To the enemy even this grand moving body of the best material in the world must have looked imposing as it passed in solid phalanx over this broad expanse without scarcely a bush or tree to screen it.  And what must have been the feelings of the troops that were to receive this mighty shock of battle?  The men marched with firm step, with banners flying, the thunder of our guns in rear roaring and echoing to cheer them on, while those of the enemy were sweeping wind rows through their ranks.  McLaws was moved up nearer the enemy’s lines to be ready to reap the benefit of the least signs of success.  Brockenborro and Davis were keeping an easy step with Kemper and Garnett, but their ranks were being thinned at every advance.  Great gaps were mown out by the bursting of shells while the grape and canister caused the soldiers to drop by ones, twos and sections along the whole line.  Men who were spectators of this carnage, held their breath in horror, while others turned away from the sickening scene, in pitying silence.  General Trimble was ordered to close up and fill the depleted ranks, which was done in splendid style, and on the assaulting columns sped.

Trimble had fallen, Garnett was killed, with Kemper and Gibbon being borne from the field more dead than alive.  At last the expected crash came, when infantry met infantry.  Pickett’s right strikes Hancock’s center, then a dull, sullen roar told too well that Greek had met Greek.  Next came Davis, then Brockenborro, followed on the left by Archer’s and Pettigrew’s Brigade, and soon all was engulfed in the smoke of battle and lost to sight.  Such a struggle could not last long for the tension was too great.  The Confederates had driven in the first line, but Meade’s whole army was near, and fresh battalions were being momentarily ordered to the front.  The enemy now moved out against Pickett’s right, but Semmes and Wofford of McLaws’ Division were there to repulse them.

For some cause, no one could or ever will explain, Pickett’s Brigades wavered at a critical moment, halted, hesitated, then the battle was lost.  Now began a scene that is as unpleasant to record as it is sickening to contemplate.  When Pickett saw his ruin, he ordered a retreat and then for a mile or more these brave men, who had dared to march up to the cannon’s mouth with twenty thousand infantry lying alongside, had to race across this long distance with Meade’s united artillery playing upon them, while the twenty thousand rifles were firing upon their rear as they ran.

Pettigrew’s Division, which was clinging close to the battle, saw the disaster that had befallen the gallant Virginians, then in turn they, too, fled the field and doubling up on Lane and Scales, North Carolinians, made “confusion worse confounded.”  This flying mass of humanity only added another target for the enemy’s guns and an additional number to the death roll.