Excerpt from Cyclorama of the Battle of Gettysburg by Paul Philippoteaux
While crossing the open plain the Southerners suffered cruelly from this artillery fire.
From the very start the direction of their march appeared to be toward the Doubleday division, but when they were within 500 yards of it Pickett halted and changed the direction for an oblique of almost forty-five degrees; the attack thus struck Gibbon's division, which was on the right of Double-day. Wilcox and Lang, who formed the right flank of Pickett, did not follow his oblique movement, but kept on straight to the front in such a manner that soon there was a vast interval between their troops and the main body, thus leaving Pickett's right completely unguarded. The Southerners came on magnificently; as soon as the shot and shell tore through their lines they closed up the gaps, and pushed on. When they reached to Emmetsburg road the canisters began to make frightful gaps in their ranks. They also suffered severely from a battery posted on the summit of Little Round Top, which pierced their lines.
The attack of Pickett struck Hay's brigade and the Second Corps in front of the main line. Then the musketry became so deadly that Pettigrew's men began to hesitate on the left and fall behind. Before the Southerners could reach the second fence and stone wall, they were obliged to pass under the fire of a half brigade commanded by Colonel Theodore B. Gates of the Twentieth New York State militia and a Vermont brigade under General Stannard, both belonging to the corps of Doubleday.
When the right of Pickett became exposed by the divergence movement of Wilcox's command Stannard seized the opportunity to make a flank attack, and while his regiment on the left, the Fourteenth, was making a terrible fire, he changed front with his two other regiments, the Thirteenth and Sixteenth, and thus brought them in a line perpendicular to the Southern troops, and the brigade of Kemper found itself repulsed and driven toward the center in order to avoid the energetic and deadly attack of Stannard.
They were followed by Gates' command, who continued firing with close ranks. This resulted in the surrender of many. Others forced a retreat. Meantime the brigade of Armistead joined with that of Garnett, charged on the Second corps of Hays' brigade and forced them back from their advanced position against the stone wall just as the batteries of the crest arrived. Although Webb's front was the center of the concentrated fire of the artillery, and had already lost fifty men and several brilliant officers, their line remained firm and impenetrable. It devolved upon Webb to meet the great charge which was to decide the fate of the day. For that unforseen circumstance it would have been difficult to find a man better fitted. He was nerved to great deeds by the memory of his ancestors who had formerly rendered distinguished services to the Republic, and he felt the results of the whole war might depend upon his holding of the position. His men were equally determined. Cushing's battery No. 4 of the United States artillery, which had been posted on the crest, and Brown's battery, Rhode Island, on his left, were completely destroyed by the cannonade. The horses were killed, the officers, with the exception of one only, were struck with fragments of shell, and Cushing had but one serviceable gun left. When Pickett's advance came very near the line young Cushing, mortally wounded in both thighs, ran his last serviceable gun down to the fence and cried, "Webb, I will give them one more shot!" At that moment of the last discharge he called out, "Good-byel" and fell dead at his post of duty.
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