He knew the plan, watching the weather, trying to calculate. No word came from Lee, but Longstreet sensed that the flanking attack had indeed gone in, the distant sound of gunfire fading northward, by then washed out by the intensity of the storm.

Finally, just after five-thirty, he ordered a general advance all along the line. It was evident that there were still troops deployed along the opposing heights, but all could see, as well, that since the previous two hours that line was melting away, guns moving out, skirmishers bringing in prisoners who reported that the Army of the Potomac was abandoning the field.

Three divisions went in: Rodes on the right, Pettigrew in the middle, Early on the left. Pender, McLaws, and Anderson, those who had suffered the most in the defense, were formed into marching columns and held in reserve, with Anderson's division detailed off to the task of preparing to receive the anticipated flood of prisoners. And for once there was a surplus of supplies and an order to prepare to feed these thousands of men as well.

The orders were to avoid a frontal assault at all cost, to probe; to go around the flanks, for Pete sensed that if anyone was still up there, they would fold once their flanks were turned, but would indeed fight if hit head-on.

It was as he assumed. The First Corps held for less than half an hour, with Rodes only skirmishing at long range, until Early's men swept over the heights abandoned by Sickles. With that the First Corps of the Army of the Potomac, the "old First"-the men who boasted that they were the backbone-broke and started for the rear.

With Pender's column pushing up the road, the pursuit was on in earnest, but the advance was determined and careful. The goal was to herd the Union army north and gather up stragglers as prisoners, not to engage in a frontal fight that would force the Union army to draw itself together and cause unnecessary casualties to the already weakened Confederate forces.

A thunderstorm of frightful intensity now lashed the skies, as if reflecting the far more violent confrontation unfolding below. In the darkening gloom, the hot electric blue flashes revealed a road swarming with tens of thousands of men, all semblance of order breaking down among the Union forces, troops splitting away from the line of retreat, streaming off into nearby woods, there to simply collapse. Individual regimental commanders, those with some initiative, ordered their men to turn aside, to march cross-country, hoping to break out of the net For word raced up and down that desperate column that Lee was now in their front on the Baltimore Pike at Littlestown, and Longstreet was closing up from the rear.

It was the worst night of the war for both sides.

For the men of the old Irish Brigade, Second Corps, haunted by the loss of their commander, there was a vicious lashing out when a regiment of Pender's division stormed into the road expecting a quick surrender.

To a man, the Irishmen turned with clubbed rifles and bayonets. It was a brutal vicious melee, no longer a military battle; now it was a settling of scores, and men on both sides were beaten to death without mercy in the gloom, until the survivors broke from the road and spilled into the darkness, heading due east and out of the fight but leaving more than a hundred dead Confederates behind.

All organization at corps and division and even brigade level was gone.

With the road severed at Littlestown, the vast, surging column had come to a complete halt unable to move. Some regiments just stood in line, waiting and waiting in the driving rain-a colonel or in many cases now a major or even a captain in command-for someone to tell them what to do, until the enveloping wave of gray and butternut swarmed in about them.

Here and there fires briefly flickered to light as a lantern was smashed, the coal oil poured over the regimental colors, and then burned; or like their comrades of the Twentieth Maine, the flag was cut to ribbons and pressed into hands, men weeping in rage, frustration, bitterness, and exhaustion.

Every farmhouse, every barn and outbuilding, became a refuge, filled to overflowing with the wounded and with those too exhausted or too frightened to continue.

Strange moments, only possible in this war unfolded, and acts typical of any war. A soldier with one of Pender's North Carolina divisions, coming upon an exhausted Union straggler, discovered him to be his own son who had moved to Ohio before the war, the two embracing and weeping by the side of the road, while less than a hundred yards away another North Carolinian unknowingly shot his own brother in the back when the latter tried to flee.

In nearly every case, prisoners were taken in and treated with at least some compassion, a quick bandaging of wounds, a shared drink from a canteen, though a Georgian, moved to insanity by the death of his brother earlier in the day, methodically stabbed a wounded boy from New York to death as the boy begged for mercy; and then, within seconds, the murderer was summarily executed by his own colonel, who had witnessed the crime.

An unimaginable array of equipment Uttered the road and fields, discarded muskets, cartridge boxes, blanket rolls, uniforms, caps, boxes of rations and ammunition, an entire collection of musical instruments dropped by a regimental band, a case of French champagne found by some boys from Mississippi, who promptly got drunk and were finally placed under arrest, books and newspapers, a paymaster's box with ten thousand in greenbacks, all mingled in with upended wagons, braying mules, burning caissons that exploded with thunderclap roars, and everywhere bodies, some dead, most just collapsed in exhaustion by the side of the road.

Some commanders broke down in the confusion, told the men to save themselves and scatter. But more than one elected to fight, pulling their regiments off the road. Some would fight clean through to the next day, others perhaps only a few minutes before being overwhelmed, but the old army did not die easily.

Vicious, frightful battles unfolded all along the road. The survivors of the First Minnesota turned about when Rodes pressed too closely; their volley killing the hard-fighting Confederate general, dropping him into the mud. The First was swarmed under then and disappeared.

One colonel, who had survived a year in Libby Prison before being exchanged, when facing the prospect yet again, shot himself in the temple right in front of his men. Some officers wept, some raged, a few abandoned their own men, but most tried to lead as best they could; and more than one NCO and private emerged that terrible night as a leader as well.

Henry became an infantryman. He had come across two batteries of guns, stalled in the road, the way ahead blocked by a tangle of wagons, ambulances, an overturned caisson and gun, its team still tied to their harnesses, kicking and thrashing.

Behind, in the semidarkness, he could hear the dull crackle of rifle fire, flashes of light reflecting off the low-hanging clouds, a stampede of men racing by on either side of the road, crying that the Rebs were coming.

A battery commander stood before him, waiting for orders.

For a moment he was tempted to order the guns unlimbered, but in all that mad confusion, what would he shoot at? Thousands of Union soldiers were swarming across the surrounding fields, a flash of lightning revealing a compact column of Confederates already passing him in an open field to the left

"Spike the guns!" Henry shouted.

Exhausted gunners climbed down from limber wagons, battery blacksmiths moving along the line with mallets and the deadly spikes, iron ringing against iron. Loaders tore into almost empty limber boxes, pulling out their few remaining rounds, tearing the powder bags open, throwing them onto the road.