Porter's Confederate reserve guns were still bouncing across the fields, moving to replace Cabell and Poague, so the first artillery to fire was the next battalion down, Posey's battalion, dug in behind Anderson's division.
The guns were well placed to drive their shot in enfilade across the front of Second Corps, and the gunners opened with a will, cutting their fuses to five seconds, and then to four seconds, and then down to three seconds. In a sense they were getting even for the battering they had taken from the Union artillery three days earlier at Gettysburg. Farther on the line to the left the battalions supporting Pender and Pettigrew were joining in as well, though the range was long, at nearly a mile, for batteries positioned with Pettigrew's to reach, and most of them turned their weapons onto the batteries deployed along the front of Third Corps, which was not yet committed to the fight. Joining them were the gunners covering the front of Early's division, which was on the far left of the Confederate line.
Onward the battle lines came, the men moving fast on the steep, downward slope, jumping over torn-down walls of split-rail fencing, which had been knocked apart in the previous day's assault. The far left of the column swept through the edge of the town, the ground to their left opening out, leading toward the still-smoldering mill and miller's house. Alignment was kept, a grim professional pride taking hold in these, the elite troops of an elite army that had only known disappointment and defeat
If there was a hope, and nearly every officer had spoken of this, the hope was that they, the veterans of the Army of the Potomac, would sweep onward, regardless of loss.
Keep closing on the flags, men. Let that be your guide this day, your flag. Don't stop, don't slow down for anything, keep pushing forward. Forty thousand of us will be in this together; never has a charge been done like this by our army. Meade is sending us in together; Hunt and his boys will pound a way clear. Just go for the heights, and we will win.
These were not green recruits so innocent that they would believe anything said, as they themselves had once believed in a long-ago time. Many had attempted to cross this same field in the boiling heat only yesterday; they knew its slope; they knew what would happen; and yet they were going forward now without hesitation.
Those who would hesitate were gone from the ranks; they had run away or found a way to skulk off. Those going knew what was at stake and what would happen to many of them in the minutes ahead.
Just stay with the colors. Keep an eye on that flag and, by God, if it goes forward, you go forward. If it falls, every man of you should move to pick it up and keep it going. Do not let the flag touch the ground.
They were stripped down. Blanket rolls were stacked to the rear, the cowards, or those truly too sick to advance, staying as a guard. Canteens at least were full; that had been an order passed straight down from the top. Drink your fill and runners to refill all canteens two hours before the assault goes in. Haversacks were mostly empty of rations; they had been consumed on the march south from Gettysburg; now an extra forty rounds were in most of them.
Enduring the morning showers, most of the men were wet, but it was at least comfortable for the moment, cooling after the heat of the previous three days. The shoes and wool socks, however, were heavy with moisture, walking made more difficult by the wet, tangled grass on the downslope.
By order of the commanding general, brigade and division commanders were not to advance ahead of the line, but several ignored it; Kelly, of course, for what self-respecting
Irishman would not be in the lead at a moment like this; Gibbon, a professional who should have known better, was out front as well, sword held high.
As they marched down the slope, the great amphitheater of this drama was spread out before them, the open valley ahead, the meandering stream, millpond to the left, the raw slash of earth across the base of the opposite slope, the second line of tom-up earth along the crest above. Their professional eyes judged it and they knew with a terrible certainty what would come down upon them in just a few more minutes.
And yet, for a brief moment, they saw beyond it, the awe-inspiring sight of the long battle lines rolling down out of the hills, flags of over thirty regiments held high, the dark waves of blue moving on like a relentless tide.
Maybe, just maybe, we'll do it this time.
Half a prayer, half a dream, and thousands said it, looking sidelong at neighbors and friends, nods, tight grins of acknowledgment, a few weak gibes. A rabbit kicked up out of the grass in front of Ruger's brigade, dashing along a farm lane in a mad panic back and forth before it finally cut straight between the legs of the soldiers and went tearing back to the rear. Men laughed, shouting they wished they could trade places.
The Napoleons in the lower battery, whose front they had yet to cross, continued to fire, pounding the opposite line, the sharp, almost bell-like "sprang" of the guns echoing with each discharge.
The ground started to slope outward into a gentle decline. Ahead was a sharp bank that tumbled down half a dozen feet, marking the divide between hills and flood plain. Men slid down the grassy slope, some falling, comrades reaching out to help pull each other up, officers shouting to keep alignment, to keep moving.
The first wave was into the bottomland pastures, a giant undulating wave of men, one man for each foot and a half of front, two ranks deep, nearly a mile across. Behind them the second wave of two ranks was a hundred yards to their rear, behind that the third wave of Gibbon's division and Lockwood's brigade. Deployed-out in heavy column, a division wide and three divisions deep, eighteen thousand men of Sedgwick's corps, just beginning to crest the ridge, poised to exploit any breakthrough that developed.
The grass in the bottomland was thicker, tangled mats in places, the ground soggy after the rain. Men began to lose their shoes, unable to stop to retrieve them, continuing on with wet wool socks sagging, peeling off.
The shells from the enfilading fire cut in across the front; men began to drop. Mercifully, the ground was damp enough that when a round ball or bolt hit, it tended to plow into the earth, the notoriously poor fuses of the Confederate artillery going out in the spray of muck. Airbursts of case shot, however, sprayed down on the lines. Here and there a man dropped, or cried out, stumbling away from the line. In Zook's brigade, one well-placed bolt came skimming in, dropping a dozen men in one bloody burst, officers shouting for the ranks to close up, to keep moving.
The first wave was a hundred yards into the pasture. Union skirmishers in the field now stood up, some sprinting back the few yards to fall in with their comrades, others waiting for the first wave to pass over them. The creek tended to favor the south bank of the valley, though in places it meandered out in its slow, wandering course, looping to midfield. The first wave was nearly upon it, men able to see its waters now, really nothing more than a shallow, muddy flow, in places so narrow that an energetic farm boy could leap it in one bound.
And then, along most of the front-in spite of the rumbling of the cannons, the shouts of their own officers, the banging of tin cups on canteens, the sloshing of wet leather-they heard it The command racing down the Confederate front line, picked up by officers, riflemen shouting the order in response.
"Ready!"
A wall seemed to materialize out of the ground, a wall of butternut, gray, occasional splashes of sky blue trousers, rifle barrels, several thousand of them held high.