Gettysburg

by Stephen W. Sears

  Major Harman, meanwhile, was tackling the bridge problem with his usual mixture of energy and profanity. According to the Prussian observer Justus Scheibert, who pitched in to help, seven of the original pontoons were found and repaired; the rest had to be fabricated out of materials at hand. Barns were dismantled and wharves and warehouses along the nearby Chesapeake & Ohio Canal taken down. Sawmills were appropriated and tools requisitioned. Within sixty-eight hours, by Captain Scheibert’s count, fifteen rough pontoons were assembled, caulked with oakum and tar, floated downriver to Falling Waters, and there combined with crossbeams and planking to form an 800-foot floating bridge. On July 13 the bridge was pronounced ready for traffic. To the eye of staff officer Moxley Sorrel it was “a crazy affair,” yet it was entirely serviceable and very much a credit to Rebel ingenuity.32

  By July 7, the date on which the Army of the Potomac was supposed to rendezvous at Middletown, just east of South Mountain and 18 miles from Williamsport, only one corps had reached that far. Yet sometime over the next day or two, by means of a hellbent dash forward, one or likely two Federal corps might have broken through Stuart’s cavalry screen to reach the Confederate works before they were completed. (Candidates for such a dash were the First and Second corps, which by July 8 had caught up with the advance—but of course neither John Reynolds nor Winfield Hancock was leading them.) Then it would be a question of holding there against Lee’s oncoming infantry until the other corps came up. It would be a very bold gamble, to be sure, but one in which the risk would surely be balanced by the possible consequences.

  In the event, George Meade once again demonstrated that he was not a gambling man. He was not yet altogether secure in his new command, and he was exceedingly respectful of Robert E. Lee. The army was only a few miles from the old Antietam battlefield, and the veterans (including General Meade) remembered all too well what it was like to attack Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia when it was hunkered down in defense. While Meade had clearly demonstrated at Gettysburg that he was not afraid to do battle with Lee, the habits of defeat were too deeply ingrained in him—and in the Potomac army’s generals—to attempt it without favorable odds. The odds just then must have looked no better than even, and so he would not accept them.

  C.E.H. Bonwill’s sketch, dated July 13, shows the Confederate army’s cable ferry at Williamsport on the Potomac. (New York Public Library)

  Writing in his diary on July 11, Colonel Wainwright of the artillery offered a shrewd assessment of the general commanding: “It would nearly end the rebellion if we could actually bag this army, but on the other hand, a severe repulse of us would give them all the prestige at home and abroad which they lost at Gettysburg…. I trust therefore that General Meade will not attempt it, unless under circumstances which will make our chances of success at least four out of five….”

  By July 10 Meade acknowledged that he had finished second in the race to the Potomac. He reported to Washington that the whole of Lee’s army was in front of him, taking up positions to cover the Williamsport crossings. “These positions they are said to be intrenching.” He explained that he was now advancing on a line perpendicular to the enemy’s. “I shall advance cautiously on the same line tomorrow until I can develop more fully the enemy’s force and position, upon which my future operations will depend.”

  For these future operations Washington assured him that two brigades from the Department of West Virginia would soon be coming in from the west. There was as well the militia under Generals Couch and Smith coming down from the north, but these Sunday soldiers—Smith described them as “an incoherent mass”—hardly seemed the answer to the army’s needs. (The president remarked that these militiamen “will, in my unprofessional opinion, be quite as likely to capture the Man-in-the-Moon, as any part of Lee’s Army.”)

  True to his word, Meade proceeded cautiously. He wrote his wife on July 12 that he was in the immediate vicinity of the enemy, and “expect at any hour to be engaged with him. He appears to be getting into a strong position, where he can act on the defensive. I shall be prudent & not act rashly.” That same day, heading a letter to his sister “In line of Battle,” Lieutenant Charles Brewster of the Second Corps wrote, “I do not know what is going on, but we expected to have had another desparate battle before this, but we get on mighty slow, and I am afraid they will get away from us….“Buthe added hopefully, “one more such thrashing as we gave them at Gettysburg could finish up their little excursion to the north.“33

  Some months afterward, when he reviewed the Gettysburg campaign with the historian John C. Ropes, General Meade said that he had made up his mind upon reaching the Potomac to attack Lee without consulting “any of them,” meaning his corps commanders. But on second thought—and apparently on seeing Lee’s defenses—he decided, just as he had decided on July 2 and July 4, to call in his generals for consultation. He scheduled the meeting for the evening of July 12, at his headquarters.

  Attending were James Wadsworth of the First Corps, in place of Newton, who was ill; William Hays of the Second Corps; William French, successor to David Birney as head of the Third Corps; Sykes of the Fifth; Sedgwick of the Sixth; Howard of the Eleventh; and Slocum of the Twelfth. Pleasonton represented the cavalry and Warren the engineers. Andrew Humphreys was there as Meade’s new chief of staff. (Meade, it seems, had run out of patience with Dan Butterfield and sent him away with the excuse that his wound needed treatment.)

  Before the conference Meade revealed his plan to Humphreys—a reconnaissance in force the next day, to be converted into a full-blooded attack if a weak point was discovered. The problem was a lack of intelligence on the enemy positions. Little had been done by way of reconnaissance over the past two or three days, and Meade hoped his lieutenants would offer their thoughts. But (as he wrote his wife) he had his doubts: “I want Corps Comdrs.”

  General Meade preferred to call these gatherings consultations rather than formal councils of war, but in this case at least a vote was going to decide the issue. “I left it to their judgment,” he later testified, “and would not do it unless it met with their approval.” He told his listeners that he could not “indicate any precise mode of attack or any precise point of attack.” Nevertheless, he favored attacking the enemy the next day “and taking the consequences.” What, he asked, was their opinion?

  Warren the engineer argued in favor of Meade’s scheme, but it was the infantry commanders’ votes that would be counted. That fact also ruled out Humphreys’s in-favor opinion. Pleasonton also wanted to attack, but since the cavalry would not be engaged his view was discounted. Otis Howard of the Eleventh Corps was in favor as well. “But General Howard’s opinion did not carry much weight with the rest,” said Warren, “because his troops did not behave well.” James Wadsworth, too, called for an attack, but since it was known that Newton, for whom he was substituting, opposed attacking, his view was taken at a discount.

  But all the other corps commanders—Sedgwick, Slocum, Sykes, Hays, and French—“strenuously opposed a fight,” according to Wadsworth. Sedgwick seems to have spoken for the five of them when he said that General Meade had just won a great victory, “and he thought he ought not to jeopard all he had gained by another battle at that time.” As Gouverneur Warren phrased it, “I do not think I ever saw the principal corps commanders so unanimous in favor of not fighting as on that occasion.” It may be that John Reynolds turned over in his grave, and Winfield Hancock and John Gibbon in their hospital cots.34

  With the vote of the infantry commanders standing at five to two against his plan for a next day’s attack, Meade abandoned his aggressive stance. As Humphreys explained, “General Meade deferred to them so far as to delay until he could examine our own ground and that of the enemy….” Then it took another day for Meade to gather his thoughts and to determine on a definite plan of action. Orders went out to the commanders of the Second, Fifth, Sixth, and Twelfth corps instructing each to conduct a reconnaissance in force—commencing at 7:00 A.M
. on July 14. When Meade announced his decision to Halleck, the general-in-chief was sharply critical. “Act upon your own judgment and make your generals execute your orders,” he telegraphed. “Call no council of war. It is proverbial that councils of war never fight.” This telegram was sent the evening of July 13, and whatever it might have done to stiffen Meade’s resolve, it came too late. 35

  AS SOON AS MAJOR HARMAN completed the pontoon bridge at Falling Waters, ambulances and wagonloads of wounded were hurried down from the cable ferry at Williamsport and started across to Virginia. The Potomac was meanwhile falling steadily, with predictions that it would fall to four feet at the Williamsport ford by July 13. This was a critical point. To complete the crossing in one night, at least one corps had to be able to wade the river at the ford. Then the rest of the infantry, the artillery, and the wagons should be able to cross over the bridge by daylight. General Lee therefore set the evacuation for the night of July 13.

  Ewell’s Second Corps, holding the lines on the far left, near Hagerstown, pulled out at dusk and took the road to Williamsport. It was rainy and foggy, and the march proceeded with much confusion, deepening mud, and many halts. The way was lighted by torches and bonfires of fence rails. Stuart’s cavalry stayed behind to guard the battle lines, with instructions to cross after the infantry. At the ford the men were told to hang their cartridge boxes around their necks, for the water would be up as high as their armpits. A great bonfire was lit on the Virginia shore to mark their target. The tallest men were stationed as a guard line across the river, with rifles interlocked to prevent anyone from being swept away. While many shoes were lost in the mud and numerous cartridges wetted and ruined, it was said that no one drowned. General Robert Rodes even insisted that the men met their various hardships “with cheers and laughter.” Perhaps they did, at least from a sense of gratitude at returning safely to Virginia.

  At Falling Waters, Longstreet’s First Corps, on the right of the lines, was first to pull out. There was considerable delay here until Ewell’s artillery could cross, but finally the way was clear for Old Pete’s men. Porter Alexander would remember it as an “awful night…. We were marching all night in awful roads, in mud & dark, & hard rain….” Daylight found the last of Longstreet’s divisions across and just the first of A. P. Hill’s. Cloaked in a morning fog, the evacuation continued.36

  On a ridgeline a mile and a half from the pontoon bridge the engineers had thrown up a defensive line for the rear guard, a task assigned to Harry Heth’s division of Hill’s corps. Assured that the cavalry would be picketing well out in front of them, Heth told his men to stack arms and rest while the crossing continued. Heth, recovered now from his July 1 head wound, had assigned Johnston Pettigrew to command the remains of Archer’s brigade as well as his own. With the abilities of John Brockenbrough and Joe Davis still suspect, Heth clearly was relying on Pettigrew to carry the burden of command this morning.

  It so happened that in the confusion of the evacuation there was a mix-up in the cavalry, and Stuart’s troopers were not picketing out front after all. Harry Heth was unaware that his division was, literally, the army’s sole rear guard. It was misty and foggy, and when a body of cavalrymen was dimly seen out ahead of the lines, Heth was unconcerned and let his men sleep. These mysterious troopers were in fact Yankees, of George Armstrong Custer’s brigade of Judson Kilpatrick’s division.

  Kilpatrick had begun his day in Hagerstown. When the scheduled reconnaissances reported the enemy’s lines empty, he rushed toward Williamsport in hopes of catching the Confederates astride the river. Instead he found the streets empty except for deserters and the stragglers, the detritus in every army who never quite get the word. When citizens told him of the other Confederate crossing at Falling Waters, Kilpatrick sent his troopers southward at the gallop. Sighting the works held by Heth’s men, he told Custer to launch an immediate attack. Custer selected two companies of the 6th Michigan under Major Peter Weber and had them dismount to feel out the enemy position. Kilpatrick countermanded the order and ordered the men to mount up and charge.

  For a moment this reckless order seemed about to pay off, as Heth, assuming the horsemen to be Confederate, yelled at his men to hold their fire. On the Yankees came, jumping their horses right over the works and into the midst of Pettigrew’s defenders. There was a swirling clash of horsemen and foot soldiers, sabers and bayonets. But as a man in the 6th Michigan described it, the Confederates quickly rallied “and seizing their arms, made short work of their daring assailants.” Major Weber was killed and a third of his men shot down.

  Johnston Pettigrew was squarely in the midst of this new battle, just as he had been on July 1 and again on July 3. Unhorsed early in the fight, he singled out a Yankee trooper for combat. But the Yankee fired first and hit him in the stomach. Borne to the rear, Pettigrew was told by a surgeon his only chance for survival was to remain behind, to be ministered to by the enemy. Pettigrew had been wounded and captured before, on the Peninsula, and he would have none of it; he said he would die before becoming a prisoner again. And so it was. After a jolting ride in an ambulance back into Virginia, he died there three days later.

  During this scrap the Confederates completed their evacuation, with the rear guard having to fight off John Buford’s troopers who broke in from the east. True to his usual extravagant record-keeping, Judson Kilpatrick claimed the capture of 1,500 prisoners. His total was probably a third of that number, many of them stragglers. Buford recorded capturing 500. The prisoners included no fewer than 230 from John Brockenbrough’s brigade of unfortunates. In the last act of the campaign, the 28th North Carolina boarded the bridge, cut loose its Maryland moorings, and drifted safely to the Virginia shore. 37

  In Alfred Waud’s drawing, the 6th Michigan cavalry charges the Rebels’ rear guard at Falling Waters on July 14. (Library of Congress)

  Newspaperman Noah Brooks remembered looking across the Potomac that evening at the Rebel campfires in the Virginia woods. “It is impossible now to describe—almost impossible to recall—the feeling of bitterness with which we regarded the sight. Lee’s Army was gone….” The 14th Connecticut’s soldier-correspondent Samuel Fiske, describing for his readers the five-day mini-campaign on the Potomac, offered a view from the ranks. Of that final day, July 14, he wrote, “Fifth day: At daybreak we give the word to advance along our whole line. We ‘move upon the enemy’s works.’ Works are ours. Enemy, sitting on the other side of the river, performing various gyrations with his fingers, thumb on his nose….“38

  *

  Epilogue: Great God! What Does It Mean?

  AT ABOUT NOON that Tuesday, July 14, a telegram from General Meade reached Washington reporting that the Rebel army had escaped across the Potomac during the night. Mr. Lincoln, according to his secretary John Hay, was “deeply grieved” by the news. “We had them within our grasp,” he told Hay. “We had only to stretch forth our hands and they were ours. And nothing I could say or do could make the army move.” The news appeared to bear out the president’s grim forecast: “This is a dreadful reminiscence of McClellan.”

  The midday Cabinet meeting that Tuesday was thinly attended, and when he came into the room Lincoln was obviously distressed. It was agreed that no one was in the right frame of mind for deliberations, and the meeting was adjourned. Afterward, as he made his way across the White House grounds toward his office, Navy Secretary Welles was overtaken by the president. Seldom had he seen Lincoln “so troubled, so dejected and discouraged,” Welles would confide to his diary.

  He said, wrote Welles, “that he had dreaded, yet expected this; that there has seemed to him for a full week a determination that Lee should escape with his force and plunder…. There is bad faith somewhere. Meade has been pressed and urged, but only one of his generals was for an immediate attack, was ready to pounce on Lee; the rest held back. What does it mean, Mr. Welles? Great God! what does it mean?“1

  Lincoln must have made his views equally clear to General-in-Chief H
alleck, for in his reply to Meade’s telegram Halleck was blunt: “I need hardly say to you that the escape of Lee’s army without another battle has created great dissatisfaction in the mind of the President, and it will require an active and energetic pursuit on your part to remove the impression that it has not been sufficiently active heretofore.”

  For General Meade this was the last straw. Over the past ten days it seemed that an unthinking, ungrateful Washington had done nothing but nag at him. After he read Halleck’s telegram, he turned to Rufus Ingalls, his quartermaster, and asked, “Ingalls, don’t you want to take command of this army?” “No, I thank you,” Ingalls replied. “It’s too big an elephant for me.” “Well, it’s too big for me, too,” said Meade. Without delay he telegraphed Halleck that “the censure of the President conveyed in your dispatch of 1 P.M. this day is, in my judgment, so undeserved that I feel compelled most respectfully to ask to be immediately relieved from the command of this army.”

  Joe Hooker, the last Army of the Potomac commander to tender his resignation, was promptly accommodated, but that would not be George Meade’s fate. Still, Halleck’s brusque response was hardly a ringing endorsement. The president’s disappointment, he telegraphed, “was not intended as a censure, but as a stimulus to an active pursuit. It is not deemed a sufficient cause for your application to be relieved.”

  That evening, describing the events of this momentous day to his wife, Meade in the end could only shrug. “This is exactly what I expected,” he wrote, “—unless I did impracticable things fault would be found with me. I have ignored the senseless adulation of the public & press & I am now just as indifferent to the censure bestowed without just cause. Still it is hard after working as I have done & accomplishing as much to be found fault with for not doing impossibilities.”