"Sir, I've come down from Hanover, sir," the courier gasped. "Hell of a ride. Damn near got caught twice by Reb cavalry."

As he spoke the courier fumbled with his breast pocket and finally pulled out a packet It was sealed with wax, several large matches tucked into the edge of the envelope, so that if the courier felt he would be captured he could quickly burn it

"Has anyone else brought this in?" the courier asked.

Meade grabbed the envelope and shook his head.

"I was told three other riders were carrying the same message, sir."

"Well, Lee is most likely reading those by now."

Meade tore the envelope open; inside were two memos. Henry, standing by his side, caught a glimpse of one, the letterhead standing out boldly

THE WHITE HOUSE.

Meade read the first memo and then the second one. His shoulders slumped.

"My God," Meade whispered, and folding the letters from Lincoln and the contradictory one from Halleck back up, he tucked them into his breast pocket

"Useful for my court-martial," he said, looking at Henry; then, turning slowly, he rode away.

Hancock continued to ride back and forth across the front of the advancing division, shouting for the men to keep moving, to close it up, to close in.

A blast of canister swept across the line, dropping Wright and a dozen or more around him. He could see them now, the final line, the ground before the entrenchment paved with bodies. "Just a few feet more!"

John Williamson, with Hazner at his side, braced for what was about to hit the right wing of the Union advance lapping over into his division's entrenchments.

Merciful God, when will this ever end? he silently pleaded.

More than one officer, pistol ammunition expended, had picked up a rifle and stood on the firing line. Williamson held his poised, waiting for the order.

"Ready!"

He raised his rifle up, hands trembling, and then brought it straight down. It was hard to pick an individual target; all he could see was a dark blue wall emerging, coming up the slope. Time seemed distorted, the men in front of him moving woodenly, slipping on the wet grass and mud, line weaving as the Union troops stepped around and over bodies. 'Take aim!"

He pointed his rifle downrange, finger curled around the trigger. A rider crossed in front of his sights, turning, sword held high, now coming nearly straight at him.

"Fire!"

He squeezed the trigger, the heavy Springfield rifle recoiling sharply. All was again cloaked in smoke. It was impossible to see, to know, what he had done.

The blow slammed Hancock back in his saddle. At nearly the same instant, his horse reeled, screaming pitifully, half rearing up, blood cascading out of a torn neck, the round then bursting through the pommel of his saddle and into Hancock's upper thigh. For a moment Winfield was filled with a blind panic, terrified that his horse was rolling over.

Hands reached up. Someone was grabbing the reins of the horse, pulling its head down, steadying the dying animal. Others grabbed Winfield, dragging him from the saddle. The shock, the pain, struck him with such intensity that he felt the world start to spin away, drifting on the edge of passing out

Men were storming past him. He caught glimpses of feet mud spraying about. He looked up. A soldier was leaning over him, shouting something; he couldn't hear what the man was saying. Someone was holding a canteen, -cutting off the sling and then kneeling down. Another man helped Winfield to sit up while the first soldier looped the canteen sling around his left thigh.

He wrapped the canteen sling around a discarded bayonet scabbard and began to twist it the pressure increasing, the pain unbearable.

Sound was returning; he could hear men shouting.

"The general's dead!"

He wasn't sure if they were talking about Wright or himself. "I must stand up," he gasped.

"Your left leg, sir" It was one of his staff, kneeling, examining the wound.

"I know it's my leg, damn it" "You're bleeding bad." "Get me up." No one moved. "Get me up!"

Several men gathered round, bracing him, hoisting him up, and for a few seconds he passed out and then vision gradually returned.

The line he had been leading was stalled, having advanced only a few more yards past the place where he had fallen. A volley erupted and men, standing in place, began to reload.

"Charge, don't stop!" Hancock gasped.

The men holding him up started to turn away. Swearing, Winfield feebly struggled to break free from their embrace, but they ignored his pleas.

"Charge them, charge!"

One of the men stumbled and then just collapsed, shot in the back of the head. Winfield fell, hitting the ground first with his injured leg.

The world went dark.

Longstreet crouching low in the saddle, rode along the line just behind the trench. The air was thick with shot but for the moment he was all but oblivious to it.

The charge was stalling, caught out in the open ground. Some of the men in the trench were so exhausted that they simply sat on the ground like statues of stone, incapable of moving. Rodes's men, though, in general, were still relatively fresh, and in places ranked three and four deep, pouring a devastating fire down into the blue ranks.

The Second Division of Sedgwick's corps pushed up the slope, merging into the stalled line of the First but this renewed surge only advanced the line a few dozen feet before it stopped yet again.

They had seen too much, the defeated troops coming down off* this damnable ridge. The footing was increasingly treacherous in the rain, and the piled-up carnage before them was almost a barrier in itself, thousands of dead and wounded caught in the open between the two volley lines, men thus trapped curled up, screaming, begging for the horror to end. -

Sedgwick, coming down from the grand battery across the open held, was nearly stopped several times by the sheer numbers of wounded and fleeing troops heading to the rear. At last he reached the left flank of his Third Division, which was just reaching the first trench line.

"Halt! Halt!"

He pushed through the ranks, shouting the order over and over again. Men looked up at him confused, not sure of what was happening, more than one assuming that Sedgwick had to be on the front line, leading the advance; otherwise why would they be going in?

Wheaton, commanding the division, turned on Sedgwick, mystified. "Why are we stopping?" Wheaton shouted.

"I did not order this advance."

"Sir, we are in the middle of it now. I am going to oblique to the right," and as he spoke he pointed up the slope to where one could catch glimpses of a swarm of Confederates now outside of their trenches, moving to flank the assaulting column.

"Who authorized you to advance?"

"I thought you did, sir."

"I did not."

"We can still turn this," Wheaton cried, "but we've got to move now; our boys up there are getting flanked."

Sedgwick shook his head. "It's lost," he replied. "I want you to hold here.".

"Sir, it's lost if we do hold here."

"Hold," Sedgwick cried. "You, sir, are the last reserve division in this entire army now. Meade wants you to hold."

Wheaton hesitated, and then finally nodded his head in agreement

"General Lee!"

Lee, who had remained behind the lines at the point where Rodes had been deployed, saw Taylor approaching, and somehow he knew exactly what would be reported.

Taylor reined in and saluted.

"What is it, Walter?" Lee asked, trying to keep his voice calm.

"Sir, I felt I should report to you personally on this." "Yes.'!

"Sir, about a half hour ago, a courier came in from General Ewell." Taylor handed the message over and Lee opened it