The Civil War Diary of Wyman S. White, First Sergeant of Company F, 2nd United States Sharpshooter Regiment, 1861-1865

An excerpt. OOurskirmish line was at the time off to the right about a third of a mile south of Devil's Den. It was nearly four pm as our line was at a halt. I was near the Snyder's House, having a position in an agnle of a stone wall just between the house and barn. The enemy's pickets or skirmishers were getting up nearer and bolder, and we expe ted an attack from a strong force. We did not have long to wait before a solid mass of rebels spilled over a rige in our front across the Emmitsburg Pike, their left bearing down the Peach Orchard. They came yelling and firing and struggling over fences and through the ttimber. Just in front of where I was, the land was open and, as they were most butternut clothes they had the appearance of a plowed field being closed in mass formation until they got within good fighting distance to our line, when they broke into line of battle formation three lines deep. Our line being only a skirmish line, that means five paces distance between the men, we were obliged to fall back or either be killed or taken prisoner. The enemy force in our front was at least ninety men to our one. Still they noticed that there was some opposition to their charge for we were armed with breech loaders and, as we took the matter very coolly, many a brave Southron threw up his arms and fell. But on they came, shouting and yelling their peculiar yell, down through Devil's Den, across the lower portion of Round Top, pressing on to gain a position on Little Round TOp.