USA > Massachusetts > History of the Thirty-seventh Regiment, Mass., Volunteers, in the civil war of 1861-1865, with a comprehensive sketch of the doings of Massachusetts as a state, and of the principal campaigns of the war > Part 15
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During the afternoon there had been a quite constant sound of cannon far to the northwest, but it only evoked the remark that the cavalry were having another brush. As dusk fell many of the men were asleep, for they were still weary, when the clat- ter of hoofs, the hurried dash of staff officers, the bustle of preparation at head-quarters, and the vigorous command to "Pack up and fall in!" drove away in a moment all hope of a refreshing night's sleep. Before the slower men are in their places, even, the column is in the road and sweeping back in the direction whence it came the previous evening. There is a hope which is more than half a belief that the destination may be Westminster, which is but ten miles away, and the men move
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TO GETTYSBURG.
out with cheerful step. Presently a kind-hearted farmer, who is giving each boy in blue a cup of milk, announces that a battle has begun at Gettysburg, nearly 40 miles away, and it is natural to suppose that to be the destination of the corps.
" About 40 miles-he said it was 40 miles-and what did he call the name of the town?" goes from lip to lip, and the step which has been light becomes heavy and mechanical, and the soldiers are transformed into mere machines, to plod on as steadily as possible all the interminable night. There is no moonlight, and only a pale glimmer of the stars, half obscured by clouds; but the long column presses forward and never halts, for if it stops the men will drop into heavy slumber and may be left behind in the darkness. As it is, some of the officers doze in their saddles, and the men as they walk are like those moving in a dream.
The night is well advanced, and the leading brigade has been toiling for miles along a narrow road, when a shouting aide presses through the struggling footmen. "Make way here. make way, for God's sake; you are all wrong!" Then reaching the head of a regiment : " Halt your men, colonel; you are on the wrong road!" Presently the head of the column comes slowly back, those who have dropped to sleep are roused, the regi- ment countermarches and plods back over the three or four miles that have taken so much of the soldiers' vital force all in vain. Two or three hours have been lost and six or eight miles of ground covered that the general historian will make no account of when he tells the story of the night.
Morning lights the east; dawn flushes the sky; day comes in its full glory; but the column does not halt. At last the advance brigade turns from the highway, and a hundred litth fires for the preparation of coffee flash up in a moment. The water comes from a generous brook in the valley, and how grate- ful after the intense hunger is partly satisfied it will be to bathe the heated face and blistered feet in the cool stream! Vai hope! Even before the coffee is made the bugle rings out ::: unwelcome call and the weary procession is resumed. The half- made coffee is swallowed on the march or carefully poured into
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WEARY, HUNGRY, AND FOOT SORE.
the canteen, for in many cases it is the only food or drink the soldier can hope to taste that day. With that care for the stomachs of his men which was characteristic of him, General Hooker had kept the army supplied with three days' ratious, even on the march, the supply trains being brought up every night and food drawn for the third day in advance. In most cases the two or three days' rations which nominally were in the men's haversacks had quite disappeared, so that when under General Meade the order was issued that no more should be drawn until they were due by the commissary's records, it in effect obliged most of the enlisted men to subsist for three days on one day's allowance, supplemented by whatever individual skill or good fortune might add. Far out on either flank of the moving column the more ambitious went, searching out every dwelling that promised a mouthful of food, finding here a few cherries, there some half-ripened blackberries, and welcoming whatever would appease the cravings of hunger. These men had no money with which to buy, they could offer only a soldier's rude thanks and a promise to fight for the threatened homes when the enemy should be met; but whatever the loyal people could spare was freely bestowed, often to the last catable morsel. Especially was this true of the village of Littlestown, ten miles southeast of Gettysburg, the only place of any size through which the Sixth Corps passed that day. The inhabitants there seemed actuated by a common impulse to empty their larders for the benefit of the soldiers, but not more than a brigade or two had passed when the last of the available supply was ex- hausted and they could only lift up empty hands in blessing of those on their way to defend their homes and property.
The Southern cavalry had scoured the country pretty effectu- ally during the few days of their presence, and almost from the time the Federal column entered Maryland every officer who could be approached had listened to tales of especial hardship in the way of horses and other property ruthlessly appropriated with at the best no other compensation than the worthless Con- federate scrip. As one such unhappy applicant turned away from the Thirty-seventh, at a temporary halt, he exclaimed, very
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vigorously, " Well, colonel, if you can't do anything toward getting back my colts, I hope when your men come across the rascals they'll give them hell!"
Only the participant in like experiences can realize the misery of the ceaseless march of the long, sultry hours. It was a hot, breathless July day. The sun poured down with merciless, un- broken heat, and the dust that rose in great lazy clouds from the highway enveloped man and horse, general and private alike. in its all-embracing mantle of torture. How the exhausted lungs panted for one full breath of pure, cool fresh air! Panted only to be mocked by the bitter, burning, dust-laden blast that seemed to come from the mouth of a furnace. What wonder that the sun-stroke was omnipresent along the line-that strong men gasped and staggered and fell, while the thick blood burst forth from mouth and nostrils and the tortured frame was placed tenderly in some shaded nook by comrades whose visions swam and who trembled on the verge of a like fate. But the winding column never paused, for not the life of one man but the life of the nation was at stake that day.
About midday the regiments filed into the fields beside the road and the men sank upon the ground. "Make no fires, for there will be no time to cook anything-only a few minutes for rest," was the instruction as the line halted, and every moment was devoted to the relief of the painful feet and weary limbs. All too soon came the summons to fall in again, and the men struggled to their feet. They had not realized before how tired they were, how sore and stiff their limbs.
From early morning the booming artillery had proclaimed the work of death to be still in progress, and each hour as the dis- tance lessened the thunder grew louder. Already the corps was meeting the tide of wounded hastening with desperate energy to the rear-that most demoralizing experience to a body of troops approaching a battle-field. With searcely an exception the tale they told was one of disaster to the Federal army. " You fellows will catch it; the whole army is smashed to pieces." said more than one brawny fugitive with a bleeding arm or a bandaged head, glancing over his shoulder as though fearing the
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BEHOLDING THE BATTLE-FIELD.
pursuit of a rebel column. Only a few miles remain, and occa- sionally through an opening between the hills what looks like a white bank of fog can be seen. It is the smoke that hangs over the scene of the great contest. There is a sharp hill in advance over which the pike winds, and when its crest is reached the field will be in view. The word runs back along the line, and what a transformation is wrought! Gone now the fatigue, the weariness forgotten; the blood bounds once more in the veins, the muscles harden, the eyes flash! Down into the valley-up the sharp ascent beyond, and with eager eyes the men of the Sixth Corps look upon the greatest battle of the rebellion. Yet it is not much that they see. A low range of hights, battery- crowned and partially wooded, with masses of soldiers that look like threads of blue drawn at hap-hazard across the green of the landscape; a cloud of smoke about the batteries at the left, with now and anon the white puff of a bursting shell-then they go down the slope, across Rock Creek, and turn into the fields beside the Baltimore pike on which they have been marching. "Rest""' is the brief and welcome command, and they drop on the un- shaded ground, glowing with heat, though it is. Here and there one, less exhausted than his fellows, gathers as many can- teens as he can carry and starts for a supply of water-a precan- tion that must not be neglected. A canteen of water is the wounded man's best friend, and who can tell what the remaining hours of the declining day may have in store? The column proper has halted, indeed, but there is no cessation of the pro- cession coming up the pike. The thousands who have been un- able to keep pace with the swiftly moving corps throng the high- way in groups and masses, all actuated by a common motive-to find their respective commands and do their duty. The record of the Thirty-seventh in regard to straggling on this occasion is one to which it may well revert with pride. Out of its over 600 men only seven were absent when the roll was called on halting.
All too short has been the interval of rest. when a staff officer dashes down the turnpike. There is a momentary consultation. a hurrying here and there of orderlies, then the command, sharp and clear, " Fall in!" To their feet spring those who a few
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minutes before seemed helpless from exhaustion. Forgotten the pain, ignored the stiffness of limb, for help is needed, and never did the Sixth Corps fail at the call of duty. As by magic the line is formed, but the march is no longer by the broad high- way; it is down across the fields and thence up into the forest toward Weed's Hill, where Sickles and his Third Corps are in a death grapple with the Confederates under Longstreet. There are hundreds of objects which attest the presence of the great. battle-field-groups of men in gray guarded by those in blue, disabled cannon which have been dragged back from the front, and the other debris of war. The men can only glance at them as they go hurrying past. How heroically they hold their places -those sons of New England who after such mighty efforts to reach the scene are now going up toward the smoking crest to face death, mutilation,-all the horrible chances of the battle!
Presently a messenger comes galloping back from General Sedgwick, who is at the front. "Tell Colonel Eustis to bring up his brigade as soon as possible!" These words mean some- · thing, coming from that source, " Double-quick!" is the simple order, and the Thirty-seventh, which is leading the bri- gade, dashes forward in fine array with never a lagging step. "Fix bayonets!" and with a clash and clatter the steel is fitted to every musket, in readiness to force its way through whatever may oppose. In a few minutes Little Round Top is reached, the column is changed quickly to line of battle, the right rest- ing close to General Sedgwick's head-quarters, thence extending back of the crest toward the southeast, ready for any duty which may be required. The fierce struggle of the afternoon was dying away with the daylight, only the occasional dropping of a bullet in the forest-one of which killed a sergeant of the Tenth regiment-showed to the waiting line how near it was to the scene of active service.
In that position the men laid on their arms that night, and most of them slept soundly, notwithstanding the surrounding- and the ceaseless procession of stretcher-bearers passing through the line of the Thirty-seventh with their ghastly burdens.
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CHAPTER IX.
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THE TURN OF THE TIDE.
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THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG .- THE THIRTY-SEVENTH TRIED BY FIRE .- THE PURSUIT OF LEE .- CLIMBING THE MOUNTAINS. -ONCE MORE IN VIRGINIA.
General Lee became convinced on the 28th of June that the rapid northward movement of the Army of the Potomac would cut off his communications with Virginia and seriously imperil his command should he cross the Susquehanna, as he had con- templated, and a concentration of his forces in the direction of Gettysburg was ordered to begin the following day. At that time Early's division of Ewell's corps was at York, to the north- east of Gettysburg, the other two divisions of the same corps at Carlisle, north of Gettysburg, and the two corps of Hill and Longstreet at Chambersburg on the west. Hill and Ewell moved leisurely toward the point of concentration and Longstreet pre- pared to follow. Meanwhile from the south and southeast the Union troops were approaching the same spot. General Meade. with the intention before referred to of fighting on the line of Pipe Creek, if possible, had established his head-quarters with the Second Corps at Taneytown, due south from Gettysburg. The Fifth and Twelfth corps were at Hanover, east of Gettys- burg, the Sixth at Manchester, while the Third at Emmettsburg supported the advance of the First and Eleventh toward Gettys- burg from that point.
General Buford occupied Gettysburg with his cavalry division on the 20th, pushing ont pickets on the different roads running in the direction of the enemy, and awaited the arrival of General Reynolds. Shortly after 9 o'clock of July 1, the advance of Heth's division of Hill's corps began to press the Union cavalry
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THE TURN OF THE TIDE.
on the Chambersburg turnpike, but a skillful use of Buford's artillery held them on the other side of Willoughby Run till General Reynolds arrived on the scene with the two brigades of Wadsworth's division of the First Corps. Cutler's brigade was formed across and on both sides of the pike, while the "Iron " Brigade commanded by General Meredith, went into position on its left and in the rear of the seminary which gave its name to the gentle swell of land between the scene of conflict and the village. The formation of the Union line had taken place un- der fire, and a desperate conflict at once opened, in which the Confederates met with serious loss. There General Archer and 800 of his brigade were captured by a flank move of the Iron Brigade, and two Mississippi regiments of Davis's brigade were obliged to surrender in the railroad cut parallel to the pike in which they had taken position; but all the Federal success was more than counterbalanced by the loss of the noble General Reynolds, killed by a sharpshooter's bullet at the very moment of greatest promise. The command of the field now devolved upon General Doubleday, who had come up with the other divisions of the First Corps, and soon his entire force was hotly engaged. The advance of Rodes's division of Ewell's corps was coming in on the Carlisle road, and connecting with Hill's left it extended the line of battle far around and beyond the Union right. General Paul's brigade very neatly captured three regiments of Iverson's North Carolinians, and the Union troops fought desperately and successfully against the immensely supe- rior numbers that pressed them.
About 1 o'clock the Eleventh Corps came up, and General Howard, by virtue of his rank, assumed command of the field, turning his corps over temporarily to General Carl Sehurz. The Eleventh was composed of three divisions of two brigades each. One division -- Steinwehr's-was posted as a reserve on Cemetery Hill to the eastward of Gettysburg, while the other two were thrown into position to prolong the Union line around to the northward of the village. This line was now three miles in length, facing in two directions at nearly right angles, every- where weak, and swept by the Confederate artillery posted on
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THE FIRST DAY AT GETTYSBURG.
the commanding eminence of Oak Hill. The weakest point was at the junction of the two corps, or where the junction should have been, for they do not seem to have connected, and here Rodes forced in his division like a wedge and broke the right of the First and the left of the Eleventh Corps. Then the whole Confederate line pressed forward and crumbled the opposing force by the power of its blows, pushing on through the town, capturing several thousand prisoners and finally halting for the night at the base of Cemetery Ridge.
As soon as General Meade was apprised of the severity of the conflict and the death of General Reynolds, he sent forward General Hancock, who was with him at Taneytown, with in- structions to assume command at the front. Hancock nobly displayed his powers as a commander in rallying the fugitives that came pouring over Cemetery Hill, forming them in connec- tion with the small reserve already there in such firm array as to discourage the further advance of the Confederates. General Slocum arrived on the scene with the two divisions of the Twelfth Corps late in the afternoon, strengthening and extend- ing the Union line, and turning over to him the command at the front, General Hancock rode back to Taneytown to consult with General Meade. On the way he met his own Second Corps. which Meade had ordered forward, and placed it in reserve as a protection to the flank and rear of the main position. The Third Corps under General Sickles also came up about the same time and went into position on the left. General Stannard's brigade of Vermonters likewise reached the scene and took position with Doubleday's division of the First Corps, to which they were assigned. Their ranks were full, and though they had never borne the test of battle, and their nine-months' term of service had almost expired, they were to prove themselves soldiers of the most heroic mold.
On reaching head-quarters General Hancock found that the Fifth and Sixth Corps had been ordered up, and Meade's dispo- sition to fight at Gettysburg was strengthened by Hancock's report of the strong defensive position now occupied by the portion of the Federal army already on the field. At 1 o'clock
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THE TURN OF THE TIDE.
that night Meade reached the scene, and early morning of the 2d of July saw the two armies facing each other and waiting for the terrible test which was now certain to come.
From the village of Gettysburg radiate no less than 11 import- ant roads, and that the reader may correctly appreciate the relative positions of the armies and the more striking topograph- ical features, he will suppose himself approaching the town by the Baltimore turnpike, by which the last part of the journey of the Sixth Corps to the spot was made. A mile southeast of the center of the town he will pause at the top of a considerable eminence, known as Cemetery Hill, its summit on the left of the beholder being occupied by Evergreen Cemetery, the village burying-place. Something more than two miles away as the bird flies, almost due south, rises the round wooded brow of Round Top, 164 feet higher than the crown of Cemetery Hill; a half-mile north of Round Top is a secondary elevation known as Little Round Top or Weed's Hill, 116 feet lower than the parent mountain, but still 48 feet higher than the cemetery, with which it is connected by an elevation or swell in some parts sinking so nearly to the common level as to require the practiced eye of an engineer to locate. To the rear, however, the slope was more pronounced, affording admirable shelter for the reserves, trains. hospitals and the like. Nearly parallel and about a mile to the westward of the range just described rose another, not so com- manding in hight and less broken in ontline, with its crest almost entirely wooded, extending in nearly a direct line north and south far as the eye could reach, known as Seminary Ridge. The valley between these two ranges broadens and stretches away toward the eastward at the village of Gettysburg, sweeping around to the northward of Culp's Hill, the latter a rocky. wooded, irregular eminence breaking back toward the rear at half-mile to the northeast of the cemetery. Along this valley ran the lines of Ewell's corps-the left of Lee's army-extending through the village and connecting at Seminary Ridge with the center under Hill. Here the Confederate line bent southward. following the course of the hights and connecting with the right under Longstreet, the latter's command reaching down opposite
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THE BATTLE OF THE SECOND DAY.
to Round Top; Longstreet and Hill faced nearly east, Ewell almost south.
Cemetery Hill, commanding in hight every other eminence in the vicinity except the Round Tops and unlike them admirably adapted to occupation by bodies of soldiers and commanding every road entering Gettysburg, had been marked by the trained eye of General Reynolils when he rode rapidly to the front as the key point of the entire field, and by his direction Steinwehr's division was posted there when Howard's command came into action. On this reserve the broken battalions had been rallied as they streamed back through the town, and from this starting point had been built a battle front which the stoutest hearted chieftain might well hesitate to attack. The right of the Union line on Culp's Hill was formed by the Twelfth Corps, hastily in- trenched in a position so naturally strengthened by rocks and by the swampy borders of Rock Creek at the right that it seemed almost impregnable. The First and Eleventh Corps, or what was left of them, prolonged the line to and covering Cemetery Hill, from whose commanding hight batteries looked grimly forth in command of the neighboring valleys, the town and all its approaches. The First Corps, commanded by General Double- day during the first day, had now been placed under General Newton, who had left his own Third Division of the Sixth Corps in charge of General Wheaton, the latter's brigade in turn com- manded by Colonel Nevin of the Sixty-second New York. South of the cemetery Hancock's Second Corps was placed, the Fifth, which arrived early in the morning of the 2d after a sharp night's march, being in reserve, while General Sickles's Third Corps formed the Union left.
Here was the critical point in the Union line. General Sick- les, ordered to place his corps in the best position, found that at this point the center of the valley proper along which the Em- inettsburg road ran was really higher ground than that in the rear which would have continued the Federal line directly toward Little Round Top, and there he placed his two divisions. This disposition of the corps has been much criticised, but it seems doubtful if with the force at his command Sickles could have
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THE TURN OF THE TIDE.
made a wiser one. Had the impetuous blow of Longstreet that afternoon been received with the corps in the direct line to Little Round Top the line must have been weaker, it could scarcely have failed to yield before the assault, throwing both those commanding eminences into the hands of the enemy, which would instantly have rendered the whole Federal position un- tenable. Yet there was a fatal weakness in the formation of the corps, since after extending along the road to a peach orchard almost directly in front of Little Round Top and a mile distant it bent back at a sharp angle and ran toward that hill, ending "in the air," as the right of the Eleventh Corps had done at Chancellorsville. These points were noted by the Con- federates, and Longstreet prepared to attack, opening his artil- lery fire shortly after 4 o'clock. General Meade was even then consulting with Sickles as to the possibility of correcting the faulty alignment, but as that was clearly impossible prompt measures for reinforcing the left were taken.
Hood's division led in the attack, striking a frightful blow on the angle at the peach orchard and crushing in the Union lines there while at the same time it enveloped the whole flank and crept around between Sickles's left and Little Round Top. The latter had thus far been used only as a signal station, and the occupants were folding up their flags to depart when General Warren, the chief engineer on General Meade's staff, apparently the first on the field to comprehend the importance of the hill. ordered the flags to wave while he hastened in search of assist- ance. The Fifth Corps was just coming upon the field to rein- force Sickles, and Warren took the responsibility of detaching Colonel Vincent's brigade and threw it forward to the im- periled hight. Hazlitt's battery was also sccured and by tre- mendons exertion placed in position on the crest, the guns being lifted over the rocks by the men or dragged by ropes up the pre- cipitous slopes. As Vincent's men climbed one side Hood's Texans scrambled up the other, and almost hand to hand the contest raged. The Confederates were driven back to the base of the hill, but there amid the rocks they clung with a dogged determination, working still around the exposed flank. Vin-
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