The batteries open..

[Little Powell]

Around this time 150 years ago, the massive artillery bombardment that preceded "Pickett's Charge" at The Battle of Gettysburg began. The Confederate guns numbered between 150 and 170 making it likely the largest of the War.

Here's an exert from one of my favorite eyewitness accounts of the war:

How long we sat there is impossible to say but after a long silence along the line a single gun was heard off in my front and everyone’s attention was attracted. Almost instantly afterwards the whole air above and around us was filled with bursting and screaming projectiles, and the continuous thunder of the guns, telling us that something serious was at hand. All jumped to their feet and loud calls were made for horses, which orderlies hurried forward with, already saddled and waiting. Mine did not come at once and anxious to get upon my line, I started on a run, up a little swale leading directly up to the center of it. Some features of that hurried trip are indelibly impressed upon my memory. The thunder of the guns was incessant, for all of ours had now opened fire and the whole air seemed filled with rushing, screaming and bursting shells. The larger round shells could be seen plainly as in their nearly completed course they curved in their fall towards the Taneytown road, but the long rifled shells came with a rush and a scream and could only be seen in their rapid flight when they “upset” and went tumbling through the air, creating the uncomfortable impression that, no matter whether you were in front of the gun from which they came or not, you were liable to be hit. Every moment or so one would burst, throwing its fragments about in a most disagreeably promiscuous manner, or, first striking the ground, plough a great furrow in the earth and rocks, throwing these last about in a way quite as dangerous as the pieces of the exploding shell. At last I reached the brow of the hill to find myself in the most infernal pandemonium it has ever been my fortune to look upon. Very few troops were in sight and those that were, were hugging the ground closely, some behind the stone wall, some not, but the artillerymen were all busily at work at their guns, thundering out defiance to the enemy whose shells were bursting in and around them at a fearful rate, striking now a horse, now a limber box and now a man. Over all hung a heavy pall of smoke underneath which could be seen the rapidly moving legs of the men as they rushed to and fro between the pieces and the line of limbers, carrying forward the ammunition. One thing which forcibly occurred to me was the perfect quiet with which the horses stood in their places. Even when a shell, striking in the midst of a team, would knock over one or two of them or hurl one struggling in his death agonies to the ground, the rest would make no effort to struggle or escape but would stand stolidly by as if saying to themselves, “It is fate, It is useless to try to avoid it.” Looking thus at [Lt. Alonzo H.] Cushing’s Battery, my eyes happened to rest upon one of the gunners standing in rear of the nearest limber, the lid open showing the charges. Suddenly, with a shriek, came a shell right under the limber box, and the poor gunner went hopping to the rear on one leg, the shreds of the other dangling about as he went.

As I reached the line just to the left of Cushing’s Battery, I found [Brig.] Gen. [Alexander] Webb seated on the ground as coolly as though he had no interest in the scene and somehow it seemed to me that in such a place men appear to take things a good deal as I had remarked the horses took them. Of course, it would be absurd to say we were not scared. How is it possible for a sentient being to be in such a place and not experience a sense of alarm? None but fools, I think, can deny that they are afraid in battle. “What does this mean?” I asked. Webb shook his head. In fact it was a question about which we all felt anxious, but no one could answer it yet. It might mean preparation for retreat; it might signify the prelude to an assault. -Brig. Gen. John Gibbon