USA > Pennsylvania > Martial deeds of Pennsylvania, Vol. 1 > Part 25
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In the meantime, Barnes, with the divisions of Tilton and Sweitzer, had moved forward and taken position in a wood on the right of the wheatfield, Sweitzer upon the left and Tilton upon the right. The ground occupied by the latter was rocky and wooded, while the left extended into an open ravine. Barnes' division had scarcely gained its position, when the enemy was seen advancing up this ravine. In danger of being outflanked, Sweitzer wheeled the several regiments of his brigade to the left and rear, giving the advantage of three lines supporting each other. Sweitzer was thus able easily to hold his position. But Tilton, having been less fortunately posted, was unable to main-
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tain his ground. This left Sweitzer in a perilous situation, and he likewise fell back. The rugged country to the west and south of the Peach Orchard was now the dark and bloody ground, and over it the tide of battle swayed with destructive force. The enemy had gained possession, and was doubtless settling down upon it to console himself for his grievous losses, when the divi- sion of Caldwell came to the rescue. With the brigades of Cross and Kelley in advance, supported by Brooke and Zook, Caldwell swept forward. No troops ever evinced greater valor, and the enemy was driven before them; but their losses were fearful, as the irregularities of the field enabled the enemy, who was con- cealed in advantageous positions, to rise up from unexpected quarters and pour in a most destructive fire. Indeed, the contest had been so long and stubbornly maintained, that the foe was becoming desperate and impatient of further resistance. The First brigade was commanded by the gallant Colonel Cross of the Fifth New Hampshire, who, while leading his troops in the most intrepid manner, was slain. The situation was every moment becoming more and more complicated, as the enemy, having broken the line, was able to dispose his troops under cover so as to sweep the ground from several directions. The wheatfield and the broken surface to its west had become a slaughter-pen. As the second line, composed of the brigades of Brooke and Zook, came up, it was discovered that a battery had been so posted by the enemy as to greatly annoy the Union troops. Determined to capture or silence it, Colonel Brooke led a charge of his brigade. But though it was vigorously made, and with the most unwavering intrepidity, Brooke soon found his flanks exposed to a withering fire, which, if continued, would annihilate his line, and he was forced to withdraw, himself receiving a severe wound.
The original position of Sickles, facing south, which had been held by Birney with such stubborn valor, had finally to be yielded, the supports which had been sent forward from the Second, Fifth, and Humphreys' division of the Third corps, being unable with all their strength to preserve it. As Caldwell's division was gradually retiring, having been engaged in the most deadly en- counters, and having sustained severe losses, Ayres' division of the
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Fifth corps moved in, and though assailed with a fury that was appalling, it steadily fought its way forward, routing the enemy and succeeded in holding the important wooded ground in front and to the right of Little Round Top, which Sickles had re- garded as so important to the retention of the field. In the midst of the desperate fighting, which, like fiery billows swept over that devoted ground, General Sickles, who had exercised ceaseless vigilance and a tireless energy in maintaining the posi- tion and beating back the foe, fell, severely wounded, and was carried from the field, the command devolving upon General Birney.
While these struggles were continued in the wooded and broken ground which enveloped in its dark folds the little wheat- field, now tangled and torn, and blood-washed, as masses of living valor were borne over it, the line facing west, composed of Hum- phreys' division and a part of Graham's brigade, did not escape unscathed. Humphreys had sent out, early in the day, working parties who had levelled all the fences in his front, giving the opportunity for perfect freedom in manœuvring his troops, and, at a little after four o'clock, had taken position along the diagonal ridge on which runs the Emmittsburg pike. Little beyond occa- sional demonstrations had thus far occurred upon his front. But the time was rapidly approaching when the favorable moment for attack, directed by the order of Lec, would come. At a little after six, Humphreys received notice from Birney that Sickles had fallen, and that he was in command of the corps, that he was about to fall back from his position facing south, which was nearly at right-angles to Humphreys' line, and requesting the latter also to fall back, so as to connect with his right. In other words, Humphreys and Graham were expected to swing back with Birney so as to keep the line intact. . This was accomplished in tolerable order, Birney's men maintaining a resolute front, and gallantly checking any undne forwardness of the enemy in fol- lowing up. But this movement left the right of Humphreys' division, where he clung to the Emmittsburg pike, in an exceed- ingly perilous position. The enemy were not slow in discovering it, and now pressed upon him with terrible earnestness. The interval between Humphreys' right and Hancock's left had been
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filled by the Fifteenth Massachusetts and the Eighty-second New York, and subsequently two other regiments, all from the Second corps, were hurried forward to the support of Hum- phreys' hard-pressed line. Humphreys says : "I was attacked on my flanks as well as on my front. I never have been under a hotter artillery and musketry fire combined. I may have" been under a hotter musketry fire. For a moment, I thought the day was lost. I did not order my troops to fall back rapidly, because, so far as I could see, the crest in my rear was vacant, and I knew that when troops got to moving back rapidly, it was exceedingly difficult to stop them just where you wanted to stop them. At that moment I received an order to fall back to the Round Top ridge, which I did, slowly, suffering a very heavy loss."
As will be seen by an examination of the position in which Humphreys found himself at this juncture, he could have scarcely been in a worse condition to receive a determined attack. His division was almost in the shape of the side and the two ends of a parallelogram, and upon front and both flanks the enemy were rushing with the impetuosity of some demon guide. They were some of the best troops of Anderson's fresh division, which had escaped the fight of the preceding day, and had been held in hand through the long hours of that terrible struggle upon the ex- treme left, ready to spring forward with the agility of a tiger leap- ing upon his prey. These were the brigades of Wilcox, Perry, and Wright. Posey and Mahone stood next, and then the division of Pender. It is asserted on the authority of a correspondent of the Richmond Enquirer, that these also had been ordered to advance. But as the movement of each brigade upon the rebel right was to be the signal for the next upon the left to move, the failure of Posey caused all the others to be withheld. The power- ful brigade of Wright did come down with overwhelming force. Humphreys was a soldier by profession, and skilled in hard fight- ing, and to his cool courage and determination is due the pre- servation of his line as it retired to the Cemetery Ridge. So sudden was the onset, and so strong the pressure, that he was obliged to abandon three of his guns, the horses of which had all been killed.
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But as the enemy came within range of the Second corps, crouched behind the low stone wall on the Cemetery Ridge, in their pursuit of Humphreys' retiring troops, an oblique and very destructive fire was poured in upon them, producing terrible slaughter. At a clump of trees, a little in advance of the Union line where a battery had been posted, the enemy had swarmed in considerable numbers, as they here found some protection from the rapid fire of the infantry: Here they had seized a brass piece from which the cannoniers had all been killed or driven away. Finding ammunition, they had loaded it and were turning it upon Owen's brigade, temporarily under command of General Webb. The regiments upon the front line were instantly ordered by Webb to charge and recapture the piece. With a gallantry habitual to that brigade, the order was executed, and after a sharp and sanguinary struggle, the enemy was routed and the piece retaken. It was instantly turned upon the retiring foe with deadly effect, helping them to make good time back to their lines.
The enemy felt keenly this last repulse ; for when they saw Humphreys' line falling back, they believed the day was won, confidently anticipating that he would be unable to stay its backward course, and reform it so as to present any considerable opposition to their own victorious and impetuous assault. How great was their disappointment, the wails of their wounded, and the bitter reproaches of the survivors against their comrades who failed to support them, but too plainly tells. The correspondent of the Richmond Enquirer, who was present upon this part of the field and witnesssed the struggle, says: "We now had the key to the enemy's stronghold, and, apparently, the victory was won. McLaws and Hood had pushed their line well up the slope on the right; Wilcox had kept well up on his portion of the line; Wright had pierced the enemy's main line on the summit of McPherson's [Zeigler's] heights, capturing his heavy batteries, thus breaking the connection between their right and left wings. I said that, apparently, we had won the victory. It remains to be stated why our successes were not crowned with the important results which should have followed such heroic daring and in- domitable bravery. Although the order was peremptory that
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all of Anderson's division should move into action simultaneously, Brigadier-General Posey, commanding a Mississippi brigade, and Brigadier-General Mahone, commanding a Virginia brigade, failed to advance. This failure of these two brigades to advance is assigned, as I learn upon inquiry, as the reason why Pender's division of Hill's corps did not advance-the order being, that the advance was to commence from the right and be taken up along our whole line. Pender's failure to advance caused the division on his left-Heth's-to remain inactive. Here we have two whole divisions, and two brigades of another, standing idle spectators of, one of the most desperate and important assaults that has ever been made on this continent-fifteen or twenty thousand men rest- ing on their arms, in plain view of a terrible battle, witnessing the mighty efforts of two little brigades (Wright's and Wilcox's, for Perry had fallen back overpowered), contending with the heavy masses of Yankee infantry, and subjected to a most deadly fire from the enemy's heavy artillery, without a single effort to aid them in the assault, or to assist them when the heights were car- ried. .. . It was now apparent that the day was lost -- lost after it was won-lost, not because our army fought badly, but because . a large portion did not fight at all."
Had all the enemy's troops advanced, as is here shown that they were ordered to do, it is doubtful whether the Union line, dis- organized and broken as it was, and before the new and more con- tracted one had been fairly taken, would have been able to with- stand the shock, and the impression of Humphreys, "For a moment I thought the day was lost," would have been realized. In addi- tion to the reason here given by the rebel correspondent for the failure of Pender and Heth to move, there is another far more weighty which probably influenced them: After the rough handling they received from the First corps on the day before, it is probable they had little stomach for another fight.
There is no doubt that the successes which the enemy supposed he had gained here, by the unaided strength of one brigade, that of Wright, emboldened and encouraged him to make a second attempt at this very point on the following day.
Upon the fall of Sickles, General Hancock was ordered to turn over the command of his own corps to General Gibbon, and
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FIGHTING ON THE LEFT AT GETTYSBURG.
himself to assume the general supervision of the Second and Third corps. This he did, establishing his headquarters midway between the Cemetery and Little Round Top, and proceeded to patch up the new line with such troops as were at hand. The divi- sions of Doubleday and Robinson, of the First corps, were brought up and posted to the left of the Second corps. Doubleday's divi- sion had been strengthened by ordering to it Stannard's brigade of Vermont troops some days before, but only joined on this day. The enemy had been repulsed before Doubleday reached the front ; but he sent forward part of the Thirteenth Vermont under Colonel Randall, and the One Hundred and Forty-ninth and One Hundred and Fiftieth Pennsylvania regiments, which together rescued six pieces of artillery, that in retiring had been aban- doned. The First Minnesota regiment also came up opportunely, which General Hancock led in person against a detachment of the enemy that was pushing through a part of the line under cover of a wood, and drove it back. General Williams, who had succeeded to the command of the Twelfth corps, ordered Ruger's division forward, to which Lockwood's Maryland brigade was attached, and put it in upon the left of the First corps troops. Williams also ordered Geary's division, with the excep- tion of Green's brigade, over to the left; but, through some strange oversight in the direction of march, it never reached the point indicated.
The fighting upon the left continued with terrible earnestness until evening. Ayers' division of regulars was the last to advance into the mazes of this masquerade of death. Sickles, Barnes, Cald- well, and Ayers had gone out upon this ground in their pride of strength ; but they had all been forced back finally by reason of the break at the Peach Orchard, where the enemy had penetrated, and had thus been able to flank every fresh reserve that had been sent against him ; and for this cause Humphreys, upon the right, had finally been compelled to retire. All these disasters were the result of the loss of the key point, the little eminence at the Peach Orchard. An angle in the line of battle formed as was this, is intrinsically weak, inasmuch as the direct impact can be brought to bear upon it from two directions. But the same objection may be urged against the position of Steinwehr at the Cemetery. Could
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Sickles have taken this ground early in the day, and had lunettes and rifle-pits thrown up, he would have been invincible.
But though the advance position on the Emmittsburg pike had to be given up, the wooded ground in front of Round Top. from the occupation of which by the enemy Sickles feared so much, was held. It was just at dusk, and when Ayers, after having sustained severe losses and fought with the most deter- mined valor, was retiring before a resolute and hopeful foe, that a brigade from Crawford's division of the Pennsylvania Reserves, which he had formed upon the fringe of Little Round Top, came dashing through the low ground drained by Plum Run, and with a chorus peculiar to this noted body of men, went to his relief. Crawford had seized the brigade colors at the moment of moving, and, riding up and down the line, had called upon the men to make Pennsylvania their watchword, and to quail not upon its soil. McCandless, of the Second Reserve, commanded, and led them on. They had scarcely emerged from the hill, and begun to cross the low, swampy ground, when they were hailed by a shower of bullets. But to such a welcome had they been inured on many a gory field, and it only had the effect to quicken their onward pace. The rebels were ensconced behind a low stone wall at the edge of the wood. But the bayonets and bullets of the Reserves were directed by hands too steady and resolute for successful resistance, and they were swept back. Under this stone wall McCandless formed his line, and threw out his skir- mishers to the edge of the Wheatfield.
This ended substantially the fighting for the day on this part of the field. The other brigade of the Reserve corps, under Fisher. as we have seen, went to the support of Vincent's and Weed's brigades, and during the night, with the Twentieth Maine in the lead, climbed to the summit of Round Top, and with the aid of the Eighty-third Pennsylvania, established a line and erected a substantial stone breastwork from the loose boulders and broken fragments that cover the breast of the mountain. The enemy were at the westerly base of the hill, and were also forti- fying, holding as far north as the Devil's Den, in the rocky cavern of which they took shelter.
CHAPTER XII.
FIGHTING ON THE UNION RIGHT AT GETTYSBURG.
HILE these momentous events of the battle were transpiring upon the left, the enemy made no less desperate and well directed efforts to carry the right of the Union line. General Lee's order, as already noted, required that Ewell should "attack the high ground on the enemy's right, which had already been partially fortified." This was to be done simultaneously with the attack of Longstreet on the left. But Ewell did not move until the fierce fighting by Longstreet had been more than two hours in progress. This delay was evidently by design, as his corps had been in position and in entire readiness since the night before. The heat of the engagement on the left had thoroughly aroused the Union Commander, and he had hurried on corps after corps, and detachment after detachment, to the support of that wing. On the extreme right, a strong position had been taken, and well fortified by the Twelfth corps. The position and fortification of that flank was such as to fulfil the principle in strategy to which reference has already been made, that the flanks of the infantry line should so rest as to be either by nature or by art made firm. But in his zeal to feed the left, the right flank was completely stripped, the whole of the Twelfth corps, with the exception of Greene's brigade of Geary's division, having been hurried away. Free course was thus given to the enemy to enter. This action seems the more inexplicable, inas- much as the Sixth corps, the strongest in the whole army, had arrived on the ground at two P. M., two full hours before the fighting for the day had commenced, and it was neither used to reinforce the left until the fighting had nearly ceased, nor was it
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put into the breastworks upon the right to supply the place made vacant by the withdrawal of the Twelfth. A worse blunder could not have been committed, for Greene's brigade was left hanging in the air, and would have been utterly routed, had a man of less nerve than Greene commanded, or troops less resolute and daring occupied that ground.
Ewell was not long in discovering the advantage offered him, and at a little before sunset, he put his troops in motion. It was composed of soldiers who had so often followed the indomitable and tireless Stonewall Jackson to victory.
The Union line, commencing at the Baltimore pike, extended around the breast of the Cemetery Hill, the artillery, Weiderick's and Ricketts' batteries, upon the summit, and the infantry, a part of the Eleventh corps, under cover of the stone walls. To the right of the Cemetery Hill is a little ravine or depression, mark- ing the end of Cemetery and the beginning of Culp's Hill. Upon the little table-land, at this extremity of the latter, was posted Stevens' Maine battery, which had played so important a part in the action of the first day. His pieces looked across this ravine and the approaches from the town to Cemetery Hill. Just at his right commenced the heavy breastworks, built by Wadsworth, upon the very brow of Culp's Hill, overhanging the steep, rugged acclivity which reaches down almost to the bank of Rock Creek that runs at its base. This breastwork was carried around the hill, and was taken up by Greene, whose right rested at a ravine that descends to a considerable wooded plateau. Greene had refused his right, and carried his breastwork back so as to pro- tect his flank, and from which he could command the passage up this ravine-the ravine itself being left open. On the opposite side the breastworks were again taken up and carried around nearly to Spangler's spring. But beyond this little ravine at Greene's right, no troops were in position.
Upon Benner's Hill, opposite to Cemetery Hill, Ewell had planted his artillery, which opened with great vigor when the battle commenced. But the guns on Cemetery Hill had no sooner got the range, than they speedily silenced it. A gentle- man "residing near Gettysburg," as related by De Peyster, "on the road past Benner's, said to have been an eye-witness, stated
Snow Scary
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FIGHTING ON THE RIGHT AT GETTYSBURG.
that the Union batteries on Cemetery Ridge knocked the rebel batteries, on Benner's Hill, into pi in twenty minutes after the former got the range." The superiority of the Union guns here was no doubt largely due to the fact that they were protected by lunettes, while the rebel guns stood all uncovered. As soon as he discovered his artillery fire slackening, Ewell prepared his infantry to advance. The sun was already near his setting, and the evening shades were gathering. Lines of rebel troops were discernible from Cemetery Hill, away to the right of Culp's Hill, apparently moving to attack. Soon a small column was seen proceeding from the town, across the Union front, away towards Benner's Hill, as if to join the troops already there. Colonel Von Gilsa, whose brigade was posted at the foot of Cemetery Hill, detached a regiment and sent it forward to observe the move- ments of this force, and what was passing farther to the right beyond his view. This regiment had not proceeded far, before there suddenly emerged from behind a hill to the left of the town, a long line of infantry formed for an assault, which moved onward in magnificent array. This isolated regiment could do nothing but hasten back to its position; but this grand column, reaching from near the town to Rock Creek, moved with the steadiness and precision of parade. They were the brigades of Hayes and Hoke, led by the famous Louisiana Tigers. The instant they emerged to view, Stevens to the right opened with all his guns, and Weiderick and Ricketts joined in the chorus. The slaughter was terrible. Ricketts charged his guns with canister, and with four shots per minute, was, at every discharge, hurling death and confusion upon their ranks. Stevens' fire was even more effective, as it enfiladed the enemy's line. As the rebels came within musket range, Howard's infantry, who had lain com- pletely protected by the stone wall, poured in volley after volley, sweeping down the charging host. But that resolute body of men believed themselves invincible, and now, with the eyes of both armies upon them, they would not break so long as any were left to go forward. The stone walls were passed at a bound,
- and when once among the Union men, Stevens was obliged to cease firing for fear of killing friend and foe alike, and Weiderick was unable to withstand the shock, his supports and his own
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men being swept back with the whirlwind's force. But Ricketts quailed not, upon whom the force of the blow now fell. "With an iron hand," says the chronicler of this battery, "he kept every man to his post and every gun in full play. The giving way of our line upon the left brought the Tigers upon his flank. Pour- ing in a volley from behind a stone wall that ran close to his left piece, they leaped the fence, bayonetted the men, spiked the gun, and killed or wounded the entire detachment, save three, who were taken prisoners. But the remaining guns still belched forth their double rounds of canister, the officers and drivers taking the places of the fallen cannoniers. The battery's guidon was planted in one of the earthworks, and a rebel Lieutenant was pressing forward to gain it. Just as he was in the act of grasp- ing it, young Riggin, its bearer, rode up and shot him through the body, and seizing the colors, he levelled his revolver again, but ere he could fire, he fell, pierced with bullets, and soon after expired. The rebels were now in the very midst of the battery, and in the darkness it was difficult to distinguish friend from foe. A struggle ensued for the guidon. It had fallen into the hands of the rebel. Seeing this, Lieutenant Brockway seized a stone and felled him to the ground, and the next instant the rebel was shot with his own musket. A scene of the wildest confusion ensued. The men at the batteries were outnumbered, and were being overpowered by a maddened and reckless foe. But still they clung to their guns, and with handspikes, rammers, and stones, defended them with desperate valor, cheering each other on, and shouting, 'Death on our own State soil, rather than give the enemy our guns.' At this critical moment, Carroll's brigade came gallantly to the rescue, and the enemy retreated in con- fusion. The men again flew to their guns, and with loud cheers gave him some parting salutes, in the form of double-shotted can- ister. Thus ended the grand charge of Early's division, headed by the famous Louisiana Tigers, who boasted that they had never before been repulsed in a charge. They came forward, 1700 strong, maddened with liquor, and confident of crushing in our line, and holding this commanding position. They went back barely 600, and the Tigers were never afterwards known as an organization."
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