7:00 PM GETTYSBURG

Ignoring the warnings of his headquarters staff, Lee rode down the middle of the road oblivious to the rain of bullets kicking up geysers of dust in the street, shattering windows, splintering the sides of wooden buildings, and ricocheting off the brick ones.

The head of the charge was up over the forward knoll, pressing up into the smoke that circled the hill, reminding him somehow of an old etching of Mount Sinai, wreathed in eternal storm clouds.

The men, my God, the men, he thought, his stomach knotting. Hundreds of them were down, covering the approaches to the hill. Wounded were coming back up the street, many with uniforms torn and limbs shattered by artillery fire. At the sight of him some held their wounded limbs up, bearing them proudly like holy stigmata.

The gesture was almost frightening to him, a sacrilege. He fixed his gaze on the hill, the bloody hill that seemed to fill the sky ahead.

A glare of light, then a hail of rifle fire exploded in the smoke, followed a couple of seconds later by a storm of bullets sweeping the street. One of his cavalry escorts pitched out of the saddle; another had a horse go down.

"General Lee, you must retire!"

It was Walter Taylor, back from his mission to Johnson, racing out from a side street, moving to place himself between Lee and the rifle fire.

Lee fixed him with an icy gaze. "No. I will not hide at a moment like this."

"Remember Jackson," Walter replied, still moving to take Traveler's reins.

"I do remember Jackson," Lee said fiercely. "If he had been here, this attack would have already taken that hill. Time, Walter, it is always a question of time. We are losing the light."

"Sir, your getting killed will not change any of this now."

"The charge; it looks weak. What is going on?" Lee looked over at Taylor.

'Two brigades only, sir. Johnson claims there's a Union division forming on his left, a couple of miles down the Hanover Road. He's deployed a brigade to contain them. The other brigade is still forming and trying to come up."

Lee motioned him to silence.

The rebel yell!

In the dim light he saw the banners go up over the barricades around what looked to be a gatehouse. Another caisson blew, followed almost instantly by yet another exploding alongside the first.

The yell, the spine-tingling yell. Wounded in the streets paused, looked back, some of them raising their voices, howling. Others stood riveted, watching the charge.

Lee looked around at his staff. All were gazing up at the hill, some shouting. The charge pressed forward, colors dipping, going down, coming back up, going down, then coming back up yet again, still advancing.

My men, though. Oh, God, my men. They were dropping by the scores, the hundreds. "Finish it, for God's sake, finish it" The words escaped him like a desperate prayer.

7:15 PM

"Fire! Fire! Fire!" Henry, screaming like a madman was on foot, in front of Hancock, in the middle of his guns.

Hancock wanted to scream for him to stop. Some of their own men were still in front, running back from the gatehouse, tangled in with the charging Rebs.

The gunners hesitated; a sergeant looked back at him. Henry shouldered the sergeant aside, drew the lanyard taut, and with a wild cry pulled it

The Napoleon, loaded with double canister, reared back.

As if the gun was a flame that leapt to the other pieces, the batteries fired.

Sickened by the impact Hancock said nothing, unable to speak as more than a thousand iron- balls, a visible blur, slammed into the ranks. A headstone, torn off. at its base, flipped high into the air, an ironic sight that frightened him almost as much as the carnage.

"Reload! Reload!" Henry was stalking down the line, clawing at the air, frantically waving his arms.

Hancock wanted to scream for him to stop, for all of them to stop, to end the madness of it Out of the smoke some of them were rising up, hunched over, pressing forward, a lone color coming back up, then another.

The Rebs were into the guns, but they were too few. The wave broke, collapsing. Some of the Rebs simply stood there in numbed shock and then woodenly dropped their weapons.

Farther down the slope, Hancock saw a column coming up over the knoll where Wiedrich's battery had been. It must be another brigade of Rebs, but they were coming in too late!

"Look, sir, look!"

Hancock turned. A column of Union infantry, coming forward at the double, was spreading out to either side of the Baltimore Pike… Twelfth Corps at last!

On his other flank he already knew that the advance regiments of Sickles's Third were coming up. It was hard to see as the shadows lengthened, but he could catch glimpses of a heavy skirmish line pushing up across the fields along the Emmitsburg Road, hooking up with Buford's men.

'Tire, pour it in, pour it in!" Henry, pacing behind his guns, pointed down the slope toward the forward knoll, where the. emerging enemy line was trying to shake out into formation. The blasts of canister swept down the hill; the hundreds of men down on the ground in front of the guns and still alive covered themselves, many screaming in terror.

The men of Twelfth Corps, coming on fast, poured down into the narrow valley that dropped down the east flank of Cemetery Hill and then rose up to the knoll where Stevens's overworked battery was still hard at it

At the sight of their approach, whatever fight was left in the Rebs melted away. Turning, they streamed back down the slopes of Cemetery Hill.

"Reload!"

Hancock edged his mount forward, the horse stepping nervously around a team of six animals, all of them dead, piled up in front of their caisson.

"Henry."

Henry's back was turned, shaking his head as a captain screamed to him that they were out of ammunition. "Solid shot, you still have solid shot! Give it to them!" "Henryr

Henry turned, looking up at him. "Cease fire," Hancock said quietly.

Henry stood there, riveted to the ground, mouth open, shoulders shaking as he gasped for breath.

Gunners around him seemed frozen, looking at the two. "We held the hill," Winfield said quiedy. Henry simply stood there.

A gunner by Henry's side staggered away, letting his rammer drop, legs shaking so badly he could barely walk. A section commander, leaning against an upturned caisson, slowly doubled over and vomited convulsively, body shaking like a leaf. The men of the battery seemed to melt, dissolve. Some simply sat down, staring vacantly. Others leaned drunkenly against their pieces. A color bearer held the national flag aloft and slowly waved it back and forth, but no cheer sounded; the only thing to be heard was the cries of the wounded.

"Henry, you held the hill."

Henry turned and slowly walked over to one of his pieces, the men around it silent, faces and uniforms blackened.

"No," Henry whispered, nodding toward his men, "they held the hill."

Hancock dismounted and went up to his side, putting a hand on Henry's shoulder.

Henry gazed at him, turned away, leaning against the wheel of a gun, his body shuddering as he broke down into silent tears.

No one spoke.

Winfield Scott Hancock looked down across the field of carnage, the cemetery piled high with the harvest of his profession, the results of his greatest victory. Lowering his head, he walked away.