They advanced under unfurled flags, crossing an open field under
devastating fire. Their target was the center of the Federal
line, which lay beneath a copse of trees atop distant Cemetery
Ridge. For two days these men in butternut and gray — General
Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, had engaged in bloody
combat with their blue-uniformed adversaries from the Federal
Army of the Potomac. They had won a dramatic victory in the first
day's fighting, but had failed to overwhelm either flank of the
Federal army on the second day. On the third day, Lee launched
the mightiest infantry assault of his career — 13,000 southern
troops converging on the center of the Federal line. Surely,
Lee believed, the line would break, the battle would go to the
men in gray, and southern independence might finally be won.
The assault force appeared irresistible. "On they came with
flags flying," a northern officer would later marvel. |