Such troops can be designated RELIABLE.

To-day the Nineteenth Massachusetts has with it the Forty-second New York, Tammany's contribution to the country's cause. They had served side by side in the same brigade with the Nineteenth Massachusetts in the camp, on the march, and on the battle-field from Ball's Bluff to the present moment.

In them was all the traditional fun and fight, Paddy's heritage, which centuries of oppression cannot rob him of nor repress.

They were in excellent condition under the firm rule of Mallon.

New England's sturdy courage and Ireland's fiery valor must be ready to do and dare together once again this day.

The opportunity was not denied them nor long delayed.

Col. Mallon and myself could view the whole scene standing up as we were, and were probably the only persons close enough readily to distinguish all which occurred, and so entirely free from personal participation as to be able intelligently to judge it.

We see that Webb cannot firmly hold his men against the shock of that fierce charge, though he may throw himself with reckless courage in front to face the storm, and beg, threaten, and command.

Hall's right, overlapped, has to sag back with sullen fury, swaying to the rear from the pressure, but swaying forward again like ocean surges against a rock. This creates disorder, heightened by the men of Harrow's brigade surging also in that direction, apparently without orders or concert, but guided by some instinct of hurrying to the rescue. Everything was in confusion, regimental organization was lost, ranks were eight or ten deep, pushing, swaying, struggling, refusing to yield, but almost impotent for good.

A great gap yawns immediately between Webb and Hall.

The entire width of the Oak Grove and for some distance to the right is stripped of defense on our line. Every gun on our front there is silenced. Woodruff, Cushing, Brown, Rorty, and every other commissioned officer, almost without exception, of the respective batteries, is dead or disabled, and Gibbon badly wounded.

Was this devoted Second Corps, whose proud boast it was that it" never lost a gun or a color," to succumb at last?

Mallon, we must move."

Just then a headlong rush of horses' feet, spurred to the utmost, came up the hollow behind from the direction of the Baltimore pike. I turned. There, looking the very embodiment of the god of war, rode Hancock, the "Superb."

I shouted as he nearly trampled on my men, still lying down and as yet unseen by him. He threw his horse on its haunches.

"See," I cried, "their colors; they have broken through. Let me get in there."

His characteristic answer fitted time and place, and he shot like an arrow past my left toward Hall's struggling lines, receiving in a few seconds the wound that swept him from his saddle and so nearly cost him his life.

Meanwhile Mallon, springing from my side, was instantly with his men, and both regiments on the double quick moved side by side to fill that fearful gap. The two lines came together with a shock which stopped both and caused a slight rebound. For several minutes they faced and fired into each other at a distance (which I carefully measured after the fight) a little short of fifteen paces. Everything seemed trembling in the balance.

VOL. XVIII.-No. 1-2

General

Whichever side could get a motion forward must surely win. Alexander S. Webb I couldn't see. Just then I felt rather than saw Hall, as he appeared at my side.

"We are steady now," he said. "Sure; but we must move," I replied. At the instant a man broke through my lines and thrust a rebel battleflag into my hands. He never said a word and darted back. It was Corporal Joseph H. De Castro, one of my color-bearers. He had knocked down a color-bearer in the enemy's line with the staff of the Massachusetts State colors, seized the falling flag, and dashed with it to me.*

Mallon had by this time wrapped round the right of the grove a little. The opposing lines were standing as if rooted, dealing death into each other, how long it is impossible to say with exactness. There they stood and wouldn't move. All of a sudden a strange, resistless impulse seemed to urge the Union arms. I can compare it only to a Titan's stride. Our lines seemed to actually leap forward. There was at once an indescribable rush of thick, hurrying scenes. I held the blunted apex of the re-entering angle, which was the appearance made by our lines.

A yell. A shout.

My line seemed to open as if by magic. It was not flight, however. A flood of unarmed, defenseless men poured through. They almost ran over me. The remnant of Pickett's gallant men abandon that nearly invincible charge, and Gettysburg translated reads, A Nation Saved.

I had four colors of theirs on my arm by this time.t

No wonder it took more than mortal patience to bear up under the bitter disappointment so swiftly following on such assured success of a few moments before. The lieutenant-colonel of a Virginia regiment, seeing

* Corporal De Castro received a testimonial of his gallantry on the spot, as follows :

Headquarters Nineteenth Regt. Mass. Vols., July 4, 1863.

This will certify that Corporal Joseph H. De Castro, Co. I, 19th Regt. Mass. Vols., in the attack of Pickett's (Rebel) division on Gibbon's division of 2d corps U. S. army on July 3d, 1863, at Gettysburg, Pa., did capture the colors of the 14th Regt. Virginia Infantry C. S. A, inscribed with their name and number, and did place the same in my hands during the actual conflict. (Signed) A. F. Devereux.

A true copy.

Col. 19th Regt. Mass. Vols.

W. A. Hill, Late Adjutant 19th Regt. Mass. Vols.

Corporal De Castro's further reward was one of the four special medals struck by order of the Sec'ty of War in attest of extraordinary gallant conduct.

My recollection is that Mallon captured two colors. Both regiments however, came at once under the control of the brigade commander, and Mallon's trophies were not turned in through The losses of the 19th Massachusetts at Gettysburg by casualties (killed and wounded, NONE missing) were one in every two, including officers and enlisted men, and seven over.

me.

what I held, exclaimed: "You Yanks think you've done a great thing now."

"It's our turn," I said; " remember Fredericksburg."

I doubt if either of us realized, at that moment, precisely how much the "Yanks" had done. The full import has since been amply recognized.

It was the critical point of the culminating battle of the long struggle, or, as it has been happily termed, the "high water mark of the rebellion," ebbing slowly and surely thence till it left the Confederacy stranded. For the Union line to have failed at that point meant the accomplishment of all the plans of General Lee and recognition of the South by foreign powers. By common consent it has been regarded as the knock-down blow to the loser in the fight.

I have always felt a reverential awe of the responsibility resting on these two regiments in this conflict. They were advanced before I could anticipate what use could be made of them, and halted just at the spot, as it proved, where they could be hurled with full effect right against the front of Pickett's column, which had actually pierced our lines and gained its objective point. They were the only troops in prompt striking distance. They alone were under full command and in perfect order, sent forward to the performance of a specific purpose, with the way open. Their arrival steadied Hall's and Harrow's swaying line; enabled Webb to rally his command once more; made effective Stannard's throwing out perpendicularly to the line, on the left, and Hays' rush from the right; formed a cul-de-sac, and held the enemy in the jaws of a vise whose resistless pressure must inevitably crush.

If I am right in my opinion, they were worthy to come to the support of their gallant comrades in their time of desperate need. If they had not come, what then? If they had not been just there, who will say what might have been?

In after days, when memory without warning would suddenly unroll the panorama of those few fateful moments, flashing in an instant the recollection of every incident on the retina of the mind, I have felt, deep down in my heart, of the participants in that fierce struggle, that, under Providence, these did that much for their country. They have not lived in vain.

MANUSCRIPT SOURCES OF AMERICAN HISTORY*

THE CONSPICUOUS COLLECTIONS EXTANT

I ask your attention to some considerations respecting the manuscript sources of American history, as they exist in this country, both in public archives and in private hands, with a view to suggesting some methods for their better preservation, and for insuring to the historical student a more thorough knowledge of their nature.

The subject is too wide to be considered in all its bearings within the brief space allotted here, and I shall therefore mainly refer to those collections of a more extensive sort which relate to the history of the American Revolution. It should be borne in mind that there was not, during that formative period of our nation, the same rigid enforcement of the rights of governments to the official papers of its servants which prevails now. Accordingly, it would be impossible to write the full story of the American Revolution with the documentary evidence left in the hands of the departmental officers of the present day, as a legacy from the Committees and Boards and Congresses which, in those days, conducted our affairs. It is also true, though in a lesser degree, that the English archives and those of the Continent of Europe need also reinforcement from family papers, if we would study completely the same period on the other side of the ocean.

It was this scant care and unstable protection given to government papers during those unsettled times which then made the collection of them in private hands of greater necessity than at present; and threw a larger share of the responsibility of preserving them, then than now, upon the servants of the government in their private capacity. Added to the habit of the time was what always accompanies a revolutionary administration-its lack of an efficient organization for such accessory functions of government as imply a body of archivists. It was then an enforced feeling of responsibility, as well as a consciousness that deeds were enacting which the world would not willingly let die, that insured the collecting and transmission of such masses of papers as are now associated with the names of Washington and Greene in the army, and of Franklin and the Adamses in the Congresses, not at this moment to name others.

The earliest writers to make any considerable use of the government

*The annual address of President Justin Winsor at the opening session of the American Historical Association (Boston, May 21, 1887), in joint session with the American Economic Association.