Wilcox, too, who one would think had been pretty well fought out the day before, in his desperate enterprise of attempting to crown the crest, was directed to support the right flank of the attack.

Wright's brigade was formed in rear, and Pender's division on the left of Pettigrew, but there was a long distance between Wilcox and Longstreet's forces on the right.
At 1 P.M., a signal gun was fired and one hundred and fifteen guns opened against Hancock's command, consisting of the First Corps under Newton, the Second Corps under Gibbon, the Third Corps under Birney, and against the Eleventh Corps under Howard.

The object of this heavy artillery fire was to break up our lines and prepare the way for Pickett's charge.

The exigencies of the battle had caused the First Corps to be divided, Wadsworth's division being on the right at Culp's Hill, Robinson on Gibbon's right, and my own division intervening between Caldwell on the left and Gibbon on the right.

The convex shape of our line did not give us as much space as that of the enemy, but General Hunt, Chief of Artillery, promptly posted eighty guns along the crest--as many as it would hold--to answer the fire, and the batteries on both sides suffered severely in the two hours' cannonade.