On the march from Chambersburg we learned that General Meade had been placed in command of the Union Army, and we pushed on towards Gettysburg, where A. P. Hill’s Corps had been heavily engaged. This day I was prostrated by sickness, and rode in an ambulance until nearly night, when I managed to get on my horse and go down to the battle-field. Longstreet himself has described admirably the fighting the next day; and, careless as he generally was of himself under fire, he nowhere else exposed himself more recklessly. One charge he led in person, and some prisoners whom we captured, when they learned who it was that had ridden in front of our advancing line, said they might expect to get whipped when a Corps commander exposed himself in that way to show his men how to fight.

The following day, July 3, the ever-memorable battle of Gettysburg was fought. Every arrangement was made to shell the enemy’s position, on Cemetery Hill, and follow this up by an attack in force. The whole of the long range guns in the army were placed in battery along the low range of hills which we occupied, and at three o’clock the cannonading began. The enemy made prompt reply. Three or four hundred pieces of artillery were being fired as rapidly as the cannoneers could load them. Being in the centre of the front line, I had an excellent view of the fight. It was a hellish scene. The air was dotted with clouds of smoke where shells had burst, and the fragments of shell and the solid shot were screaming and shrieking in every direction. Through it all, General Longstreet was as unmoved as a statue, watching placidly the enemy’s lines. In the meanwhile Pickett’s Division had been formed in readiness for the charge. Three of his brigades were present; those of Kemper, Armistead and Garnett, composed exclusively of Virginians. Prayers were offered up in front of Armistead’s brigade and Garnett’s brigade, before the advance began. Garnett remarked to Armistead: “This is a desperate thing to attempt.” Brave old Armistead replied: “It is; but the issue is with the Almighty, and we must leave it in his hands.” Just then a hare which had been lying in the bushes, sprang up and leaped rapidly to the rear. A gaunt Virginian, with an earnestness that struck a sympathetic chord in many a breast, yelled out: “Run old heah; if I were an old heah I would run too.” The artillery firing ceased, and the order to advance was given. Pickett was in the centre, with Wilcox’s Division on the right, and Pender’s, commanded by Pettigrew, on the left. The thin grey line of Virginians moved as steadily as on parade, the battle flags catching a deeper red from the sun. Well in front of their brigades were Kemper, and Garnett, and Armistead. The last named was bare-headed, his grey locks floating in the breeze. Waving his sabre and hat in hand, he cheered on his men. They did what men could do; but more had been expected of them than mortal men could accomplish. Armistead was mortally wounded inside the enemy’s works. Garnett was killed instantly. Kemper was severely wounded, and supposed to be dying. My recollection is that only one field officer in Pickett’s Division escaped unhurt.

The attack had been made and had failed. There was a terrible gap in our line, and the enemy threatened to advance. In the meanwhile the staff officers were busily engaged in rallying the men, who had made their way back from the front. I suppose that I was the first man to whom Pickett spoke when he reached the line. With tears in his eyes, he said to me: “Why did you not halt my men here? Great God, where, oh! where is my division?” I told him that he saw around him what there was left of it. General Lee, of course, took all the blame on himself. As was well said by a writer at this time: “General Lee was grand on the smoke-crowned hills of Petersburg, on the sanguinary field of Chancellorsville, and on the tragic plains of Manassas; but when at Gettysburg he told his men, ‘It is my fault’, he rose above his race, and communed with the angels of heaven.” That sad night not more than three hundred men remained to us of what had been one of the finest divisions in the service. The remnants of the companies were commanded by corporals and sergeants; regiments by lieutenants; and a brigade by a Major. Never had Virginia suffered a heavier blow. The division was composed of the flower of her children, and there was weeping and desolation in every part of the Old Dominion.

It was in every way an ugly time. There was always considerable difficulty in obtaining a sufficient supply of artillery ammunition. The first trouble was in making it, and the second was in finding transportation for it. At no time did we have so large a reserve as was necessary. What was true of the artillery was true in a less degree of the infantry. There was even some delay on our march into Pennsylvania in consequence of the detention of a train of ordnance wagons, which did not arrive when expected. A brigade of infantry with a battery of artillery, was sent as an escort; for had that train been captured it would have been risking too much to advance farther. The terrible cannonade on the third day at Gettysburg exhausted the whole of the artillery ammunition in reserve. My recollection is, that there was no long range ammunition left except what was in the caissons and limber chests. Under such circumstances, and having lost so heavily in the attack on Cemetery Hill, General Lee determined to retreat to Virginia; but we lay one day at least on the field awaiting the attack which Meade did not venture to make. The Union forces had suffered severely; but they could stand the loss of men better than we could; and they had a right to claim Gettysburg as a decisive victory, for we had failed utterly in what we had undertaken.

The march back to the Potomac was dreary and miserable indeed. The rain fell in torrents. The clothing of the men was worn and tattered, and too many of them were without shoes. It was a heart-breaking business, and gloom settled down upon the army. The enemy’s cavalry made an attempt to cut us off at Williamsport, where the river was too high for fording, and they would have succeeded but for the gallantry of the wagoners and “Company Q” (the stragglers, and the disabled men with the trains), who had a free fight with them, and drove them back. We crossed the river on a pontoon bridge, leaving the cavalry in the entrenchments at Williamsport, and plodded our way back towards Winchester. Just about this time we received the news of the fall of Vicksburg. It needed only this to intensify the feeling that the star of the Confederacy was setting.

Passing from grave to gay, I may mention here that a sad trick was played on me by Captain Innes Randolph, an Engineer officer at our head-quarters. While we were at Bunker Hill, on the way to Winchester, he invited me to dine with him, saying that his mess had a very fine ’possum, which would be a novelty to me if I had not tasted that succulent dish. It was finely served, and merited the encomiums that Randolph lavished upon it. He was careful, besides, to tell me that I should find, as I did, that it tasted very much like roast sucking pig. Two or three years afterwards Randolph told me that this famous dish was not ’possum after all, but a sucking pig which he had bagged in the neighborhood, and which he had dubbed ’possum in order to spare me the pain of banqueting on a dish that I knew to be —— I was going to say “stolen,” but we called it “captured” in the army.

Resuming our march, we passed through Millwood and Chester Gap, where we had a slight skirmish with the enemy. One of our brigades charged across a field which was thick with blackberry bushes. The fruit was ripe, and as the men moved forward firing they would pick the blackberries and hastily eat them. No troops ever showed more indifference to danger, or took fighting more as a matter of course, than the veterans of the Army of Northern Virginia.

We went into camp at Culpepper Court House, and remained there a considerable time.