USA > Pennsylvania > Martial deeds of Pennsylvania, Vol. 1 > Part 27
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50
With the exception of General Butterfield, General Hancock is the only officer who gives a clear and connected account of this council, though all agree, that such a question was pro-
296
MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA.
pounded. General Hancock testifies : "There was a council held that evening at General Meade's headquarters. All the corps commanders were sent for. I was present. Some of this fight- ing was going on at twilight, and after we had assembled. . After each corps commander had reported the actual condition of things along his front, the question was submitted to the council, General Meade being present, and General Butterfield questioning the members, whether we should remain there or the army fall back to a better position-I understood with a view of protecting our supplies. One corps commander, I think it was General Newton, said he did not think the position of Gettysburg a very good one. General Gibbon, who was the junior officer, I believe, and voted first, said that he had not seen the entire ground, but he had great confidence in General Newton's military eye for these matters, and he voted in accord- ance with that view of the case, except that he objected to any- thing that looked like a retreat. I understood afterwards that General Newton really had the same view, and did not propose to make a retreat. But all the other commanders, I understood, said they wished to fight the battle there, and General Meade announced that to be the decision. The council then adjourned, and that was the last operation of the second day of the fight." This testimony of General Hancock may be taken as a correct statement of the business transacted. For offensive operations the field was not favorable, and if the enemy had succeeded in making a permanent lodgment in rear of the right wing, the position of the Union army would have been an anomalous one, calling for wise consideration. It was this uncertainty in the mind of General Meade, and the desire to have the explanations of his corps commanders who knew the ground cach on his own part of the field much better than he himself could, that induced him to call the council. The question of staying or retiring involved in its discussion the information which he sought.
In the first grey of the morning of the 3d, opened the struggle for the mastery of the right, as has been already related, which ended in the complete rout of the enemy, and the reestablish- ment of that flank. From a little after ten, when the battle on this part of the line gradually died away, until after one P. M.,
297
FIGHTING ON THE RIGHT AT GETTYSBURG.
there was a complete lull in the fighting. But it was apparent by the movement of troops and guns on the part of the enemy, which could be plainly detected from various points in the Union line, that preparations were in progress for another attack. Dis- positions were accordingly made to meet the onset from what- ever quarter it might come. Batteries were repaired and replaced, ammunition was brought up in convenient distance, and the infantry line was revised and strengthened. Nor was the cavalry idle. Kilpatrick, who had encountered Stuart at Hanover, was on the lookout for the latter as he returned from Carlisle. At Hunterstown, on the evening of the 2d, they had met, and there ensued a warm artillery engagement in which the enemy was driven ; Kilpatrick then moved over to the Baltimore pike, and was thence ordered on the morning of the 3d to the extreme left, where he was joined by Merritt, who had come up from Emmittsburg. It was here posted to guard against any flank movement in that direction. Gregg was sent out upon the right between the York and Bonaughtown roads, where he en- countered the enemy and drove him back.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE FINAL STRUGGLE AT GETTYSBURG.
1.
INCE the Union army had come into its present position, on the evening of the 1st of July, the rebel leader had exerted his utmost efforts to put it to rout. He had, with much skill and daring, at- tempted, first to break the left flank and gain that commanding ground. With equal pertinacity, he had striven to break and hold the left centre. On the right centre he had made a bold, yea, reckless attack, with some of the most daring troops in his army. Finally, he had sent the major part of a corps to fall upon the extreme right, where he made an entrance, and for more than twelve hours held it. But in all these operations he had been foiled, and for all the extravagant waste of the strength of his army, he had no substantial advantage to show. Unless he could strike his antagonist at some vital point, and send home the shaft, the battle to him was hopelessly lost, and he would no longer be able to remain on Northern soil. To stand on the defensive, or attempt to manœuvre in presence of a victo- rious foc, would be fatal; for he had no supplies except what he foraged for.
He accordingly determined to hazard all on one desperate throw. He had one division, that of Pickett of Longstreet's corps, which had not yet been in the fight, having just come up to the front from Chambersburg. This, with other of the freshest and best of his troops, he determined to mass on his right centre, opposite the point where Wright's brigade had, the night before, made so gallant a charge on Humphreys' division, and, after having disposed all the artillery. he could use to advantage on the two miles of line from which he would concentrate its fire,
298
Cr.
Marsh
Kun/
Willoughby
to
Fairfield
Chambersburg
to Ulce's Hdq.
"der Whit .Gun
Rebel Works
கு.
To Anderson
Pender, 00 px 99
Hetl
10
.D
Emmittsburg
Rodes
Longstreet
Hood MCLaws
Teach OrkardeLa Forma Dicker
longstreets grand Charge
College Ewell
to Harrisburg
Wilcox
Garnett
Devil's Den 1
Crawford
Doubleday.
Hancock Doxx
Howard
0
Caldwell
2nº C.
Newton Ist. C.
Meade's Hdq.
to Hunterstown
Culp's Z
-
L.R. TOP
Williams Mit
Geary
GETTYSBURG
ROUND TOP
6ª.C.
Ruger
-
Johnson
++
to Hanover
R .
1
Reserve Artillery
MCAllisters
100
Wolf Will
20
3.
Rock
Creek
Ho Baltimore
Gregg
Hampton
-
Union Troops Rebel Troops -
MAP OF THE GETTYSBURG BATTLEFIELD, THIRD DAY, JULY 3:1863.
to Mummasburg
to Newville to Carlisle
' Kilpatrick
/
-
whent
Field!
Perry
-
-
--
Pellicrew Trimble
Steven's Run
Early
0
Run
wkes
to York
-
Plum
to Taneytowną
Macun's
Spangler's Spring,,
-
Gen! Hospital
R.
-
Sedgwick
Robinson
Kempra
Mrmislead
-
R. R. Birl
3.3
-
Rillac
DD.
Th.Senunary
-
Hill.
299
THE FINAL STRUGGLE AT GETTYSBURG.
and had subjected the fatal spot on the Union line to a terrific cannonade, to hurl this mass of living valor upon that scourged, and as he hoped, shattered front, with the expectation of break- ing through by the weight and power of the shock. To this end, artillery was brought up from the reserve and from his extreme left. The infantry was likewise gathered in, Pickett's division having a place between Anderson's and Heth's of Hill's corps, Hill being charged with supporting Pickett when the time of action should come, and Longstreet over all.
On the Union side, the space from which artillery could be used was much shorter than that which the enemy held, and hence a proportionately less number of pieces was brought into play. On the right, commencing with Cemetery Hill, was Major Osborne with the batteries of Ricketts, Weiderick, Dilger, Bancroft, Eakin, Wheeler, Hill, and Taft. But few of these, however, from their location, could be used to advantage. Next him, directly in front of Meade's headquarters, commencing at Zeigler's Grove, and extending south along Hancock's front, was Major Hazzard with the batteries of Woodruff, Arnold, Cushing, Brown, and Rosty. Still further to the left, reaching down to the low ground where, by training the guns obliquely to the right, a raking fire could be delivered on the assaulting lines, were the batteries of Thomas, Thompson, Phillips, Hart, Sterling, Rock, Cooper, Dow, and Ames, under Major McGilvray. Away to the left, on the summit of Little Round Top, were those of Gibbs and Ritten- house. "We had thus," says General Hunt, Chief of artillery, "on the western crest line, seventy-five guns, which could be aided by a few of those on Cemetery Hill." From eighty to ninety guns were hence in position for effective service. Later, when the enemy's infantry charged, Fitzhugh's, Parson's, Weir's, Cowan's, and Daniel's batteries were brought up to reinforce the line and take the place of disabled and unserviceable guns. Of infantry, there was the division of Robinson of the First corps at Zeigler's Grove, and to his left were the divisions of Hays and Gibbon of the Second corps, and that of Doubleday of the First corps. Still farther to the left, were Caldwell of the Second corps, and parts of the Third, Fifth and Sixth corps.
At about one o'clock P. M., the enemy, having perfected all his
1
300
MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA.
plans, made the attack. Silence, for more than two hours, had reigned, when, of a sudden, 150 guns were run to the front. No sooner were they planted and sighted, than from their mouths tongues of flame leaped forth throughout the whole lurid circum- ference, and the ground rocked as in the throes of an earthquake. For an instant, the air was filled with a hissing, bursting, fiery cloud, and a torrent, as if suddenly let loose in mid-sky, hitherto all glorious and serene, descended, in its death-dealing mission, upon the long lines of the living crouched below. Nor was it the casual dash of a fitful April day; but in steady torrents it descended. The Union guns were not unprepared, and from eighty brazen throats the response was made, in tones
"That mocked the deep-mouthed thunder."
The Union infantry officers had cautioned their men to hug closely the earth and to take shelter behind every object which could afford them protection, well knowing that this cannonade was only the prelude to an infantry attack. The enemy's infantry was out of harm's reach. But notwithstanding every precaution was taken to shelter the Union troops, the destruction was terrible. Men were torn limb from limb, and blown to atoms by the villainous shells. Horses were disembowelled, and thrown prostrate to writhe in death agonies. Caissons, filled with ammunition, were exploded, cannon rent, and steel-banded gun-carriages knocked into shapeless masses. Solid shot, Whit- worth, chain shot, shrapnell, shells, and every conceivable mis- sile known to the dread catalogue of war's art, were ceaselessly hurled upon that devoted ground. Major Harry T. Lee relates an incident that occurred while lying prostrate near General Doubleday, whose aid he was, which illustrates the indifference with which one long schooled in military duty may come to look upon the most appalling dangers. The General, having been busy manoeuvring his troops, had had no dinner. He had already had two horses killed, and having thrown him- self upon the ground, had pulled from his pocket a sandwich, which he was about to eat, when a huge missile from one of the enemy's guns struck the ground within a few feet of his head, deluging his sandwich with sand. Coolly turning to the Major,
301
THE FINAL STRUGGLE AT GETTYSBURG.
he remarked, "That sandwich will need no pepper," and imme- diately proceeded with his lunch.
Scarcely had the battle opened, ere the powerful missiles began to fall in the very midst of the little farmhouse, where General Meade had made his headquarters. As the shots began to strike about him, the General came to the door and told the staff who were in waiting, that the enemy manifestly had the range of his quarters, and that they had better go up the slope fifteen or twenty yards to the stable. "Every size and form of shell," says Mr. Wilkinson, in his correspondence from the field to the New York Times, " known to British and American gunnery, shrieked, moaned, and whistled, and wrathfully fluttered over our ground. As many as six in a second, constantly two in a second, bursting and screaming over and around the headquarters, made a very hell of fire that amazed the oldest officers. They burst in the yard-burst next to the fence; on both sides garnished as usual with the hitched horses of aids and orderlies. The fastened animals reared. and plunged with terror. Then one fell, then another. Sixteen lay dead and mangled before the fire ceased, still fastened by their halters, which gave the impression of being wickedly tied up to die painfully. These brute victims of cruel war touched all hearts. Through the midst of the storm of screaming and exploding shells, an ambulance, driven by its frenzied conductor at full speed, presented to all of us the mar- vellous spectacle of a horse going rapidly on three legs. A hinder one had been shot off at the hock. A shell tore up the little step at the headquarters cottage, and ripped bags of oats . as with a knife. Another soon carried off one of its two pillars. Soon a spherical case burst opposite the open door. Another ripped through the low garret. The remaining pillar went almost im- mediately to the howl of a fixed shot that Whitworth must have made. During this fire, the horses at twenty and thirty feet distant were receiving their death, and soldiers in Federal blue were torn to pieces in the road, and died with the peculiar yells that blend the extorted cry of pain with horror and despair."
For an hour and three-quarters this angry storm continued. During this space, which seemed an age to the unhappy victims upon whom it beat, the enemy had delivered a ceaseless fire.
302
MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA.
General Howe, an accomplished soldier, testifies : "I have never heard a more furious cannonade, nor one where there was greater expenditure of ammunition on both sides." The Union guns did not, however, continue to answer the whole time; but, that the guns might have time to cool, and ammunition be saved for the emergency which was sure to follow, the order was given to cease firing. "I ordered them," says General Hunt, Chief of artillery, "commencing at the Cemetery, to slacken their fire and cease it, in order to see what the enemy were going to do, and also to be sure that we retained a sufficient supply of ammu- nition to meet, what I then expected, an attack. At the same time, batteries were ordered up to replace those guns which had been damaged, or which had expended too much ammunition."
The enemy, perhaps interpreting this silence in part to the accuracy and telling effect of his fire, soon after ordered his own to cease. And now was discovered the indications of the part which his infantry was to play. Just in front of the rebel forti- fied line, which was concealed from view by a curtain of wood, a mass of infantry suddenly appeared, and were quickly mar- shalled in battle array. Pickett's fresh division was formed in two lines, Kemper and Garnett leading, supported by Armistead. with Wilcox and Perry of Hill's corps upon his right, so disposed as to protect his flank, and Pettigrew commanding Heth's divi- sion, and Trimble with two brigades of Pender, also of Hill's corps, for a like purpose upon his left. Thus compactly formed, presenting as it were three fronts, this powerful body, estimated at 18,000 men, moved forward to the assault.
"Firm paced and slow a horrid front they form, Still as the breeze but dreadful as the storm."
No obstacle intervened to prevent the sight of the enemy's formation and advance by nearly the entire Union line, so that the dullest private, alike with the General, saw plainly from the start the cloud that was gathering over him. Each as he grasped his weapon, felt that the impact of that well-wrought and high- tempered mass would be terrible. Was there strength enough in that thin line against which it was hurrying, to withstand the dreadful shock, and send it back in fatal rebound ?
303
THE FINAL STRUGGLE AT GETTYSBURG.
. The position of that portion of Hays' troops, commencing near Bryan's well, just south of Zeigler's Grove, was favorable for resistance. For a shelving rock crops out along the ridge, three or four feet in height, looking towards the Emmittsburg pike upon the crest of which, extending a quarter of a mile, is a low stone fence composed of loose boulders, and behind this, affording very good shelter, they were lying. To the left of Hays the fence makes a sharp angle jutting out towards the pike, for a few rods, when the same low stone fence, surmounted by a single rail, continues on towards the left along the ridge which gradu- ally falls away, and at the plain it is met by a post-and-rail fence, in front of which a slight rifle-pit had been thrown up. Com- mencing at the angle and extending south was General Owen's brigade, now temporarily commanded by General Webb, com- prising the Sixty-ninth Pennsylvania, Owen's own,-composed mostly of Irishmen, whose fighting qualities had been proved in many desperate conflicts, and who had received the commenda- tions of Kearney, and Sumner, and Hooker, upon the Peninsula for their gallantry,-the Seventy-first, originally recruited and led by the gallant Edward D. Baker, untimely cut off at Ball's Bluff, since commanded by Wistar the friend and associate of Baker, and now by Colonel R. Penn Smith; and the Seventy- second, Colonel Baxter. The two former were upon the front ; the latter held in reserve, in a second line just under the hill to the rear. To the left of this brigade were Hall and Harrow, and General Doubleday, who that day, in addition to Stone's (now Dana's), and Rowley's, had Stannard's brigade of Vermont troops, of which the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Sixteenth were present for duty. Doubleday had put the One Hundred and Fifty-first Pennsylvania and the Twentieth New York State militia upon the front, with the remainder in two lines in rear, except Stannard's men, whom he had thrown out to a little grove several rods in advance of the whole line, where they were disposed to resist a front attack.
As the rebel infantry began to move forward, its direction was such that Pickett's centre would strike Stannard; but when half · the distance had been passed over, the column suddenly changed direction, and, moving by the left flank till it had come opposite
-
30-4
MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA.
Owen's brigade, again changed front and moved forward. Whether this manœuvre was premeditated, or whether the discovery of Stannard's position, and strong front, or the fire of the batteries away to the Union left, caused this veering of the rebel line, is uncertain. Unfortunately for the enemy, when he made this turn, Wilcox, who commanded the right flanking column or wing, instead of moving to the left with Pickett, kept straight on leaving Pickett's right uncovered, and open to a flank attack. Fortunately for the Union side, Stannard was thrown out a con- siderable distance in front, so that when Pickett came forward, Stannard was precisely in the right place to deliver a telling fire full upon Pickett's exposed flank. Unfortunately again for the enemy, Pettigrew's men, who formed Pickett's left flanking column, were raw troops who were ill fitted to stand before the storm which was to descend upon them, and had been frightfully broken and dispirited in the first day's fight. But Pickett's own men were of the best, and they moved with the mien of combatants worthy of the steel they confronted, obedient to their leader's signal, and ready to go as far as who goes farthest
This infantry column had no sooner come within cannon range, than the batteries to the right and left opened with solid shot, but, as it came nearer, shells, shrapnell, and canister were poured upon it in unstinted measure. Never was a grander sight beheld upon a battle-field than that of this devoted body of men, un- flinching in their onward march, though torn by the terrible fire of artillery, and executing with the utmost precision the evolu- tions of the field. As they came within musket range the Union infantry, who had reserved their fire, poured it in with deadly effect. So decimated was the front line, that for an instant it staggered, but, recovering itself, and being closely supported by the second, moved on. When it came near, the fire was re- turned : but to what effect ? The Union men were crouching behind the stone wall on the shelving rock, and few bullets could reach them. Nothing daunted, the enemy kept boldly on, crossed the Emmittsburg pike, and rushed madly upon that part of the line where the Sixty-ninth and Seventy-first regiments were. Two or three rods to the rear of this was a little clump of small . forest trees on the very summit of the ridge. Towards this they
305
THIE FINAL STRUGGLE AT GETTYSBURG.
rushed as though it had been the mark set for them to reach. Cushin's guns, which stood just in rear of the Sixty-ninth, had been for the most part disabled, the gunners having all been killed or wounded; but two of these were still serviceable, and the men of the Sixty-ninth and Seventy-first had wheeled them down to the stone wall within the front line, and here they were worked with terrible effect. Unchecked by the fire, the enemy pushed resolutely forward. Just before this, Colonel Smith, with the right wing of the Seventy-first, had retired a few rods and taken position behind the wall coming in from the right, where his men would be less exposed to the fierce fire of canister of the Union artillery in its immediate rear, and where it could act with greater effect. The left wing, under Lieutenant-Colonel Kochersperger, in conjunction with the Sixty-ninth, hugged closely the stone wall, and continued to pour in death-dealing rounds with frightful rapidity. But the enemy, discovering that a portion of the wall was vacant, rushed over. This caused the flank to be exposed, and Kochersperger, with two companies of the Sixty-ninth, swung back, in order to protect it. The struggle was now desperate and hand to hand. A stalwart and deter- mined rebel soldier, having reached the wall behind which the left of the Sixty-ninth still clung, called out to James Donnelly of company D to surrender, levelling his musket in readiness to fire. "I surrender," cried Donnelly, and suiting the action to the word, felled him to the earth with the barrel of his gun. Donnelly was at the time but a youth of eighteen. Corporal Bradley, of the same company, while attempting to beat back an infuriated rebel, had his skull crushed in by a single blow. Rebel flags waved upon the wall within the Union line. Gen- eral Armistead, who led one of Pickett's front brigades, reached the. farthest point of the enemy's advance, and with his hand upon a Union gun near the little grove, while under the shadow of the flags of his brigade, fell mortally wounded. But still only a small breach had been made, and that had been left in part by design. The vigor and power of the blow had been robbed of its blighting effect, long before it had reached the vital point of the Union line. As the column moved past the grove where Stan- nard's brigade had been thrust out in front by Doubleday,
20
306
MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA.
Stannard suddenly formed the Thirteenth and Sixteenth regi- ments at right-angles to the main Union line, facing northward, and poured in a withering enfilading fire. This, Pickett's troops were able to withstand but a few minutes, and over 2000 of · them laid down their arms and were conducted to the rear. On Pickett's left, a like disaster befell. For Pettigrew, with his green and already decimated levies, quailed before the terrific fire of Hays' men, and a number fully as. large was swept in from that wing. The front centre of Pickett's own men continued the struggle through mere desperation. But no equal body of troops could have effected a lodgment there, or done more than had these. For the Union line, though slightly broken upon its front, was in a situation, unaided, to have beaten back the assail- ants, the Seventy-second regiment being but a few paces in rear of the little cluster of trees which marked the farthest rebel ad- vance, and was in condition to have made a stubborn resistance. But beyond the original lines, the moment it was seen that the enemy was about to strike at this point, supports were hurried forward. The brigades of Hall, and Harrow, the Nineteenth Massachusetts, the One Hundred and Fifty-first Pennsylvania, the Twentieth New York State militia, and the Forty-second of the line, being in close proximity, had reached the threatened ground, and stood four lines deep, ready to receive the foe, had he pushed his advantage.
The struggle was soon over, the greater portion of the living either surrendering or staggering back over the prostrate forms of the dead and the dying which strewed thickly all that plain. In the few moments during which the contest lasted, by far the greater part of that gallant division, that marched forth "in all the pride and circumstance of glorious war," had disappeared. Four thousand five hundred of them were prisoners, many more were wounded and weltering in their blood, and a vast number were stiff and stark in death.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.