Eyes immovably fastened.

>One eyewitness to this important battle [**Battle of Gettysburg**] was newspaper reporter Samuel Wilkeson. His description of the Confederate bombardment just prior to [Major General George E. Pickett](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/GeorgePickett.jpeg)’s suicidal charge on July 3, 1863 – the final fay of the three-day battle – appeared in *The New York Times* a few days later. Lying next to him as he wrote was the body of his own son, Lieutenant Bayard Wilkeson, who had been killed in the first day of the battle. >>Who can write the history of a battle whose eyes are immovably fastened upon a central figure of transcendingly absorbing interest – the dead body of an oldest born, crushed by a shell in a position where a battery should never have been sent, and abandoned to death in a building where surgeons dared not to stay?... ______________________ **Source:** Stephens, John Richard. “Eyewitness Reports.” *Weird History 101: Tales of Intrigue, Mayhem, and Outrageous Behavior*. New York: Barnes & Noble, 2006. 17. Print. ______________________ **Further Reading:** [Battle of Gettysburg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gettysburg) [Samuel Wilkeson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Wilkeson) [Confederate States of America / Confederacy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_States_of_America) [George Edward Pickett](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Pickett)