All the way across, Dan thought, all the way across Pennsylvania. A thousand miles, from the Round Top Hills to the cemetery. The dead will get up out of the grave-yard and work the guns when the cannoneers are killed: stiff and ghastly in their grave-clothes, they will push the black rammers and pull them out again. He looked toward the higher ground in the north and east—the Ever Green, the Baby Rest Darling place. There was nothing but one rain-cloud of smoke and crawling flame.

ALL PERSONS FOUND USING FIREARMS IN THESE GROUNDS WILL BE PROSECUTED WITH THE UTMOST VIGOR OF THE LAW.

He screeched with laughter, but he couldn’t hear his own laugh. A new sound came from the south, past the mound of saplings: the blue huddlers were lifting their heads, craning their necks; they held their guns ready in efficient hands. A lot of horsemen were coming through the smoke, and a sound trotted alongside them. It’s him? What in the devil. Yah, it’s him. What’s he want?

A large man rode through the mist on a big-boned horse. He was a man with a hard face modeled in an iron grin. The men began to stand up; dimly under the roar you could hear the clank of their rifles as they waved them aloft. A boy’s voice shrilled: Prrresent … hahm! The general had his hat in his hand, flapping it limply; his blouse was buttoned at the throat but hung gaping on each side of his round blue belly; the howl came through the copse and around the walled angle of the little field. Han-cock, they were all yelling. Three cheers for Han-cock … the guns blotted them, they poured in stronger again, a wrenching exultation which mingled with the thunder all around: rrrrah … rrrrah … rrrrah. We’ll show ’em, Winfield, came a screech. He rode past the corner, his staff fighting their rearing horses, and looking very pale. A pin-wheel crackled above the wall and men staggered back. Hancock kept the metal grin on his jaws, his mustaches sticking out above it. Hold fast, gentlemen. Give them what Paddy gave the drum. They’ll be coming across, he bellowed, and make them like it when they get here … Han-cock! Han-cock! Han-cock! … the vapor whirled behind him.

Nobody knew how long. An hour. Two hours. Maybe a day. There wasn’t any time in creation. The smoke was thinning gradually and guns were falling silent all along this highland, and you could hear parched throats squawking: Shake ass, cut that harness, get that three-incher outa there. Mist weighted the mild slopes, falling thickly into the valley, and the infantry wasn’t crouching down behind the barricade any more. They were spreading rows of cartridges on the rocks in front of them and as the firing slackened you could hear the squeak of leather; they dug eagerly into their cartridge boxes.