330 SKETCHES IN PROSE. 



we reached the road and were in the thick of the fight. This 

 was in front of the Sherfey House. 



" How long we fought here I cannot tell. In battle a per- 

 son has no real conception of time. We crossed the road, and 

 I remember myself standing in the path leading to the 

 house directing some of the men what to do. Of course, all 

 was excitement. I remember that in many cases the fighting 

 was hand to hand. It was a desperate battle. Men never 

 fought with so much determination as did our little band. 

 Eobert fell not far from here, just to the left of the Sherfey 

 House. The boys were falling all around me. I was almost 

 beside myself as I beheld my comrades' vain effbrts to rally. 

 We had to fall back, although very reluctantly. Night 

 came on, and with it came the 5th Corps, when we, a little 

 band of sixty-five men, all that was left out of four hundred 

 and seventy-three who went into the fight, gathered near the 

 foot of Round Top where we lay until morning. We were 

 afterward posted near the Devil's Den, when we were served 

 with rations, the first in forty-eight hours, except a barrel of 

 flour we bought of a farmer on the morning of the 2d. We 

 were soon hurried to the support of the 2d Corps, on the 

 Ridge, who were getting ready for the coming assault of Lee. 

 We were posted in the rear of the Philadelphia Brigade. 

 Pickett's charge was in our front. We helped repel it, but 

 lost no men there. On the night following, our pickets ad- 

 vanced to the Emmettsburg road whence we were driven the 

 day before, leaving the dead and wounded behind. I took a 

 detail of men and reported to a captain in the 26th Pennsyl- 

 vania, who had charge of the burial squad. I will here men- 

 tion a curious circumstance. While he and I were talking near 

 the road, he stopped and picked up something which proved 

 to be two musket balls — one a Union, the other a rebel. They 

 had met in mid-air and welded together. We could distin- 

 guish them by the rings, the former having three, the latter 



