The Union guns fired to the last moment, until of the two batteries immediately in front of the charging Virginians every officer but one had been struck. One of the mortally wounded officers was young Cushing, a brother of the hero of the _Albemarle_ fight. He was almost cut in two, but holding his body together with one hand, with the other he fired his last gun, and fell dead just as Armistead, pressing forward at the head of his men, leaped the wall, waving his hat on his sword. Immediately afterwards the battle-flags of the foremost Confederate regiments crowned the crest; but their strength was spent. The Union troops moved forward with the bayonet, and the remnant of Pickett's division, attacked on all sides, either surrendered or retreated down the hill again. Armistead fell dying by the body of the dead Cushing. Both Gibbon and Webb were wounded. Of Pickett's command two-thirds were killed, wounded, or captured, and every brigade commander and every field officer save one fell. The Virginians tried to rally, but were broken and driven again by Gates, while Stannard repeated at the expense of the Alabamians the movement he had made against the Virginians, and, reversing his front, attacked them in flank. Their lines were torn by the batteries in front, and they fell back before the Vermonters' attack, and Stannard reaped a rich harvest of prisoners and of battle-flags. The charge was over. It was the greatest charge in any battle of modern times, and it had failed. It would be impossible to surpass the gallantry of those that made it, or the gallantry of those that withstood it. Had there been in command of the Union army a general like Grant, it would have been followed by a counter-charge, and in all probability the war would have been shortened by nearly two years; but no counter-charge was made. As the afternoon waned, a fierce cavalry fight took place on the Union right. Stuart, the famous Confederate cavalry commander, had moved forward to turn the Union right, but he was met by Gregg's cavalry, and there followed a contest at close quarters with "the white arm." It closed with a desperate melee, in which the Confederates, charging under Wade Hampton and Fitz-Hugh Lee, were met in mid-career by the Union Generals Custer and McIntosh. All four fought, sabre in hand, at the head of their troopers, and every man on each side was put into the struggle. Custer, his yellow hair flowing, his face aflame with the eager joy of battle, was in the thick of the fight, rising in his stirrups as he called to his famous Michigan swordsmen, "Come on, you Wolverines, come on!" All that the Union infantry, watching eagerly from their lines, could see was a vast dust cloud, where flakes of light shimmered as the sun shone upon the swinging sabres. At last the Confederate horsemen were beaten back, and they did not come forward again or seek to renew the combat; for Pickett's charge had failed, and there was no longer hope of Confederate victory.