momentum, but the Seventy-first, on their right, broke apart only feet away from widening the breech, and began to fall back, their comrades of the Sixty-ninth jeering them before turning back to the fight
Henry, shaking with exhaustion, was at a near hysterical pitch, shouting for his gunners to aim high, to keep pouring it in. He could no longer see what they were shooting at but from the flashes of light through the gloom, and the continual roar of musketry along the crest he knew that the top was almost gained but not yet taken.
Winfield Scott Hancock, hat off, eyes blazing, galloped at full speed down the Baltimore Road, oblivious to Meade's orders to stay back from the fight Those were his boys up there, but that was not where he was heading first
On his right arrayed across the open slope that his divisions had marched down less than an hour before, were the three heavy divisions of Sedgwick, eighteen thousand men… and they were not moving!
Reaching the front of the Sixth Corps, which was deployed at the edge of the flat bottomland, he leapt a ditch, nearly losing his saddle, and then streaked across the field, his mount nervous, shifting and weaving to avoid trampling the dead and wounded.
At last he spotted Horatio Wright commander of the First Division of the Sixth.
'In the name of God, why are you not advancing?' Hancock roared.
'Sir, we've yet to receive orders to go in,' Wright replied, stunned by the near hysteria of Hancock. 'I was ordered to stay in reserve until a breakthrough had been achieved by your men.'
'Goddamn you, sir. Go in! Go in! My boys are dying up there.'
'Sir, I was ordered to wait for General Sedgwick to give the final order to advance.'
Hancock threw back his head and screamed the foulest of oaths against Sedgwick. Standing in his stirrups, he fixed Wright with a malignant gaze. 'Look over there, man!' and he pointed toward the opposite crest 'You can see we're almost in. My men are dying up there by the thousands. All that is needed is one more push. Now give your men the order to charge, and I will go with you!'
Wright hesitated, looking to his staff, who were gazing at Hancock as if he were a madman. The seconds dragged out and finally Wright nodded. 'I will follow you, sir.'
Hancock swung about drawing sword and holding it high. 'On the double, men, on the double!'
Wright's division lurched forward. At the sight of them advancing, the second division in line behind them, Russell's, believing that the order had been given, stepped forward as well, followed a minute later by the third and final division.
Wright's men still had over eight hundred yards to go before coming into effective range; at double time it would take five to seven minutes. If deployed forward, on the opposite side of the valley, it would have only taken one minute.
'Here comes Rodes!' Longstreet cried hoarsely, thrilling at the sight of the brigade-wide front charging the last hundred yards, the Second and Third brigades advancing at the oblique to their own left followed in the rear by the decimated remnants of Iverson's brigade, those men now eager for pay back for the slaughter endured in front of Seminary and Oak Ridges three days before.
The countercharge swept into the thinning volley line of McLaws's two brigades, hitting it like a tidal surge. The units instantly mingled together and now flooded back into their trench, in places continuing straight forward, down the slope, covering the last few paces into the men under Gibbon and Hays.
The charge hit with a vicious momentum, in many places propelling men forward who normally would have hesitated to cross those last ten to twenty feet into actual hand-to-hand combat.
An audible impact of men slamming into men, rifles against rifles, and steel into flesh was heard, the Union line staggering backward like a wall about to burst when hit by a battering ram.
Hundreds fell within seconds, many just tripping, going down in the confusion, men then backing up or pushing forward, stumbling over the fallen and going down as well.
For a moment the battle degenerated into a brawl in which all lashed out, some in rage, others in terror, kicking, stabbing, clubbing, and gouging anyone within reach. More than one man, in his terror, was slammed into by another, and whirling about stabbed a comrade by mistake, sometimes not even realizing what he had done.
And yet again, all of what was said about the 'good ground' came to pass here. If the rebel charge had been met on level ground and by men not already exhausted, the line just might have held, but their backs were to a downward slope now churned up into slippery mud, all was confusion in the smoke, none could see more than ten, maybe twenty feet, and what little could be seen was a glimpse of hell.
Men began to stagger backward; some in their terror simply threw aside their rifles and ran; others, as always those around a sacred flag or trusted officer or sergeant, backed out, slashing and stabbing at those who pressed too close.
The entire Union line disintegrated as Rodes's Second Brigade slammed in and the Third Brigade, a few minutes later, obliquely hit Lockwood's lone brigade on the Union right
John Gibbon, defiant to the end, stood clutching his ghastly wound. Mercifully, a North Carolina boy stopped short of him, grounded his musket, and then just simply offered a hand, not saying a word. Gibbon, nodding, slowly sank to his knees.
Those still standing from the second and third waves of Hancock's and Slocum's corps poured down off the slopes above Union Mills.
'Keep moving; don't stop!'
Hancock was still out in front, weaving back and forth in front of Wright's brigades, sword held high.
Already across the stream, they had taken almost no casualties, all the Confederate fire concentrated on the annihilation of those on the slope.
Though he could not see it, so thick were the smoke and the steadily increasing curtains of rain, Sickles, a mile and a half to the west, was going in with two divisions. Sickles's charge was just now slamming into the flank of Early's brigade, which itself was on the flank of the retreating Twelfth Corps.
Hancock caught a glimpse of a courier riding straight down the middle of the Baltimore Road, swerving off, going down into the streambed, and then just disappearing. He suspected it was from Meade or Sedgwick.
To hell with them now.
From out of the maelstrom cloaking the ridge ahead, he saw a wave of men emerging, falling back, some running like madmen. Spurring forward, he waded straight into their ranks, standing high in the stirrups.
'My men. Rally to the old Sixth! Fall back in. Rally!'
At the sight of their corps commander, many of the men actually did turn about, though there was little fight in them now, exhausted as they were.
The blue wave of the Sixth Corps hit the bottom of the slope and started the final climb up toward the blood- soaked ridge.
'My God, another one,' Porter gasped. 'When will they stop this!'
Rodes had somehow managed to rein in his men charging down the slope, and they were now falling back up the slope in fairly good order, firing a volley, withdrawing a couple of dozen yards, then firing again before sliding into the trench.
Porter's guns had switched back to solid shot and case shot with fuses cut to two seconds, firing downslope into the mist, the passage of the shot visible by the twisting swirls lashed through the smoke.
'One more time!' Longstreet shouted, stepping back from the walls of the bastion, looking at the gunners. 'They can't have anything behind this.'
Venable and Moxley were waiting outside the bastion, holding Longstreet's horse. He left the position, pausing for a second to look back. The battlefront was emerging out of the smoke, a powerful block. He caught a glimpse of a divisional standard, the new ones that the Army of the Potomac had just instituted. He wasn't sure which division it signified, but it was obviously Sixth Corps. So, after all these days, he knew exactly where they were at last, the heaviest corps of their army, coming straight at them.
He judged the width of the line, a half mile or more across. Most likely a second division behind it..Thank God, they had not come up ten minutes earlier.
He turned to Moxley. 'Ride like hell. This will hit here,' and both ducked as a shell screamed in close, but failed to burst.
'Pender and Pettigrew are to leave a light screen, one brigade each to cover their lines, but then start moving everything else down here.'
