The History of the Confederate War, Its Causes and Its Conduct. Volume 2 of 2

It is greatly to the credit of General Meade as a strategist that he quickly saw all this and hurried his army forward to occupy that commanding position before Lee could seize upon and control it.

He did this masterfully. When Lee's advance reached Gettysburg on the first of July, it found itself opposed by a force too great for it to deal with in any summary fashion. And that force had seized upon positions of the utmost strategic value before the Confederates reached Gettysburg.

Here a little topographical information is necessary to a clear understanding. With the aid of any good map of the region it may be condensed into brief space.

The town of Gettysburg was itself of no consequence to either side. The military position among the hills surrounding it was vitally important.

Many roads converge at this point. A trifle over two miles south of the town there are two bold and commanding hills – Round Top and Little Round Top. From these a line of hills extends toward the town, commanding the lower ground to the east and west. This is called Cemetery Ridge, and is not to be confounded with Seminary Ridge, presently to be mentioned. Cemetery Ridge, just before it reaches the town, trends off to the east and ends in Culp's Hill.

West of the town is another and higher ridge, also running north and south, called Seminary Ridge. Just west of these high grounds is Willoughby Run, a little creek which afforded opportunity for attack and defense.

When Lee learned that Meade, instead of sitting down to the defense of Washington, was advancing against his communications, he ordered his army to concentrate at Gettysburg for a decisive battle. Meade in the meanwhile was pushing his columns to that point. Here were two masters of the game of war, who, while opposing each other, were agreed that Gettysburg was the key to the situation. The strategic value of that point was equally apparent to both.

Lee, being left in the dark by Stuart's absence, was slowly advancing in detachments, in order to subsist his army upon the country, confident that his enemy was still lingering around Washington and that he had himself ample time in which to seize the commanding positions in advance of the foe's approach. Meade, meanwhile, was perfectly informed of Lee's movements and was hourly quickening his march.

When the head of Lee's column under Ewell reached the neighborhood of Gettysburg on the first of July, it encountered not only the Federal cavalry, which it had expected to find there and to brush aside without difficulty, but the whole of Meade's advance corps – artillery and infantry – under Reynolds, while another corps under Howard was hurrying up in support.

Seizing upon the line of Willoughby Run the Federals undertook to hold it and the hills in rear of it against the enemy's assault. Ewell, expecting to encounter no resistance except such as the cavalry and perhaps some brigades of Pennsylvania militia, could offer, advanced confidently only to find his way disputed by some of the best veteran corps of the Army of the Potomac.

Reynolds, commanding the Federal advance, was killed early in the action and Doubleday succeeded him. Howard presently superseded Doubleday in chief command and later Hancock replaced Howard.

So completely had Lee been left in the dark by the vagaries of his cavalry leader that in ordering Ewell's advance upon Gettysburg he had intended only that his lieutenant should brush away the cavalry and militia there, seize upon the strategic positions and hold them easily until the Confederate army could come up and plant itself impregnably to receive the attack which the foe must make in sheer desperation. But when Ewell approached the town and found himself confronted by the strongest corps of Meade's army instead of merely having cavalry and militia to deal with, it was imperative upon him to bring on a general action at once, in disobedience of Lee's order to avoid such an action until the other Confederate army corps should come up. Ewell was much too wise a soldier not to see the necessity of striking at once and with all the force he could command in the hope of securing for Lee some at least of the strong positions and thus giving to the Confederates an opportunity to fight the great and inevitable battle with a reasonable hope of winning it.

So Ewell struck hard with what force he had, and the enemy struck back with equal vigor. Hour after hour the conflict endured, the men on both sides fighting with determination and calmly enduring a slaughter that only veterans could have stood.

When Lee heard the roar of the conflict and, with practised ear measured its severity, he hurried forward reinforcements as fast as possible, and meanwhile sent a messenger to ask Ewell "What are you fighting there?" In response Ewell answered, "The whole Yankee army, I think."

Here at last the advance forces of the two greatest and gallantest armies ever assembled on this continent had met, each under a leader in whom it had confidence. Here at last, with approximately equal numbers those two armies faced each other with intent to fight out to a finish the question which of them was the better organized for the work of war. The Federals outnumbered the Confederates by no more than 15,000 men or so, and the élan the Confederates had brought with them out of recent victories, together with their limitless confidence in Lee's superiority to any living man as a general, served adequately to offset that small advantage.

The courage of the men on both sides was matchless. Their endurance was superb. Their heroism was such as poets rejoice to celebrate in song. The drama, with all its arts and all its accessories has no "effects" to offer, that can for one instant compare in masterfulness with those presented by the story of this struggle of Americans against Americans for the mastery.

Toward the end of the day, the Confederate onsets proved irresistible and the Federal forces in large part at least, fell into retreat. But with the cavalry standing fast and with a brigade of infantry strongly posted on Cemetery Ridge, Hancock, who had assumed command on the field, succeeded in stopping the flight and forming a new line along the crest of Cemetery Ridge.

Thus ended the first day's fight. The Confederates had had the better of it in certain ways. They had been taken by surprise, not in the usual way by being unexpectedly set upon by an army whose assault they were not anticipating, but by finding in their path, when seeking to occupy an advantageous position, a veteran army skilfully handled and well commanded, where they had expected to meet only light bodies of cavalry and militiamen whose resistance they might regard as lightly as they would the small embarrassment of a field of ripening grain. They had lost heavily in the ensuing conflict, but they had driven their foes – or most of them – into retreat and had occupied positions from which the great battles of the ensuing days might be waged with hope and confidence.

During all the night that followed, as during all that first day of fighting, the army corps and divisions and brigades on both sides marched ceaselessly in an endeavor to put themselves into their places on the line in time for the final struggle. Some of them, on either side, marched eighteen miles, some twenty-five, and one at least on the Federal side tramped wearily over thirty-three miles of distance without sleep or rest, in its eagerness to bear its part in what promised to be the crowning conflict of the war.

But each side having secured a strong position neither desired to bring on the conflict until its forces should be fully up, and so the two armies did not fall a-fighting again until about four o'clock in the afternoon of the second day – July 2, 1863. Then Longstreet with his Confederates fell upon Sickles with a fury that only a seasoned corps could have withstood for a moment. Sickles occupied a line of rather low-lying hills that stretched diagonally across between the Federal and Confederate positions. His left wing having no natural obstacle to rest upon, was bent back toward Little Round Top, thus presenting an angle to the enemy.

Upon this angle Longstreet's veterans were hurled with determination, while a part of his corps – Hood's fierce fighting Texans, and that most desperate of rowdy corps, Wheat's Louisiana Tigers – passing around the flank of it, made a determined attempt to seize Little Round Top, a position from which, had they secured it, their guns could have swept a large part of the Federal line with a destructive enfilade fire. General Warren saw the danger in time and moved a heavy force toward the coveted hill, including a battery whose guns the men dragged by hand up the steep and into position.

Hood's men pressed on in face of the fire opened upon them, and with a desperate determination rarely equaled even in this war, endeavored to conquer the position in a hand to hand struggle. The men on both sides saw the vital importance of the position and fought for its possession like so many war-drunken demons. They fought hand to hand, using bayonets when too close together to load and fire. They brained each other with the butts of their muskets. They assailed each other with bowie knives. They even resorted to the use of stones, hurling them in each other's faces and breaking each other's skulls with heavy boulders.

In the end Hood's attack was baffled, and Warren held the hill. But for his alertness in seeing the necessity and his wonderful determination in seizing the opportunity, the battle must have been lost then and there; for, with his guns planted on Little Round Top, Lee could quickly have compelled the whole Federal line to retire and seek some other field of fighting.

Probably in all the course of the war the margin between victory and defeat was never at any point narrower than it was in that desperate struggle for possession of Little Round Top, about sunset on the second day of July, 1863. Never anywhere, before or since, was there fiercer fighting. Never anywhere did soldiers give a better account of themselves. Officers, from lieutenants to generals, fell in numbers by the side of their enlisted men, and over the whole slope the ground was strewn with the dead and the dying. Some of them wore the blue, and some of them the gray – about equal numbers in each uniform – but all of them were Americans and the memory of their heroism is the common heritage of all the people of the great Republic.

During these two days of terrific fighting the Federals had got distinctly the worst of it. The Confederates had not won a victory, but they had at any rate secured advantages that might well give their adversaries pause.

General Meade called a council of war after the firing ceased on the night of the second. He has himself declared that he had no thought of retreating after the fashion that had been established by usage in the Army of the Potomac. General Meade's truthfulness is wholly above suspicion. But General Doubleday has pretty conclusively shown that General Meade's memory was at fault in this and that his object in calling the council of war was to take the opinions of his lieutenants as to whether he should withdraw from the Gettysburg position – as the Army of the Potomac had withdrawn from so many others after being worsted in battle – or should stay there and fight the matter out.

However that may be – and historically it does not matter – it was decided to stay there, and the night was spent by both armies in diligent preparation for a renewal of the desperate and not unequal conflict on the morrow. Every man and every gun that was within reach was brought into position. Every inch of advantageous ground that either side commanded was occupied to the full. Every preparation that either of those titanic forces could make for the morrow was made. It was at last the fixed purpose of each of these great armies to give battle to the other in a final contest for supremacy, in full conviction that the whole question at issue between the warring sections was deliberately staked upon the outcome of this one desperate struggle.

And indeed the stake was no whit less than that. It was obvious that should Meade beat and crush Lee on this decisive battlefield, the very existence of the Southern Confederacy would be at an end; the road to Richmond would be open to any single army corps that might be sent to undertake the conquest of the Confederate capital, while a dozen or a score of strong divisions could easily be sent on that task if necessary. On the other hand if Lee could have crushed Meade in this battle Washington would have been his for the taking, while Baltimore, Harrisburg, Philadelphia, and New York would have been helpless to offer any resistance which need in the least check or embarrass him. In either case the war must have come to a hurried end.

Thus, when it was decided to renew the battle on the field of Gettysburg on the third of July, 1863, the stakes of the war game included all that there was of a cause on either side.

Lee was in a position in which he must take supreme risks. Therein only lay his hope. Meade was in a very different case. He might fall back and still reserve to himself the opportunity to fight again with hope of success. It is in no way astonishing that Meade hesitated, called a council of war, and asked for the advice of his major generals as to whether he should risk the whole Federal cause upon the issue of a single and very uncertain battle with such an adversary as Lee, or should withdraw and adopt a defensive attitude.

On the other side Longstreet strongly advised Lee against giving battle in this position. Longstreet thought Lee had accomplished enough. He thought also that by shifting the position it was easily possible for Lee to put himself in better and his adversary in much worse case, for fighting, before bringing on the battle.

Whether Longstreet's counsels were wise or otherwise, only skilled military critics are competent to determine; and even their determination must always be open to doubt, especially as Longstreet's support of Lee's plan of battle seems to have lacked something of efficiency – the lack of which may have been determinative of results.

At any rate Lee decided to give battle, and he made his dispositions accordingly. He had already assailed both flanks of the Federal army and found both too strongly posted to be successfully turned or crushed. He decided, therefore, to hurl his entire strength directly against the Federal line in the hope of breaking it and thus driving his enemy into disorderly retreat.

It was a desperate thing to do, but Lee knew the fact, which has since been recorded by a historian on the other side, that the soldiers under his command were "the best infantry on earth" and he hesitated not to exact of them the most desperate and terrific work. He knew at least that these men would do and dare anything and everything in an attempt to carry out his will and achieve the ends he purposed.

He assembled a hundred guns on Seminary Ridge, each so well manned as to be capable of firing from four to six times a minute. In answer the Federals on Cemetery Ridge assembled about a like number of guns, equally well served.

The greatest artillery duel that had ever occurred was waged on that morning. Nearly a thousand shells a minute were launched upon their life-destroying career. Guns were knocked from their carriages, only to be replaced by other guns for which there had been no firing room before. Cannoneers were swept away like flies, and their places were promptly taken by other cannoneers who eagerly and clamorously claimed the privileges of the conflict. Caissons were exploded by bursting shells and other caissons moved into their places with the precision of mathematics itself.

The Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of the Potomac had learned their business. The men who composed them now were soldiers, drilled, trained, battle-seasoned and thoroughly hardened to their work by long and varied experience. Whatever it was possible for courage and endurance to accomplish, that they were ready to undertake. They no more thought of reckoning the personal danger than of calculating the wanderings of the stars in their courses. They stood their ground, nothing daunting them and nothing suggesting to their minds a thought of running away. Is it any wonder that when such men composed the opposing armies, the fighting was such as to make men admire and angels weep?

The one thing that made the greater battles of the Confederate war terrible was this fact that the two armies were equally American in their composition, equally determined, equally heroic in daring and in enduring.

While all this fury of artillery fire continued, the infantry on either side lay flat on their bellies, taking advantage of every smallest inequality of the ground, and waiting for the serious work of war to begin. For by this time every soldier in either of these armies knew all there was to know about war's work, and every one of them knew that this terrific artillery bombardment – the greatest that had ever occurred since cannon were invented – was merely preliminary to that onset of the infantry which was presently to determine which of these two great armies should have the mastery and which should be destroyed.

After two hours or more of this work with the guns, there came Pickett's charge – one of the very gallantest endeavors in all the history of war – having for its only rival in heroic determination the six successive charges of Federal troops up Marye's Heights at Fredericksburg.

Fourteen thousand of Lee's "best infantry on earth" were set to make this onslaught. Their task was about the most difficult and terrible one that had been anywhere undertaken during the war. There was a full mile of open country lying between the line from which they moved and the line which they were called upon to assault. Every inch of that mile of open space was swept by the fire of a hundred guns served as guns were rarely served before or since. It was in face of this veritable "fire of hell" that these fourteen thousand men were required to traverse a mile of space and then assail an entrenched and strongly posted enemy like unto themselves in courage, determination and all soldierly qualities.

They went to this work with unfaltering courage, and at the end of it all a new chapter had been added to the history of heroism.

The moment Pickett's men began their mile long charge, the Federal cannon – about a hundred guns – resumed their fire while the Confederate artillery must of course cease firing lest their shells plow through the ranks of their own infantry. In spite of all, and in face of a hailstorm of shot and shell the Confederates steadily advanced. Great rents were made in their lines by the explosion of shells, but the gaps thus made were instantly closed up, and not for one moment did the assaulting force recoil, or halt or slacken the eager rapidity of its advance. As it drew near to the enemy's lines the Federal fire was changed from shell and shrapnel to canister in double and triple charges – each gun hurling from a quart to a gallon of balls every few seconds into the faces of the still advancing and still cheering Confederates. Presently, when the Southerners drew still nearer to the lines, a great body of Federal infantry that had been lying down and sheltering itself, rose and poured murderous volleys into the ranks of the assailants.

Those ranks were withering now, under the destructive fire, but still they faltered not nor failed. Still they went forward to execute Lee's will, which meant to them quite all that the will of God means to the devotee.

They trampled over the advance lines of the enemy. They pushed forward to the breastworks. They even crossed the fortifications and for a brief space held the lines they had been sent to conquer.

But so depleted were their ranks by this time, and so strangely unsupported were they by those other divisions which they had expected Longstreet to send in after them, and which he did not send in, that they were at last forced back by sheer weight of numbers.

A small remnant of that splendid charging column returned to Lee's lines under a withering fire. The rest of it lay dead or dying on the hillside.

It has always been a fact highly creditable to American armies that the killed and wounded among their officers of high rank in every severe conflict relatively outnumber the casualties among the enlisted men. At Gettysburg, on both sides, this was conspicuously the case. On the Federal side General Reynolds was killed early on the first day of the fight. Later General Weed was mortally wounded; General Vincent and Colonel O'Rorke were killed. So were General Zook and Colonel Cross, while General Sickles lost a leg. In the third day's fighting Generals Hancock, Doubleday, Gibbon, Warren, Butterfield, Stannard, Brooke and Barnes were wounded; General Farnsworth was killed. On the Confederate side the number of killed and wounded among officers of high rank was equally great. General Barksdale fell, leading his men in terrific assault. General Armistead was shot to death as he laid his hand upon a Federal gun, and in Pickett's matchless charge, very nearly every officer, high and low, was either killed or wounded. Their men were not sent into the conflict; they were led into it, and between those two things there is a world of difference.

Longstreet has criticised Lee for ordering Pickett's charge. On the other hand Longstreet has been severely criticised for not having supported that charge with all his might, pushing forward every man he could command to take the places of Pickett's killed and wounded and to crown their superb endeavor with compulsory success. Again Lee has been criticised for having given Ewell, in command of his left wing, uncertain and discretionary orders, instead of directing him, at the time of Pickett's charge, to hurl his whole force upon the enemy in his front, regardless of all other considerations. These matters are open questions that belong to military criticism rather than to history. They need not be discussed in these pages. But it belongs to history to relate that when the struggle was at an end, and the people of the South manifested a disposition to hold Longstreet responsible for its failure to accomplish the results intended, Lee promptly and definitely took upon himself all there might be of blame for the miscarriage of his plans. In a letter to President Davis he wrote protesting that the responsibility was all his own, and asking that some younger and fitter man than himself should be appointed to succeed him in command of that splendidly devoted and unfaltering army which he had so often led to victory but on this occasion had led to something akin to defeat and disaster.

There could scarcely be a stronger contrast than that between Lee's generous refusal to have any of his lieutenants held responsible for the results of a battle which he had authority to direct and Hooker's endeavor to shift to the shoulders of his subordinates the responsibility for his phenomenal failure at Chancellorsville. Lee was a great man, Hooker fell far short of that measure.

Gettysburg was, like Sharpsburg or Antietam, technically a drawn battle. Neither side had won a recognizable victory. Neither army had driven its adversary from the field. Neither had destroyed or even seriously impaired the fighting capacity of the other. Neither had triumphed over the other. But the result at Gettysburg as at Antietam was that Lee's invasion of the North was brought to naught. In the one case as in the other the Confederate hope of compelling terms of peace was defeated by successful resistance. To that extent at least the battle had resulted in victory for the Federal arms.

When the fourth of July dawned, neither army cared to assail the other. All day they confronted each other sullenly, as they had done at Sharpsburg. Then Lee slowly and deliberately withdrew, as he had done on the former occasion, his enemy not having confidence or strength enough to interfere in any active way with his retirement. Lee's ammunition was so far exhausted that many of his divisions had only one round of cartridges, while many of his batteries had none at all. But so terrible had been his onset, and so greatly did his foe dread a further conflict with him, that after taking his own time in the enemy's country in which to determine what he would do, he moved to the Potomac practically unmolested, rested there because of high water, still unmolested, and finally returned to Virginia. Meade slowly and quite inoffensively followed. The two armies resumed their old positions on the Rappahannock and the Rapidan and neither ventured to assail the other during the remainder of that summer or autumn.