shortened by nearly two years; but no countercharge was made.

As the afternoon waned, a fierce cavalry fight took place on the
Union right. Stuart, the famous Confederate cavalry commander,
had moved forward to turn the Union right, but he was met by
Gregg's cavalry, and there followed a contest, at close quarters,
with "the white arm." It closed with a desperate melee, in which
the Confederates, charged under Generals Wade Hampton and Fitz
Lee, were met in mid career by the Union generals Custer and
McIntosh. All four fought, saber in hand, at the head of their
troopers, and every man on each side was put into the struggle.
Custer, his yellow hair flowing, his face aflame with the eager
joy of battle, was in the thick of the fight, rising in his
stirrups as he called to his famous Michigan swordsmen: "Come on,
you Wolverines, come on!" All that the Union infantry, watching
eagerly from their lines, could see, was a vast dust-cloud where
flakes of light shimmered as the sun shone upon the swinging
sabers. At last the Confederate horsemen were beaten back, and
they did not come forward again or seek to renew the combat; for
Pickett's charge had failed, and there was no longer hope of
Confederate victory.

When night fell, the Union flags waved in triumph on the field of
Gettysburg; but over thirty thousand men lay dead or wounded,
strewn through wood and meadow, on field and hill, where the
three days' fight had surged.



GENERAL GRANT AND THE VICKSBURG CAMPAIGN