder and torn flesh.
A column of Union prisoners stood to one side of the road, pushed back at his approach. They looked up at him, some with surprise, others sullen or openly defiant An officer, bloody bandage around his head, offered a salute, which he returned. 'The fight ain't over yet sir,' the Yankee officer announced. 'This isn't Virginia. You're in the North now.'
Lee pressed on, saying nothing.
Hospital flags, both Union and Confederate, hung from houses marking where surgeons were setting up for business. Blue and butternut wounded mingled together outside the makeshift wards. He tried to ignore the hysterical screams coming from an open window and the glimpse of orderlies trying to wrestle a man up onto a table.
A column of infantry, motionless, blocked the center of the road ahead, the men standing at ease, a knot of them squatting in a circle in the middle of the road, while one of their comrades carved generous portions from a smoked ham.
At the sight of his approach, they snapped to attention, the corporal dropping his knife and flipping the edge of a blanket over the ham to try and hide the booty.
He rode past, slowing for a moment at the sight of officers at the head of the motionless column. 'Whose troops are these?'
A colonel, eyes red rimmed and half concealed behind mud-splattered spectacles, features pale, wearily looked up, staring blankly, then came to attention. 'Mine, sir,' he announced, voice barely a whisper. 'Colonel Bradley, sir, Thirty-fifth Georgia.'
'May I ask, sir, what you are doing here?'
'General, kind of a tangle here, sir. I was told to form my men on this road and await orders. No orders have come.'
Lee looked down sharply.
The colonel let his gaze drop and then, inexplicably, his shoulders began to quiver, head going down. A sob escaped him.
'Sir? What is wrong?' Lee asked softly.
The colonel looked back up. 'My boy, sir, my only son…' and he froze, eyes wide and unfocused as he fought to regain control.
Lee looked past him. The men of the colonel's command were watching the encounter. It was obvious their sympathy was with their colonel. Lying by the side of the road was a body on a makeshift stretcher, features calm in death, long blond hair brushed back from the face. One of the boy's comrades sat by the stretcher, crying, head lowered.
He could sense this was a tight-knit regiment, most likely men all from the same town or county, the colonel, older, a schoolmaster look to him, the body on the stretcher a young boy, not more than sixteen, most likely a 'pet' of the regiment
He caught the eye of a major standing behind the colonel. 'Take over, Major. I want your men to put pressure on that hill,' and Lee pointed to the south.
He leaned over, hand resting on the colonel's shoulder. 'Your son is in the care of Our Savior' Lee whispered. 'You, sir, shall be in my prayers tonight'
The colonel looked back up. 'How can I ever tell my wife?' the colonel replied, voice haunting and distant He tried to say more but couldn't and turned away, covering his face.
Lee squeezed the man's shoulder and rode on toward the center of town.
What future now for them? he wondered. What comfort can their country ever give them that would repay the loss of an only son.
He thought of his boy wounded at Brandy Station less than four weeks ago, still not recovered. I have four sons, and to lose but one would be all but beyond my heart to bear.
God, I must end this! No more after this. Push it hard today, push it and win so that this madness can finally stop.
The sound of battle echoing from the hill was increasing every second. The crackling of a musket volley ignited like a long string of firecrackers. Passing side streets, he caught glimpses of the smoke-clad heights, ringed with fire, the smoke catching and holding the early evening sunlight which bathed the landscape in a hellish ruddy glow.
The center square of the town was directly ahead. The press of men, the litter of battle, dead horses, knots
