My horse became awfully nervous, to say nothing of myself, and I didn't feel that I wanted the Rebel artillery to hunt their range with me for a target.

I became suddenly solicitous about the expediency of looking after some signal and telegraph business in the town, a mile or so to the rear, and safely "beyond range."

So, riding up to the General, saluting in the Regular Army style, bowing my head low as a shell went over, I meekly suggested going back to town to see if there were any telegraph operators to be found.

"All right," said the General, significantly, "We will all be back there soon."

Turning my horse's head to the rear, I didn't hesitate so long about starting as I had for the barn, but boldly made a dash to the rear over a lot of old fields that lay between the grove and the Seminary.

I thought it about a mile distant at that time, and I have since visited the ground and was surprised to find it so short a distance; but I covered it so quickly then that some allowance may be made for the miscalculation.

I don't believe any horse-race jockey ever got over the same amount of the earth any quicker than I did that last quarter on the home stretch--I had got "in range," and was in a hurry to get out.

This was a piece of open ground, where it seemed all the shells that passed through the trees in the grove stopped and ploughed into the earth, and scattered the dirt or exploded in the air and scattered the pieces of iron.

I felt for the minute and a half that I was out from under the imaginary protection of the trees, that the whole Rebel Army were after me. Really I was so badly rattled that I did not know whether I was on a horse or afoot. Once behind the big brick Seminary Building, I felt it safe enough to dismount, cool off myself and the horse, and repair damages.

Discovering that both the horse and myself were unharmed, and being anxious to see how the rest of them out that way were getting along, I availed myself of my privilege as a signal man on the Staff, and climbed the stairs to the top of the building, getting out on the cupola.

There were several Generals up there. They were somewhat excited, and talking together in an earnest manner about something that was going on in another part of the field.

They left the cupola as if they were in a hurry. So did I, without stopping to examine the outlook very closely. There was plenty to be seen--it was quite a moving panorama of blue and gray, and far more realistic from _that_ platform than the cyclorama I have viewed from similar elevations in the center of the battle scenes they depict.

I noticed from the cupola that there was some excitement or stir to the right of the town. I had not thought of there being any Rebels, except those I had seen immediately in our front. As I had seen enough of this part of the field, I concluded to go over to the right and see what I could do to save the day there.

I went down the steps, three or four at a jump, and was on my horse before any of the Generals, who had preceded me.

I rode out toward the right as far as it was expedient for a horse to go.

In 1863 there was a railroad embankment, or fill, along that edge of the town. Behind this I dismounted and fastened my horse to a fence, discreetly advanced as dismounted cavalry to reconnoiter, and, if possible, learn what all the fuss over here was about. I soon found out--one good look was enough. There was another barn out that road, and from behind it, or from all corners, puffs of white smoke were to be seen at frequent intervals. Beyond this there were other lines of this same white smoke; and, before I knew exactly what was going on, there came suddenly from another direction that _awful_ sharp din of volleys of musketry. Dear me, how sharp and how sudden the noise of musketry--it rings to-day in my ear, after a lapse of twenty-five years, as distinctly as it were but yesterday. I frequently visit Gettysburg--the place has a strange fascination for me. As I walk alone over the very ground I am trying to tell about here, I recall every incident, and wonder, and wonder, in the strange quiet of the old town, where all the 200,000 are to-day!

"No marshalling troops, no bivouac song, No banner to gleam and wave; But, Oh _these battles! they last so long--_ _From boyhood_ to the grave."

After this outbreak, which we all knew preceded a charge, there came the usual confusion, accompanied by the yells and indescribable ugly sounds, the echo of which seems to chill one's blood, even now.

In this confusion and rush, I nearly lost my horse; he had torn loose from his fastenings, in the jam and tear of artillery, breaking to the rear along the road; he was retreating in disorder among the boys of the Eleventh Corps. When I caught up with him and mounted again, there was a crowd of infantrymen jamming along the road. It is a fact that a "doboy," as we cavalrymen called the infantry, instinctively hates a cavalryman of his own army as much as he does that of the enemy, so that, in my isolated predicament, in trying to navigate my horse along a road filled with excited Germans, with bayonets on their guns, I had, literally, a hard road to travel.

I intended to go back to the Seminary, which I had recently left, thinking it the best place to get a good view of the field. I was steering my horse in that direction, down the main street of the town, when I discovered that, seemingly, everybody was coming away from there.

It looked as if the show was over and the crowd was rushing along the streets, as if anxious to catch the first car, or the last train.

I did not realize that it was a retreat until I saw riding up the road, in a direction away from the Seminary, a cavalcade, which I knew to be a General and Staff.

It was General Doubleday. The handsome General, erect and dignified at the head of his Staff, was riding alone with a bearing very much as I have witnessed other Generals on the fancy parades at the head of the column of play soldiers.

Except for an angry flush on his face, and evidently in a bad humor about something that had gone wrong, he was as cool as I have seen him since on ordinary occasions.

On looking through the dusty and crowded streets that dreadful afternoon toward the Seminary, which I had so recently left some distance inside of our lines, I was astonished beyond measure to see that a battery was right in the middle of the road firing like all nation toward us. It has always remained one of the great surprises of my life to understand how that Rebel battery could possibly have gotten through our army so suddenly and have been firing shells down the road into our retreating column from _our_ hill, when I thought, according to the tactics, it ought to have been two or three miles out of the road on their own hill.

The frequent shots did not hasten General Doubleday's pace a particle; he kept on giving his orders in a sullen, ill-natured tone, but walked his horse as slowly as if heading a funeral procession.

My young heart was distressed to see that our men were beginning to pour into the main street from every direction--all were eagerly making for the main road through town to Cemetery Hill.

It was very much as if a church, or theatre, had been dismissed in a panic; the people who were in the side aisles were rushing down on the crowds in the main entrance, so that everything became blocked by the confusion worse confounded.

The ladies of the town, from almost every house and window, were imploring the men to give them some explanation of the movement, the very suddenness and excitement of which bordered on a panic.

As a Pennsylvania boy, I felt that it was disgraceful to abandon one of our own towns to Rebel invaders, and with such thoughts burning within me, and fired by the excitement of the hour, remembering that in my ride into the town that morning I had passed Slocum's (Twelfth) Corps only a little way out, I rode up, facing the stately Doubleday, and, after saluting, said:

"General, I passed General Slocum only a little way out the road." The General, without halting his slow movement, gruffly said:

"Where is Slocum?"

"Why, out the road a little piece."

"When did you see him?"

"This morning."

Just then a shell went over the top of a house, exploded on the roof, making a most infernal noise, which scared all the horses, and in the mix-up, as I was facing the General, my horse could not march backwards, I became tangled up with him, and impeded for a moment his progress.

Turning to me, with a savage expression, he said:

"Get out of my way, ---- you. We all know where Slocum was this morning.

Where is Slocum now? Who in ---- are you, anyhow?"

I didn't insist on continuing the conversation with General Doubleday at the time; but I have had the pleasure of hearing from this grand old man, since the publication of this day's experience.

When I saw so indisputably that everybody else was going to leave town, I concluded that I might as well go too, and I stood not on the order of my going, but went at once.

On the occasion of President Cleveland's visit to Gettysburg, it was my pleasure, as well as my business as a newspaper man, to accompany that party. I heard then one of the old residents--one of the "reliable old liars"--tell a distinguished party that the Rebel band played "Dixie" on the square of the town at 1 P. M. on that day.

I want to say that is not true. There was lots of music at 1 P. M., but there were no bands playing that day that I ever heard of. It was late in the afternoon when we had our parade through the streets of Gettysburg to the music of booming cannon, screeching shell, and the sharp notes of musketry.

This music was in the air all around us, accompanied by the groans and cries of the wounded and dying men, who were being piled into the court house and churches of the old burg.

I managed to crowd my frenzied horse through the dense mass of soldiers, wagons, etc., who were surging up the main street toward Cemetery Hill.

I got there just as soon as I could, too.

On reaching the brow of the hill, I was gratified and surprised to see General Howard sitting on his horse, quite alone, in the lot to the right of the cemetery gate, or across the road from it.

All of this time, the men of the Eleventh Corps, which, in the retreat led the way, had been coming steadily up the hill from town and kept on going down over the hill on the other side, like so many sheep that follow a leader blindly over a fence.

It never occurred to me that there would be any halt then, and I assert here, bluntly, my opinion, as being unprejudiced and based solely on the events as they actually occurred to me at that day, that General Howard had not, at that hour, any other expectation than to retreat further back. He certainly had not made any effort whatever to stop the rushing to the rear of his men of the Eleventh Corps. They not only swarmed up the one road, but came straggling through the by-ways and fields, skipping over the stone fence, and, unmolested, kept going on farther back, as if it were a matter of course.

I stopped on the side of the road, near General Howard that I might look around from this elevation.

To my consternation, I discovered, from the musketry and confusion, that the Rebels were going it lively over toward our extreme right, in the direction of what is now known as Culp's Hill.

I was satisfied that the Rebels would get around to the road I had come down on, and capture the entire force then at Gettysburg.