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Title: The Battle of Gettysburg, 1863

Author: Samuel Adams Drake

Release date: July 26, 2015 [eBook #49530]

Language: English

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       *       *       *       *       *




WORKS BY SAMUEL ADAMS DRAKE


  =OLD LANDMARKS AND HISTORIC PERSONAGES
  OF BOSTON.= Illustrated                         $2.00

  =OLD LANDMARKS AND HISTORIC FIELDS OF
  MIDDLESEX.= Illustrated                          2.00

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  Tourist's Edition                                3.00

  =AROUND THE HUB.= A Boy's Book about Boston.
  Illustrated                                      1.50

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  Illustrated                                      2.00

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  =THE MAKING OF THE GREAT WEST=                   1.75

  =OLD BOSTON TAVERNS.= Paper                       .50

  =BURGOYNE'S INVASION OF 1777=                     .50

  =THE TAKING OF LOUISBURG=                         .50

  _Any book on the above list sent by mail, postpaid, on receipt
  of price, by_

  LEE AND SHEPARD, BOSTON

[Illustration: GEORGE GORDON MEADE]




  Decisive Events in American History

  THE

  BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG

  1863

  BY

  SAMUEL ADAMS DRAKE

  AUTHOR OF "BURGOYNE'S INVASION," "TAKING OF
  LOUISBURG," ETC.

  "The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here"

  ABRAHAM LINCOLN

  BOSTON
  LEE AND SHEPARD PUBLISHERS
  10 MILK STREET
  1892




  Copyright, 1891
  By LEE AND SHEPARD

  THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG


  PRESS OF
  Rockwell and Churchill
  BOSTON




CONTENTS.


  CHAPTER                                   PAGE
     I. GETTYSBURG                             9

    II. THE MARCH INTO PENNSYLVANIA           23

   III. FIRST EFFECTS OF THE INVASION         34

    IV. REYNOLDS                              46

     V. THE FIRST OF JULY                     60

    VI. CEMETERY HILL                         81

   VII. THE SECOND OF JULY                    97

  VIII. THE SECOND OF JULY--_continued_      112

    IX. THE THIRD OF JULY                    132

     X. THE RETREAT                          150

    XI. THINGS BY THE WAY                    160




THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG

1863




I

Gettysburg[1]


[Sidenote: The Town.]

Stripped of the glamour which has made its every stick and stone an
object of eager curiosity or pious veneration, Gettysburg becomes
a very plain, matter-of-fact Pennsylvania town, of no particular
antiquity, with a very decided Dutch flavor in the names and on the
tongues of its citizens, where no great man has ever flourished, or
anything had happened to cause its own name to be noised abroad,
until one day in the eventful year 1863--the battle year--fame was
suddenly thrust upon it, as one might say, not for a day, but for
all time. The dead who sleep in the National Cemetery[2] here, or
who lie in unknown graves about the fields and woods, and counting
many times more than the living, help us to understand how much
greater was the battle of Gettysburg than the town which has given
it its name.

Gettysburg is the market town--or borough, accurately speaking--of
an exclusively farming population, planted in one of the most
productive sections of the Keystone State. It is the seat of justice
of the county. It has a seminary and college of the German Lutheran
Church, which give a certain tone and cast to its social life. In
short, Gettysburg seems in all things so entirely devoted to the
pursuits of peace, there is so little that is suggestive of war and
bloodshed, even if time had not mostly effaced all traces of that
gigantic struggle,[3] that, coming as we do with one absorbing idea
in mind, we find it hard to reconcile the facts of history with the
facts as we find them.

[Sidenote: The Landscape.]

There is another side to Gettysburg--a picturesque, a captivating
side. One looks around upon the landscape with simple admiration.
One's highest praise comes from the feeling of quiet satisfaction
with which the harmony of nature reveals the harmony of God. You
are among the subsiding swells that the South Mountain has sent
rippling off to the east. So completely is the village hid away
among these green swells that neither spire nor steeple is seen
until, upon turning one of the numerous low ridges by which the
face of the country is so cut up, you enter a valley, not deep,
but well defined by two opposite ranges of heights, and Gettysburg
lies gleaming in the declining sun before you--a picture to be long
remembered.

Its situation is charming. Here and there a bald ridge or wooded
hill, the name of which you do not yet know, is pushed or bristles
up above the undulating prairie-land, but there is not one really
harsh feature in the landscape. In full view off to the northwest,
but softened by the gauzy haze of a midsummer's afternoon, the
towering bulk of the South Mountain, vanguard of the serried chain
behind it, looms imposingly up between Gettysburg and the Cumberland
Valley, still beyond, in the west, as landmark for all the country
round, as well as for the great battlefield now spreading out its
long leagues before you; a monument more aged than the Pyramids,
which Napoleon, a supremely imaginative and magnetic man himself,
sought to invest with a human quality in the minds of his veterans,
when he said to them, "Soldiers! from the summits of yonder Pyramids
forty ages behold you." In short, the whole scene is one of such
quiet pastoral beauty, the village itself with its circlet of fields
and farms so free from every hint of strife and carnage, that
again and again we ask ourselves if it can be true that one of the
greatest conflicts of modern times was lost and won here.

Yet this, and this alone, is what has caused Gettysburg, the obscure
country village, to be inscribed on the same scroll with Blenheim,
and Waterloo, and Saratoga, as a decisive factor in the history of
the nations. Great deeds have lifted it to monumental proportions.
As Abraham Lincoln so beautifully said when dedicating the National
Cemetery here, "The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here
have consecrated it far above our power to add or detract. The world
will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can
never forget what they did here."

Those noble words ought to be the guiding inspiration of every one
who intends adding his own feeble impressions of this great battle
to what has been said before.

[Sidenote: Strategic Importance.]

[Sidenote: Playing at Blind-Man's-Buff.]

The strategic importance that Gettysburg suddenly assumed during
Lee's invasion of Pennsylvania, in July, 1863, first demands a
little of our attention. Yet it seems certain that neither Meade nor
Lee had thought of it as a possible battle-ground until accident
thrust it upon them. At his first setting out on this campaign Lee
had not been able to say, with the map before him, "I will fight
a battle either in this or that place," because he had marched
not toward, but away from, his adversary, and, so far as can be
known, without choosing beforehand a position where Meade would
have to come and attack him. For his part, so long as Meade was
only following Lee about, the Union general cannot be said to have
had much voice in the matter. It was Lee who was really directing
Meade's march. True enough, Meade did select a battlefield, but
not here, at Gettysburg; nor do we know, nor would it be useful to
inquire, whether Lee could have been induced to fight just where
Meade wanted him to. As Lee fought at Gettysburg only because he
was struck, it is probably beyond any man's power to say that if
this had not happened, as it did, Lee would have marched on toward
Baltimore, knowing that Meade's army lay intrenched in his path.
There is a homely maxim running to the effect that you can lead
a horse to water, but cannot make him drink. The two generals,
therefore, merely launched their columns out hit or miss, like men
playing at blind-man's-buff.

Gettysburg lies at the apex of a triangle of which Harrisburg and
Baltimore form the base angles, at north and south--Harrisburg being
only thirty-six and Baltimore about fifty miles distant. York and
Carlisle also lie either on or so near this triangle as to come
within its scope as a basis for military operations. Placed at
Gettysburg, an army threatened all of these points.

[Illustration: Diagram showing strategic value of Gettysburg.
H., Harrisburg; G., Gettysburg; P., Philadelphia; Y., York; B.,
Baltimore; W., Washington.]

[Sidenote: Topographical Features.]

[Sidenote: Baltimore and Taneytown Roads.]

[Sidenote: Cemetery Hill.]

From a military point of view there are but two features about
Gettysburg on which the eye would long rest. These are the two
ridges, with a broad valley between, heaved up at east and west and
running off south of the town. They stand about a mile apart, though
the distance is sometimes less than that. As it nears Gettysburg
the easternmost ridge glides down, by a gentle slope, into what
may be called a plain, in comparison with the upheavals around it,
although it is by no means a dead level. Yet it is open because
the ridges themselves have stopped short here, forming headlands,
so to speak, above the lower swells. On coming down off this ridge
the descent is seen to be quite easy--in fact, two roads ascend
it by so gradual a rise that the notion of its being either high
or steep is quite lost, and you are ready to discard off-hand any
preconceived notion about its being a natural stronghold. It is
mostly on this slope that Gettysburg is built, its houses extending
well up toward the brow, and its cemetery occupying the brow itself.
Hence, although the centre of Gettysburg may be three-fourths of a
mile from the cemetery gate, the town site is in fact but a lower
swell of the historic ridge which has since taken the name of its
graveyard--Cemetery Ridge.

[Sidenote: Seminary Ridge.]

Across this valley, again, the western ridge, which looks highest
from the town, has what Cemetery Hill has not, namely, a thin fringe
of trees skirting its entire crest, thus effectually masking the
view in that direction; and it is further distinguished by the
cupola of the Lutheran Seminary,[4] seen rising above trees at a
point opposite the town, and giving its name to this ridge--Seminary
Ridge. Both ranges of heights are quite level at the top, and easily
traversed; so also the slopes of both are everywhere easy of ascent,
the ground between undulating, but nowhere, except far down the
valley, badly cut up by ravines or watercourses. Indeed, better
ground for a fair stand-up fight it would be hard to find; for all
between the two ridges is so clear and open that neither army could
stir out toward its opponent without being detected at once--the
extreme southern part of the valley excepted. In this respect I take
the liberty of observing that the actual state of things proved very
different from that conveyed in some of the published accounts,
wherein Cemetery Ridge is represented as a sort of Gibraltar.

A very brief survey, however, suggests that an army could be
perfectly hid behind the trees of Seminary Ridge, as well as better
sheltered from artillery fire, while one stretched out along the
bare and treeless summit of Cemetery Ridge would be without such
screen or protection.

The description must be a little farther pursued, if the battle is
to be at all intelligently followed.

Enough for the two main ridges enclosing Gettysburg and its valley.
We come now to that most striking feature of the landscape, notably
on the side of Cemetery Ridge, but more or less characteristic of
both sides of the valley. This is the group of hills standing off
from Cemetery Ridge at either end, just as if, at some remote time,
this ridge had formed a continuous chain, the summits of which
had been cleanly shaved off at the centre, leaving these isolated
clusters to show where the wasting forces had passed. From different
points of view we may see one or both of them rising above the
ridge like giant watch-towers set at the extremities of some high
embattled wall.

[Sidenote: Culp's Hill.]

[Sidenote: Rock Creek.]

Let us first take the northernmost cluster, formed of Wolf's,
McAllister's, and Culp's hills. It is seen to be thrown back behind
Cemetery Hill, to which Culp's Hill alone is slenderly attached by a
low ridge, so making an elbow with it, or, in the military phrase, a
refused line. Between Culp's Hill and Wolf's Hill flows Rock Creek,
the shallow stream so often mentioned in connection with the battle,
its course lying through a shaggy ravine.[5] The ravine and stream
of Rock Creek threw Wolf's Hill somewhat out of the true line of
defence, but the merest novice in military art sees at a glance why
the possession of Culp's Hill was all-essential to the security of
Cemetery Hill, since there is little use in shutting the front door
if the back door is to be left standing open.

[Sidenote: The Round Tops.]

[Sidenote: The Devil's Den.]

The same is just as true of the southernmost group, composed of
Little and Great Round Tops, two exceedingly picturesque summits,
standing up above the generally monotonous contours about them in
strong relief. They also were wooded from base to summit, and they
show, even more distinctly than the first group, where the crushing
out or denuding forces have been at work, in shelves or crevices of
broken ledge at the highest points, in ugly bowlders cropping out on
the slopes, in miry gullies crawling at their feet, but most of all
in the deformed heap of ripped-up ledges, topped with coppices and
scattered trees, thrust out from Little Round Top and known as the
Devil's Den.[6]

When it is added that the way is open between the two Round Tops to
the rear of Cemetery Ridge, the importance of holding them firmly
becomes self-evident; and inasmuch as the greatest natural strength
of this ridge lay at its extremities, or flanks, _so its weakness
would result from a neglect to occupy those flanks_.

[Sidenote: The Swale.]

This line was assailable at one other point. As it approaches Little
Round Top the ridge sinks away to the general level around it, or so
as to break its continuity, thus leaving a gap more or less inviting
the approach of an enemy. The whole extent of this crooked line, at
which we have just glanced, is about two and a half miles.

[Sidenote: Emmettsburg Road.]

Down below, in the valley, there is another swell of ground, hardly
worth dignifying by the name of ridge, yet assuming a certain
importance, nevertheless, first because it starts from the town
close under Cemetery Hill, thence crossing the valley diagonally
till it becomes merged in Seminary Ridge, at a point nearly opposite
to the Round Tops, and next because the Emmettsburg road runs on
it. In brief, its relation to the battle was this: it ran from the
Union right into the Confederate right, so traversing the entire
front of both armies. It had an important part to play in the second
day's battle, as we shall soon see, for, though occupying three
days, Gettysburg was but a series of combats in which neither army
employed its whole force at any one time.

  [1] Gettysburg is the county seat of Adams County; is one hundred
  and fourteen miles west of Philadelphia. Pennsylvania College is
  located here.

  [2] The National Cemetery was dedicated by Abraham Lincoln, Nov.
  19, 1863; it is a place of great and growing interest and beauty.
  The National Monument standing on this ground, where sleeps
  an army, was dedicated by General Meade in 1869. The monument
  itself was designed by J. G. Batterson, of Hartford, Conn., the
  statuary by Randolph Rogers. In 1872 the cemetery was transferred
  to the national government. A large part of the adjoining ridge
  is in charge of the Gettysburg Battlefield Memorial Association,
  a corporation formed under the laws of Pennsylvania for the
  preservation of the field and its landmarks. No other battle-ground
  was ever so distinctly marked or so easily traced as this.

  [3] Shells remain sticking in the walls of some buildings yet. A
  memorial stone at the steps in front of the Lutheran church, on
  Chambersburg street, indicates the spot where Chaplain Howell, of
  the 90th Pennsylvania Volunteers, was shot dead while entering the
  church, then being used as a hospital.

  [4] The Lutheran Seminary was used both as a hospital and
  observatory by the Confederates. Lee's headquarters were in a little
  stone house quite near the seminary buildings, which are not more
  than half a mile from the centre of Gettysburg.

  [5] In 1863 all these hills were much more densely wooded than now,
  so forming an impenetrable screen to their defenders.

  [6] The bowlder-strewn strip of ground lying between Devil's Den and
  Little Round Top is the most impressive part of the field, I think.




II

THE MARCH INTO PENNSYLVANIA


[Sidenote: Lee in Maryland.]

It is in no way essential to relate in detail how Lee's army,
slipping away from ours on the Rappahannock,[7] and after brushing
out of its path our troops posted in the Shenandoah Valley, had been
crossing the Potomac into Maryland since the 21st of June, by way of
the Cumberland Valley, without firing a shot.[8]

[Sidenote: His Bold Strategy.]

A very unusual thing in war it is to see an army which has just
been acting strictly on the defensive suddenly elude its adversary
for the purpose of carrying the war into that enemy's country! It
marks a new epoch in the history of that war, and it supposes wholly
altered conditions. In this particular instance Lee's moves were so
bold as almost to savor of contempt.

It is enough to know that Lee was now in Pennsylvania, at the head
of seventy thousand men, before our army reached the Potomac in
pursuit of him, if following at a respectful distance be called a
pursuit.

[Sidenote: State of his Army.]

At no period of the war, their own officers said, had the
Confederates been so well equipped, so well clothed, so eager
for a fight, or so confident of success; and we may add our own
conclusions, that never before had this army taken the field so
strong in numbers, or with such a powerful artillery.[9]

[Sidenote: Superiority as Marksmen.]

The infantry were armed with Enfield rifles, fresh from British
workshops, and it is probable that no equal number of men ever knew
how to use them better. Indeed, we consider it indisputable that
the Confederates greatly excelled the Union soldiers as marksmen.
Most of them were accustomed to the use of firearms from boyhood; in
some sections they were noted for their skill with the rifle. The
Confederates, therefore, were nearly always good shots before they
went into the army, while the Union soldiers mostly had to acquire
what skill they could after going into the ranks. In the South the
habit of carrying arms was almost universal: in the North it was not
only unusual, but unpopular as well as unlawful.

[Sidenote: Superiority in Cavalry.]

Man for man, the Confederate cavalry was also superior to the Union
horse, because in one section riding is a custom, in the other a
pastime rarely indulged in. Consequently, it took months to teach
a Union cavalryman how to ride,--a costly experiment when your
adversary is already prepared,--whereas if there is anything a
Southerner piques himself upon, it is his horsemanship.[10]

[Sidenote: Cavalry Advance.]

[Sidenote: Cumberland Valley raided.]

Lee's cavalry had preceded the infantry by nearly a week, reaching
Chambersburg on the 16th, seizing horses and provisions for the use
of the army behind them, and spreading consternation to the gates of
Harrisburg itself. Having loaded themselves with plunder unopposed,
they then fell back upon the main army, thus leaving it in some
doubt whether this raid accomplished all it designed, or was only
the prelude to something for which it was serving as a mask.[11]

[Sidenote: Ewell at Chambersburg.]

[Sidenote: Hood's Soldiers.]

All doubts were set at rest, however, when, on the 23d, Ewell's
dust-begrimed infantry came tramping into Chambersburg, regiment
after regiment, hour after hour, until the streets fairly swarmed
with them. Though the houses were shut up, a few citizens were in
the streets, or looking out of their windows at the passing show,
as men might at the gathering of a storm-cloud about to burst with
destructive fury upon them; and though the time was hardly one for
merriment, we are assured that some of these lookers-on could not
refrain from "pointing and laughing at Hood's ragged Jacks" as
they marched along to the tune of "Dixie's Land." "This division,"
remarks the partial narrator, "well known for its fighting
qualities, is composed of Texans, Alabamians, and Arkansians, and
they certainly are a queer lot to look at. They carry less than any
other troops; many of them have only got an old piece of carpet
or rug as baggage; many have discarded their shoes in the mud;
all are ragged and dirty, but full of good-humor and confidence
in themselves and their general.[12] They answered the numerous
taunts of the Chambersburg ladies with cheers and laughter." To
the scowling citizens the Confederates would call out from the
ranks, "Well, Yank, how far to Harrisburg? How far to Baltimore?
What's the charge at the Continental?" or some such innocuous bits
of irony as came into heads turned, no doubt, at the thought of
standing unchallenged on Northern soil, where nothing but themselves
recalled war or its terrors, or at sight of the many evidences of
comfort and thrift to which they themselves were strangers. But we
shall meet these exultant ragamuffins ere long under far different
circumstances.

This was Lee's corps of observation, destined to do most of the hard
marching and fighting which usually falls to the lot of the cavalry,
as it was mostly composed of old, well-seasoned soldiers, who had
been accustomed, under the lead of Jackson, to win their victories
largely with their legs. Part marched through the town, and went
into camp on the Carlisle road, part occupied the pike leading
toward Gettysburg; sentries were posted in the streets, a military
commandant was appointed, and for the time being Chambersburg fell
wholly under rebel rule, which, so long as it remained the army
headquarters, we are bound to say does not appear to have been more
onerous than circumstances would warrant.

[Sidenote: Main Army comes up.]

Ewell's corps was followed, at one day's march, by the main body,
comprising Hill's and Longstreet's corps, with whom marched Lee
himself, the man on whom all eyes, North and South, were now turned.

[Sidenote: Ewell to Carlisle.]

[Sidenote: Early to York.]

As soon as the main body had come up Ewell moved straight on toward
Carlisle and Harrisburg with two divisions, while his third turned
off to the east, toward York, with the view of drawing attention
away from the main object by seeming to threaten Baltimore or
Philadelphia.[13] It was to strike the Susquehanna at Columbia, and
get possession of the railway bridge there, as a means of passing
over to the north side of that river to Harrisburg.

[Sidenote: Early at Gettysburg.]

This division (Early's) passed through Gettysburg on the 26th,[14]
reaching York the next day. On the 28th his advance arrived at the
Susquehanna too late to save the railway bridge from the flames.[15]
On this same day Ewell's advance encamped within four miles of
Harrisburg, where some skirmishing took place.

[Sidenote: Region seized by Lee.]

Here, then, was Lee firmly installed within striking distance of the
capital of the great Keystone State, and by no means at so great a
distance from Philadelphia or Washington as not to make his presence
felt in both cities at once.

If he had not come prepared to fight every soldier that the Federal
government could bring against him--to fight even against odds--what
was he doing here in the heart of Pennsylvania?

[Sidenote: Spirit of his Army.]

The army which followed Lee into Pennsylvania was brave and
devoted--none more so. It looked up to him with a species of
adoration, born of an abiding faith in his genius. Reasoning from
experience, the belief that it would continue to beat the Union army
was not unfounded. At any rate, it was universal. Thus led, and
imbued with such a spirit, no wonder the Confederate army considered
itself invincible.

Thus followed, Lee, or Uncle Robert, as he was familiarly called
by his soldiers, though no man could be more aristocratic in
his tastes or manners, was accustomed to exact greater efforts
from them, both in marching and fighting, than the Union generals
ordinarily could from their better-fed, better-clothed, and
better-disciplined troops.

[Sidenote: Lee's Portrait.]

A pen portrait of General Lee himself, as he appeared at this time,
seems necessary to the historical completeness of this sketch. It
is drawn by a British colonel,[16] on leave with Lee's army, where
he found himself quite at home. He says: "General Lee is, almost
without exception, the handsomest man of his age I ever saw. He
is fifty-six years old, tall, broad-shouldered, very well made,
well set up--a thorough soldier in appearance; and his manners are
courteous and full of dignity. He generally wears a well-worn long
gray jacket, a high black felt hat, and blue trousers tucked into
his Wellington boots. I never saw him carry arms, and the only marks
of military rank are the three stars on his collar. He rides a
handsome horse which is extremely well groomed. He himself is very
neat in his dress and person, and in the most arduous marches, as
after the retreat from Gettysburg, when everybody else looked and
was extremely dirty, he always looked smart and clean."

[Illustration: Positions, June 28th.]

In an order commending the behavior of his men while on the march,
Lee called attention to certain excesses which he declared his
intention of repressing in a summary manner.

The region to which the Confederate operations were now confined is
indicated by the accompanying map. It will be seen that Lee had not
hesitated to scatter his army considerably.

Leaving Ewell before Harrisburg, Early at York, and Lee himself at
Chambersburg, we will look first at the state of feeling brought
about by this daring invasion, which had been urged from Richmond
on the theory that _the road to peace lay through Pennsylvania, via
Washington_.

  [7] He withdrew two corps, by his left, to Culpepper, leaving one in
  the trenches of Fredericksburg. Had this corps been crushed while
  thus isolated, as it ought, Lee's invasion must have ended then and
  there.

  [8] A glance at the map shows how the northerly bend of the Potomac
  facilitated an invasion by this route. The outposts at Harper's
  Ferry and Winchester having been forced, there was nothing to stop
  the enemy's advance.

  [9] The Confederate army comprised three infantry corps, and one of
  cavalry. Each corps had three divisions, each division averaged a
  little over four brigades, of which there were thirty-seven present
  at Gettysburg. The British Colonel Freemantle, who accompanied
  Lee's army, puts the strength of these brigades at two thousand
  eight hundred men each. The relative strength of the army corps was
  more nearly equal than in those of the Union army. The Confederates
  brought with them two hundred and seventy pieces of artillery.

  [10] The main body, under Stuart, had gone around the rear of the
  Union army, by Lee's permission, in the expectation of harassing it
  while on the march, and of then rejoining Ewell, on the Susquehanna.
  It failed to do either, and many attribute all of Lee's misfortunes
  in this campaign to the absence of Stuart.

  [11] Jenkins, who commanded, was paid in his own coin at
  Chambersburg, by the proffer of Confederate scrip in payment for
  some alleged stolen horses. He himself had been professedly paying
  for certain seized property in this same worthless scrip.

  [12] Contrast this with the generous, even prodigal, way the Union
  soldiers were provided for, and who can doubt the devotion of these
  ragged Confederates to their cause?

  [13] So long as this division remained at York, the question as to
  where Lee meant to concentrate would be still further confused. See
  diagram.

  [14] Early levied a contribution on the borough, which the town
  council evaded by pleading poverty.

  [15] A small Union force which had been holding the bridge set it on
  fire on the approach of the Confederates.

  [16] This was Colonel Freemantle, who has a good word for everything
  Confederate. On being courteously received within the Union lines
  after Gettysburg, he was much surprised to find that the officers
  were gentlemen.




III

FIRST EFFECTS OF THE INVASION


Meantime, from before and behind the Confederate columns, two
streams flowed out of the doomed valley: one to the north, an army
of fugitives hurrying their flocks, herds, and household goods out
of the enemy's reach; the other carrying off to Virginia the plunder
of towns and villages.

[Sidenote: Harrisburg alarmed.]

As the swarm of fugitives made straight for Harrisburg, it was
but natural that the inpouring of such panic-stricken throngs,
all declaring that the enemy was close behind them, should throw
that city into the wildest commotion, which every hour tended to
increase. We will let an eye-witness describe the events of a single
day.

"The morning broke upon a populace all astir, who had been called
out of bed by the beat of the alarming drum, the blast of the bugle,
and the clanging of bells. The streets were lively with men, who
were either returning from a night's work on the fortifications or
going over to relieve those who were toiling there. As the sun rose
higher the excitement gathered head. All along the streets were
omnibuses, wagons, and wheelbarrows, taking in trunks and valuables
and rushing them down to the dépôt to be shipped out of rebel
range. The stores, the female seminaries, and almost every private
residence were busy all of the forenoon in swelling the mountain
of freight that lay at the dépôt. Every horse was impressed into
service and every porter groaned beneath his burdens.

[Sidenote: People desert the City.]

"The scene at the dépôts was indescribable, if not disgraceful. A
sweltering mass of humanity thronged the platforms, all furious to
escape from the doomed city. At the bridge and across the river
the scene was equally exciting. All through the day a steady
stream of people, on foot and in wagons, young and old, black and
white, was pouring across it from the Cumberland Valley, bearing
with them their household goods and live-stock. Endless trains,
laden with flour, grain, and merchandise, hourly emerged from the
valley and thundered across the bridge and through the city. Miles
of retreating baggage-wagons, filled with calves and sheep tied
together, and great, old-fashioned furnace-wagons loaded with tons
of trunks and boxes, defiled in continuous procession down the 'pike
and across the river, raising a dust as far as the eye could see."

[Sidenote: Precautions taken.]

It may be added that the records of the State and the money in
the bank-vaults were also removed to places of safety, and the
construction of defensive works was begun, as much, perhaps, with
the purpose of allaying the popular excitement as from any hope of
holding the city against Lee, since Harrisburg was in no condition
either to stand a siege or repel an assault at this time.

[Sidenote: Militia hurried to Harrisburg.]

The wave of invasion made itself felt even as far as Pittsburg
on the one side and Baltimore on the other.[17] Governor Curtin
promptly called on the people of Pennsylvania to arm and repel the
invader. Yet neither the imminence of the danger nor the stirring
appeal of the executive of the State could arouse them at first. In
the emergency the neighboring States were appealed to for help. In
response the militia of those States were soon hastening toward the
threatened points[18] by every available route; yet it was only too
evident that raw soldiers, no matter how zealous or patriotic, would
prove little hinderance to Lee's marching where he would, or long
dispute with his veterans the possession of Harrisburg were it once
seriously attacked.

But where was the army of the Potomac all this time--the army whose
special task it was to stand between this invader and his prey? Must
unarmed citizens be called upon to arise and defend their homes when
a hundred thousand veterans were in the field?

[Sidenote: Lee mystified.]

[Sidenote: His Cavalry absent.]

For more than a week Lee had thus been laying waste a most rich and
fertile section of Pennsylvania at his leisure. Practically, indeed,
the whole State was in his grasp. Would Harrisburg or Philadelphia
be the first fruits of his audacity? The prize was indeed tempting,
the way open. The only real impediment was the Army of the Potomac,
and Lee, too, was now anxiously asking himself what had become of
that army.[19] He had foreseen that it must follow him up; that
every effort would be bent to compass his destruction; and it was
a foregone conclusion that he must fight somewhere, if there was
either enterprise or courage left on the Union side. He had even
calculated on drawing the Union army so far away from fortified
places that its defeat would ensure the fall of Baltimore and
Washington. But as regarding its whereabouts at the present moment,
Lee was completely in the dark. In an evil hour he had allowed the
bulk of his cavalry to run off on a wild-goose chase around the
rear of the Federal army, so that now, in his hour of need, though
without his knowing it, the whole Federal army interposed to prevent
its return.[20] It is quite true that up to this time Stuart, who
led this cavalry, had given so many signal proofs of his dexterity
that Lee was perhaps justified in inferring that if he heard nothing
from Stuart, it was because the Union army was still in Virginia.
And in that belief he was acting.

[Sidenote: Among Spies.]

Moreover, instead of being among a population eager to give him
every scrap of information, Lee was now among one where every man,
woman, and child was a spy on his own movements. In the absence,
then, of definite knowledge touching the Union army, he decided
to march on Harrisburg with his whole force, and issued orders
accordingly.

[Sidenote: Union Army crosses the Potomac.]

When there was no longer a shadow of doubt that Lee's whole army was
on the march up the Cumberland Valley, sweeping that valley clean as
it went, the Union army also crossed the Potomac, on the 25th and
26th of June, and at once began moving up east of South Mountain, so
as to discharge the double duty laid upon it all along of keeping
between the enemy and Washington, while at the same time feeling for
him through the gaps of South Mountain as it marched. For this task
the Union general kept his cavalry well in hand, instead of letting
it roam about at will in quest of adventures.

[Sidenote: Hooker's Plan.]

This order of march threw the left wing out as far as Boonsborough
and Middletown, with Buford's cavalry division watching the passes
by which the enemy would have to defile, should he think of making
an attack from that flank.[21] The rest of the army was halted,
for the moment, around Frederick. The plan of operations, as first
fixed, did not lack in boldness or originality. It was to follow Lee
up the Cumberland Valley with two corps, numbering twenty thousand
men, while the rest of the army should continue its march toward
the enemy on the east side of South Mountain, but within supporting
distance. As this would be doing just what Lee[22] had most reason
to dread, it would seem most in accordance with the rules of war. At
any rate, it initiated a vigorously aggressive campaign.

At this critical moment the Union army was, most unexpectedly,
deprived of its head.

[Sidenote: Hooker is thwarted.]

In its pursuit of Lee this army had been much hampered by divided
counsels, when, if ever united counsels were imperatively called
for, now was the time. Worse still, it had too many commanders,
both civil and military. The President, the Cabinet, the
General-in-Chief (Halleck), and even some others, in addition
to the actual commander, not to speak of the newspapers, had all
taken turns in advising or suggesting what should, or what should
not, be done. United action, sincere and generous co-operation,
as between government and army, were therefore unattainable here.
The government did not trust its general: the general respected
the generalship of the Cabinet most when it was silent. Nobody in
authority seemed willing to grant Hooker what he asked for, let it
be ever so reasonable, or permit him to carry out his own plans
unobstructed, were they ever so promising or brilliant. He could not
get the fifteen or twenty thousand soldiers who were then dawdling
about the camps at Baltimore, Washington, and Alexandria. He was
brusquely snubbed when he asked for leave to break up the post at
Harper's Ferry, when by doing so ten thousand good troops would have
been freed to act against the enemy's line of retreat.

Harmony being impossible, Lee seemed likely to triumph through the
dissensions of his enemies.

[Sidenote: And leaves the Army.]

Mortified at finding himself thus distrusted and overruled, Hooker
threw up the command on the 27th, and on the 28th General Meade
succeeded him. So suddenly was the change brought about, that when
the officer bearing the order awakened Meade out of a sound sleep at
midnight, he thought he was being put in arrest.

[Sidenote: Spirit of the Army.]

It is asserted by those who had the best means of knowing--indeed,
it is difficult to see how it could be otherwise--that the army had
lost faith in Hooker, and that the men were asking of each other,
"Are we going to have another Chancellorsville?" Be that as it
may, there were few better soldiers in that army than Meade; none,
perhaps, so capable of uniting it at this particular juncture, when
unity was so all-important and yet so lamentably deficient. This
was the third general the army had known within six months, and the
seventh since its formation. It was truly the graveyard of generals;
and each of the disgraced commanders had his following. If, under
these conditions, the Army of the Potomac could still maintain its
efficiency unimpaired, it must have been made of different stuff
from most armies.

It was not that the Union soldiers feared to meet Lee's veterans.
Lee might beat the generals, but the soldiers--never! Yet it can
hardly be doubted that repeated defeat had more or less unsettled
their faith in their leaders, if not in themselves; since even the
gods themselves struggle in vain against stupidity.[23]

[Sidenote: General Meade.]

If the new appointment did not silence all jealousies among the
generals, or infuse great enthusiasm into the rank and file,--and we
are bound to admit that Meade's was not a name to conjure with,--it
is difficult to see how a better selection could have been made, all
things considered. In point of fact, there was no one of commanding
ability to appoint; but every man in the army felt that Meade would
do his best, and that Meade at his best would not fall far behind
the best in the field.

Meade could not become the idol of his soldiers, like Lee, because
he was not gifted by nature with that personal magnetism which
attracts men without their knowing why; but he could and did command
unhesitating obedience and respect.

[Sidenote: Best-disciplined Army.]

In point of discipline, however, the Union army was vastly the
superior of its adversary, and that counts for much; and in spite of
some friction here and there, like a well-oiled machine the army was
now again in motion, with a cool head and steady hand to guide it
on. But as no machine is stronger than its weakest part, it remained
to be seen how this one would bear the strain.

Thus a triumphant and advancing enemy was being followed by a beaten
and not over-confident one, its wounds scarcely healed,[24] not
much stronger than its opponent, and led by a general new to his
place, against the greatest captain of the Confederacy. How could
the situation fail to impose caution upon a general so fully and so
recently impressed with the consequences of taking a false step?
Meade's every move shows that from the beginning this thought was
uppermost in his mind.

With the effects of Lee's simple presence thus laid before us,
it is entirely safe to ask what should have stopped this general
from dictating his own terms of peace, either in Philadelphia
or Baltimore, provided he could first beat the Union army in
Pennsylvania?

  [17] At Pittsburg defensive works were begun. In Philadelphia
  all business was suspended, and work vigorously pushed on the
  fortifications begun in the suburbs. At Baltimore the impression
  prevailed that Lee was marching on that city. The alarm bells were
  rung, and the greatest consternation prevailed.

  [18] A great lukewarmness in the action of the people of
  Pennsylvania is testified to on all sides. See Professor Jacobs'
  "Rebel Invasion," etc. About sixteen thousand men of the New York
  State militia were sent to Harrisburg between the 16th of June and
  the 3d of July; also several thousand from New Jersey (but ordered
  home on the 22d). General Couch was put in command of the defences
  of Harrisburg.

  [19] Hooker would not cross the Potomac until assured that Lee's
  whole army was across. He kept the Blue Ridge between himself and
  Lee in obedience to his orders to keep Washington covered.

  [20] The presence of Lee's cavalry would have allowed greater
  latitude to his operations, distressed the Pennsylvanians more, and
  enabled Lee to select his own fighting-ground.

  [21] So long as these passes were securely held, Lee would be shut
  up in his valley.

  [22] Open to serious objections; but then, so are all plans. Tied
  down by his orders, Hooker would have taken some risks for the sake
  of some great gains. By closing every avenue of escape, it would
  have ensured Lee's utter ruin, provided he could have been as badly
  beaten as at Gettysburg.

  [23] This feeling was so well understood at Washington that a report
  was spread among the soldiers that McClellan, their old commander,
  was again leading them, and the report certainly served its purpose.

  [24] The army was not up to its highest point of efficiency. It
  had just lost fifty-eight regiments by expiration of service. This
  circumstance was known to Lee. The proportion of veterans was not
  so great as in the Confederate army, or the character of the new
  enlistments as high as in 1861 and 1862.




IV

REYNOLDS


[Sidenote: Meade's Problem].

The problem presented to Meade's mind, on taking command, was this:
What are the enemy's plans, and where shall I strike him? He knew
that part of Lee's army was at Chambersburg, part at Carlisle, and
part at York. Was it Lee's purpose to concentrate his army upon the
detachment at York or upon that at Carlisle, or would he draw these
two detachments back into the Cumberland Valley, there to play a
merely defensive game? Should the junction be at Carlisle, it would
mean an attack on Harrisburg: if at York, or at some point between
the main body and York, it would indicate an advance in force toward
Philadelphia, Baltimore, or Washington. As all these things were
possible, all must be duly weighed and guarded against. With a wily,
brave, and confident enemy before him, Meade did not find himself
on a bed of roses, truly; and he may well be pardoned the remark
attributed to him when ordered to take the command, that he was
being led to execution.

Meade needed no soothsayer to tell him that if Lee crossed the
mountains, it would be because he meant to fight his way toward his
object through every obstacle.

What was that object?

In answering this question the political considerations must be
first weighed. In short, the purpose--the great purpose--of the
invasion must be penetrated. That being done, the military problem
would easily solve itself.

It was not to be supposed that Lee had invaded Pennsylvania solely
for the purpose of taking a few small towns, or even a large one,
like Harrisburg, or of filling up his depleted magazines. He was
evidently after larger game. His ultimate aim, clearly, was to
capture Washington, as a signal defeat of the Union army would
easily enable him to do. It would crown the campaign brilliantly,
would fulfil the hopes, and beyond doubt or cavil ensure the
triumph, of the Confederacy. It is true that Meade's orders held
him down to a defence of the national capital first and foremost;
in no sense, then, was he the master of his own acts: yet he
showed none the less sagacity, we think, in concluding that Lee
would presently be found on the east side of the mountains, and in
preparing to meet him there, not astride the mountains as Hooker had
proposed doing, but with his whole army more within his reach. Meade
was prudent. He would err, if at all, on that side; yet the result
vindicated his judgment sooner than was thought for.

This being settled, there still remained the question of relieving
Pennsylvania. The enemy's presence there was an indignity keenly
enough felt on all sides, but to none was it such a home-thrust as
to the Pennsylvanians in the Union army, at the head of whom was
Meade himself.[25]

[Sidenote: Meade's Plans.]

Though Hooker's plan promised excellent results here, Meade was
fearful lest Lee should cross the Susquehanna, and take Harrisburg
before he could be stopped. To prevent this the army must be
pushed forward. Meade, therefore, at once drew back the left wing
toward Frederick, thus giving up that plan in favor of one which
he himself had formed; namely, of throwing the army out more to
the northeast, the better to cover Baltimore from attack, should
that be Lee's purpose, as Meade more than suspected. Selecting
Westminster, therefore, as his base from this time forth, and the
line of Big Pipe Creek, a little to the north of that place, as his
battle-ground, Meade now set most of the army in motion in that
direction, leaving Frederick to the protection of a rear-guard.

[Sidenote: Left Flank Forward.]

[Sidenote: Right Flank refused.]

The army now marched with its left wing thrown forward toward South
Mountain, Buford's cavalry toward Fairfield, to clear that flank,
the First and Eleventh Corps toward Emmettsburg, the Third and
Twelfth toward Middleburg, the Fifth to Taneytown, the Second to
Uniontown, and the Sixth, on the extreme right, to New Windsor.

Two other divisions of Union cavalry, Kilpatrick's and Gregg's,
marched one on the right flank, the other in front, with orders to
keep the front and flanks of the army well scouted and protected.

It will be seen from this order of march that, in proportion as
they went forward, Buford's cavalry, with the three infantry corps
forming the left wing, were approaching the enemy's main body at
Chambersburg. South Mountain was, therefore, the wall behind which
the two contending armies were playing at hide-and-seek.[26]

[Sidenote: Lee hears Meade is coming.]

Lee had only just given orders for his whole force to move on
Harrisburg, when, late in the night of the 28th, a scout brought
news to him of the Union army being across the Potomac, and on
the march toward South Mountain.[27] This report could not fail
to throw the Confederate headquarters into a fever of excitement,
ignorant to that hour of that army's being across the Potomac. The
mystery was cleared up at last. In a moment the plan of campaign
was changed.[28] Lee soon said to some of the officers about
him, "To-morrow, gentlemen, we will not move to Harrisburg as we
expected, but will go over to Gettysburg and see what General Meade
is about."

[Sidenote: March on Gettysburg begun.]

By placing himself on the direct road to Baltimore, Lee's purpose of
first drawing the Union army away from his line of retreat, and of
then assailing it on its own, stands fully revealed. The previous
orders were therefore countermanded on the spot. Hill and Longstreet
were ordered from Chambersburg to Gettysburg,[29] Ewell was called
back from Carlisle, and Early from York.

[Sidenote: Faulty Tactics.]

If Meade had known Lee's whereabouts, it is safe to assume that
the Union army would have been massed toward its left rather than
its right; and if Lee had been correctly informed on his part, it
is unlikely that he would have risked throwing his columns out at
random against the Union army, as he was now doing. Only the fatuity
of the Union generals saved Lee's vanguard on the 1st of July. Yet
he held the very important advantage of having already begun the
concentration of his army--an easy thing for him to do, inasmuch as
but one of his three corps was separated from the others--before
Meade discovered by chance what was so near proving his ruin. One
day's march would bring all three up within supporting distances,
two in position for giving battle.

[Sidenote: Confederate Positions June 29th.]

Heth's division of Hill's Corps got as far as Cashtown, eight miles
from Gettysburg, on the 29th; Rodes' division of Ewell's Corps
was coming down by the direct road from Carlisle, east of South
Mountain; Early's division of this corps began its march back
from York to Gettysburg on the morning of the 30th. These three
divisions, or one-third of Lee's whole army, therefore, formed the
enemy's vanguard which would first strike an approaching force. But,
as we have seen, the whole army was in march behind it, and by the
next day well closed up on the advance.

Leaving them to pursue their march, which was by no means hurried,
let us, to borrow Lee's very expressive phrase, "see what General
Meade was about."

[Sidenote: Union Positions June 30th.]

On the 29th all seven of the Union corps were advancing northward
like fingers spread apart, and exactly in an inverse order from
Lee's three, which were converging on the palm of the hand. On the
30th this divergent order of march continued to conduct the corps
still farther apart, with the result also, considering Gettysburg
as the ultimate point of concentration, that the bulk of the army
was away off to the right of Gettysburg.[30] Moreover, Meade's
efforts to get the army up to this position, or in front of his
chosen line of defence on Pipe Creek, had covered the roads with
stragglers, and compelled at least one corps to halt for nearly a
whole day.[31]

[Sidenote: Scattered Condition of the Army.]

It was not until nightfall of the 30th, or forty-eight hours after
it was begun, that Meade knew of the enemy's movement toward
Gettysburg; and even then he did not feel at all sure of having
detected the true point of concentration. Indeed, his want of
accurate information on this head seems surprising. By that time
his own army was stretched out from Emmettsburg, on the northwest,
to Manchester at the east, thus putting it out of Meade's power to
concentrate it at Gettysburg in one day. By endeavoring to cover
too much ground his army had been dangerously scattered. Even
without cavalry Lee had fairly stolen a march on him. And it is
not improbable that Hooker might now have been "shocked," in his
turn.[32]

[Sidenote: Union Left Wing in Advance.]

Our present business is now wholly with the left wing of the Union
army,--its right being quite out of reach--that is to say, with the
three infantry and one cavalry corps commanded by that thorough
soldier, so beloved by the whole army, General Reynolds, the actual
chief of the First Corps.

[Sidenote: Buford finds the Enemy.]

Buford had spent the 29th in scouring the passes of South Mountain
as far north as Monterey, without getting sight of the enemy,
however, until he halted for the night at Fountaindale, when he then
perceived the camp-fires of a numerous body of troops stretching
along in his front and lighting up the road toward Gettysburg.
Evidently they had just crossed South Mountain from the valley.

[Sidenote: He attacks.]

To Buford this sight was indeed as a ray of light in a dark place.
No friendly force could be in that quarter. He determined to know
who and what it was without loss of time. Before dawn his troopers
were again in the saddle. They soon fell in with a strong column
of infantry moving toward Gettysburg on the Fairfield (Hagerstown)
road. After exchanging a few shots, and having learned what he
wanted to know, Buford hastened back to Reynolds, at Emmettsburg,
with the news.

Reynolds immediately sent Buford back to Gettysburg, in order, if
possible, to head off the enemy before he should reach that place,
for which he was evidently making. A courier was also despatched to
headquarters. This was the first trustworthy intelligence of Lee's
movement to the east that Meade had thus far received. Could the
enemy be massing on his left? It certainly looked like it. After
this night there was only one word on the tongues of all men in that
army--Gettysburg! Gettysburg!

[Sidenote: Reynolds marches up.]

The First Corps, also marching for Gettysburg, went into camp some
five miles short of that town; the Eleventh lay at Emmettsburg; the
Third at Taneytown. It is with them alone that we shall have to deal
in what follows.

[Illustration: Positions, June 30th.]

[Sidenote: Pipe Creek.]

We have already seen that Meade had not designed advancing one
step farther than might be found effectual for turning Lee back
from overrunning the State. This was the first great object to
be attained. And this had now been done. To avoid being struck
from behind, Lee had been forced to halt, face about, and look for
a place to fight in. When the enemy should be fairly in motion
southward, Meade meant to take up the position along Pipe Creek,
and await an attack there. But he no longer had the disposing of
events. In order to gain this position now, Reynolds must have
fallen back one or two marches; nor could Meade know that Lee was
then coming half way to meet him; or that--strange confusion of
ideas!--Lee had promised his generals not to fight a pitched battle
except on ground of his own choosing; certainly not on one his
adversary had chosen for him; least of all where defeat would carry
down with it the cause of the Southern Confederacy itself.

[Sidenote: Reynolds.]

Reynolds, therefore, held the destinies of both armies in his
keeping on that memorable last night of June. He now knew that any
further advance on his part would probably result in bringing on
a combat--a combat, moreover, in which both armies might become
involved, for his military instinct truly foreshadowed what was
coming. There was still time to fall back on the main army, to avoid
an engagement. But Reynolds was not that kind of general. He was the
man of all others to whom the whole army had looked in the event
of Hooker's incapacity from any cause, as well as the first whom
the President had designed to replace him. He now shared Meade's
confidence to the fullest extent. He was a soldier of the finest
temper, a Pennsylvanian, like Meade himself, neither rash on the one
hand, nor weighed down by the feeling that he or his soldiers were
overmatched in any respect on the other. To him, at least, Lee was
no bugbear. Having come there expressly to find the enemy, he was
not going to turn his back now that the enemy was found. Reynolds
was, therefore, emphatically the man for the hour. He knew that
Meade would support him to the last man and the last cartridge. He
fall back? There was no such word in Reynolds' vocabulary. His order
was "Forward!"

So history has indissolubly linked together the names of Reynolds
and of Gettysburg, for had he decided differently there would have
been no battle of Gettysburg.

Thus it was that all through the silent watches of that moonlit
summer's night the roads leading to Gettysburg from north and south,
from east and west, were lighted up by a thousand camp-fires.
Without knowing it, the citizens of that peaceful village were
sleeping on a volcano.

  [25] Besides Meade, there were Hancock, Reynolds, and Humphreys--a
  triumvirate of some power with that army. Pennsylvania had also
  seventy-three regiments and five batteries with Meade.

  [26] While thus feeling for Lee along the mountain passes with his
  left hand, Meade was reaching out the right as far as possible
  toward the Susquehanna, or toward Early at York.

  [27] This was Longstreet's scout, Harrison. "He said there were
  three corps near Frederick when he passed there, one to the right
  and one to the left; but he did not succeed in getting the position
  of the other."--_Longstreet._

  [28] This shows how little foundation exists for the statements
  of the Comte de Paris and others that Hooker's strategy compelled
  Lee to cross the mountain, when it is clear that he knew nothing
  whatever of Hooker's intentions. This is concurred in by both Lee
  and Longstreet. Moreover, Hooker had scarcely put his strategy in
  effect when he was relieved.

  [29] In point of fact, the concentration was first ordered for
  Cashtown, "at the eastern base of the mountain."--_Lee._ Ewell
  and Hill took the responsibility of going on to Gettysburg, after
  hearing that the Union cavalry had been seen there.

  [30] On the night of June 30th, Meade's headquarters and the
  artillery reserve were at Taneytown, the First Corps at Marsh
  Run, Eleventh at Emmettsburg, Third at Bridgeport, Twelfth at
  Littlestown, Second at Uniontown, Fifth at Union Mills, Sixth and
  Gregg's Cavalry at Manchester, Kilpatrick's at Hanover--a line over
  thirty miles long.

  [31] By being compelled to ford streams without taking off shoes or
  stockings, the men's feet were badly blistered.

  [32] Upon taking command, Meade is said to have expressed himself as
  "shocked" at the scattered condition of the army.




V

THE FIRST OF JULY


[Sidenote: Buford.]

Since early in the afternoon of June 30th, the inhabitants of
Gettysburg had seen pouring through their village, taking position
on the heights that dominate it, and spreading themselves out over
all the roads leading into it from the west and north, squadron
after squadron of horse, dusty and travel-stained, but alert,
vigilant, and full of ardor at the prospect of coming to blows with
the enemy at last.

This was a portion of that splendid cavalry which, under the lead
of Pleasonton, Buford, Gregg, and Kilpatrick, at last disputed the
boasted superiority of Stuart's famous troopers. At last the Union
army had a cavalry force. These men formed the van of that army
which was pursuing Lee by forced marches for the purpose of bringing
him to battle.

[Sidenote: Oak Ridge.]

[Sidenote: Willoughby Run.]

Forewarned that he must look for the enemy to make his appearance
on the Chambersburg and Carlisle roads,[33] and feeling that there
was warm work ahead, Buford was keeping a good lookout in both
directions. To that end he had now taken post on a commanding ridge
over which these roads passed first to Seminary Ridge, and so back
into Gettysburg. First causing his troopers to dismount, he formed
them across the two roads in question in skirmishing order, threw
out his vedettes, planted his horse-artillery, and with the little
valley of Willoughby Run before him, the Seminary and Gettysburg
behind him, and the First Corps in bivouac only five miles away
toward Emmettsburg, this intrepid soldier calmly awaited the coming
of the storm, conscious that if Gettysburg was to be defended at all
it must be from these heights.

A pretty little valley was this of Willoughby Run, with its
green banks and clear-flowing waters, its tall woods and tangled
shrubbery, so soon to be torn and defaced by shot and shell, so soon
deformed by drifting smoke and the loud cries of the combatants.

The night passed off quietly. Nevertheless, some thirty thousand
Confederates, of all arms, were lying in camp within a radius of
eight miles from Gettysburg. Their vanguard had discovered the
presence of our cavalry,[34] and was waiting for the morning only to
brush it away.

[Sidenote: Heth comes down the Pike.]

Next morning Heth's division was marching down the Chambersburg
pike, looking for this cavalry, when its advance fell in with
Buford's vedettes. While they halted to reconnoitre, these vedettes
came back with the news that the enemy was advancing in force,
infantry and artillery filling the road as far as could be seen.
Warned that not a moment was to be lost, Buford at once sent off
word to Reynolds, who, after ordering the First Corps under arms,
and sending back for the Eleventh, himself set off at a gallop for
Gettysburg, followed only by his staff.

[Sidenote: He drives Buford.]

Buford's bold front had thus caused the enemy to come to a halt; but
soon after nine, supposing he had to do with cavalry alone, Heth
deployed his skirmishers across the pike, forming his two leading
brigades at each side of it; these troops then pushed forward, and
soon the crack of a musket announced that the battle of Gettysburg
had begun.

[Sidenote: Wadsworth comes to Buford's Aid.]

After an hour's stubborn fighting, Buford was being slowly but
surely pushed back over the first ridge, when a column of the
Union infantry was seen coming up the Emmettsburg road at the
double-quick. It was Wadsworth's division arriving in the nick of
time, as the enemy's skirmishers, followed by Archer's brigade,
were, even then, in the act of fording the run unopposed, and unless
promptly stopped would soon be in possession of the first range of
heights. It was really a neck-and-neck race to see who would get
there first.

[Sidenote: Reynolds forms the Division.]

[Sidenote: Charge of the Iron Brigade.]

[Sidenote: Reynolds falls.]

Reynolds was impatiently awaiting the arrival of his troops, who
were making across the fields for the ridge he was so desirous of
holding on the run. It was plain as day that he had determined to
contest the enemy's possession of Gettysburg here. Cutler's brigade
was the first to arrive. Hurrying this off to the right of the pike,
where it formed along the crest of the ridge under a shower of
balls, Reynolds ordered the next, as it came up, to charge on over
the ridge in its front, and drive Archer's men out of a wood that
rose before him crowning the crest and running down the opposite
slopes. It was done in the most gallant manner, each regiment in
turn breaking off from the line of march to join in the charge under
the eye of Reynolds himself, who, heedless of everything except
the supreme importance of securing the position, rode on after the
leading regiment into the fire where bullets were flying thickest.
Not only was the enemy driven out of the wood, but back across the
run, with the loss of about half the brigade, including Archer
himself. At the very moment success had crowned his first effort,
Reynolds fell dead with a bullet in his brain.[35]

[Sidenote: Evil Consequences.]

Nothing could have been more unfortunate at this time. With Reynolds
fell the whole inspiration of the battle of Gettysburg, but, worst
of all, with his fall both the directing mind and that unquestioned
authority so essential to bring the battle to a successful issue
vanished from the field. He had been struck down too suddenly even
to transmit his views to a subordinate. Disaster was in the air.

[Sidenote: Cutler is driven.]

This dearly bought success on the left was more than offset by what
was going on at the right, where Davis' Confederate brigade, after
getting round Cutler's flank, was driving all before it. Cutler had
to fall back to the Seminary Ridge in disorder.

Having so easily cleared this part of the line, Davis' men next
threw themselves astride the ridge, and seeing nothing before them
but Hall's battery, which was then firing down the Chambersburg
pike, they came booming down upon the guns, yelling like so many
Comanche Indians. Before the battery could be limbered up the
enemy were among the guns, shooting the cannoneers and bayoneting
the horses. It was finally got off with the loss of one of the
pieces.[36]

This success put the enemy in possession of all the Union line as
far down as the pike, and threatened that part just won with a like
fate. We had routed the enemy on the left, and been routed on the
right.

[Sidenote: The Ridge recovered.]

[Sidenote: Davis in a Trap.]

Fortunately, the Sixth Wisconsin had been left in reserve near the
Seminary a little earlier, and it was now ordered to the rescue.
Colonel Dawes led his men up on the run. This regiment, with two
of Cutler's that had turned back on seeing the diversion making in
their favor, drove the enemy back again, up the ridge, to where it
is crossed by a railroad cut, some two hundred yards north of the
pike. To escape this attack most of them jumped down into the cut;
but as the banks are high and steep and the outlet narrow, this was
only getting out of the frying-pan into the fire, since while one
body of pursuers was firing down into them from above, still another
had thrown itself across the outlet and was raking the cut from
end to end. This proved more than even Davis' Mississippians could
stand, and though they fought obstinately enough, all were either
killed, taken, or dispersed.

[Sidenote: Heth brought to a Standstill.]

Heth's two attacking brigades having thus been practically used up
after a fierce conflict, not with cavalry alone, with whom they had
expected to have a little fun, but with infantry, in whom they
recognized their old antagonists of many a hard-fought field, and
who fought to-day with a determination unusual even to them, Heth
hesitated about advancing to the attack again in the face of such
a check as he had just received, without strong backing up; but
sending word of his encounter to Lee, he set about forming the
fragments of the two defeated brigades on two fresh ones, where they
could be sheltered from the Union fire.

Yet Hill, his immediate chief, had told him only the night before
there was no objection in the world to his going into Gettysburg the
next day.

This success also enabled Doubleday[37] to reform his line in its
old position. The troops on the left had not been shaken, and
Cutler's men were now coming back to the front eager to wipe out the
disgrace of their defeat.

If the enemy's van had not been without cavalry to clear its march,
Heth must inevitably have got into Gettysburg first. As it was, the
unexpected resistance he had met with made Heth cautious. Lee's
orders to his lieutenants were not to force the fighting until the
whole army should be up. Pender was therefore forming behind Heth,
the artillery set at work, and all were impatiently looking out
for Rodes' appearance on the Carlisle (or Mummasburg) road, before
renewing the action.

[Sidenote: Eleven o'clock.]

This proved a most fortunate respite to the small Union force on Oak
Ridge, as, in consequence of it,--the state of things just pointed
out,--some hours elapsed before there was any more fighting by the
infantry, though the artillery kept up its annoying fire. Meanwhile
the two remaining divisions of the First Corps came on the ground.
Robinson's was left in reserve at the Seminary, with orders to
throw up some breastworks there; Doubleday's, now Rowley's, went
into line partly to the right and partly to the left of the troops
already there, thus extending both flanks considerably; and at the
extreme left, which was held by Biddle's brigade, two companies of
the Twentieth New York were even thrown out across the run, into
the Harman house and out-buildings, where they did good service in
keeping down the enemy's skirmish fire.[38]

[Sidenote: Rodes on Union Flank.]

Meantime, also, Pender's division had got into line. When formed for
the attack it considerably outflanked the Union left. And a little
later Rodes was seen coming down the Mummasburg road, or out quite
beyond the right of the First Corps. Clearly, the combat just closed
was child's play in comparison with what was about to begin.

[Sidenote: Oak Hill seized.]

These troops gave notice that they were shortly coming into action
by opening a sharp cannonade from Oak Hill, the commanding eminence
situated just beyond and in fact forming a continuation of Oak
Ridge, where the First Corps stood, though separated from it
somewhat.

This artillery fire from Oak Hill enfiladed the Union position so
completely that nothing was left for the right but to fall back to
Seminary Ridge, so as to show a new front to this attack. The centre
and left, however, kept its former position, with some rearrangement
of the line here and there, which had now become a very crooked one.

Twenty odd thousand men were thus waiting for the word to rush upon
between ten and eleven thousand.

[Sidenote: Eleventh Corps comes up.]

Before the battle could be renewed, however, the Eleventh Union
Corps came up through Gettysburg.[39] Howard, its actual head, was
now in chief command of the field, as next in rank to Reynolds.
He sent forward Schurz's and Barlow's divisions of this corps to
confront Rodes, leaving Steinwehr's in reserve on Cemetery Hill.

[Sidenote: Howard calls for Help.]

Having preceded his corps to the field, Howard had already notified
Meade, too hastily by half, that Reynolds was killed and the First
Corps routed--a report only half true, and calculated to do much
mischief, as it soon spread throughout the entire army. He also
sent off an urgent request to Slocum, who was halted in front of
Two Taverns, not five miles off, to come to his assistance with the
Twelfth Corps.

[Sidenote: Hancock comes to the Front.]

Supposing the day lost from the tenor of Howard's despatch,
lacking perhaps the fullest confidence in that general's ability
and experience, and thinking only of how he should save what was
left, Meade forthwith posted Hancock off to Gettysburg, with full
authority to take command of all the troops he might find there,
decide whether Gettysburg should be held or given up, and to
promptly report his decision, to the end that proper steps might be
taken to counteract this disaster if yet possible.

[Sidenote: Slocum and Sickles.]

Slocum would not stir from Two Taverns without orders, though it
is said the firing was distinctly heard there, and he could have
reached Gettysburg in an hour and a half. A second and still more
urgent appeal decided that commander, late in the afternoon, to
set his troops in motion. It was then too late. Sickles, who might
have been at Gettysburg inside of three hours with the greater part
of his corps, appears to have lingered in a deplorable state of
indecision until between two and three o'clock in the afternoon,
before he could make up his mind what to do. It was then too
late.[40]

By contrast we find Ewell promptly going to Hill's assistance
upon a simple request for such coöperation, though Ewell was
Hill's senior; and we further find that his doing so proved the
turning-point of this very battle.

[Illustration: Union Positions, July 1, 3 P.M.]

Was there a want of cordiality between the Union commanders? Was it
really culpable negligence, or was there only incapacity?

While, therefore, one corps certainly, two probably, might easily
have got to the field in season to take a decisive part in the
battle, but remained inactive, the Confederates were hurrying every
available man forward to the point of danger. This was precisely
where Reynolds' fall proved supremely disastrous, and where an
opportunity to acquire a decisive superiority on the field of battle
was most unfortunately thrown away for want of a head.[41]

[Sidenote: New Union Line.]

The Union line, lengthened out by the arrival of the Eleventh Corps,
had now been carried in a quarter circle around Gettysburg, or from
the Hagerstown road on the left to near Rock Creek on the right, the
Eleventh Corps being deployed across the open fields extending from
the Mummasburg to the Harrisburg road, with Barlow's division on
the extreme right. When this corps formed front in line of battle,
there was a gap of a quarter of a mile left wide open between it and
the First Corps. Furthermore, it was drawn up on open ground which,
if not actually level, is freely overlooked by all the surrounding
heights.

That this corps was badly posted was demonstrated after a very brief
trial.

[Sidenote: Rodes attacks.]

Having got into line facing southward, Rodes began his advance
against the right of the First Corps and left of the Eleventh
shortly before three o'clock, supported by a tremendous artillery
fire from Oak Hill. Our troops stood firm against this new
onslaught. It was only fairly under way, however, when Heth and
Pender joined in the attack.

The fighting now begun was on both sides of the most determined
character.

[Sidenote: Bloody Fighting.]

On his side, Rodes was quick to take advantage of the break existing
between the two Union corps, and promptly pushed his soldiers into
it; but they were not to get possession so easily, for Doubleday
now ordered up his last division to stem the tide surging in upon
his uncovered flank. These troops gallantly rushed into the breach,
where a murderous contest began at close quarters, with the result
that, failing to close up the gap, the division was finally drawn
around the point of the ridge, where the Mummasburg road descends
into the plain, so forming a natural bastion from which the Union
soldiers now drove back their assailants with great slaughter. Many
of Iverson's brigade were literally lying dead in their ranks after
this repulse.

In front of Meredith, who still held the wood, and Stone's
"Bucktails," who lay at their right, "no rebel crossed the run for
one hour and lived." Beyond them Biddle was still holding his own
at the left, though his ranks were fast thinning. On both sides
the losses were enormous. In twenty-five minutes Heth had lost two
thousand seven hundred out of seven thousand men. This division
having been fought out, Pender's was brought up, the artillery
redoubled its fire, Rodes pushed his five brigades forward again,
and a general advance of comparatively fresh troops was begun all
along the line.

But it was on the right that disaster first fell with crushing force.

[Sidenote: Early strikes in.]

Here Rodes' assault on the left of the Eleventh Corps met stout
resistance. But while the troops here were fighting or shifting
positions to repel Rodes' rapid blows, Early's division was seen
advancing down the Harrisburg road against the right, which it
almost immediately struck. Thus reinforced and connected, not quite
one-half of Lee's whole army was now closing in around two-sevenths
of the Union army.

Obstinate fighting now took place all along the line. The First
Corps held out some time longer against repeated assaults, losing
men fast, but also inflicting terrible punishment upon their
assailants, Rodes alone losing two thousand five hundred men before
he could carry the positions before him. The Confederate veterans,
though not used to praising their opponents, freely said that the
First Union Corps did the fiercest fighting on this day of which
they ever had any experience.

[Sidenote: His Attack is decisive.]

But Early's attack on the right, though sternly resisted by Barlow,
proved the last straw in this case. The right division being rolled
back in disorder by an assault made both in front and flank, the
left also gave way in its turn, and soon the whole corps was in full
retreat across the fields to the town, which the exultant enemy
entered along with them, picking up a great many prisoners on the
way or in the streets, notwithstanding a brigade of the reserve came
down from Cemetery Hill to check the pursuit.

[Sidenote: All in Retreat.]

[Sidenote: Union Losses.]

The Eleventh Corps being thus swept away, the First fell back
rather forsaken than defeated, a few regiments on the left making a
final stand at the seminary to enable those on the right to shake
off their pursuers. But at last the winding lines came down from
Seminary Ridge into the plain. Buford's cavalry again came to the
rescue in this part of the field, riding with drawn sabres between
pursuers and pursued, so that the Confederates hastily formed some
squares to repel a charge, while the wreck of the Union line,
disdaining to run, doggedly fell back toward the town, halting now
and then to turn and fire a parting volley or rally its stragglers
round their colors. It was not hard pushed except at the extreme
right, where some of Robinson's division fell into the enemy's
hands; nor did resistance cease until its decimated battalions
again closed up their ranks on the brow of Cemetery Hill--noble
relic of one of the hardest-fought battles of this war. Of the
eight thousand two hundred men who had gone into action in the
morning, five thousand seven hundred and fifty had been left on the
blood-dyed summit of Oak Ridge, or in the enemy's hands. The losses
were frightful. In one brigade alone, one thousand two hundred and
three men had fallen. In all, the losses more than equalled half the
effective strength.

The Eleventh Corps also lost heavily, though mostly in prisoners. In
both corps ten thousand soldiers were missing at roll-call.

[Sidenote: The Enemy in Gettysburg.]

Early's soldiers were now swarming about Gettysburg in great
spirits. Hays' brigade alone entered the town, Avery going into
a field on the East, and the others out on the York road. Rodes
presently came up at the west, much disordered from his pursuit
of Robinson. These Confederates then set about re-forming their
shattered ranks, under the fire of the Union artillery from Cemetery
Hill and of the sharp-shooters posted in the houses along its
slopes. This fire became so galling that the enemy's infantry were
obliged to get under cover of the nearest ridges or houses. In this
way Ewell's Corps came to be planted nearest the approaches to
Cemetery Hill.

[Sidenote: Heth and Pender.]

Heth and Pender did not advance beyond Seminary Ridge. They had had
fighting enough for one day.[42] Lee was also there examining the
new Union position through his glass. Notwithstanding the general
elation visible about him, the victory did not seem quite complete
to Lee so long as the Federals still maintained their defiant
attitude at the Cemetery. There was evidently more, and perhaps
harder, work ahead.

There is no evading the plain, if unwelcome, truth that this
battle had been lost, and two corps of the Union army nearly
destroyed, for want of a little more decision when decision was most
urgently called for, and a little more energy when activity was
all-important. The fate of most great battles has been decided by an
hour or two, more or less. Two of indecision decided this one.

  [33] Buford's information was quite exact. "June 30, 10.30 P.M. I am
  satisfied that A. P. Hill's corps is massed just back of Cashtown,
  about nine miles from this place. Pender's division of this corps
  came up to-day, of which I advised you. The enemy's pickets,
  infantry and artillery, are within four miles of this place, at the
  Cashtown road."--_Buford to Reynolds._

  [34] Colonel Chapman Biddle puts the Confederate force in camp
  around Cashtown or Heidlersburg, each eight miles from Oak Ridge, at
  thirty-five thousand of all arms; perhaps rather an over-estimate of
  this careful writer.

  [35] His horse carried him a short distance onward before he fell.
  His body was carried to the rear, in a blanket, just as Archer was
  being brought in a prisoner.

  [36] When attacked in this way a battery is at the mercy of its
  assailants.

  [37] General Abner Doubleday succeeded to the command of the First
  Corps on Reynolds' death.

  [38] The First Corps finally held a line of about a mile and a half,
  from the Hagerstown to the Mummasburg road.

  [39] The head of this corps arrived at about 12.45 and the rear
  at 1.45 P.M. It would take not less than an hour to get it into
  position from a half to three-fourths of a mile out of Gettysburg.

  [40] It is a well-settled principle of war as well as of common
  sense that a corps commander may disregard his orders whenever
  their literal execution would be in his opinion unwarranted by
  conditions unknown to, or unforeseen by, the general in command of
  the army when he issued them. This refers, of course, to an officer
  exercising a separate command, and not when in the presence of his
  superior.

  [41] The positions of the several corps that afternoon were as
  follows, except the First and Eleventh: Second at Taneytown, Third
  at Emmettsburg, Fifth at Hanover, Sixth at Manchester, and Twelfth
  at Two Taverns.

  [42] Heth, Rodes, and Early admit a loss of five thousand eight
  hundred without counting prisoners. The prisoners taken by the First
  Corps would swell this number to about eight thousand.




VI

CEMETERY HILL


[Sidenote: Lee wants to push Things.]

We have seen Lee arriving on the field his troops had carried just
as ours were streaming over Cemetery Hill in his plain sight. Seeing
Ewell already established within gunshot of this hill, Lee wished
him to push on after the fugitives, seize Cemetery Hill, and so reap
all the fruits of the victory just won.

Ewell hesitated, and the golden opportunity slipped through Lee's
fingers. At four o'clock he would have met with little resistance:
at six it was different.

[Sidenote: Hancock arrives.]

[Sidenote: Finds Situation gloomy.]

By riding hard, Hancock[43] got to Gettysburg soon after Lee did.
The road leading from the battlefield was thronged with fugitives,
wounded men, ammunition wagons, and ambulances, all hurrying to
the rear (the unmistakable débris of a routed army), as Hancock
spurred up Cemetery Hill. His trained eye took in the situation at
a glance. Everywhere he saw the gloom of defeat. A few disordered
battalions sullenly clung around their colors, but the men seemed
stunned and disheartened, not so much by defeat as by the palpable
fact that they had been abandoned to defeat for want of a scrap
of paper, more or less. Instead of cheers, set faces and haggard
eyes greeted Hancock as he rode along the diminished ranks. He saw
divisions reduced to brigades; brigades to battalions; battalions to
companies; batteries to a single gun. One of Steinwehr's brigades
and some of his batteries, with a regiment of the First Corps that
had not been in action,[44] was the only force remaining intact.
These guns were sending an occasional shot down into the streets
of Gettysburg; while more to the left--cheering sight!--Buford's
cavalry stood drawn up before the heights steady as on parade, first
in the field and last out of it.

Hancock's animating presence gradually put heart into the men. He
saw just what ought to be done, and instantly set about doing it.

[Sidenote: Order is restored.]

[Sidenote: First Reinforcements.]

A swift and comprehensive view of the ground--and his grasp of its
capabilities was singularly just--seems to have convinced Hancock
that no better place to fight in was likely to be found, even
should the enemy allow them the time to concentrate in the rear,
which was become the all-important question just then. He gave his
orders rapidly, broken ranks were re-formed, fugitives brought back
to their colors,[45] the tide of retreat stayed. As the last gun
was fired from Cemetery Hill, Stannard's Vermont brigade[46] came
marching up the Emmettsburg road, and was at once put in line south
of the Cemetery, with pickets thrown out in front. Though small,
this reinforcement was thrice welcome at a time when it could not
be known whether the enemy would attack or not, and it had a good
effect.

[Sidenote: Culp's Hill.]

[Sidenote: Commands Cemetery.]

In riding up, Hancock had not failed to notice--indeed, no one
could--a wooded hill standing off at some distance to the right
of Cemetery Hill, from which it was separated by a wide and deep
hollow, yet at the same time joined by a ridge so low and narrow
as to be hardly seen when looking down from above. This low,
connecting ridge is several hundred yards in extent, and, forming as
if does a natural parapet for infantry, was all that stood in the
way of pushing a force through between Cemetery and Culp's Hill to
the rear of the Union troops. Of the two hills it is enough to say
that as Culp's Hill is much the higher, whoever held Culp's Hill
would also hold the key to the Union position, as Hancock found it.

[Sidenote: Ewell sees it too.]

[Sidenote: But Hancock seizes it.]

The enemy had not been slow to perceive this on his part, and while
hesitating what to do Early had pointed it out to Ewell, his chief,
who fully agreed with him that it should be seized as soon as
Johnson's fresh division got up.[47] But while they were hesitating
Hancock was sending what was left of Wadsworth's division,
reinforced by the Seventh Indiana, with a battery, to occupy Culp's
Hill; so that when Johnson's scouts went there after dark, instead
of finding the hill unoccupied and undefended, they fell into the
hands of Wadsworth's men. Meredith's worn but undaunted brigade
dropped into position behind the narrow strip of ridge spoken of,
a sure guaranty that no enemy would break through at that place.
In this instance Hancock's eagle glance and no less prompt action
undoubtedly saved the whole position, since if Ewell had succeeded
in establishing himself on Culp's Hill, it would have taken the
whole Union army to drive him out.

[Sidenote: Hancock reports all safe.]

Considered merely as a rallying point for broken troops, Cemetery
Hill had now served its purpose. Hancock could now say to Meade, not
that the position was the best they could have taken for disputing
the enemy's progress, but that all was safe for the present, or
equally in train for the withdrawal of the troops, should that be
the decision. In a word, he would not commit himself unreservedly to
a simple yes or no.[48]

[Sidenote: Meade's Decision.]

It was now Meade's turn, and right nobly did he rise to the crisis.
Such as it was, Hancock's report enabled him to come to a quick
decision. Instead of ordering a retreat, he instantly ordered the
corps to Gettysburg. From the moment he became satisfied that there
was a fighting chance in front, Meade's conduct was anything but
that of a defeated or even timid general; he seems never to have
looked behind him. Had he been so unalterably wedded to his own
chosen line of defence as some critics profess to believe, it is
difficult to see what stronger excuse could have offered itself for
falling back than the defeat he had just suffered. And if he had
shrunk from the hazard of fighting so far from his base before, how
much more easily could he have justified his refusal to do so after
the loss of ten thousand men, the sudden disruption of his plans,
with the increased sense of responsibility all this involved! We
think few would deny that the bringing up of four-sevenths of the
army over distances varying from thirteen to thirty-six miles must
appear a far bolder act, even to the unmilitary mind, than causing
three-sevenths to fall back some fifteen miles. Fortunately Meade
was one in spirit with his soldiers, who with one voice demanded
to be led against the enemy. The shock of battle seems to have
aroused all the warrior's instinct within him. Reynolds may have
forced the fighting, Hancock suggested, or even advised, but it was
Meade, and Meade alone, on whose deliberate judgment the battle of
Gettysburg was renewed, and who therefore stands before history as
its undoubted sponsor.

[Sidenote: Twelfth Corps comes up, 5 P.M.]

To return to the now historic Cemetery Hill. Here the right,
reinforced by at least three thousand fresh troops,[49] had been
strongly occupied. Everything appeared in surety on this side. But
all the way from the Taneytown Road to Little Round Top there was
not one solitary soldier or gun except some cavalry pickets. By the
time, however, that Hancock had succeeded in bringing order out
of this chaos and courage out of despair, the whole situation was
changed by the arrival of the Twelfth Corps from Two Taverns. As
it came up by the Baltimore pike the leading division (Williams')
turned off to the right, feeling its way out in this direction as
far as Wolf's Hill and the Hanover road; but on finding the enemy
already installed on that side, the division was massed for the
night on the Baltimore pike, so rendering secure our extreme right
at Culp's Hill. There was no longer anything to apprehend on this
side. We cannot refrain from asking what would have been the effect
of the appearance of these troops on Early's flank an hour or two
earlier in the afternoon?

[Sidenote: Geary at Little Round Top.]

[Sidenote: Fix this on the Map.]

Geary's division of this corps having kept straight on up the pike
to Cemetery Hill, Hancock turned it off to the extreme left, partly
to make some show in that as yet unguarded quarter, about which he
felt by no means easy, partly to hold control of the Emmettsburg
and Taneytown roads (see map), by which more of the Union troops
were marching to the field. Stretching itself out in a thin line
as far as Little Round Top, and after sending one regiment out on
picket toward the Emmettsburg road, and just to the right of the
Devil's Den, the division slept on its arms, in a position destined
to become celebrated, first on account of Hancock's foresight in
seizing it, next by reason of its desertion by the general intrusted
with its defence.

[Sidenote: Second Corps nearly up.]

Hancock had the satisfaction of feeling that the position was safe
for the present when he rode back to Taneytown, first to meet his
own corps on the road, and next to find that the whole army had
already been ordered up. Throwing Gibbon an order to halt as he
passed, Hancock kept on to headquarters. His work was done.

[Sidenote: Union Line at Dark.]

Nothing but the importance which this critical period of the battle
has assumed to our own mind could justify the giving of all these
details by which the gradual patching up and lengthening out of the
line, until it took the form it subsequently held, and from a front
of a few hundred yards grew to be two miles long, may be better
followed.

[Sidenote: Part of Third Corps up.]

[Sidenote: Find Sherfy's on Map.]

[Sidenote: Other Corps where?]

As regards the rest of the army, some part of the Third Corps had
now reached the ground by the Emmettsburg road, though too late to
get into line; its pickets, however, were thrown out on that road
as far to the left as a cross-road leading down from Sherfy's house
to Little Round Top. The rest of this corps would come up by this
same road in the morning. The Second Corps was halting for the night
three miles back, also in a position to guard the left of the line.
Nominally, therefore, five of the seven corps were up at dark that
night, or at least near enough to go into position by daybreak. The
Fifth being then at Hanover, twenty-four miles back, and the Sixth,
which was the strongest in the army, at Manchester, thirty-five
miles from Gettysburg, it still became a question whether the
whole Union army could be assembled in season to overcome Lee's
superiority on the field.[50]

[Sidenote: Chances against Meade.]

Indeed, when Meade did finally order the whole army to Gettysburg,
the chances were as ten to one against its getting up in time to
fight as a unit.

Would that portion of the Union forces found on Cemetery Hill on the
morning of the second be beaten in detail, as the First and Eleventh
had been the day before?

[Sidenote: Lee's Plan.]

[Sidenote: Longstreet demurs.]

This seems, in fact, to have been Lee's real purpose, as he told
Longstreet at five o'clock, when they were looking over the ground
together, that if Meade's army was on the heights next day it must
be dislodged. Knowing that but two Union corps had been engaged that
day against him, Lee seemed impressed with the idea that he could
beat Meade before the rest of his army could arrive. Longstreet
strongly opposed making a direct attack, though without shaking his
chief's purpose. As Lee now had his whole army well in hand, one
division only being absent,[51] he seemed little disposed to begin a
new series of combinations, when, in his opinion, he had the Union
army half defeated, half scattered, and wholly at a disadvantage.
And we think he was right.

[Sidenote: Chances favor Lee.]

We have seen that Lee's conclusions with respect to the force before
him were so nearly correct as to justify his confidence in his own
plans. Ever since crossing South Mountain he had expected a battle.
It is true he found it forced upon him sooner than he expected,
yet his own army had been the first to concentrate, his troops had
gained a partial victory by this very means, and both general and
soldiers were eager to consummate it while the chances were still
so distinctly in their favor. Even if Lee was somewhat swayed by a
belief in his own genius, as some of his critics have suggested,--a
belief which had so far carried him from victory to victory,--we
cannot blame him. War is a game of chance, and Lee now saw that
chance had put his enemy in his power.

[Sidenote: Ewell says No.]

[Sidenote: Cemetery Hill too Strong.]

At the close of the day Lee therefore rode over to see if Ewell
could not open the battle by carrying Cemetery Hill. Ewell bluntly
declared it to be an impossibility. The Union troops, he said,
would be at work strengthening their already formidable positions
there all night, so that by morning they would be found well-nigh
impregnable. Culp's Hill had been snatched from his grasp. The
rugged character of these heights, the impossibility of using
artillery to support an attack, the exposure of the assaulting
columns to the fire of the Union batteries at short range, were all
forcibly dwelt upon and fully concurred in by Ewell's lieutenants.
In short, so many objections appeared that, willing or unwilling,
Lee found himself forced to give over the design of breaking through
the Union line at this point and taking the road to Baltimore.

[Sidenote: Ewell says, try the Left.]

It was then suggested that the attack should begin on the Union
left, where, to all appearances, the ridge was far more assailable
or less strongly occupied, because the Union troops seemed massed
more with the view of repelling this projected assault toward their
right.

Inasmuch as Ewell was really ignorant of what force was in his
front at that moment, his advice to Lee may have sprung from a not
unnatural desire to see that part of the army which had not been
engaged do some of the work cut out for him and his corps.

Be that as it may, Lee then and there proposed giving up Gettysburg
altogether, in order to draw Ewell over toward his right, thus
massing the Confederate army in position to strike the Union left,
as well as materially shortening his own long line.

[Sidenote: What, give up Gettysburg.]

But to this proposal Ewell as strongly demurred again. After losing
over three thousand men in taking it, he did not want to give
up Gettysburg. It involved a point of honor to which Jackson's
successor showed himself keenly sensitive. His arrival had decided
the day; and at that moment he held the bulk of the Union army
before him, simply by remaining where he was. If he moved off, that
force would be freed also. So where would be the gain of it?

"Well, then, if I attack from my right, Longstreet will have to make
the attack," said Lee at last; adding a moment later, and as if the
admission came from him in spite of himself, "but he is so slow."

[Sidenote: Lee's Dilemma.]

Finding that Ewell was averse to making an attack himself, averse
to leaving Gettysburg; that Hill was averse to putting his crippled
corps forward so soon again; and that Longstreet was averse to
fighting at all on that ground,--Lee may well have thought, like
Napoleon during the Hundred Days, that his generals were no longer
what they had been.[52] There was certainly more or less pulling at
cross purposes in the Confederate camp.

Meade did not reach the field until one in the morning. It was then
too early to see the ground he was going to fight on.

It thus appears that Lee had well considered all his plans for
attacking before Meade could so much as begin his dispositions for
defence. And this same unpreparedness, this fatality of having
always to follow your adversary's lead, had so far distinguished
every stage of this most unpromising campaign.

In the mellow moonlight of a midsummer's night, looking down into
the unlighted streets of Gettysburg, the tired soldiers dropped to
rest among the graves or in the fields wet with falling dew, while
their comrades were hurrying on over the dusty roads that stretched
out in long, weary miles toward Gettysburg, as if life and death
were in their speed.

  [43] It seems plain that next to Reynolds Hancock was the one in
  whom Meade reposed most confidence.

  [44] This was the Seventh Indiana, which had been acting as escort
  to the trains. It brought five hundred fresh men to Wadsworth's
  division.

  [45] By General Morgan's account, one thousand five hundred
  fugitives were collected by the provost guard of the Twelfth Corps,
  some miles in rear of the field.

  [46] This was a brigade of nine months' men, called in derision the
  "Paper Collar Brigade." No troops contributed more to the winning of
  this battle, though only three of its five regiments were engaged.

  [47] Johnson was then coming up. This is equivalent to an admission
  that Ewell did not feel able to undertake anything further that
  night with the two divisions that had been in action.

  [48] While conveying the idea that the position was good, Hancock's
  message was, in reality, sufficiently ambiguous. It, however, served
  Meade's turn, as his mind was more than half made up already.

  [49] The Seventh Indiana brought up five hundred men; Stannard's
  brigade two thousand five hundred more.

  [50] The Union corps would not average ten thousand men present in
  the ranks, although the Sixth bore sixteen thousand on its muster
  rolls. Some corps had three, some two divisions. There were too many
  corps, and in consequence too many corps commanders, for the best
  and most efficient organization.

  [51] This was Pickett's, left at Chambersburg to guard the trains.

  [52] Lee's corps commanders in council seem more like a debating
  society: Meade's more like a Quaker meeting.




VII

THE SECOND OF JULY


[Sidenote: Deliberating.]

With similar views each of the other's strength or weakness, Meade
and Lee seem to have arrived at precisely the same idea. For
instance, we have Lee seriously thinking of giving up Gettysburg,
after hearing Ewell's objections to attacking from this side; and
we have Meade first meditating a stroke against Lee from this very
quarter, until dissuaded from it by some of his generals. Yet no
sooner has Lee turned his attention to the other flank, than, as if
informed of what was passing in his adversary's mind, Meade sets
about strengthening that flank too. Wary and circumspect, each was
feeling for his adversary's weak point.

[Sidenote: Little Round Top deserted.]

[Sidenote: Union Line, Morning.]

With the first streak of day the hostile camps were astir. Meade was
riding along the ridge, giving orders for posting his troops. All
of the Twelfth Corps (Geary's division having vacated the position
it had held during the night) planted itself still more firmly
on the slopes of Culp's Hill, at the extreme right of the line.
Wadsworth's division of the First Corps carried the line across the
dip toward Cemetery Hill, where the Eleventh Corps had stood since
the afternoon before. The Second Corps now fell in along the ridge,
at the left of the Eleventh, resting its right on Ziegler's Grove,
a little clump of trees hardly worth the name, growing out at the
edge of the ridge, and where it bulges out somewhat brokenly. Next
to the Second, the Third Corps lay massed behind the ridge, awaiting
orders; it now held the left. The First was in reserve. The Fifth
and Sixth were nearing the ground, but the pace was telling on the
men.

Since this day's battle was to be fought mostly on ground lying to
the left (or south) of Hancock's position, it may be well to glance
at its general features.

[Sidenote: Left Flank Features.]

[Sidenote: Emmettsburg Road.]

[Sidenote: Baltimore Turnpike.]

Three roads leave Gettysburg by way of Cemetery Hill, for Baltimore,
Taneytown, and Emmettsburg, respectively. Those going to Baltimore
and Emmettsburg part just as they begin to mount the slope of
Cemetery Hill, the first keeping off to the left over the hill,
past the Cemetery, and down the opposite slope, or wholly within
the Union lines; the last bearing off to the right, along the
foot of the hill, or wholly outside the Union lines, though at
first within musket range. All of the Union army, now assembled,
lay between these two roads except that part posted at the east
of the Cemetery and along Culp's Hill. As for these troops, the
Baltimore pike passed close by their rear, the line here taking
such a sharp backward sweep that the soldiers posted on Culp's
Hill actually turned their backs on those forming the front line.
While the Baltimore pike cut the Union position in two, or nearly
so, the Taneytown road traversed it from end to end, thus greatly
facilitating the moving of troops or guns from one part of the line
to the other.

Though the Emmettsburg road closely hugged the Cemetery Heights in
going out of Gettysburg, its general direction carried it farther
and farther off, in proportion as it went on its way; so that,
although actually starting from Cemetery Hill, this road, in going
two or three miles, eventually struck across to Seminary Ridge, or
from the Union right to the enemy's right.[53] On the morning of the
second it therefore formed debatable ground belonging to neither
army, though offering a hazardous way still to belated troops,
because the enemy had not yet occupied it. This Emmettsburg road was
destined to play an important part in the events of this day.

[Sidenote: Little Round Top. See Chap. I.]

[Sidenote: Big Round Top.]

[Sidenote: Cavalry gone.]

After keeping its high level for some distance, Cemetery Ridge
falls away for the space of several hundred yards, to rise again by
a gradual slope to a rugged, bowlder-strewn, rather thinly wooded
hill, called Little Round Top, which finely overlooks all that
part of the field. Thus, what Culp's Hill was to the right Little
Round Top was to the left of the Union position--at once bulwark
and warder. Still beyond Little Round Top, out across a little
valley opening a passage between them, rose a much loftier eminence,
called Big Round Top. Strangely enough, neither of these commanding
hills was occupied in the morning; for though Geary's pickets lay
out before Little Round Top all night, they had been called in at
daybreak, when the division itself marched off to rejoin its corps
at Culp's Hill.[54] Most unfortunately, too, the Union cavalry was
no longer there to watch the enemy's movements in this quarter and
promptly report them at headquarters, as Meade himself had sent off
Buford to the rear of the army.[55] In military phrase, the whole
Union left was in the air.

Up to nine in the morning, therefore, this part of the field where
Lee designed to strike his most telling blow was anybody's position,
so far as the dispositions for its defence are concerned; but at
that hour Sickles[56] began deploying the Third Corps toward Round
Top. Presently two of his brigades that had been left behind were
seen marching down the Emmettsburg road, under fire from the enemy's
skirmishers;[57] so giving them sharp notice that this road was no
longer open.

Little Round Top, however, still remained unoccupied, save by a
handful of men belonging to the Signal Corps of the army.

[Sidenote: Dangerous Marching.]

The men of the Third Corps watched the march of their comrades in
breathless expectation of hearing the enemy's cannon open upon
them, or of seeing some body of infantry suddenly pour a withering
volley into them from the cover of the woods. But whether the enemy
were too much confounded by the very audacity of the thing, or
purposely refrained from hostilities that might expose and frustrate
their own movements, now in progress under the mask of these very
woods, neither of these things happened. These two lost brigades
of Kearney's Peninsula veterans simply closed up their ranks, and
strode steadily on between the two armies, without quickening their
pace. In vain Sickles looked round him for some cavalry to escort
them into his lines. There was no longer a single sabre on the
ground.

[Sidenote: Sherfy Place.]

[Sidenote: The Cross-road.]

Those of Sickles' soldiers who had thrown themselves down upon the
grass behind the stacks now breathed more freely at seeing their
comrades turn off from the main road, at a short mile out, where
the roofs of a farmhouse and out-buildings glistened in the morning
sun. This was the Sherfy place--a very paradise in appearance to
these fasting and footsore soldiers, to whom its ripening fruits and
luxuriant golden wheat, tall and nearly ripe for the sickle, seemed
the incarnation of peace and plenty. Many a wistful glance was cast
at the peach orchard, as these troops turned the corner where it
stood. The cross-road then came straight down toward Little Round
Top, so that in a quarter of an hour more the marching column heard
the welcome orders to "Halt!" "Stack arms!" "Rest!"

[Sidenote: The Enemy covet it.]

If the comparison be not too far-fetched, this Sherfy farm and the
angle formed by these two divergent roads were destined to be the
La Haie Sainte of this Waterloo. One word more is essential to
the description. The ground out there, over which the cross-road
passed on toward the Union lines, swells handsomely up to a rounded
knoll that makes a very pretty as well as noticeable object in the
landscape. The field-glasses of General Lee and of his staff had
already determined this knoll to be a splendid position for their
artillery.

That peach-orchard angle with the adjoining knoll--in reality the
highest point lying between the two armies--was, for this reason,
the first object of the Confederates' attention on this day. It was
a stepping-stone toward Cemetery Ridge. It was now in possession of
Sickles' skirmishers, posted there the night before, and already
exchanging shots with those of the enemy.[58]

[Sidenote: The Swale again.]

Uneasy at seeing no enemy in front of him, Sickles decided to push
his skirmishers still farther out. They accordingly went forward
into the woods of Seminary Ridge, where the enemy was supposed to
be. They had scarcely arrived there when they fell in with some
Confederates, by whom, after a sharp encounter, they were driven
back, but not before they had seen heavy columns moving off to gain
the Union left under cover of the woods. This information made
Sickles still more uneasy, impressed as he was with the belief that
an attack upon him was imminent, and that he would have to receive
it where the low ground he then occupied[59] offered little chance
for making a successful defence. Little Round Top rose on his left,
his front stretched across the adjoining hollow, the peach-orchard
knoll loomed threateningly before him in the distance, the skirmish
fire was growing hotter out there, his orders were either vague
or unsatisfactory, and so Sickles, commanding a single corps of
the army, having convinced himself that the line, as formed, was
defective, determined in his own mind to abandon it for one of his
own choosing, orders or no orders.

[Sidenote: Longstreet at Work.]

This movement to the left, first detected by Sickles' skirmishers,
was Longstreet getting into position for the attack that Lee had
ordered. When Longstreet's guns should be heard, Ewell was to
assault Culp's Hill and Cemetery Hill; while Hill, in the centre,
was to follow up Longstreet's attack as it progressed from right to
left. In short, a simultaneous assault on the two wings of Meade's
army was to be connected by a second and cumulative wave gathering
headway as it rolled on, until this billow of fire and steel should
engulf and sweep the whole Union line out of existence.

By this plan of battle Lee expected to disconcert any attempt to
reinforce either flank, or should Meade dare weaken his centre for
that purpose, Hill could then push in there, and cut the Union army
in twain.

Splendid conception! magnificent plan! none the less because too
complicated for the execution of generals who either could not or
would not comprehend what was required of them. Consoling thought,
that not all the stupidity or blundering was on the Union side!

Lee had pointed out the peach orchard to Longstreet, with the
injunction that it should be seized first of all.

[Sidenote: 3.30 P.M.]

Though he had received his orders at eleven o'clock, it was not
until after half-past three that Longstreet was ready to open the
battle. Sluggish by nature, he was well described by his chief as
slow to act: once in the thick of the fight, he rose with commanding
power as the peerless fighter of that army; and in that part of the
field where Longstreet fought, the dead always lay thickest. The
confidence reposed in him by Lee is fully attested by the fact of
his having assigned the conduct of the battles, both on the second
and third, to General Longstreet.

[Sidenote: Sickles' Idea.]

We have seen how, after some hours of wavering, Sickles had at
length decided to choose a new position for himself. Yesterday he
had not been able to convince himself that it would be right to
move his corps out of line, even that he might go to the aid of his
immediate chief and when his doing so would have saved the day.
Restrained then by the strict letter of his orders,[60] he had
remained in a state of feverish uncertainty for some hours, though
at length concluding to disobey them. To-day when he was without
real responsibility, being now in the presence of the general
commanding the army, Sickles sets both orders and chief at defiance.
The acts of the two days are, however, in striking accord. Sickles
disobeys orders in both instances.

[Sidenote: The Third Corps moves out.]

At about three o'clock the Union army saw with astonishment, not
unmixed with dismay, the whole of the Third Corps moving out to
the front in magnificent order, not as troops go into battle
with skirmishers well advanced to the front, but as confidently
as if going to a review with two grand armies for spectators. It
was indeed a gallant sight to see these solid columns go forward,
brigade after brigade, battery following battery, as, with flags
fluttering in the breeze and bayonets flashing in the sun, the
two divisions of Humphreys and Birney began deploying along the
Emmettsburg road in front and taking position between the peach
orchard and the Devil's Den to their rear, thus putting an elbow in
the general line.

In vain we try to imagine one of Napoleon's or Wellington's marshals
taking it upon himself to post his troops independently of his
commander. It now appears that General Sickles did this regardless
of whether he was thwarting the plans of the general-in-chief or
not, or whether indeed by so doing he was overthrowing the whole
theory of delivering a strictly defensive battle. Instead of
allowing Meade his initiative, we find Sickles actually compelling
his superior to follow his lead,[61] not under the stress of some
sudden emergency, but deliberately, defiantly. Not that he had
penetrated Lee's designs. By no means. Had he done so we should
be all the more amazed at his hardihood in going out with his ten
thousand men to resist the onslaught of twenty thousand or more.

But the whole corps was not enough to occupy the ground selected.
When the right division (Humphreys') reached the road, it had left
a space of not less than three-fourths of a mile between itself
and the left of the Second Corps. That flank was therefore in
the air. The left division (Birney's), or most of it, was formed
nearly at right angles with the first, showing a front of three
brigades facing south, and posted in a line much broken by the
natural features of the ground, which grow more and more rugged in
proportion as Round Top is neared. Though stronger, by reason of the
natural defences, this flank was a fourth of a mile from Round Top.

While this was going on out at the front, the Sixth and last Union
Corps (Sedgwick's) was coming up behind the main position, worn down
with marching thirty-six miles almost without a halt. The Fifth had
already arrived, also with its men greatly fatigued. The situation,
therefore, had so far improved, in that the enemy's delays[62] had
given time for the whole Union army to assemble, though the two
belated corps were scarcely in fighting trim.

Scarcely had Birney's men time to look about them when the booming
of a single gun gave notice that the long-expected battle had begun.

  [53] On the night of the first, the Confederate right did not extend
  much, if any, south of the Hagerstown, or Fairfield, road. As the
  fresh troops came up they were used in extending the line southward.
  Anderson's division was the first to move down to Hill's left. It
  was his skirmishers that first became engaged with Sickles'.

  [54] We have seen Meade first planning an attack on that side, which
  was why he was drawing troops over there. He designed having the
  Third Corps occupy the position vacated by Geary, however, and so
  directed.

  [55] In consequence of his exhausted condition, from incessant
  marching and fighting, Buford was to be relieved by other troops.

  [56] General Daniel E. Sickles, commanding the Third Corps.

  [57] The enemy were seeking to mask their movements to the Union
  left behind these skirmishers.

  [58] The peach-orchard knoll was Sickles' bugbear. He thought it
  much to be preferred to the position he was in. It was, however,
  fully commanded from Little Round Top.

  [59] This refers to the swale next north of Little Round Top.

  [60] Though forming part of Reynolds' command, Sickles was halted
  between Taneytown and Emmettsburg by Meade's order.

  [61] Sickles claimed at first that he could not find the position
  assigned him, namely, that vacated by Geary. The force of this plea
  will be best appreciated by old soldiers. But in the following
  remarks all such clumsy pretexts are thrown to the winds; he here
  takes praise to himself for ignoring his commanding officer. It
  might be called a plea for insubordination.

  "It may have been imprudent to advance and hold Longstreet at
  whatever sacrifice, but wasn't it worth a sacrifice to save the key
  of the position? What were we there for? Were we there to count the
  cost in blood and men, when the key of the position at Gettysburg
  was within the enemy's grasp?" (How did Sickles know this?) "What
  little I know of conduct on a battlefield I learned from Hooker
  and Kearney." (Kearney was a strict disciplinarian.) "What would
  Hooker or Kearney have done, finding themselves in an assailable,
  untenable position, without orders from headquarters as to their
  dispositions for battle, when they saw masses of the enemy marching
  to seize a vital point? Would they have hesitated? Would they have
  sent couriers to headquarters and asked for instructions what to do?
  Never, never! Well, I learned war from them, and I didn't send any.
  I simply advanced on to the battlefield and seized Longstreet by the
  throat and held him there."--_Sickles' Music Hall Speech, Boston,
  1886._

  [62] John Stark's famous maxim, that one fresh man in battle is
  worth two fatigued ones, will be heartily endorsed by all who have
  seen it put to the test.




VIII

THE SECOND OF JULY--_Continued_


[Sidenote: Fighting begins.]

At this signal all the enemy's batteries opened in succession, and
for a space a storm of shot and shell tore through Sickles' lines
with crushing effect. His own guns, posted partly in the orchard,
partly along the cross-road, on the high knoll behind it,--that
is to say, in the very spot selected by Lee in advance for his
own,--began to lose both horses and men, nor were the infantry able
to shelter themselves from the cross-fire of fifty-four pieces of
artillery, some of which were killing men at both sides of the angle
with the same shot.[63]

Not many minutes had elapsed before every man on the ground, from
general to private soldier, felt that a wretched blunder had been
committed in thrusting them out there.

[Illustration: Explanation--R., Round Top; L. R. T., Little Round
Top; D., Devil's Den; P. O., Peach Orchard; P. H., Power's Hill; G.,
Gettysburg.]

[Sidenote: See his Troops described, p. 26.]

By and by the cannonade slackened. This was sufficient notice to old
soldiers that something more was coming. Before its echoes had
died away Longstreet's first assaulting column, led by Hood himself,
came down with a crash upon Birney, three lines deep.

The enemy was about to repeat his old tactics, employed at
Chancellorsville with so much effect, of getting around the Union
left and then rolling it up endwise.[64] That his calculations in
this case were not quite accurate was soon made manifest.

Since noon Longstreet had been working his way round through the
woods toward Little Round Top, making a wide circuit to avoid
discovery.[65] Having remonstrated in vain against this movement, he
was probably in no great hurry to execute it. It was therefore four
o'clock before he was ready to begin. But if slow he was sure.

Longstreet's line crossed the Emmettsburg road at an acute angle
with it, Hood's division stretching off to the right, McLaws' mostly
to the left. Longstreet was thus about to throw eight brigades,
or, by his own account, thirteen thousand men, against the three
brigades of Ward, De Trobriand, and Graham, numbering about five
thousand men. Hood was to begin by attacking from the wheat-field
to the Devil's Den, McLaws to follow him up from the wheat-field to
the orchard. It was not until they had got into line, however, that
the Confederates were undeceived about the Union force before them.
Until then they thought the Union left stopped at the orchard.

At four o'clock the Union signal-station on Little Round Top saw and
reported these movements to headquarters. The Confederate advance
began soon after four. By the first fire Hood was wounded and had to
leave the field almost before his troops had fairly come into action.

[Sidenote: Combat at Devil's Den.]

The first shock fell upon Ward's brigade, which held the extreme
left at the Devil's Den. Ward's line would not reach to Little Round
Top, so that there was a wide space between him and this hill, with
not a man in it--a fact that Hood's men were not slow either in
perceiving or taking advantage of. But, what was far worse, it led
to the discovery of the defenceless condition of Little Round Top
itself, and, quickly grasping its commanding importance, the enemy
instantly sent one of his brigades to seize it.

The conflict thus established at this point, which Sickles had so
imprudently vacated, became of supreme importance to the Union army,
while that about to begin at the peach orchard degenerated into a
struggle to save Sickles' corps from annihilation.

Fortunately for Ward, the ground he held was just the place for a
protracted defence, provided he should not be out-flanked. Weird and
grisly, it looked as if some huge excrescent mass of earth, rocks,
and trees had some time slid off the flank of Little Round Top into
the low ground below, whence its own momentum had carried it still
farther on--a misshapen heap, deeply seamed by rents and splits,
thick-set with bowlders and filled with holes and hiding-places,
among which Ward's men now found excellent cover.

[Sidenote: The Danger Point.]

Ward was firmly planted on and around the Devil's Den, with his
sharp-shooters loading and firing from behind the scattered
bowlders, when the enemy made their rush upon him, whooping and
yelling like so many fiends come to reoccupy their own legitimate
abode. Some portion soon found themselves in the unguarded hollow
below. Seeing the enemy crowding into it, Ward sent first one
regiment there, and then another, on the run. A combat at close
quarters ensued.

The regiments of Hood's division were now either trying to scale
Little Round Top, push through the hollow, or capture the Devil's
Den with its guns. The left brigade, however, which extended beyond
the Den, was being very roughly handled; the centre only had made
progress, while the right was engaged in a murderous conflict, to be
presently described. Hood's effort had, therefore, exhausted itself,
and his division had to halt simply because it could advance no
farther.

[Sidenote: At the Wheat-field.]

McLaws now came to Hood's assistance. His right brigade (Kershaw's)
now struck De Trobriand's, which stood next in line along the
edge of a wheat-field, back of and adjoining the Devil's Den. De
Trobriand had a little muddy ravine in front of him, into which the
enemy boldly plunged. His men waited until their assailants had got
within twenty yards, when they poured in such a close and deadly
fire that the gully was speedily vacated by all save the dead and
the dying. The attack here not only completely failed, but three of
Kershaw's regiments were nearly destroyed while attacking the peach
orchard. This brigade fell back and was rallied about the Rose house.

Semmes' brigade had followed close behind Kershaw's, and now took
its place. Its commander speedily fell, mortally wounded. Barksdale
rushed upon Graham, followed by Wofford. This onset brought the
whole Confederate force into action. The odds were as two to one.

That part of the enemy whom we left working their way up the hollow
to Little Round Top also met with stubborn resistance, and as this
was more and more seen to be the critical point, the enemy redoubled
their efforts to force their way through. Our soldiers who had
gone into ambuscade behind the bowlders there were being gradually
driven back from cover to cover, so yielding up as they retired the
approaches to Little Round Top.

[Sidenote: Devil's Den taken.]

Having gained this vantage-ground the Confederates now made a
second onset against Ward and De Trobriand. This time it proved
more successful. After an hour's obstinate fighting, Ward was
driven out of his fastness,[66] De Trobriand forced back across
the wheat-field. Sickles' left was thus completely broken up, the
fragments drifting backward in search of some point of support.

[Sidenote: Little Round Top in Peril.]

Little Round Top was about to fall into the enemy's hands. Once
in his possession, the Union line on Cemetery Ridge would have to
be abandoned or swept to the winds. Fortunately the turning-point
had been reached before the rebels could reap the reward of Ward's
repulse. Shortly before Hood's onset began, General Warren, of the
Engineers, had seen from his signal-station on Little Round Top the
enemy's line advancing to the attack. In one moment his experienced
eye took in all the danger. Ordering the signal officers to keep
on waving their flags, Warren first sent for and then dashed off
in search of assistance himself. Indeed, not a moment was to be
lost. By a fortunate chance some troops were met moving out to
reinforce Sickles. Detaching a regiment, Warren hurried it off to
the threatened point. Meantime, in response to his request, though
without his knowing it, Vincent's brigade was climbing the rearmost
slopes off Little Round Top, arriving just in time to save the hill
with the bayonet.[67]

A murderous hand-to-hand conflict now began among the rocks and
trees, with those of the enemy who were trying to scale the slopes
regardless of death or wounds. Sometimes the assailants were firing
at each other from behind the same bowlder; sometimes both fell
at the same instant. The strife was still unequal. A battery was
dragged to the summit;[68] three of the cannoneers were shot in
succession before the fourth succeeded in firing off the piece.
Another regiment was brought up. The rebels fought as if determined
to take that hill or die: the Union soldiers as if they had made
up their minds to perish to the last man in its defence. On
both sides men fell fast, the bravest first of all. Vincent was
killed outright, Weed mortally wounded, and only a moment later
Hazlett, who had so gallantly scaled with his guns slopes seemingly
inaccessible, was struck down while in the act of stooping over his
commander's prostrate body. O'Rorke was killed while encouraging his
men. All the superior officers were down. Never were rifles wielded
by such deadly marksmen as those Texans of Hood's!

[Sidenote: Little Round Top saved.]

Finding all their efforts to carry the hill by storm useless, the
rebels next made a rush up through the little valley separating the
two Round Tops, with the view of taking the defenders in the rear.
The 20th Maine met this assault. "Stand firm, men!" was the command.
As if maddened to desperation, the enemy flung themselves upon
the hardy backwoodsmen from the Pine Tree State. Twice they were
forced backward over the crest, and twice they rallied and drove
their assailants back in their turn. But the emergency had now been
perceived and was being provided for. Fresh troops dashed over the
hill to the aid of those who were fighting. A final charge sent the
rebels reeling down into the hollow, and out of it by the way they
came, leaving five hundred prisoners in the hands of the defenders,
through whose gallantry the danger, though perilously imminent, had
been averted.

[Sidenote: McLaws assaults.]

[Sidenote: Sickles wounded.]

Meantime the peach orchard was being furiously attacked. Exposed
here to a severe cross-fire, the Union line crumbled away at every
discharge. The resistance was stubborn, as might be expected from
such good soldiers as Graham's, but even they could not long
maintain such a disadvantageous position, and though the attacking
brigades were badly cut up, the enemy broke through there after a
bloody contest. Barksdale swept on over the guns, Wofford gathered
up what he left behind. All that men could do to stem the tide
was done, and all in vain. Graham was wounded and taken prisoner,
Sickles himself carried off the field, shot through the leg. In less
than two hours Birney's line was clean gone.

As the infantry fell back from the orchard, the artillery posted
along the cross-road behind them became, of course, the enemy's
object. Many of these guns had to be abandoned, some sacrificed in
the effort to delay the enemy's progress. Bigelow's battery obeyed
the order to fight to the last with a constancy as worthy of lasting
commemoration as Perry's famous "Don't give up the ship!"

Though the position itself was scarcely worth the sacrifice of a
single soldier, it was felt that Sickles' troops must be extricated
at any cost; and since a battle had been forced we must not be the
losers.

[Sidenote: Efforts to help Sickles.]

So after sending Vincent's brigade to Little Round Top, the rest
of Barnes' division went out to help maintain the line where De
Trobriand had been fighting; and Caldwell's division of the Second
Corps also went to Ward's assistance.

Repulsed from Little Round Top, the enemy fell upon Caldwell. The
struggle was brief but bitter. Half a score of general and field
officers went down on the Union side. But Caldwell finally succeeded
in driving the enemy back across the ravine from which Ward had been
dislodged, and two brigades of regulars firmly closed the gap toward
Little Round Top.

But the point of support at the orchard being gone, all these troops
were in turn driven back after repeated charges and countercharges
made across the wheat-field had piled it with the slain of both
armies.

Anderson's Confederate division now advanced to perform its share
of the work cut out for it; namely, of continuing the assault from
right to left.

[Sidenote: Humphreys driven off.]

One side of the angle being swept away, being violently assaulted
both in front and flank, Humphreys also had to fall back from the
Emmettsburg road to the main position, or be cut off from it.
Everything that had been fighting on Sickles' new line was now going
to the rear in more or less confusion. The enemy were now masters of
the whole of that line, had inflicted serious losses upon the Third
and Fifth Corps, and had taken some of Sickles' guns. We had only
Round Top to show for the terrible struggle resulting from Sickles'
advance.

[Sidenote: Crumbs of Comfort.]

These disasters could not make our generals give up beaten yet.
Crawford's "Pennsylvania Reserves," a splendid body of well-seasoned
soldiers, were now ordered to drive the victorious enemy beyond the
wheat-field. Seizing a color, the general himself led the charging
column across this thrice-fought field, clearing it in the most
gallant manner. Two brigades of the Sixth Corps followed this
movement. These prompt measures completely discouraged all further
efforts on the enemy's part in this quarter. Longstreet withdrew
his shattered forces to the peach orchard. In these unavailing
assaults he had lost upwards of five thousand men. Hood was wounded,
Barksdale killed, and Semmes mortally wounded.[69]

After this repulse, some of Doubleday's division went out to the
Emmettsburg road, capturing the enemy's post at the Rogers house on
that road.

It was now growing dark. Lee's brilliant plan of consecutive attack
from right to left had dwindled to a series of isolated combats--a
blow here and a blow there, instead of those combined and telling
strokes he had designed giving all along the Union line.[70]

[Sidenote: Cemetery Ridge pierced.]

In falling back upon Cemetery Ridge, which was done in admirable
order, Humphreys was followed up by three of Hill's brigades, one of
which, Wright's, actually succeeded in reaching the crest, and had
even seized some of the guns there, before troops could be brought
up to check it. The other brigades having failed to support it, this
one was easily driven off, though its having pierced the Union
centre with so little opposition undoubtedly led Lee to think the
thing not so difficult, after all. We think it was the controlling
motive for his attack on the third.

[Sidenote: Culp's Hill deserted.]

[Sidenote: And is occupied.]

One other conflict remains to be noticed. The peril menacing his
left had induced Meade to nearly strip Culp's Hill of its defenders.
All of the Twelfth Corps, which, it will be remembered, held Culp's
Hill and its approaches, had been hurried over to the left, except
one brigade, thus abandoning the rude but substantial breastworks
that these troops had raised with felled trees, earth, or loose
stones, against an attack. As yet all seemed quiet on this side;
but when, shortly after sunset, Ewell's corps tardily began the
part assigned it by pouring out of the woods in which it had lain
concealed, to begin a furious assault upon Culp's Hill, his men
found nothing before them except the undefended works just spoken
of on that part of the hill bordering upon Rock Creek. Finding the
door standing open, as it were, they had only to walk in and take
possession.

[Sidenote: The Danger of it.]

Trifling as it seems when relating it, this was by far the most
important, we might say the only real, advantage gained by the enemy
in all this day's fighting, with its frightful losses in men and
material--and for this reason: The point seized was within short
musket-shot of the Baltimore pike, and quite near that part of it
where the reserve Union artillery was parked. This might be seized
or stampeded. More than this, the pike led first to Westminster,
where Meade had fixed his base of supplies before moving up to
Gettysburg, so making it from necessity his line of retreat in case
of a reverse to the army. In short, this was one of those desperate
cases that admit only of desperate remedies; either the Confederates
must be driven out before they could look about them, or the army
must retreat. Again, night undoubtedly saved the Union army from a
great disaster.

Farther to the left Greene's brigade met and repulsed every assault
made upon them. The combat took place in the thick woods, already
darkened by the approach of night.

[Sidenote: Cemetery stormed.]

While this was happening at Culp's Hill, the rest of Early's
Confederate division came on in the early twilight to the assault of
Cemetery Hill. The day had worn itself out, the west only glowed a
sullen red upon the battlefield. Early's dusky lines could scarce be
made out except by the flashes of musketry seen here and there. One
of his brigades struck the side nearest Culp's Hill (the gap side),
where the Union infantry were kneeling behind stone walls, waiting
with guns cocked for them to get up nearer; the other brigade, with
a third in reserve, marched on the right of the first. Thirty odd
guns flamed and thundered upon them from the Cemetery. The hillside
was lighted up by flashes of musketry. It was one incessant blaze
and roar. The left brigade was mowed down in swaths, and had to give
way; but that on the right forced its way through the ranks of the
infantry, swarmed up around the guns that were dealing death among
them, and began a hand-to-hand fight with the artillery-men, in
which men were beaten to death with handspikes and rammers.

[Sidenote: Enemy is repulsed.]

The Confederates enjoyed a short-lived triumph. An ominous silence
succeeded the struggle around the guns. Word was passed that the
enemy was in our works. Orders were given in whispers, for it was
now too dark to tell friend from foe. The steady tramp, tramp of
armed men was now heard approaching. Presently, out of the darkness,
a brigade of the Second Corps rushed in with a cheer. Being joined
by other troops, all fell upon the exultant Confederates, who,
finding themselves left without support, saved themselves as they
could. As it was, not half of them got back to their own lines.

This ended the fighting for the day. Darkness and exhaustion
summoned the weary soldiers of both armies to a much-needed rest.
Thus far the two days' fighting had proved indecisive. On the left
the enemy had taken a somewhat closer hold, yet the Union position
was everywhere practically intact except at Culp's Hill.[71] It
is true that both armies were much weakened from loss of blood,
although their relative strength remained much as before. Perhaps
the Union army had suffered most, because its reinforcements were
thrown in piecemeal, and badly cut up before they could render
effective assistance.

It now began to be understood that if the Union army had not
sustained a defeat, it was not so much because of any natural
strength of the ground, since the Confederates had twice forced a
way to it, as because its form enabled troops to concentrate upon
the threatened point with great rapidity. To lengthen it out, as
Sickles had done, was to throw away this advantage. He had finally
been forced to retake his natural position. Herein, we think, lies
the whole secret of Meade's successful defence. The first of July
was an accident: the second, a blunder.

  [63] The two roads, Emmettsburg and cross-road, lay on converging
  ridges, which formed the angle at the orchard. It was a very
  irregular line, however, running first round the orchard, then
  along a ravine at the edge of the wheat-field to the Devil's Den,
  and again across this to the hollow, where it swung back so as to
  embrace the Den.

  [64] Lee's order of battle had been made in the belief that by
  throwing Longstreet across the Emmettsburg road he would envelop the
  Union army's proper left, whereas we have seen that he was wholly at
  fault, until Sickles made a condition where it did not exist before.

  [65] In their effort to keep out of sight the enemy lost two hours.
  Two hours sooner they would have occupied the orchard without
  hinderance.

  [66] The enemy took three guns here that could not be got off.

  [67] Vincent's and Weed's brigades of the Fifth Corps were thrown
  upon Little Round Top in succession, each regiment going in under
  fire.

  [68] "The battery went up that rocky hill, through the woods on the
  east side, at a trot, with spurs and whips vigorously applied. I do
  not believe a piece barked a tree ... we went there at a trot, each
  man and horse trying to pull the whole battery by himself."--_Lieut.
  Rittenhouse._

  [69] Kershaw and Semmes were both driven back to the Rose house,
  the former losing over six hundred men, the latter being killed;
  but Barksdale, supported by Wofford, bore down all opposition, thus
  allowing the defeated brigades to rally and come up again.

  [70] The whole history of this day shows that Hill's corps had
  been too badly hurt on the first to take any efficient part on the
  second. Practically Longstreet was left to fight it out alone.

  [71] At the close of the day the enemy held, on the left, the base
  of the Round Tops, Devil's Den, its woods, and the Emmettsburg road;
  on the right he had effected a lodgement at Culp's Hill.




IX

THE THIRD OF JULY


The events of the second seem to have impressed the two generals
quite differently. In Lee the combative spirit rose even higher.
To Meade the result seemed, on the whole, discouraging. The enemy
held a strong vantage-ground on his right; his line had been twice
pierced. Would he be better able to hold it now that the army was
weakened by the loss of eight to ten thousand men?

[Sidenote: Meade's council.]

At nightfall a council of war was called, and the situation
discussed. Meade desired to know first the condition of the
troops, and next the temper of his officers. To this end they were
separately asked whether they favored a removal of the army to some
other position, or waiting another attack where they now were. The
general voice was in favor of fighting it out to the bitter end, and
it was so determined.

A strong force of infantry and artillery was therefore moved over to
the right, in readiness to expel the enemy there at break of day.

[Sidenote: Lee not beaten yet.]

Deeming the result of the day's operations to be on the whole
favorable to him, Lee was equally determined to fight to a finish.
As Napoleon had said before him, in a similar spirit of impulsive
exultation, when satisfied that Wellington was awaiting his
onslaught at Waterloo, "I have them now, those English!" so Lee now
replied to all Longstreet's remonstrances by shaking his clenched
fist at Cemetery Hill, exclaiming as he did so, "The enemy is there,
and I am going to strike him!"

[Sidenote: Plan of Attack.]

He too, therefore, strongly reinforced his left at Culp's Hill,
with the view of having a heavy force well in hand there, ready
to strike in upon the Union right and rear, while a formidable
column of wholly fresh troops, charging it in the centre, should
cut that in two, seize the Baltimore pike, and with Ewell's help
crush everything on that side. In order to reap to the utmost the
advantages looked for as certain, Stuart's cavalry, now back with
the army, was sent far round to the Union rear, with orders to
strike the Baltimore pike as soon as the retreat should begin.

To guard against some such movement, or in fact any demonstration
towards its rear, the Union cavalry was posted on this pike, a
few miles back of Cemetery Ridge. Still another cavalry force was
guarding the Union left, beyond Round Top.

These dispositions present, in brief, the preparations both generals
were making for the third day's conflict.

[Sidenote: Pickett to lead it.]

Lee had silenced Longstreet's objections by ordering him to get
ready Pickett's fresh division for the decisive charge on Cemetery
Ridge. These soldiers, Virginians all, bitterly complained because
they were only the rear-guard of that army which they were told was
driving the Yankees before them in utter rout. Their charge was to
be preceded and sustained by turning every gun in the Confederate
army upon the point of attack.

With the first streak of day the struggle for the possession of
Culp's Hill began again. As both sides had orders to attack, there
was no delay in commencing. Soon from every commanding spot the
Union batteries were sending their shot crashing and tearing through
the woods in which the Confederates lay hid, smiting the forest
with a tempest of iron, throwing down branches, and plowing up the
earth in great furrows.[72] Stirred up by this shower of missiles,
Ewell's men poured forth from the valley of Rock Creek, and rushed
up the hillside in front, to begin anew the sanguinary struggle they
had only ceased from on the previous night. Here among the gray
rocks and aged oaks--the pleasure-ground, in fact, of the people of
Gettysburg--a contest raged for hours, similar to that which Little
Round Top had witnessed on the previous afternoon.

One piece of hopeless heroism deserves commemoration in all accounts
of this battle. In the height of the engagement an order was brought
for two regiments, the Second Massachusetts and the Twenty-seventh
Indiana, to charge across the meadow stretching between Culp's Hill
and McAllister's Hill, on the other side of which the enemy lay in
the old intrenchments. To try to pass that meadow was rushing to
certain destruction. "Are you sure that is the order?" was demanded
of the officer who brought it. "Positive," was the reply. "Up,
men--fix bayonets--forward!" was the ringing command. One regiment
reached the works, the other faltered midway under the terrible
fire. As many were lost in falling back as in going forward. Only
half the men got back to the lines unhurt.

[Sidenote: Culp's Hill retaken.]

After seven hours of this kind of fighting, the assailants were
finally driven beyond Rock Creek again, leaving five hundred
prisoners, besides their dead and wounded, behind them. Again an
essential part of Lee's plan of attack had signally failed, and once
more the whole Union line stretched unbroken from Culp's Hill to
Round Top.

But it was only eleven o'clock; and though the battle had gone
against him on this side, Lee seems to have felt, like Desaix at
Marengo, that there was still time to gain another. Was it here
that Lee lost that moral equipoise which seems born in really great
commanders in moments of supreme peril?

[Sidenote: The Cannonade.]

Be that as it may, the order was given for his artillery to
open. Longstreet had massed seventy-five guns in one battery,
Hill sixty-three, and Ewell enough more to bring the number up to
one hundred and fifty in all. At precisely one o'clock the signal
guns were fired. Before their echoes died away the whole line of
Confederate batteries was blazing like a volcano. There seemed to
be but one flash and one report, and their simultaneous discharges,
pealing out deafening salvos, went rolling and rolling on through
the valleys, and echoing among the hills, in one mighty volume of
sound, vying with the loudest thunder. It was sublimely grand,
sublimely terrifying. Without a moment's warning, as if the heavens
above had opened and the earth below yawned beneath their feet, the
Union soldiers found themselves in the midst of the pitiless storm.
A tornado of shot and shell burst upon Cemetery Hill, tearing the
air, rending the rocks, plowing up the ground, and dealing death on
all sides at once.

This terrific cannonade, under which the solid earth shook, the
sky was darkened at noonday, the valley filled with thick-rolling
smoke, the air with explosions and nameless rubbish, and which
seemed announcing the coming of the Last Day, is thus described by
an eye-witness:--

"The storm broke upon us so suddenly that soldiers and officers
who leaped, as it began, from their tents, or from lazy siestas
on the grass, were stricken at their rising with mortal wounds,
and died, some with cigars between their lips, some with pieces of
food in their fingers, and one at least--a pale young German from
Pennsylvania--with a miniature of his sister in his hands. Horses
fell shrieking out such awful cries as Cooper told of, and writhing
themselves about in hopeless agony. The boards of fences, scattered
by explosions, flew in splinters through the air. The earth, torn
up in clouds, blinded the eyes of hurrying men; and through the
branches of the trees and among the gravestones of the cemetery a
shower of destruction crashed ceaselessly. The hill, which seemed
alone devoted to this rain of death, was clear in nearly all its
unsheltered places within five minutes after the fire began."

Eighty guns replied from the Union position almost as soon, so
that the very air between the two armies was alive with flying
missiles.[73] During the cannonade the Union infantry were lying
down in open ranks behind the crest, taking it, for the most part,
with remarkable steadiness. As the enemy's artillerists mostly
overshot the ridge, the ground behind was a place of even greater
danger. The little farmhouse standing on the Taneytown road,
occupied as army headquarters, was so riddled that the general
was compelled to seek a safer spot. Even as far back as Culp's
Hill, where the Twelfth Corps were still facing their assailants,
the enemy's shot came plunging and plowing through the ranks from
behind, thus killing men by a fire in the rear.

After this indescribable uproar had lasted upwards of two hours, the
Union batteries were ordered to cease firing in order to husband
their ammunition for what every man in the army knew was coming.

It was now three o'clock. The moment had come for the supreme effort
of all.

All the Union generals now set themselves to work repairing the
damages caused by the cannonade--re-forming ranks, replacing
dismantled guns, rectifying positions, exhorting the men to stand
firm, and, in short, themselves offering the highest examples of
coolness and soldierly conduct.

[Sidenote: Union Defences.]

We had a first line of infantry posted along the foot of the
heights,--some behind stone walls, when these followed the natural
line of defence, as they now and then did; some behind rocky
inequalities of the ground,--with artillery above and behind it;
and there was a second line of infantry back of the crest. Although
Meade is said to have expected, and even told some of his officers,
that Lee's next blow would fall on the Union centre, we detect no
specific preparation to meet it.

[Sidenote: The Storming Column.]

The troops designated for the assault were waiting only for the
order to advance, Pickett's splendid division on the right,
Pettigrew's, lately Heth's, on the left, with two brigades in
support of Pickett, two in support of Pettigrew, and still another
marching at some distance in the rear. Though the equals of any
in that army, Heth's soldiers had been so much shaken by their
encounter with the First Corps that they were far from showing the
same ardor as Pickett's men. All told, the assaulting force numbered
not less than fifteen thousand, and probably more.[74]

Pickett was watching the effect of the artillery-fire when a courier
brought him word from the batteries that if he was coming at all
now was his time, as the Union guns had slackened their fire. After
reading it himself, Pickett handed the note to Longstreet at his
side. "General, shall I advance?" Pickett asked his chief. Mastered
by his emotions, Longstreet could only give a nod of assent and turn
away. "I shall lead my division forward, sir," was the soldierly
reply.

As the charging column passed through them to the front, fifteen or
eighteen guns followed close behind in support.

Friend and foe alike have borne testimony to the steadiness with
which this gallant band met the ordeal--by much the hardest that
falls to the soldier's lot--of having to endure a terrible fire
without the power of returning it. No sooner had the long gray lines
come within range than the Union artillery opened upon it, right
and left. For a quarter of an hour the march was kept up in the face
of a storm of missiles. Cemetery Hill was lighted up by the flashes.
Little Round Top struck in sharply. Smoke and flame burst from the
batteries along Cemetery Ridge. Solid shot tore through the ranks;
shells were bursting under their feet, over their heads, in their
faces; men, or the fragments of men, were being tossed in the air
every moment, but, closing up the gaps and leaving swaths of dead
and dying in their track, these men kept up their steady march to
the front, as if conscious that the eyes of both armies were upon
them. They had been told that the enemy's artillery was silenced!

[Sidenote: Pickett's Advance.]

As soon as they could do so without injury to their own men, the
Confederate guns began afresh, so that again shells streamed through
the air and balls bounded over the plain without intermission, dense
smoke shutting out the assailants from view.

Protected by the fire of this redoubtable artillery, the column
continued its deliberate march. When within five hundred yards, or
about to cross the Emmettsburg road, it suddenly moved off by the
left flank a short distance, as if to close up a break in the line
or recover the true point of attack--some say one and some say the
other. Be that as it may, Pickett's men first received the fire of
Stannard's Vermont brigade while making this flank march, and again
encountered it on their flank after facing to the front for the
purpose of resuming their advance toward the heights.

This must be considered, we think, as the turning-point in the
assault. Stannard's attack, made at such close quarters, so
shattered Pickett's right brigade that this flank of the assaulting
column never reached the crest at all, but drifted more and more to
the rear, lost to all organization. Thus was repeated that memorable
manœuvre of the Fifty-second Regiment against the Imperial Guard at
Waterloo, and with like results; for before the close and deadly
fire poured in upon them at only a few rods' distance--a fire they
were powerless to return--Pickett's right was either shot to pieces
or crowded in upon the centre, so throwing it into disorder and
checking its momentum, while the Green Mountain boys, aided now by
other troops, clung to their mutilated flank, following it up step
by step, and firing into it as fast as the men could load.

Eight batteries were now pouring canister into Pickett at
point-blank range, carrying away whole ranks of men at every
discharge. Before him, between two little clumps of trees, which Lee
himself had carefully pointed out and Pickett was making such heroic
efforts to reach, lay the Second Union Corps. As the men of this
corps realized that the brunt of the charge was to fall on them,
they grew restive and anxious; but Gibbon, curbing their impatience
with voice and gesture, quietly said, as he passed along the ranks,
"Hold your fire, boys--they are not near enough yet."

[Illustration: Point where Pickett's Charge was stopped.]

[Sidenote: The Final Charge.]

Pickett's first line had come within a hundred and fifty yards when
the order was given to fire. It was followed by a terrible volley
before which that line went down like grass before the scythe. When
the smoke rolled away the charging lines were seen inextricably
mixed together, all order lost--a frantic mob covered with blood
and dirt, with scarce a general officer left, but not in retreat.
On the contrary, with a rush and a roar, heard above the din of
cannon and musketry, the surging mass came rolling and tumbling on,
like waves against a rocky shore, firing, screeching, brandishing
swords and battle-flags, one moment swallowed up in smoke, the next
emerging a few paces nearer. Officers became separated from their
men; generals no longer led their own brigades, but with uplifted
swords rushed on to the front, calling on their men to follow. One
after another they fall. Individual example and heroism were the
only things that could count here, and neither was wanting. One
thought and one purpose seemed to animate them, and that was that
they must either conquer or die. Sublime heroism! Sublime folly!

In this manner one portion of the Confederates struck and
overwhelmed the first Union line, driving its defenders back upon
the second. Here they turned and faced their infuriated assailants,
who, led on by Armistead, had leaped the last stone wall, shooting
down or bayoneting all those found crouching behind it, had then
rushed up to seize the solitary gun that had just fired its last
shot in their faces, and, as if victory was assured, already had
raised their cry of triumph on the disputed summit.

[Sidenote: The Repulse.]

Though divided and thrown off by this entering wedge, the Union
soldiers, who now came swaying up from right to left, soon seized it
as in a vise. For a few minutes an indescribable mêlée raged here
on half an acre of ground, at push of bayonet, hand to hand, muzzle
to muzzle, breast to breast. Gradually the enclosing lines surged
forward. Armistead was shot down by the side of the captured gun.
The Confederates turned to fly, but found the way barred to them on
every side. Imbedded by its own force, the living wedge could not
be withdrawn. They surrendered in swarms, while those who dared the
dangers of again crossing that fatal plain, now spread themselves
out over it in every direction.

When it was all over with Pickett, the two supporting brigades came
up on the right, only to be repulsed by a few volleys. Pettigrew had
been defeated almost before he could come to close quarters, Pickett
destroyed, Wilcox brushed away.

From his post of observation Longstreet had watched the advance up
the ridge. "I saw," he says, "the crest of the hill lit up with a
solid sheet of flame. When the smoke cleared away the division was
gone. Nearly two-thirds lay dead on the field, and the survivors
were sullenly retreating down the hill. Mortal man could not have
stood that fire."

Again the old story. An assaulting column has been driven through an
opposing line, it is true, but with the loss of all organization,
without a supporting force to follow up the advantage it has
gained, it finds itself in a trap where it is in danger of being
sacrificed to the last man. Unable to execute the simplest manœuvre,
it is at the mercy of any organized body brought against it. Lee
seemed to have forgotten Fredericksburg. Longstreet did better at
Chickamauga.

[Sidenote: Cavalry Battles.]

Two cavalry battles belong to the complete history of this
remarkable day, though in no way affecting the main result. In the
first Stuart attacked and was defeated. This was cavalry against
cavalry; and as Pickett's front attack was repulsed, that in the
rear amounted to little in itself. In the second Kilpatrick made
a bold dash into Hood's rear, about Round Top, with the view of
throwing the enemy into confusion, breaking up his line there, and
so facilitating an advance by the Union forces in that quarter.
This was cavalry against infantry in position, and the ground the
worst possible for cavalry manœuvres. For an hour the enemy had our
troopers riding round them with drawn sabres, receiving the fire
first of one regiment and then of another. No advantage being taken
of the diversion, the cavalry was nearly cut to pieces.

  [72] To this day the woods show the destructive effects of this
  cannonade.

  [73] "I instructed the chiefs of artillery and battery commanders
  to withhold their fire for fifteen or twenty minutes after the
  cannonade commenced, then to concentrate their fire with all
  possible accuracy upon those batteries which were most destructive
  to us, but slowly, so that when the enemy's ammunition was exhausted
  we should have enough left to meet the assault."--_Gen. Hunt, Chief
  of Artillery._

  [74] Pickett's division with two brigades absent was probably
  five thousand five hundred strong, Heth's not less, and the three
  supporting brigades as many more. The troops were no doubt selected
  as the very best that offered.




X

THE RETREAT


[Sidenote: Gettysburg evacuated.]

[Sidenote: Lee's New Position.]

Thrice had the sun gone down on that ensanguined field, where one
hundred and fifty thousand men had striven for the mastery and forty
thousand sealed their devotion with their blood. Exhausted by their
efforts, the Confederates thought only of making good their retreat.
Gettysburg was immediately evacuated and both wings drawn back on
the main body, so that, as now re-formed and contracted, Lee's army
stretched from Oak Hill to the peach orchard. Behind this line, and
under cover of its woods, he was now getting ready to retreat.

Such plain indications could hardly be overlooked.[75] A
reconnoisance from the Union left found the Confederates retiring.
During the night the Union troops went forward to the battlefield of
the 2d.

[Sidenote: Lost Chances.]

Lee's lost opportunity on the 1st was as nothing to Meade's on the
3d. It came when the Confederates were in the confusion resulting
from their repulse. It was lost, however, because the great captain
was not there. Meade was unequal to exacting a supreme effort at
this moment, either from his army or himself. To let slip this
opportunity was to tempt fortune itself, and it never came again.

[Sidenote: Strange Inaction.]

But if from any of the many causes alleged,[76] or all of them put
together, the one chance out of a thousand, for which all this
marching and fighting had been going on, had eluded Meade's grasp,
or if it be conceded that he found Lee's new position so strong as
to hold out no hope of a successful assault, history will still
demand to know why this beaten army, short of ammunition, encumbered
with its wounded, its prisoners, and its wagons, thirty to forty
miles from the Potomac, with a mountain defile to pass and a wide
river to cross, was suffered to march off unmolested with all its
immense spoil, and not only to do that, but to remain eleven days
between Gettysburg and the Potomac without being once seriously
attacked.

[Sidenote: Lee in a Tight Place.]

That Lee could not long remain on Seminary Ridge, let his position
be ever so strong, was a self-evident proposition. He had exhausted
his means of attack, his army was cut down by more than twenty
thousand men, his ammunition was nearly expended, nor could it be
replenished short of Virginia. His means of defence were therefore
extremely limited. If it had been possible to detain Lee where
he was, even for a few days longer, his surrender was a foregone
conclusion without firing another shot. But taking the situation as
we find it, we do not see how he could have been more critically
placed, if in the presence of an enterprising opponent. Lee's
attitude after the battle savors far more of bravado than a desire
to be attacked. To block his retreat it would have been necessary
to seize the Monterey Pass immediately after the battle.[77] Meade
had the shorter line. His cavalry would have kept Lee at bay until
the infantry could come up. He should never have suffered Lee to
put South Mountain between them without making an energetic effort
to prevent it. As the Union army remained immovable until this was
done, we have only to chronicle in brief the inglorious ending of an
otherwise glorious campaign.

[Sidenote: Read over Chap. I.]

All the 4th the two armies lay in the positions just now described.
Lee's direct line of retreat to the Potomac was by the Fairfield
and Hagerstown road, which crossed the mountain below and behind
him through the Monterey defile. To withdraw his army and trains by
this one road was altogether impracticable. The trains and wounded
were therefore started off during the afternoon of the 4th, in a
drenching rain, by the Chambersburg road, under a strong escort of
cavalry and artillery, but no infantry.[78] When stretched out on
the road this train was seventeen miles long.

[Sidenote: Lee's Wounded.]

Being ordered to push on to the Potomac without halting, the
sufferings of the wounded were horrible beyond description.
Travelling all night and avoiding Chambersburg, this column struck
across the country to Greencastle, and after fighting its way all
day against detachments of Union cavalry, finally got to the
Potomac at Williamsport, on the afternoon of the 5th, with the loss
of a few wagons. After the escort had passed through Greencastle,
the citizens turned out and attacked the wagons in the rear with
axes, so disabling some and delaying the rest.

When the wagon train got there, the Potomac was found too high to be
forded. The bridges were gone, and the trains could not get across
that way.[79] So there Lee met his first check.

After giving his trains a twelve hours' start, Lee put his army
in motion for the Potomac by way of Fairfield and Hagerstown, by
daylight of the 5th.

[Sidenote: Lee's Infantry move off.]

[Sidenote: A Lame Pursuit.]

The road being unencumbered by trains,[80] the Confederates were
able to move with celerity and silence. As soon as his departure
was discovered, the Fifth and Sixth Corps moved out in pursuit. But
it was then too late. Lee had stolen a march on his pursuers. An
officer of this force says of its tardy operations:--

"As we moved, a small rear-guard of the enemy retreated. We
followed it up to Fairfield, in a gorge of the mountains. There we
again waited for them to go on. Then only one brigade, with the
cavalry, continued to follow them, while the rest of the corps
turned off to the left, toward Boonsboro," to which point the main
body was now directing its march. Lee had got the short road and
left Meade the long one.

[Sidenote: Union Army en Route.]

Lee's army was thus safe back again in the Cumberland Valley before
Meade was ready to pursue.[81] Having abandoned the idea of forcing
the Monterey Pass, and so following up and harassing the enemy's
rear, we have just seen the infantry turning off to the south, on
the Gettysburg side of South Mountain, as if to head off Lee from
the Potomac by this roundabout way, or, in short, by a march of
fifty miles to his thirty, and after giving him a start of ten.
This was to force the Union army to efforts which had just proved
so exhausting. Nothing could exceed the impotence of this pursuit.
In reality, the march up to Gettysburg to find and attack Lee was
now being repeated. But fate, not Meade, was so checking Lee at
every point that but for the weakness or delays of his adversary the
Confederate general could never have saved his army as he did.

[Sidenote: Lee brought to a Halt.]

[Sidenote: Lee Escapes.]

Even before Lee could reach Fairfield, General French[82] had
reoccupied Harper's Ferry, destroyed the enemy's pontoon train at
Williamsport and Falling Waters, and captured the guards. Finding
his means of crossing gone, nothing remained for Lee but to show
a bold front until they could be restored. And the long détour
the Union army was making left him ample time in which to render
his new position between Hagerstown and Williamsport so strong
that when Meade[83] finally got his army up before it he again
hesitated to attack. The tables were now fairly turned on him.
His generals mostly shared in this feeling of respectful fear.
Stung by the President's censure, Meade at last bestirred himself.
Again he was too late. How often during this campaign have we been
obliged to repeat those ill-omened words! In the language of the
general-in-chief, Halleck:--

"Instead of attacking Lee in this position, with the swollen
waters of the Potomac in his rear, without any means of crossing
his artillery, and when a defeat must have caused the surrender of
his entire army, he was allowed time to construct a pontoon bridge
with lumber collected from canal-boats and the ruins of wooden
houses, and on the morning of the 14th his army had crossed to the
south side of the river. His rear-guard, however, was attacked by
our cavalry and suffered considerable loss. Thus ended the rebel
campaign north of the Potomac, from which important political and
military results had been expected. Our own loss in this short
campaign had been very severe; namely, 2,834 killed, 13,709 wounded,
and 6,643 missing--in all, 23,182. We captured 3 guns, 41 standards,
13,621 prisoners, 28,178 small-arms."

The Confederate losses, considering that they were always the
assailants, must have exceeded these figures.[84] As it is well
known that Pickett's losses were suppressed by Lee's order, any
compilation must be necessarily incomplete.

Ten whole days thus elapsed from the time Lee fell back defeated
from Cemetery Ridge until he recrossed the Potomac. He had brought
off his army, his plunder, with upward of four thousand Union
prisoners, by his opponent's leave, as one might say. There is a
saying that a British army may be gleaned in a retreat, but not
reaped. So far, in this war, barren victories had been the rule, and
fruitful ones the rare exception.

We do not find much to say in praise of a retreat that was nowhere
seriously molested. It has, we know, been lauded as a marvel of
skill. Lee's patience alone was severely tested. The crossing of the
Potomac was effected without hinderance in the presence of Meade's
whole army, partly by the bridge at Falling Waters, partly by the
fords at Williamsport. True, the Union cavalry did a great deal
of hard riding and scouting; but it, too, failed to destroy Lee's
trains on the 6th, when it was in its power to have done so, and, in
all probability, compelled his surrender.

  [75] Lee's cavalry had also left its menacing post in the Union rear.

  [76] It has been claimed that the Union right was too much
  disordered for a counter-attack, and that one on the left was
  impracticable.

  [77] Meade sent his cavalry out, not in a body, but in detachments,
  on the morning of the 4th. Gregg was ordered to the Chambersburg
  road, Kilpatrick to the Hagerstown, and Buford to Williamsport, by
  way of Frederick. Kilpatrick attacked and dispersed the small force
  then guarding the Monterey Pass that evening, but no steps seem to
  have been taken for holding it, and Kilpatrick therefore went on
  over the mountains next day in pursuit of the enemy's trains. We
  observe, in this connection, that Lee threw every sabre he had into
  Meade's rear in anticipation of his retreat on July 3d.

  [78] Lee told the officer in command that he could spare him all the
  artillery he wanted, but no infantry.

  [79] The Union cavalry attacked this train on the 6th without
  success. Had they succeeded, all of Lee's immense plunder would have
  fallen into their hands. As it was, the trains were got across by
  a rope ferry; also the four thousand Union prisoners that the army
  brought along with it.

  [80] The corps trains had to move with the army mostly.

  [81] The whole Union army did not leave Gettysburg before the
  morning of the 6th. The Confederates were then nearly up to
  Hagerstown.

  [82] French, it will be remembered, had been ordered to hold
  Frederick. He now occupied the lower passes for which Meade was
  making, so reinforcing Meade.

  [83] The infantry reached Middletown on the morning of the 9th,
  crossed South Mountain that day, and on the next came in front of
  the enemy's intrenchments.

  [84] The Confederate losses have been variously estimated all the
  way from twenty thousand four hundred (total) to thirty thousand.
  There exists no accurate basis for a fair count. The first figure is
  far too low; the last, perhaps, too high.




XI

THINGS BY THE WAY


The battle of Gettysburg has often been called the turning-point
of the war between the States. It was certainly the greatest of
the many great conflicts of that war--the greatest exhibition, we
will say, of stubborn fighting. There, if ever, it was that Greek
met Greek. During three sweltering midsummer days, two numerous,
well-appointed, veteran armies, ably led and equally nerved to their
utmost efforts, fought for the mastery with equal resolution and
bravery. For three days the result hung in suspense. Through all
those terrible days the battle constantly grew in its proportions
and intensity. From first to last, until the last gun was fired, the
hush of expectancy fell upon the land. It was felt that this battle
must be decisive. On one side, at least, was the determination to
make it so. The impoverished Confederacy was staking its fortunes
upon a last throw.

Yet this battle was singularly indecisive. On the first day the
Union forces suffered a serious reverse; on the second they narrowly
escaped a defeat; but on the third the Confederates were so signally
repulsed that nothing was left them but retreat. This they effected
with boldness and skill, in spite of the victors, in spite of the
elements--in fine, in spite of that fortune which seemed to have
turned against them from the moment of their defeat.

Considered, then, only as a battle, Gettysburg was a series of
isolated combats, delivered without unity and followed by no
irremediable reverse to the vanquished. In no military sense,
therefore, can it be called decisive. In a political sense it was
even less so, because Lee's army was neither destroyed, nor were the
resources of the Confederacy fatally crippled. Rather was it a trial
of strength between two athletes, one of whom, after throwing the
other, tells him to get up and go about his business--in short, a
mere pounding match.

Yet Gettysburg ought to have been the Waterloo of the Confederacy.
Then and there that war should have ended. To say that the whole
country was aghast at Lee's escape would be only the plainest
expression of the popular feeling of the day. Naturally enough
one great chorus of disappointment greeted its announcement. Was
this all? Had these two armies merely had a wrestling match? Had
Meade and Lee compared their bruises, only to separate with the
understanding that they would fight again at some future day when
both felt stronger? Apparently the war was no nearer its ending than
before. To the common understanding it did seem "a most lame and
impotent conclusion." If the Confederates could not be crushed when
everything conspired against them, and in favor of the Union army,
when would they be?

That Lee extricated his army from its highly dangerous position
must no longer be attributed to his superior generalship, we think,
but to the want of it on the Union side. It is vain to ask why this
or that thing was not done, since this campaign is unique for its
omissions. Meade at Gettysburg was like a man who has been pushed
into a fight reluctantly, and who stops the moment his adversary is
down.

The history of this battle is largely that of the two commanders and
their subordinates. Things done or left undone control the destinies
of nations as well as of individuals. The want of cordiality among
some of the Union generals was an incident of importance.

In arresting Lee's triumphal march, Meade had undoubtedly achieved
all that the best-informed persons would have asked of him when he
took the command, more perhaps than he allowed himself to expect
when the magnitude of the task first unfolded itself to his troubled
vision. His measures are so expressive of this want of confidence
that any other conclusion seems inadmissible. Very sanguine persons,
indeed, said that Lee ought never to return to Virginia except as
a prisoner of war. The bare notion of a successful invasion by
seventy thousand or eighty thousand men, with one hundred thousand
behind them and the whole North before them, was scouted as a
piece of folly designed and put in execution by madmen. If one
hundred thousand were not enough, were there not one hundred and
fifty thousand available? When Lee got to the Susquehanna these
demands were somewhat lowered. They did not know, these unreflecting
persons, that what an army wants is not men, but a man--one man.

So far this army had been a school in which mediocrity had risen.
The really great commander had not yet forced his way to the front
in spite of cabals in or out of the army. There had been a series of
experiments--disastrous experiments. No army had ever marched more
bravely to defeat or so seldom to victory. Few expected victory now.

Yielding to an imperative order, Meade found the Herculean task
thrust upon him, with the fact staring him in the face that a
defeated general meant a disgraced one.

But even then he did not find himself free to handle his army as he
thought proper, because in Halleck he had always a tutor and critic
who from his easy-chair in Washington assumed to supervise the acts
of the commander in the field. Upon a not over-confident general
the effect was especially pernicious. The war-cry at Washington was,
"Beat the enemy, but make no mistakes!" This was constantly ringing
in Meade's ears. As Halleck was an excellent closet strategist,
some of his suggestions would have been eminently proper and
useful, could he have been on the spot himself, but under existing
conditions they could serve only to make Meade still more hesitating
and timid. Handled in this way, no army has ever achieved great
results, and no army ever will achieve them.

At the close of the Third Day's sanguinary encounter with Lee, Meade
had found himself victorious. The fact that the fortune of war had
thus placed the initiative in his hands seems to have become a
source of embarrassment and perplexity; from that moment his acts
became timid, halting, partial. When pressed to more active measures
he flew into a passion.

The fault, as we look at it, was not so much in the commander as in
the man. Meade the commander could do no more than Meade the man. He
was no genius. He was only a brave, methodical, and conscientious
soldier, who, within his limitations, had acted well his part. Under
Grant he made an excellent so-called second in command.

It has been said that in defending itself successfully, the Union
army had done all that could be expected, under the circumstances.
Must we then admit that for Lee not to conquer was in itself
a victory? Unquestionably there was a prevalent, a somewhat
overshadowing, feeling that all the best generalship was on the
Confederate side.

By a sort of perversity of the human mind, a certain class of
critics is always found ready to prove why a beaten general is the
best general.

Nevertheless, Lee himself goes down in history as a general who
never won a decisive victory.

He was certainly lucky at Gettysburg. For a time his great
reputation silenced the voice of criticism. His own subordinates are
now accusing him of making fatal mistakes. May it not be equally
true that Lee rashly undertook more at Gettysburg than he was able
to perform? He has as good as admitted it. Carried away by a first
success, he committed the old mistake of underrating his adversary.
His victory of the first day was due to no combinations of his
own, because he was then completely ignorant of where the Federal
army was. He supposed it at least twenty miles off. His success of
the second, again, arose first out of an entire misconception on
his part as to the Union position, which was nowhere near where
he thought it was, and next from a piece of recklessness on the
part of one of the Union generals, by which an inferior force was
again opposed to a superior one. On the third, he used means wholly
inadequate to the work in hand, yet of his own planning; and on
all three days, with the field of battle under his eye, little or
no manœuvring for advantage of position, and plenty of time to
look about him in, he signally failed to secure coöperation among
his corps commanders. We see no evidence here, we confess, of
generalship. Indeed, this inability to make himself obeyed indicates
a serious defect somewhere. Like another great but also unfortunate
captain, Lee might have exclaimed in bitterness of spirit,
"Incomprehensible day! Concurrence of unheard-of fatalities! Strange
campaign when, in less than a week, I three times saw assured
victory escape from my grasp! And yet all that skill could do was
done."

Gettysburg made no reputations on either side. It may have destroyed
some illusions in regard to the invincibility of Confederate
generals. Meade succeeded because he was able to move troops to
threatened points more rapidly than his assailant, but the battle
was won more through the gallantry of the soldiers than by the
skill of their generals. Victory restored to them their feeling of
equality--their morale. And that was no small thing.

Considered with reference to its political effect upon the fortunes
of the Confederacy, not to have succeeded was even worse than not to
have tried at all, since it settled the question, once and for all,
of achieving independence on Northern soil. Peace without submission
was no longer possible, because the end was no longer in doubt. It
came at last. And never in the history of the world, it is believed,
have the victors shown such magnanimity to the vanquished.


THE END.




APPENDIX

ARMY OF THE POTOMAC AS IT FOUGHT AT GETTYSBURG.


Major-Gen. GEORGE G. MEADE, Commanding.

STAFF.

Major-Gen. Daniel Butterfield, Chief of Staff; Brig.-Gen. M.
R. Patrick, Provost Marshal-General; Brig.-Gen. Seth Williams,
Adjutant-General; Brig.-Gen. Edmund Shriver, Inspector-General;
Brig.-Gen. Rufus Ingalls, Q. M. General; Brig.-Gen. Gouverneur
K. Warren, Chief of Engineers; Brig.-Gen. Henry J. Hunt, Chief
of Artillery; Col. Henry F. Clarke, Chief Commissary; Major John
Letterman, Chief of Medical Department; Major D. W. Flagler, Chief
Ordnance Officer; Capt. L. B. Norton, Chief Signal Officer.


FIRST ARMY CORPS.

Major-Gen. JOHN F. REYNOLDS.

_First Division._--Brig.-Gen. James S. Wadsworth. _First Brigade_:
Brig.-Gen. Solomon Meredith; _Second Brigade_: Brig.-Gen. Lysander
Cutler.

_Second Division._--Brig.-Gen. John C. Robinson. _First Brigade_:
Brig.-Gen. Gabriel R. Paul; _Second Brigade_: Brig.-Gen. Henry
Baxter.

_Third Division._--Maj.-Gen. Abner Doubleday. _First Brigade_:
Brig.-Gen. Thos. A. Rowley; _Second Brigade_: Col. Roy Stone; _Third
Brigade_: Brig.-Gen. Geo. J. Stannard; _Artillery Brigade_: Col.
Chas. S. Wainwright.


SECOND ARMY CORPS.

Major-Gen. WINFIELD S. HANCOCK.

_First Division._--Brig.-Gen. John C. Caldwell. _First Brigade_:
Col. Edwin E. Cross; _Second Brigade_: Col. Patrick Kelly; _Third
Brigade_: Brig.-Gen. S. K. Zook; _Fourth Brigade_: Col. John R.
Brooke.

_Second Division._--Brig.-Gen. John Gibbon. _First Brigade_:
Brig.-Gen. William Harrow; _Second Brigade_: Brig.-Gen. Alex. S.
Webb; _Third Brigade_: Col. Norman J. Hall.

_Third Division._--Brig.-Gen. Alexander Hays. _First Brigade_: Col.
Samuel S. Carroll; _Second Brigade_: Col. Thomas A. Smyth; _Third
Brigade_: Col. Geo. L. Willard; _Artillery Brigade_: Capt. J. G.
Hazard.


THIRD ARMY CORPS.

Major-Gen. DANIEL E. SICKLES.

_First Division._--Major-Gen. David B. Birney. _First Brigade_:
Brig.-Gen. C. K. Graham; _Second Brigade_: Brig.-Gen. J. H. H. Ward;
_Third Brigade_: Col. Philip R. De Trobriand.

_Second Division._--Brig.-Gen. Andrew A. Humphreys. _First Brigade_:
Brig.-Gen. Joseph B. Carr; _Second Brigade_: Col. Wm. R. Brewster;
_Third Brigade_: Col. Geo. C. Burling; _Artillery Brigade_: Capt.
Geo. E. Randolph.


FIFTH ARMY CORPS.

Major-Gen. GEORGE B. SYKES.

_First Division._--Brig.-Gen. James Barnes. _First Brigade_: Col. W.
S. Tilton; _Second Brigade_: Col. J. B. Sweitzer; _Third Brigade_:
Col. Strong Vincent.

_Second Division._--Brig.-Gen. Romayn B. Ayres. _First Brigade_:
Col. Hannibal Day; _Second Brigade_: Col. Sidney Burbank; _Third
Brigade_: Brig.-Gen. S. H. Webb.

_Third Division._--Brig.-Gen. S. Wiley Crawford. _First Brigade_:
Col. Wm. McCandless; _Second Brigade_: Col. Joseph W. Fisher;
_Artillery Brigade_: Capt. A. P. Martin.


SIXTH ARMY CORPS.

Major-Gen. JOHN SEDGWICK.

_First Division._--Brig.-Gen. H. G. Wright. _First Brigade_:
Brig.-Gen. A. T. A. Torbert; _Second Brigade_: Brig.-Gen. J. J.
Bartlett; _Third Brigade_: Brig.-Gen. D. A. Russell.

_Second Division._--Brig.-Gen. A. P. Howe. _Second Brigade_: Col. L.
A. Grant; _Third Brigade_: Brig.-Gen. T. H. Neill.

_Third Division._--Brig.-Gen. Frank Wheaton. _First Brigade_:
Brig.-Gen. Alex. Shaler; _Second Brigade_: Col. H. L. Eustis; _Third
Brigade_: Col. David J. Nevin; _Artillery Brigade_: Col. C. H.
Tompkins.


ELEVENTH ARMY CORPS.

Major-Gen. OLIVER O. HOWARD.

_First Division._--Brig.-Gen. Francis C. Barlow. _First Brigade_:
Col. Leopold von Gilsa; _Second Brigade_: Brig.-Gen. Adelbert Ames.

_Second Division._--Brig.-Gen. A. von Steinwehr. _First Brigade_:
Col. Chas. R. Coster; _Second Brigade_: Col. Orlando Smith.

_Third Division._--Major-Gen. Carl Shurz. _First Brigade_:
Brig.-Gen. A. von Schimmelpfennig; _Second Brigade_: Col. Waldimir
Kryzanowski; _Artillery Brigade_: Maj. Thos. W. Osborn.


TWELFTH ARMY CORPS.

Major-Gen. HENRY W. SLOCUM.

_First Division._--Brig.-Gen. Alpheus S. Williams. _First Brigade_:
Col. Archibald L. McDougall; _Second Brigade_: Brig.-Gen. Henry H.
Lockwood; _Third Brigade_: Col. Silas Colgrove.

_Second Division._--Brig.-Gen. John W. Geary. _First Brigade_: Col.
Chas. Candy; _Second Brigade_: Col. Geo. A. Cobham, Jr.; _Third
Brigade_: Brig.-Gen. Geo. S. Greene; _Artillery Brigade_: Lieut.
Edw. D. Muhlenberg.


CAVALRY CORPS.

Major-Gen. ALFRED PLEASONTON.

_First Division._--Brig.-Gen. John Buford. _First Brigade_: Col. Wm.
Gamble; _Second Brigade_: Col. Thos. C. Devin; _Reserve Brigade_:
Brig.-Gen. Wesley Merritt.

_Second Division._--Brig.-Gen. D. McM. Gregg. _First Brigade_:
Col. J. B. McIntosh; _Second Brigade_: Col. Pennock Huey; _Third
Brigade_: Col. J. I. Gregg.

_Third Division._--Brig.-Gen. Judson Kilpatrick. _First Brigade_:
Brig.-Gen. Elon J. Farnsworth; _Second Brigade_: Brig.-Gen. Geo. A.
Custer.


HORSE ARTILLERY.

_First Brigade_: Capt. John M. Robertson; _Second Brigade_: Capt.
John C. Tidball.


ARTILLERY RESERVE.

Brig.-Gen. R. O. TYLER.

_First Regular Brigade_: Capt. D. R. Ransom; _First Volunteer
Brigade_: Lieut.-Col. F. McGilvery; _Second Volunteer Brigade_:
Capt. E. D. Taft; _Third Volunteer Brigade_: Capt. James F.
Huntington; _Fourth Volunteer Brigade_: Capt. R. H. Fitzhugh.




INDEX


  ARMY OF THE POTOMAC follows Lee, 39;
    order of march, 40;
    halts at Frederick, Md., 40;
    change of commanders, 40;
    dangerous meddling, 41;
    effect on the army, 42;
    its _morale_, 43, 44;
    its efficiency, _note_, 45;
    in march toward the enemy, 49;
    diverging while the enemy is concentrating, 52;
    hard marching, 53;
    is badly scattered, 53;
    left wing in a critical position, 54;
    how posted on June 30, 55;
    Buford's cavalry engaged at Gettysburg, 62;
    First Corps gets up to its support, 63;
    holds the ground till the Eleventh arrives, 68;
    both are defeated, 76; losses, 77;
    reasons for defeat, 77;
    ordered to Gettysburg, 85;
    Twelfth Corps gets up, 87;
    also part of Third, 89;
    other corps, 90;
    strength of the corps, _note_, 96;
    as posted July 2 on Cemetery Ridge, 98;
    Third Corps movements, 101, _et seq._;
    how this corps was formed to resist Lee's attack, 109;
    whole of the army up at last, 109;
    the battle begins, 112;
    Sickles' whole line is driven in, 124;
    we hold Little Round Top, 121;
    portions of the Second and Fifth assist the Third;
    they have to fall back, 123;
    other troops compel Longstreet to desist, 125;
    dispositions for renewing the battle, 133, 134;
    Culp's Hill attacked, 135;
    Ewell driven out, 136;
    sustains a terrific cannonade, 137, 138, 139;
    lines as formed to resist charge of July 3, 140;
    the assault repulsed, 143, _et seq._;
    remains inactive, 153;
    while Lee retreats, 154;
    marches in pursuit, 154;
    finds enemy in a strong position, 156; _notes_, 159;
    and Lee again slips away, 157;
    losses during the campaign, 157.


  Baltimore alarmed, _note_, 45.

  Baltimore Pike, cutting the Union lines, 99.

  Battlefield Memorial Association, _note_, 21.

  Buford's (John) cavalry operations on the left, 40;
    riding to Fairfield, 49;
    finds the enemy, 54;
    is ordered to hold Gettysburg, 55;
    posts himself on Oak Ridge, 61;
    fights till relieved, 63;
    is sent off to the rear, 101.


  Cavalry, battles of July 3d, 148;
    operations during Lee's retreat, _notes_, 158.

  Carlisle, Pa., occupied, 29;
    evacuated, 51.

  Cemetery Ridge, described, 15, 16;
    becomes a rallying-point, July 1, 77;
    situation afternoon of July 1, 82;
    Hancock renders it secure, 87;
    described more in detail, 98, _et seq._;
    the enemy succeed in scaling it, July 2, 125, 128;
    but are repulsed, 129;
    its advantages for defence better availed of, 130.

  Chambersburg, Pa., occupied by Lee's cavalry, 25;
    becomes his headquarters, 27.

  Confederate Army, The, eludes ours, _note_, 32;
    and invades Pennsylvania, 23;
    its strength, 24;
    its composition, _note_, 32;
    points of superiority, 24, 25;
    its _personnel_, 26, 27;
    at Chambersburg, 26, 27;
    moves to York and Carlisle, 28;
    its spirit, 29;
    moves to concentrate, 52;
    its advance upon Gettysburg is disputed, 62;
    finally defeats the forces opposed to it, 69, _et seq._;
    losses, _note_, 80;
    all but one division up night of July 1, 91;
    how formed, _note_, 110;
    the attack on Sickles, 115;
    Sickles defeated, 123;
    Longstreet's losses, 125;
    Cemetery Ridge reached by Hill's troops, 125;
    Ewell gains a foothold at Culp's Hill, 126;
    advantage to the Confederates, 127;
    position at close of the day, _note_, 131;
    Ewell expelled from Culp's Hill, 136;
    cannonades Union position, 137;
    final attack repulsed, 141, _et seq._;
    evacuates Gettysburg, 150;
    getting ready to retreat, 150;
    retreat effected, 157;
    losses, _note_, 159.

  Culp's Hill, its relation to Cemetery Hill, 19;
    occupied by Union troops, 84;
    made secure, 87;
    enemy gain a lodgment at, 126;
    retaken, 136.

  Cumberland Valley, route of Lee's invasion, 23;
    exodus from, 34.

  Curtin, A. G., his efforts to meet the invasion, 36.


  DEVIL'S DDEN, The, situation of, 20;
    surroundings, _note_, 22;
    struggle for its possession, 115, 116, 117;
    in the enemy's hands, _note_, 131.


  EARLY'S (J. E.) operations around York, 28;
    as a blind, _note_, 33;
    recalled to Gettysburg, 52;
    his arrival decides the day, 73, 76;
    assaults Cemetery Hill, July 2, 128;
    but is forced out, 129.

  Emmettsburg Road, described, 21;
    picketed by Union troops, 88;
    its relation to the hostile armies, 99;
    becomes a point of direction for Longstreet's attack, 114.

  Ewell's Confederate corps at Chambersburg, 26;
    moves on to Carlisle and York, 28;
    moves to Gettysburg and decides the first of July, 69, _et seq.;_
    but hesitates to attack Cemetery Hill, 81.


  FREDERICK, Md., becomes the pivot for the Union army, 40.


  GETTYSBURG, described, 10, 11;
    its strategic value, 13, 14, 15, _et seq._;
    its topography, 15, 16, _et seq._;
    Cemetery Ridge, 16;
    Seminary Ridge, 17;
    commanding points, 19, 20;
    Cemetery Ridge as a defensive line, 20; _notes_ 1, 2, and 3, p. 21;
    memorials of battle, _note_, 21;
    first appearance of Confederates in, 28; and _note_, 33;
    Lee's whole army marching to, 52;
    Union forces approaching, 55;
    how and where the battle began, see Chap. V., p. 60;
    in first day's conflict, 60, _et seq._;
    occupied by Ewell, 78;
    evacuated, 150.

  Great Round Top, how situated, 19.


  HANCOCK, Winfield S., organizing victory from defeat, 81, 82, 83;
    orders Culp's Hill occupied, 84;
    his report to Meade, 85; _note_, 95;
    sends Geary's division to Little Round Top, 88.

  Harrisburg alarmed, 25;
    enemy near it, 29;
    the panic at, 34, _et seq._;
    militia ordered to, 37;
    narrow escape of, 50.

  Heth's (Harry) Confederate division approaches Gettysburg first, 52;
    encounters Buford's cavalry, 62
    brings on battle of July 1, 63;
    sustains a check, 66;
    Pender, Rodes, and Early come to his aid, 69, 75;
    takes part in the famous charge of July 3, 140, 141.

  Hood, John B., marches into Chambersburg, 26, 27;
    attacks the Union left, July 2d, 114;
    is wounded, 115;
    his attack checked, 117;
    Union cavalry in his rear, 148.

  Hooker's (Joseph) plan of campaign, 40;
    objections to, _note_, 45;
    is superseded, 40.

  Howard, Oliver O., takes command at Gettysburg, 70;
    calls in vain for help, 70, 71.


  LEE, Robert E., his ascendancy over his troops, 29;
    portrait of, 30;
    wants his cavalry badly, 38;
    feels what it is to be in an enemy's country, 39;
    plans thwarted by Meade, 50;
    decides to cross South Mountain and give battle, 50; _note_, 59;
    orders all corps to Gettysburg, 51;
    steals a march on Meade, 53;
    at Gettysburg, 81;
    decides to attack, 91;
    Longstreet to turn Union left, 94;
    the plan in detail, 105, 106;
    determines to renew the battle, 133;
    reinforces Ewell, 133;
    orders Longstreet to assault Cemetery Ridge, 134;
    sends off his wounded, 153;
    follows with his army, 154;
    gets to the Potomac before he can be intercepted, 156;
    and crosses to Virginia safely, 157.

  Little Round Top, its position and appearance, 19; _note_, 22;
    Hancock causes its occupation, 88;
    is abandoned, 98;
    is about to fall into the enemy's hands, 115;
    troops brought up to it, 119, 120;
    conflict for its possession, 120, 121;
    Union troops remain masters, 121.

  Longstreet, James, opposes Lee's purpose, 91;
    is ordered to begin the attack of July 2, 105;
    gets into position, 106;
    as a fighter, 106, 107;
    method of attacking Sickles, 114, 115;
    is successful here, but halts before the main position, 125.

  Lutheran Church a hospital, 22.

  Lutheran Seminary, its situation, 17;
    Union troops make a stand there, 77.


  MCLAWS, (Lafayette) Confederate division attacks Sickles, July 2,
        117.

  Meade, George G., takes command, 42;
    his qualifications, 43;
    divining Lee's intentions, 47, 48;
    discards Hooker's plan, 48;
    his own, 49;
    transfers his base to Westminster, 49;
    relieves Harrisburg and York, 51;
    his perplexities, 51;
    is outmanœuvred, 53;
    learns that Lee is moving to the east of South Mountain, 55;
    but holds his purpose of concentrating at Big Pipe Creek, 57;
    learns of the defeat at Gettysburg and sends Hancock there with
          full powers, 70;
    decides to fight at Gettysburg, 85;
    though the chances are against him, 90;
    gets to the field, 94;
    designs attacking Lee himself, 97;
    posting his troops, 98;
    depressed by the results of July 2 he calls a council of war which
          decides to fight it out, 132;
    sends troops to retake Culp's Hill, 133;
    starts his cavalry on reconnoisances, _note_, 158;
    his indecision, 151;
    follows Lee to the Potomac, 155.


  NATIONAL CEMETERY, Account of, _note_, 21.


  OAK RIDGE, Buford's cavalry defends it, 62, 63;
    see Chap. V.


  PENNSYLVANIA invaded, 23;
    first effects of, 34, _et seq._

  Philadelphia during the invasion, _note_, 45.

  Pickett's (Geo. E.) Confederate division ordered to charge Cemetery
        Ridge, 134;
    it advances, 141;
    is cannonaded, 142
    but keeps on, 143;
    is attacked in flank, 143, 144;
    encounters a terrible musketry fire, 144;
    breaks through the Union line, 146; is destroyed, 147;
    his losses suppressed, 157.

  Pittsburgh, Defensive works at, _note_, 45.


  REYNOLDS, John F., commands Union left wing, 54;
    orders Buford to hold Gettysburg, 55;
    orders up his troops and hastens there himself, 62;
    is killed while posting his soldiers, 64;
    his fall a misfortune, 64, 73.

  Rock Creek, its position on the field, 19.


  SEMINARY RIDGE described, 17.

  Sherfy's Peach Orchard, 89, 103, 104;
    is occupied by the Third Union Corps, 108;
    not strong enough to cover the ground, 109;
    _note_, 110;
    is attacked, 118;
    is carried, 122;
    _note_, 130.

  Sickles, Daniel E., 101;
    feels the enemy on his front, 104;
    finds him extending his right, 104;
    determines to move his corps out to the Peach Orchard, 105;
    his attitude toward the general commanding, 107, 108;
          _notes_, 111;
    is attacked, 112;
    wounded, 122.

  South Mountain assumes the first strategic importance, 39;
    masks Lee's movements, 50.

  Stuart's (J. E. B.) Confederate cavalry operations, _note_, 32;
    is cut off from Lee, 38.

  Swale, The, its situation, 20.


  WARREN, Gouverneur K., sees the peril of Little Round Top and saves
        it, 119.

  Westminster, Pa., as base of the Union army, 49.

  Wheat-field, Combat at the, July 2, 117, 123.

  Willoughby Run, 61;
    see Chap. V.


  YORK, Pa., occupied by Confederates, 28;
    evacuated, 51.

       *       *       *       *       *

Transcriber's note:

Minor typographical and punctuation errors have been corrected
without note. Irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have
been retained as printed.

The cover for the eBook version of this book was created by the
transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

Page 25, Footnote 10: A footnote anchor was missing and inserted
here by the transcriber. "adversary is already prepared,--whereas
if there is anything a Southerner piques himself upon, it is his
horsemanship."[10]







*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG, 1863 ***


    

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