The Battle of Gettysburg 1863

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?

Geary at Little Round Top.

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.

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.

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.

Part of Third Corps up.

Find Sherfy's on Map.

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

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?

Lee's Plan.

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.

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.

Ewell says No.

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.

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.

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."

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.

VII

THE SECOND OF JULY

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.

Little Round Top deserted.

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.

Left Flank Features.

Emmettsburg Road.

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.

Little Round Top. See Chap. I.

Big Round Top.

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 Sickles56 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.

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.

Sherfy Place.

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!"

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

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 occupied59 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.

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.

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.

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.

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 delays62 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.

VIII

THE SECOND OF JULY —Continued

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.

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.