Longstreet was slow. Jackson would have struck with the rapidity of
lightning. On this swift action Lee had counted. The blow should have
been delivered before eight o'clock. It was two o'clock in the afternoon
before Longstreet made the attack and Meade's position had been made
stronger each hour.
From two o'clock until dark the long lines of gray rolled and dashed
against the heights and broke in red pools of blood on their rocky
slopes.
Three hundred pieces of artillery thundered their message in an Oratorio
of Death. The earth shook. Hills and rocks danced and reeled before the
excited vision of the onrushing men. For two hours the guns roared and
thundered without pause. The shriek of shell, the crash of falling
trees, the showers of flying rocks ripped from cliffs by solid shot, the
shouts of charging hosts, the splash of bursting shrapnel, the neighing
of torn and mangled horses, transformed the green hills of Pennsylvania
into a smoke-wreathed, flaming hell. The living lay down that night to
sleep with their heads pillowed on the dead.
On this second day Lee's men had gained a slight advantage. They had
taken Round Top and held it for two hours. They had at least proven that
it could be done. They had driven in the lines on the Federal left.
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