At any rate Lee decided to give battle, and he made his dispositions accordingly. He had already assailed both flanks of the Federal army and found both too strongly posted to be successfully turned or crushed. He decided, therefore, to hurl his entire strength directly against the Federal line in the hope of breaking it and thus driving his enemy into disorderly retreat. It was a desperate thing to do, but Lee knew the fact, which has since been recorded by a historian on the other side, that the soldiers under his command were "the best infantry on earth" and he hesitated not to exact of them the most desperate and terrific work. He knew at least that these men would do and dare anything and everything in an attempt to carry out his will and achieve the ends he purposed. He assembled a hundred guns on Seminary Ridge, each so well manned as to be capable of firing from four to six times a minute. In answer the Federals on Cemetery Ridge assembled about a like number of guns, equally well served. The greatest artillery duel that had ever occurred was waged on that morning. Nearly a thousand shells a minute were launched upon their life-destroying career. Guns were knocked from their carriages, only to be replaced by other guns for which there had been no firing room before. Cannoneers were swept away like flies, and their places were promptly taken by other cannoneers who eagerly and clamorously claimed the privileges of the conflict. Caissons were exploded by bursting shells and other caissons moved into their places with the precision of mathematics itself. The Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of the Potomac had learned their business. The men who composed them now were soldiers, drilled, trained, battle-seasoned and thoroughly hardened to their work by long and varied experience. Whatever it was possible for courage and endurance to accomplish, that they were ready to undertake. They no more thought of reckoning the personal danger than of calculating the wanderings of the stars in their courses. They stood their ground, nothing daunting them and nothing suggesting to their minds a thought of running away. Is it any wonder that when such men composed the opposing armies, the fighting was such as to make men admire and angels weep? The one thing that made the greater battles of the Confederate war terrible was this fact that the two armies were equally American in their composition, equally determined, equally heroic in daring and in enduring.