On the night of July 2, 1863, Val Giles, age twenty-one, was huddled behind a large rock at the base of Big Round Top in Gettysburg after his Texas infantry unit had failed to wrest control of the mountaintop from Federal defenders earlier in the day.
He later described that night in his memoirs: 1
‘In making that long charge across the open field to the base of the mountain, our brigade got jammed up.
Every tree, rock and stump that gave any protection from the rain of Minié balls that were poured down upon us from the crest above us, was soon appropriated.
Order and discipline were gone.
Every fellow was his own general.
Private soldiers gave commands as loud as the officers.
Nobody paid any attention to either.
To add to this confusion, our artillery on the hill to our rear was cutting its fuse too short.
Their shells were bursting behind us, in the treetops, over our heads, and all around us.
And every time a fellow showed himself, some smart aleck of a Yankee on top of the ridge took a shot at him.
Major Rogers, then in command of the Fifth Texas Regiment, mounted an old log near my boulder and began a Fourth of July speech.
Of course nobody was paying any attention to the oration as he appealed to the men to ‘stand fast.’
From behind my boulder I saw a ragged line of battle strung out along the side of Seminary Ridge and in front of Little Round Top.
Things had gone wrong all the day, and now pandemonium came with the darkness.
The advance lines of the two armies in many places were not more than fifty yards apart.
Everything was on the shoot.
No favors asked, and none offered.
My gun was so dirty that the ramrod hung in the barrel, and I could neither get it down nor out.
But it was no trouble to get another gun there.
The mountainside was covered with them.’
I’ll see you tomorrow.
— Brenda
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