USA > Pennsylvania > Northampton County > History of the One hundred and fifty-third regiment Pennsylvania volunteers infantry which was recruited in Northampton County, Pa., 1862-1863 > Part 9
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HISTORY OF THE 153D REGT.
with the numerous references which commanders have made respecting the days and nights of skirmishing. And of the rebel sharp-shooters which did much more fatal work in the killing of men and officers than the batteries.
There were thousands of these special marksmen scattered in every conceivable spot from which they could pick off our gun- ners and commanders. Our men frequently reported the dead- ly work this sly detachment of the enemy wrought throughout the battle. The fact that our men lay behind the stone fences for thirty-six hours, and that some of our boys were captured after having passed through the town is the clearest evidence that the defense (of the batteries) which they performed, was much of the time on the lower grounds in front of the cannon on the hill; and the fact that the writer saw members of his Company (F) immediately behind the arched building at the entrance of the cemetery is also conclusive evidence that the 153d Regiment was posted at one time with reference to de- fending the batteries on higher ground. One of the witnesses says it was after dark when the regiment returned to the ceme- tery, or in his own language, "moved back to the hill." Among these witnesses were Lieutenant Moore, John Rader, and John Heiney. One of them continues his testimony that "As the rebels fell back from the battery our men followed them down to a fence and sent pickets out towards the town." Lieutenant Moore gave the writer a long narrative of his experience car- ing for a wounded Confederate while out on the skirmish line. The suffering man received the kind. treatment with much thank- fulness and was greatly affected, even to tears. His actions were those of a vanquished foe hoping for mercy, but overcome with joy that such kindness should be extended to one who had forfeited all right to expect it. Other testimony says: "The regiment remained on the cemetery ground during the rest of the battle." I cannot with exactness state the day, but think it was the 2d, when I saw our men lying behind the fences, but it was while I was nursing the wounded in the brick building that shot from the enemy's guns struck the building and were im-
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HONOR TO WHOM HONOR IS DUE
bedded in the wall. While passing to the rear of the building to draw water from a well adjoining, the minie balls which flew thickly ministered much to my fears of being hit. Their "zip" was a swift reminder of danger and prompted a return to the building with more than ordinary celerity. I usually took with me a number of canteens as the large number of suffering men required very much water with which to satisfy their abnormal thirst, and to cleanse and alleviate their ghastly wounds. It was in the Eleventh Corps Hospital in the rear of the First Corps while in attendance, that I saw the death of Orderly Sergeant John Seiple. He was taken with lockjaw from the effect of a severe wound in the thigh. The meetings of citizens who had come to minister to their friends and relatives, were the saddest sights we were called upon to witness. Over 1500 wounded lay scattered over that camp of prostrated human beings. My at- tention was called to some special cases which were very af- fecting. One poor fellow's groans and loud cries for help were so distressing that it was enough to unnerve the stoutest heart Hundreds were lying with but feeble, or in most cases with no shelter, exposed to a cold incessant rain, against the sides of the barn, and in an orchard adjoining the sheds. Their moans were heard in every direction, and with a lantern I moved about from one to another during the long hours of the night. I reported and searched in vain for blankets to cover the suffering and dying. Among the mortally wounded in the wards of the barn was a handsome youth, a native of New England. His wound was in the region of the chest, and at every effort of coughing the suppu- ration was so offensive that to every one near him it was unen- durable. I visited him as often as my urgent work upon others would allow, and words cannot express the distressing pleas he made for my assistance. The barn floor was constructed with a partition making it a double threshing floor, with bays on either side. The maimed were placed with heads next the bays and the middle partition leaving a passageway at the feet of the patients. I had the care of about fifty men in the ward assigned me. Soldiers of both armies were treated with equal kindness. While
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all was done that it was possible to do on the first day or two, no words can portray the pitiable condition, the more distressing because of the insufficient means immediately at hand, to relieve the large number of helpless men. The amputation work under an open shed presented the most ghastly sights that could be witnessed.
The Operations of the Third Day.
The battle of the third opened at 4 o'clock in the morning. The 3d day like the 2d also had its fiery predecessor. The work be- fore our army on the opening of the day had been laid out by the terrible assaults of the evening before. Both sides were ac- tive during the night before making dispositions for the final con- flict of the fatal 3d day. It appears that Lee was certainly or- ganizing his forlorn hope, and about to execute the last act of his great desperation. The extremes of our line had resisted his full-armed assaults, and he had returned staggering to his for- mer positions. His humiliation was increased by the great dis- appointment over the miscarriage of his plans to have a grand attack simultaneously of Ewell on our extreme right, and Long- street's attack on our extreme left.
On the morning of the 3d the word was passed along that Ewell's forces (Jackson's old Corps) had closed in upon Culp's Hill. and they were the troops that had created such a disturbance dur- ing the night before. They had witnessed the defeat of the boastful Ewell who had declared that he "would break our lines on our right or perish in the attempt." Neither occurred, though the assault of his great army against the line of the decimated Twelfth Corps had so nearly enveloped Culp's hill that it seemed miraculous that the first part of his threat was not fulfilled ; though the state of affairs at the close of the day were disheart- ening and did not offer positive assurances of success for the next day. I think both Seminary and Cemetery ridges had clouds of dismay hanging over them; those on the Confederate side being the heavier and of darker hue. The fiery ordeal through
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THE OPERATIONS OF THE THIRD DAY
which Lee's best troops had passed on the 2d day and evening, had not been reassuring as to possible meeting with any better re- sults in a renewal of an attack upon our lines. The night of the 2d had been spent by the officers in spirited discussion as to the taking of offensive or defensive position on the morning of the 3d. The hour was fast approaching when some well defined plan must be in readiness for execution. Many thousands of men were lying behind stone fences and entrenchments on the long well-es- tablished skirmish line to hold the formidable crest from Culp's Hill to Devil's Den, a distance of between two and three miles. The positions assigned (in some measure supplemental to those Howard and Slocum had already established) by Meade on his arrival, were the Fifth south of the Twelfth, the Sixth, on its arrival at 3 p. m. on the Tanneytown road in the rear of Round Top. Other dispositions by the approval of Meade (having found them here on his arrival at 3 a. m.) were, on the extreme right, Slocum (12th Corps), and one division of the First Corps on Culp's Hill, the Eleventh Corps on the round of Cemetery Hill, with two divisions of the First Corps next ; then Second Corps ; then the Third and the Fifth Corps on the extreme left; the Sixth Corps, as before stated, in reserve back of Round Top. The formation as thus outlined had reference to offensive opera- tions, but before Meade could decide on the hour of opening the attack on Lee, the rebel guns were already actively engaging the extremes of our line, a heavy skirmish encounter having been be- gun as early as 9 a. m. near the Peach Orchard about a mile from Round Top. It was the object of Lee to make a strong demon- stration on each end of the Union line so as to weaken the center by the removal of its troops to support the extreme points- Culp's Hill and Round Top, and then advance a powerful infantry force on the center with the object of cutting our army in two.
I mention these operations on the extremes of our long field that the men of the 153d, who were the meanwhile (during the three days) defending the batteries on Cemetery Hill, and had no means of becoming acquainted with the fighting then going on over the entire field, may have a better idea of it. The leading commanders, who claim that the center and Round Tops were the
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key to the situation, and that the mighty repulses there enacted were the crowning work that saved the day of Gettysburg, should be allowed full credit for the honesty of their military opinions, but in the review of reviews of the repeated assaults of the mighty army of the South, in the final judgment of the unbiased military critics the name of Cemetery Hill will be none the less luminous in the galaxy of events which crowned the victory on that world- famed battle field.
While our men were sacrificing their dear lives in the trenches of the contending armies, and were confronting a great and a noble army of the enemy. they had very little knowledge of the confusion and uncertainty of the overtaxed and worried com- manders on whom so much of the success they were all hoping for depended. The two armies stood about one mile apart, and the mighty hosts of skirmishers who lay between in the trenches for days and nights with but short reliefs and occasional variety by change of position, were holding in their grip the destiny of the Nation with undaunted heroism. The Nation can never repay those men who there laid their lives upon the altar of their country. Without those suffering defenders of our homes there would be no meaning to that immortal speech on that blood-stained Hill, November 19, 1863-four months after burial here of the thousands whom we left upon that sacred soil. Well did Lin- coln say as the survivors with weeping listened to the words:
"In a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. 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 for- get what they did here."
What a testimonial to your unflinching valor and long hours of privation and suffering in those ditches but a stone's cast from the resting place of the companions who fell by your side. Well may the living from all over this land make their pilgrimage to stand pensively at their graves.
The main work before the Union troops on Cemetery Hill on
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the morning of the last day was the dispossession of the forces of Johnson's division of Ewell's Corps which had encroached upon General Geary's entrenchments during the night while he (Geary) had vacated them the evening before to go to the assistance of the hard pressed lines near the Round Top. Our artillery carly in the morning, having taken favorable position during the night, began a terrific shelling of Johnson's troops, who had ( fortunate- ly for our guns) no artillery on Culp's Hill. The reasons for his being without the service of his batteries was that the only place he could scale during the darkness was so steep and rocky that he could not get them up. Just across from where our regi- ment lay there took place one of the fiercest contests of the day, and lasted between 4 and 5 hours. The troops engaged were the old Stonewall Brigade, and that of Kane of Geary's division sup- ported by a portion of Slocum's troops and resulted in re-estab- lishing the defenses on Culp's Hill and causing Johnson to retire to Rock Creek, where he took account of stock and prepared to remove to his original position by dropping back to the "hill north and west" of the town. Here he "remained until the fol- lowing day, in the hope that we would give battle on ground of our own selection." So far as the men of the 153d have given information of the time they spent behind the stone fences and entrenchments during the heavy cannonade of the third day, their experience must have been of the most terrible character. John- son, the rebel general, closes his report of his repulse by saying that on his retirement he left about one-half of his troops on the line doing skirmish duty. Dungan, a commander of a regiment, states :
"Late in the evening of the 2d instant, it advanced in the attack on this position, and bravely maintained its ground till within about ten paces of the enemy's works, when, from its reduced numbers in ranks, together with the strength of the enemy and his strong position, I ordered it back about 200 yards. It went into action with about 210 men and officers, and came out with a loss of 76 killed, wounded, and missing. On the 3d till about 10 o'clock at night, the regiment held its relative position, about 300 paces in front of the enemy, when it retired with the brigade this side of Gettysburg."
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These quotations and statements of the rebel actions before Cemetery Hill, indicate clearly the kind of work our regiment had to do in its exposed position on the skirmish line and around the batteries, while 17,000 of the freshest and bravest men of Long- street's army were making the last great charge known as "Picket's Charge,"-the final act in the entertainment of the solemn situation.
Lying within hearing, if not in sight, of the strong position at- tempted on the last day by the Confederates, our men were not called into action but remained in the same skirmish duties which had been assigned them the day before, and that they may now be apprised of what General Lee failed to reveal to them of the plans of the day, it will make it all the more interesting to our boys to have it appear that so great a man as Lee paid so much attention to them as to want all the information of their numbers and what they were doing in the plain before him and what sort of fortification was behind them on the rising ground for which he had no name, but which is known and will for all time be known as Cemetery Hill. This high crest was for all the hours of the campaign the object of Lee's serious contemplation ; the es- tablishment of the Union forces on this highest part of the ridge (which the 153d assisted to support) had become no less impor- tant than any other point over that vast battle field. Speaking of the outcome of the conflict of the Ist day Lee continues :
"Our own loss was heavy, including a number of officers, among whom were Major-General Heath, slightly wounded, and Brigadier-General Scales, who was severely wounded. The enemy retired to a range of hills south of Gettysburg, where it displayed a strong force of infantry and ar- tillery . . . the strong position which the enemy had assumed could not be attacked without danger of exposing the four divisions present, al- ready weakened and exhausted by a long and bloody struggle, to over- whelming numbers of fresh troops. General Ewell was, therefore, in- structed to carry the hill occupied by the enemy, if he found it prac- ticable, but to avoid a general engagement, until the arrival of the other divisions of the army, which were ordered to hasten forward. He de- cided to await the arrival of Johnson's division, which had marched from
The Jennie Wade Home. Her Photograph and Monument.
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THE OPERATIONS OF THE THIRD DAY
Carlisle by the road west of the mountains, to guard the trains of his corps, and consequently did not reach Gettysburg until a late hour. In the meantime the enemy occupied the point which General Ewell designed to seise, but in what force could not be ascertained, owing to the darkness."
As history will require of us to be very candid, and a deep sense of truthfulness impels us to the presentation of this great cam- paign in strict compliance with facts as found in the reports of both sides of the conflict, it follows that some remarkable and perfectly unexplainable circumstances occurred during those days of the fiercest hostilities which shut us up to but one rational conclusion, namely : that an overruling Providence gave the vic- tory to the Union arms. This statement, on the part of your historian, is based on the several undeniable deliverances of the Federal army.
In conclusion allow me to produce the following instances on which the enemy had actually pierced and partly taken possession of our most formidable positions. On the first day our two Corps on the north and west were driven back and through the town, leaving the ground strewn with our dead and wounded and the town possessed and fortified by the enemy for the three days of the conflict; on the evening of the 2d day a portion of a battery well posted and strongly supported by infantry on Cemetery Hill, and very important entrenchments on Culp's Hill, had temporarily fallen into the hands of the enemy; on our extreme left the Peach Orchard, Devil's Den and Round Top had shared a similar fate ; the enemy on our extreme right at 3 a. m. of the morning of the 3d, were holding an enveloping line starting near the Balti- more road and swinging round to the north and east, running westward through the barricaded town and stretching for miles on the rising ground on Seminary Ridge, ending in the dense woods swarming with Longstreet's on the southwest, on ground from which Sickles' brave troops had been driven the day before. On the fatal afternoon of the 3d all preparations having been made by the desperate enemy for the final assault, the great charge with all its horrors closed the drama of the bloody scenes
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of Gettysburg. Let us briefly describe this terrible struggle : Be- hind the stone walls and sheltering earthworks composed of boul- ders, fence rails, trees and native rocks, our waiting troops be- held beneath them, a gray moving mass of 17,000 men just as over 200 cannon on the opposing ridges had slackened their thundering roar, and when the enemy's advancing columns had reached within a few hundred feet of our line of infantry, suddenly, and as if from a new eruption of a volcano, a long and vivid flash broke forth from our entrenched line, making a veritable wall of fire. Space will not permit further details. General Hancock, Pennsyl- vania's hero, before whose Corps the main assault was made, gave a very full account, and from it we give a closing extract :
"The colors of the different regiments were now advanced, waving in defiance of the long line of battle flags presented by the enemy. The men pressed firmly after them, under the energetic commands and ex- amples of their officers, and after a few moments of desperate fighting the enemy's troops were repulsed, threw down their arms, and sought safety in flight or by throwing themselves on the ground, to escape our fire. The battle flags were ours and the victory ours."
We were honored with the association of many noble, cele- brated organizations constituting the personnel of the Eleventh Corps, and have been highly favored as a regiment, by the glow- ing accounts of deeds our associated regiments performed by our side. But for these (as we have elsewhere given credit) the historian would have less to say for his own regiment.
In an address of James G. Carmichael, of the 147th N. Y., of the Eleventh Corps, speaking of the men who were on picket before their regiment on the disastrous 2d of May at Chancel- lorsville, says :
"They had charge of the picket line the night before Jackson's charge occurred, and until the afternoon of the next day . . . the pickets that relieved ours in the afternoon of May 2d, were captured, and we barely had time to regain our command before the whirlwind of battle was upon us in the open field, with woods in front to protect our enemies, and our men exposed on all sides to merciless cross-fire. This regiment (was
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OBSERVATIONS BY THE HISTORIAN-CEMETERY RIDGE
the 153d and) had been reduced by losses from 1000 men to (less than) 800 when they came upon the field of the Ist day at Gettysburg. Here their loss was very great, and they were our neighbors."
Observations by the Historian-Cemetery Ridge.
There is no portion of the great Battle of Gettysburg with which the writer is so well acquainted, as the high ground on the south and southeast of the town. He was here a great portion of the time during the 2d and 3d days and watched with great interest to see the ascending smoke from the rebel cannon in the region of the Seminary. He slept near by the spot where General Howard had his headquarters. He stood on the very spot where the General with his Adjutant, General Meysenberg, stood when he surveyed the surrounding country westward on the first day. It was to this spot, the Cemetery Lodge, (a cut of which is shown) that General Howard rode after learning that on account of the death of Reynolds he was in command of the field. After giving orders to every department concerned he re- tired to this high point. Of this event he says :
"This took but a few minutes, and then I rode slowly with my escort to the high ground near the cemetery gate, where I established my head- quarters. The cemetery had been already examined."
He also stood here when the following orders were given :
"(To Schurz) The First Corps is over there, (pointing westward) hold that ridge parallel with this ; Buford's cavalry, the most of it, is on the left. Prisoners show that a large force of Lee is already there. Place all re- serve batteries of your command on this hill (Cemetery Hill) leaving Steinwehr's division to support them. Send to the right of the First Corps north of Gettysburg the other two divisions (Barlow's and Schim- melphenning's) to give support to Doubleday. The headquarters for the day will be here."
It was in the magnificent plan of the Commanding General to hold this Hill and as the sequel of the battle shows, it was the posting of Howard's old Eleventh Corps on the ground where
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both the artillery and infantry could do most effective work that saved that portion of the crest known in all history as Cemetery Ridge. Howard says :
"I immediately determined to hold the front line as long as possible ; and when compelled to retreat from Seminary line, as I felt I would be, to dispute the ground obstinately ; but to have all the time a strong position at the cemetery, and one that I could hold until at least Slocum and Sickles, with their eighteen thousand reinforcements, could reach the battlefield ; and possibly until the arrival of Meade and the whole army."
Following Lee's Retreat from Gettysburg.
A brief synopsis is all that your historian feels justified to pre- sent. It would require reporting details of a month's campaign, for it occupied nearly the whole of May to clear the State of the Rebel army. The annoyances Lee received on his long, weary march with his disorganized, disabled, demoralized, and greatly discouraged troops, is without parallel in the annals of the war.
Meade did not ascertain until the 5th, that the enemy was withdrawing, for up to that time Lee had continued a bold front for some time after his trains of wounded and ammunitions had gone out the Cashtown and Fairfield roads. Immediately on be- coming certain that Lee was retreating, Meade dispatched the Sixth Corps on the respective roads over which the enemy were hastily passing. Sedgwick (6th Corps) ascertained that Fairfield could be held by the retreating army with a small force, deemed it best to return and report that fact to Meade, whereupon Meade sent a flanking force against Lee in the direction of Middletown, Md., in the valley between the Bull Run and Blue Ridge Moun- tains, and below Emmitsburg. French's army was then at Frederick, a few miles east of Bull Run Mountain, and his orders were to immediately cross over and occupy Harper's Ferry and the Turner's pass. But French, the alert soldier he was, had already sent over detachments to guard at Falling Waters and to Williamsport to destroy the bridges. General Buford, the Stuart
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LIST OF DRUMMER BOYS.
I. Winfield S. Snyder, Co. G. 2. John Schmidt (Singer), Co. B. 3. Lewis HI. Abel, Co. A. 4. George A. Eckert, Co. D. 5. Newton HI. Mack, Co. K. 6. George W. Hayden, Co. B. 7. Darius Thomas, Co. E. 8. William R. Kiefer, Co. F. 9. Almyer Neigh, Co. K. 10. Curtis V. Strickland, Co. D. H. Robert H. Wilson, Co. A. 12. Theodore Hester, Co. G.
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