From the gallantry which the Federal troops displayed in this battle, they must have been in good heart for the encounter.  It is certain that the Southern army had never been in better condition for a decisive conflict.  We have spoken of the extraordinary confidence of the men, in themselves and in their commander.  This feeling now exhibited itself either in joyous laughter and the spirit of jesting among the troops, or in an air of utter indifference, as of men sure of the result, and giving it scarcely a thought.  The swarthy gunners, still begrimed with powder from the work of the day before, lay down around the cannon in position along the crest, and passed the moments in uttering witticisms, or in slumber; and the lines of infantry, seated or lying, musket in hand, were as careless.  The army was plainly ready, and would respond with alacrity to Lee’s signal.  Of the result, no human being in this force of more than seventy thousand men seemed to have the least doubt.

Lee was engaged during the whole morning and until past noon in maturing his preparations for the assault which he designed making against the enemy’s left in front of Longstreet.  All was not ready until about four in the afternoon; then he gave the word, and Longstreet suddenly opened a heavy artillery-fire on the position opposite him.  At this signal the guns of Hill opened from the ridge on his left, and Ewell’s artillery on the Southern left in front of Gettysburg thundered in response.  Under cover of his cannon-fire, Longstreet then advanced his lines, consisting of Hood’s division on the right, and McLawe’s division on the left, and made a headlong assault upon the Federal forces directly in his front.

The point aimed at was the salient, formed by the projection of General Sickles’s line forward to the high ground known as “The Peach Orchard.”  Here, as we have already said, the Federal line of battle formed an angle, with the left wing of Sickles’s corps bending backward so as to cover the opening between his line and the main crest in his rear.  Hood’s division swung round to assail the portion of the line thus retired, and so rapid was the movement of this energetic soldier, that in a short space of time he pushed his right beyond the Federal left flank, had pierced the exposed point, and was in direct proximity to the much-coveted “crest of the ridge,” upon the possession of which depended the fate of the battle.  Hood was fully aware of its importance, and lost not a moment in advancing to seize it.  His troops, largely composed of those famous Texas regiments which Lee had said “fought grandly and nobly,” and upon whom he relied “in all tight places,” responded to his ardent orders:  a small run was crossed, the men rushed up the slope, and the crest was almost in their very grasp.