A Daughter of Maryland — page 185: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

162 A DAUGHTER OF MARYLAND. and Garnett leading, supported by Armistead, who was chafing like a war horse at his bit for being put thus in the rear. Noble old soldier! he had plenty of the front before he finished that day’s work. Pickett’s storming force was strengthened on the left by Heth’s division of Hill’s corps and two brigades of Pender’s division, and on the right flank by Wilcox’s brigade of Anderson’s division. The combined forces numbered eighteen thousand men. The day was clear and calm, Nature bearing no token of the strife of men. It was a still calm that preceded the storm of battle. About one o’clock in the afternoon, when the martial lines had tired of waiting, the sharp report of a rifle from the Confederate masses broke the momentous silence, and as the distant woods echoed back the sound, a second gun was discharged This was»the signal for more than a hundred pieces of artillery to belch forth their fiery contents into the midst of the enemy. The sky but a moment before so clear was bronzed with fiery streamers and darkened with clouds of smoke. A host of invisible and rushing spirits swarmed in the air, mingling and making a rhymthic throbbing of unearthly life. Shells shrieked like so many maniacs rushing to doom, and solid shots marked their flight with a whir and buzz, while everywhere the clashing and pounding of missiles lent to the mighty medley of sounds the awful significance of death and destruction. The Union forces commanded a clear range of Pickett’s line of battle. It was terrible waiting there, answering it is true the enemy’s fire, but so helpless after all. Must this suspense last much longer? Hark! ‘*Forward! Charge!’’ | In clarion tone the command rang down the line, and men sprang to their feet with shouts of joy! Nothing intervened to shut out the sight of the enemy’s fortified line, so no man in all that hardy band was deceived in the extent of the work expected of him. Each grasped his (are) comicbooks mM