Out from the ranks of the fortress’s defenders rushed a grey, world-famous charge. It was a division charging—three brigades _en échelon_,—five thousand men, led by a man with long auburn locks. Down a hill, across a rolling open, up an opposite slope,—half a mile in all, perhaps,—lay their road. Mars and Bellona may be figured in the air above it. It was a spectacle, that charge, fit to draw the fierce eyes and warm the gloomy souls of all the warrior deities. Woden may have watched and the Aztec god. The blue artillery crowned that opposite slope, and other slopes. The blue artillery swung every muzzle; it spat death upon the five thousand. The five thousand went steadily, grey and cool and clear, the vivid flag above them. A light was on their bayonets—the three lines of bayonets—the three brigades, Garnett and Kemper and Armistead. A light was in the eyes of the men; they saw the fortress above the battle clouds; they saw their homes, and the watchers upon the ramparts. They went steadily, to the eyes of history in a curious, unearthly light, the light of a turn in human affairs, the light of catastrophe, the light of an ending and a beginning. When they came into the open between the two heights, the massed blue infantry turned every rifle against them. There poured a leaden rain of death. Here, too, the three lines met an enfilading fire from the batteries on Round Top. Death howled and threw himself against the five thousand; in the air above might be heard the Valkyries calling. There were not now five thousand, there were not now four thousand. There was a clump of trees seen like spectres through the smoke. It rose from the slope which was the grey goal, from the slope peopled by Federal batteries, with a great Federal infantry support at hand. Toward this slope, up this slope, went Pickett’s charge. Garnett fell dead. Kemper and Trimble were desperately wounded. Save Pickett himself, all mounted officers were down. The men fell—the men fell; Death swung a fearful scythe. There were not now four thousand, there were not now three thousand. And still the vivid flag went on; and still, high, thrilling, clear and dauntless, rose from Pickett’s charge the “rebel yell.” There was a stone wall to cross. Armistead, his hat upon the point of his waved sword, leaped upon the coping. A bullet pierced his breast; he fell, was captured, and the next day died. By now, by now the charge was whittled thin! Oh, thick as the leaves of Vallombrosa, the fortress’s dearest and best lay upon that slope beneath the ravens’ wings! On went the thin, fierce ranks, on and over the wall, on and up, into the midst of the enemy’s guns. The two flags strained toward each other; the hands of the grey were upon the guns of the blue; there came a wild mêlée.... There were not two thousand now, and the guns were yet roaring, and the blue infantry gathered from all sides....