Gettysburg

by Stephen W. Sears

  16. Alexander, Fighting for the Confederacy, 230; Pender to his wife, June 28, Pender, General to His Lady, 253–54.

  17. Fremantle, Three Months in the Southern States, 250; A. L. Long, Memoirs of Robert E. Lee, 274. George C. Eggleston has Lee saying of his new opponent, “General Meade will commit no blunder in my front, and if I commit one he will make haste to take advantage of it,” but his account is secondhand and of weak provenance: Eggleston, A Rebel’s Recollections (New York: Hurd and Houghton, 1875), 145–46.

  18. Allan, conversation with Lee, Apr. 15, 1868, in Gallagher, ed., Lee the Soldier, 14; Ewell, A. P. Hill reports, OR 27.2:444, 607; McClellan, Life and Campaigns of Stuart, 336; Nesbitt, Saber and Scapegoat, 65; James Power Smith, “General Lee at Gettysburg,” PMHSM, 5:384.

  19. Busey and Martin, Regimental Strengths and Losses at Gettysburg, 194; Stuart to Robertson, June 24, OR 27.3:927–28; James Longstreet, From Manassas to Appomattox, 343; McClellan, Life and Campaigns of Stuart, 319; David Powell, “Stuart’s Ride: Lee, Stuart, and the Confederate Cavalry in the Gettysburg Campaign,” Gettysburg Magazine, 20 (1998), 39–41; Blackford, War Years with Stuart, 229; Wert, Mosby’s Rangers, 91.

  20. McClellan, Life and Campaigns of Stuart, 336–37; Lee to Davis, June 23, OR 27.2:297; Marsena R. Patrick diary, June 17, Library of Congress; David Powell, “Stuart’s Ride: Lee, Stuart, and the Confederate Cavalry in the Gettysburg Campaign,” Gettysburg Magazine, 20 (1998), 35; Brown, Campbell Brown’s Civil War, 205.

  21. Fishel, Secret War for the Union, 502–9, 513–14; Sharpe to McConaughy, June 29, McConaughy Collection, Gettysburg College.

  22. Halleck to Meade, June 27, OR 27.1:61; Meade to his wife, June 29, Meade, Life and Letters, 2:13–14.

  23. Meade to Reynolds, June 30, OR 27.3:414–15; Army of the Potomac itinerary, OR 27.1:144.

  24. Hooker to Butterfield, June 27, OR 27.3:349; Pleasonton S.O. 99, June 29, OR 27.3:400; Buford to Pleasonton (two), June 30, Buford to Reynolds, June 30, OR 27.1:923–24; Meade circular, June 30, OR 27.3:416; Fishel, Secret War for the Union, 510–13.

  25. June 30, Samuel W. Fiske, Mr. Dunn Browne’s Experiences in the Army: The Civil War Letters of Samuel W. Fiske, 101; Abner R. Small, The Road to Richmond: The Civil War Letters of Major Abner R. Small, 97; Meade, Life and Letters, 2:12; June 30, Richard S. Thompson, While My Country Is in Danger: The Life and Letters of Lieutenant Colonel Richard S. Thompson, Twelfth New Jersey Volunteers, eds. Gerry Harder Poriss and Ralph G. Poriss (Hamilton, N.Y.: Edmonston Publishing, 1994), 64; Donaldson to his aunt, June 28, Donaldson, Inside the Army of the Potomac, 289.

  26. E. R. Brown, The Twenty-seventh Indiana Volunteer Infantry, 362; Seth Williams to Sickles, June 30, OR 27.3:420.

  27. Dawes to Mary Gates, June 30, State Historical Society of Wisconsin; Alexander Biddle to his wife, June 29, Rosenbach Museum and Library; Coddington, Gettysburg Campaign, 226–27; Lyman Holford diary, June 30, Library of Congress; June 29, Wainwright, Diary of Battle, 228–29; E. D. Burdick diary, July 1, Chicago Historical Society.

  28. John I. Nevin diary, June 29, Dana B. Shoaf, ed., “The Gettysburg Diary of Major John I. Nevin, 93rd Pennsylvania Infantry,” Civil War Regiments, 6:3 (1999), 123–24; Meade circular, June 30, OR 27.3:416–17; Brown, Twenty-seventh Indiana, 363.

  29. Meade circular, June 30, OR 27.3:415.

  30. June 29, Wainwright, Diary of Battle, 229; Parker to Lincoln, June 29, Lincoln to Parker, June 30, McClure to Lincoln, June 30, Lincoln to McClure, June 30, Lincoln, Works, 6:311–12; New York Herald, June 18.

  31. June [27] statement, OR 27.1:65; Meade to Reynolds, July 1, Herman Haupt to Halleck, July 1, OR 27.3:460–61, 476–77. In the July 1 dispatch to Reynolds (which he never received), Meade would have used the June 20 return (OR 27.1:151), plus French’s 10,000, for a total of 104,974.

  32. June 30 return, OR 27.1:151. For the final total, see Busey and Martin, Regimental Strengths and Losses at Gettysburg, 6, 16.

  33. Meade circular, June 30, Meade to Reynolds, June 30, OR 27.3:416, 417–18; Meade circular, July 1, OR 27.3: 458–59; Weld, War Diary and Letters, 232.

  34. Howard to M. Jacobs, Mar. 23, 1864, O. O. Howard Papers, Bowdoin College; Oliver Otis Howard, Autobiography, 1:403–4; Reynolds to Meade, June 30, OR 27.3:417–18; Buford to Reynolds, June 30, OR 27.1:923–24; Nichols, Toward Gettysburg, 195–96.

  35. Meade to his wife, June 30, Meade, Life and Letters, 2:18.

  36. Heth in SHSP, 4 (1877), 157.

  37. Blackford, War Years with Stuart, 225–28.

  38. A. B. Jerome, “Buford in the Battle of Oak Ridge” (1867), in Eric J. Wittenberg, “An Analysis of the Buford Manuscripts,” Gettysburg Magazine, 15 (1996), 10.

  7. A Meeting Engagement

  A note on numbers: Statistical data on the two armies are derived primarily from John W. Busey and David G. Martin, Regimental Strengths and Losses at Gettysburg. Army strengths are expressed in “present for duty” figures. In-battle counts for units in both armies, however, are expressed in “engaged” or “effectives” figures.

  1. William A. Frassanito, Early Photography at Gettysburg, 153; Gerald R. Bennett, Days of “Uncertainty and Dread”: The Ordeal Endured by the Citizens of Gettysburg, 1–3.

  2. John C. Ropes to John C. Gray, Oct. 19, John Chipman Gray and John Codman Ropes, War Letters, 1862–1865, 240. Notable for displaying the topography of the Gettysburg battlefield are maps in Earl B. McElfresh’s “A Civil War Watercolor Map Series.”

  3. Pleasonton S.O. 99, June 29, OR 27.3:400–401; Busey and Martin, Regimental Strengths and Losses at Gettysburg, 99; Eric J. Wittenberg, “John Buford and the Gettysburg Campaign,” Gettysburg Magazine, 11 (1994), 38–40; Aurora Beacon, Aug. 20, cited in Laurence D. Schiller, “Buford at Gettysburg,” North & South, 2:2 (1999), 40; Richard S. Shue, Morning at Willoughby Run: July 1, 1863, 37, 51. Buford’s third brigade was guarding trains at Mechanicstown in Maryland.

  4. A. B. Jerome, “Buford in the Battle of Oak Ridge” (1867), in Wittenberg, “An Analysis of the Buford Manuscripts,” Gettysburg Magazine, 15 (1996), 10; Meade circular, June 30, OR 27.3:416; Buford report, OR 27.1:927. Meade’s circular reached Reynolds at 4:00 A.M. on July 1, and would have reached Buford at Gettysburg probably an hour or so later. The claim that Buford learned of Reynolds’s orders by riding to his camp at Moritz’s tavern early on July 1 (Shue, Morning at Willoughby Run, 52) lacks support in any contemporaneous accounts. It cannot be imagined that Buford, expecting the enemy to advance against him at any moment that morning, would have left his command.

  5. Riddle to Le Bouvier, Aug. 4, John F. Reynolds Papers, Franklin and Marshall College; Meade circular, June 30, OR 27.3:416; Doubleday report, OR 27.1:244; Howard to Reynolds, July 1, Reynolds to Sickles, July 1, OR 27.3:457, 51.1:1066; July 1, Weld, War Diary and Letters, 229; Wadsworth testimony, Report of Joint Committee, 1 (1865), 413; July 1, Wainwright, Diary of Battle, 232; L. Patrick Nelson, “Reynolds and the Decision to Fight,” Gettysburg Magazine, 23 (2000), 38–39.

  6. Couch to Meade, June 30, Meade to Reynolds, July 1, OR 27.3:433, 460–61; Buford to Pleasonton, June 30, OR 27.1:924; Meade, Life and Letters, 2:33.

  7. Charles H. Veil to David McConaughy, Apr. 7, 1864, McConaughy Collection, Gettysburg College; July 1, 1863, Weld, War Diary and Letters, 229.

  8. Ewell report, OR 27.2:444; Isaac R. Trimble to John B. Bachelder, Feb. 8, 1883, David L. and Audrey J. Ladd, eds., The Bachelder Papers: Gettysburg in Their Own Words, 2:927.

  9. Hill report, OR 27.2:607; Allan, conversation with Lee, Apr. 15, 1868, in Gallagher, ed., Lee the Soldier, 13; Fremantle, Three Months in the Southern States, 254; Ewell report, OR 27.2:444.

  10. Heth report, OR 27.2:637; John L. Marye, “The First Gun at Gettysburg” (1895), in Civil War Regiments 1:1 (1990), 30; Walter Kempster, “The Cavalry at Gettysburg,” Wisconsin MOLLUS, War Papers (4: 1914), 49:402.

  11. Gary M. Kross, “General John Buford’s Cavalry at Gettysburg on July 1, 1863,” Blue & Gray, 1
2:3 (1995), 14; John L. Beveridge, “The First Gun at Gettysburg,” Illinois MOLLUS, Military Essays and Recollections (2:1894), 11:91–92; H. O. Dodge, T. Benton Kelley in Richard A. Sauers, ed., Fighting Them Over: How the Veterans Remembered Gettysburg in the Pages of the National Tribune, 451, 453; John L. Marye, “The First Gun at Gettysburg” (1895), Civil War Regiments 1:1 (1990), 31; E. B. Brunson report, OR 27.2:677. There were other claimants for first-shot honors, but Marcellus Jones’s claim gained legitimacy after being approved by the leading nineteenth-century Gettysburg authority John Bachelder.

  12. Heth report, OR 27.2:637; Wittenberg, “Buford and the Gettysburg Campaign,” Gettysburg Magazine, 11 (1994), 40–41; Theodore W. Bean, “Who Fired the Opening Shots,” Philadelphia Weekly Times, Feb. 2, 1878; Busey and Martin, Regimental Strengths and Losses at Gettysburg, 205–6. The arms listing for Buford’s division (in the latter source) does not include Spencer repeaters, as once believed.

  13. Laurence D. Schiller, “Buford at Gettysburg,” North & South, 2:2 (1999), 42; Heth, A. P. Hill reports, OR 27.2:637, 607; James L. Morrison, Jr., ed., “Memoirs of Henry Heth,” Civil War History, 8:3 (1962), 304; Heth in SHSP, 4 (1877), 149. Walter Taylor of Lee’s staff wrote that instructions “had been” sent to Heth, but whether on July 1 as well as June 30 is unclear: Taylor in SHSP, 4 (1877), 126.

  14. Jerome to Winfield S. Hancock, Oct. 18, 1865, Ladd and Ladd, eds., Bachelder Papers, 1:201; Buford to Meade, July 1, OR 27.1:924; Charles H. Veil to McConaughy, Apr. 7, 1864, McConaughy Collection, Gettysburg College; William Gamble to William L. Church, Mar. 10, 1864, Chicago Historical Society; July 1, Weld, War Diary and Letters, 229–32; Meade, Life and Letters, 2:35. Signalman Jerome’s dramatized account of Reynolds and Buford meeting at the Lutheran Seminary and their exchange there (Jerome’s letter to Hancock; and Jerome, “Buford in the Battle of Oak Ridge,” Gettysburg Magazine, 15 [1996], 10–11) is filled with after-the-fact embellishments and cannot be reconciled with the more contemporaneous accounts of Reynolds’s aides Veil and Weld.

  15. Veil to McConaughy, Apr. 7, 1864, McConaughy Collection, Gettysburg College; Henry E. Tremain, Two Days of War: A Gettysburg Narrative, 14; Abner Doubleday, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, 122; Doubleday to Samuel P. Bates, Apr. 3, 1874, Bates Collection, Pennsylvania State Archives; Nichols, Toward Gettysburg, 203.

  16. George H. Otis, The Second Wisconsin Infantry (Dayton: Morningside House, 1984), 83; Rufus R. Dawes to Bachelder, Mar. 18, 1868, James A. Hall to Bachelder, Feb. 27, 1867, Ladd and Ladd, eds., Bachelder Papers, 1:322–23, 306. The 7th Indiana of Cutler’s brigade, on detached service, did not engage on July 1. The McClellan rumor was also reported in the Second and Fifth corps: Battles and Leaders, 3:301; Fitz John Porter to McClellan, July 22, McClellan Papers, Library of Congress.

  17. Doubleday, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, 132; Jeffry D. Wert, A Brotherhood of Valor: The Common Soldiers of the Stonewall Brigade and the Iron Brigade (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999), 252, 100–101, 188–89; Dawes, Service with the Sixth Wisconsin, 131–32n.

  18. Marc Storch and Beth Storch, “‘What a Deadly Trap We Were In’: Archer’s Brigade on July 1, 1863,” Gettysburg Magazine, 6 (1992), 21–22; Busey and Martin, Regimental Strengths and Losses at Gettysburg, 177, 23; Charles H. Veil to McConaughy, Apr. 7, 1864, McConaughy Collection, Gettysburg College; Cornelius Wheeler, “Reminiscences of the Battle of Gettysburg,” Wisconsin MOLLUS, War Papers (2: 1896), 47:210; Wert, Brotherhood of Valor, 251; George H. Otis, The Second Wisconsin Infantry (Dayton: Morningside House, 1984), 84. The woodlot was actually on the property of John Herbst, but it was so widely known as McPherson’s Woods at the time of the battle and for long afterward that that usage is retained here.

  19. Veil to McConaughy, Apr. 7, 1864, McConaughy Collection, Gettysburg College. Myths grew up about Reynolds’s death— that he was killed by a sharpshooter, by a sharpshooter hiding in a tree, even by friendly fire. But orderly Veil was at the general’s side, and there is every reason to accept his clear and straightforward account. Doubleday had been in temporary command of the First Corps while Reynolds commanded the left wing. Doubleday’s command on the field lasted only until Howard arrived and superseded him.

  20. Marc Storch and Beth Storch, “Archer’s Brigade,” Gettysburg Magazine, 6 (1992), 22–27; W. H. Bird, Stories of the Civil War (Columbiana, Ala., n.d.), 7; S. G. Shepard report, OR 27.2:646; John Mansfield report, OR 27.1:274; E. P. Halstead, “The First Day of the Battle of Gettysburg,” District of Columbia MOLLUS, War Papers (1: 1887), 42:5.

  21. Busey and Martin, Regimental Strengths and Losses at Gettysburg, 175.

  22. Terrence J. Winchel, “Heavy Was Their Loss: Joe Davis’s Brigade at Gettysburg,” Gettysburg Magazine, 2 (1990), 10–11; Hall report, OR 27.1:359; D. Scott Hartwig, “Guts and Good Leadership: The Action at the Railroad Cut, July 1, 1863,” Gettysburg Magazine, 1 (1989), 7–9; Davis report, OR 27.2:649; Leander G. Woollard diary, Memphis State University, cited in Roger Long, “A Mississippian in the Railroad Cut,” Gettysburg Magazine, 4 (1991), 22–23; A. H. Belo in Confederate Veteran, 8 (1900), 165; Cutler report, OR 27.1:282.

  23. Hartwig, “Action at the Railroad Cut,” Gettysburg Magazine, 1 (1989), 10–11; Winchel, “Joe Davis’s Brigade at Gettysburg,” Gettysburg Magazine, 2 (1990), 10–11; Hall to Bachelder, Dec. 29, 1869, J. V. Pierce to Bachelder, Nov. 1, 1882, Ladd and Ladd, eds., Bachelder Papers, 1:385–86, 2:911; Cutler report, OR 27.1:281–82; Busey and Martin, Regimental Strengths and Losses at Gettysburg, 239; Sidney G. Cooke, “The First Day of Gettysburg,” Kansas MOLLUS, War Talks in Kansas (1: 1906), 15:280.

  24. Hall report, OR 27.1:359–60; Hall to Bachelder, Feb. 27, 1867, Dec. 29, 1869, Ladd and Ladd, eds., Bachelder Papers 1:306–7, 386–87.

  25. J. A. Blair, June 9, 1888, William F. Fox, New York at Gettysburg, 3:1006; Davis report, OR 27.2:649; Woollard diary, cited in Long, “A Mississippian in the Railroad Cut,” Gettysburg Magazine, 1 (1989), 23; Dawes to Bachelder, Mar. 18, 1868, Ladd and Ladd, eds., Bachelder Papers, 1:323–24; Dawes, Service with the Sixth Wisconsin, 167. A 100-man brigade guard was assigned to the 6th Wisconsin in this operation.

  26. Dawes to Bachelder, Mar. 18, 1868, Ladd and Ladd, eds., Bachelder Papers, 1:324–25; Dawes, Service with the Sixth Wisconsin, 168–69; W. B. Murphy, June 29, 1900, Bragg Papers, State Historical Society of Wisconsin; Dawes report, OR 27.1:276; ClaytonE. Rogers in Milwaukee Sunday Telegraph, May 13, 1887; Dawes to Mary Gates, July 6, Dawes, Service with the Sixth Wisconsin, 161–62.

  27. Heth report, OR 27.2:638.

  28. Robert McClean, “A Boy in Gettysburg—1863,” Gettysburg Compiler, June 30, 1909; Doubleday report, OR 27.1:244.

  29. July 1, Weld, War Diary and Letters, 229–30; Veil to McConaughy, Apr. 7, 1864, McConaughy Collection, Gettysburg College; Tremain, Two Days of War, 14; Joseph G. Rosengarten to Samuel P. Bates, Jan. 13, 1871, Doubleday to Bates, Oct. 18, 1875, Bates Collection, Pennsylvania State Archives; Doubleday, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, 126–27; Charles H. Howard, “First Day at Gettysburg,” Illinois MOLLUS, Military Essays and Recollections (4: 1907), 13:242. Apparently to revive his military reputation, much bruised by Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, Howard claimed it was he who selected the key ground of Cemetery Hill for the army to defend; he received the Thanks of Congress for doing so (Howard report, OR 27.1:702; Howard to Bates, Sept. 14, 1875, Bates Collection, Pennsylvania State Archives). However, Joseph Rosengarten’s testimony (cited above), affirmed by Doubleday, that he heard Reynolds charge Howard with that task is considerably more persuasive than Howard’s aide Captain Hall claiming, nineteen years later, that he did not remember Reynolds saying any such thing: Hall to Howard, May 20, 1882, O. O. Howard Papers, Bowdoin College.

  30. Shue, Morning at Willoughby Run, 193–94; Howard report, OR 27.1:702; Howard, “Reminiscences,” in Sauers, ed., Gettysburg in the National Tribune, 162.

  8. The God of Battles Smiles South

  1. Longstreet, Manassas to Appoma
ttox, 351–52; Lee report, Jan. 1864, OR 27.2:313; Marshall, Aide-de-Camp of Lee, 229; Lee to Imboden, July 1, OR 27.3:947–48.

  2. Longstreet, “Lee in Pennsylvania,” Annals of the War, 420; A. L. Long, Memoirs of Robert E. Lee, 275; Walter H. Taylor in SHSP, 4 (1877), 126.

  3. Anderson to Longstreet, n.d., cited in Longstreet, Manassas to Appomattox, 357; Brown, Campbell Brown’s Civil War, 204–5; Brown narrative, Henry J. Hunt Papers, Library of Congress.

  4. Couch to Halleck, June 30, OR 27.3:434 (forwarded to Meade July 1: OR 27.1:70);Buford to Reynolds, June 30, Buford to Pleasonton, June 30 (forwarded to Meade), OR 27.1:923–24; Meade to Halleck, July 1, OR 27.1:70–71.

  5. July 1, Salmon P. Chase, The Salmon P. Chase Papers: Journals, 1829–1872, ed. John Niven (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1993), 1:426; Halleckto Meade, July 1, OR 27.1:71; June 30, Welles, Diary, 1:352.

  6. July 1, Weld, War Diary and Letters, 230–32; Meade, Hancock testimony, Report of Joint Committee, 1 (1865), 348, 403–4; Meade circular, July 1, OR 27.3:458–59; Meade to Sedgwick, July 1, Meade to Slocum, July 1, Meade to Reynolds, July 1, OR 27.3:462, 460–61. Meade became reluctant to elaborate on his Pipe Creek circular after his enemies later used it against him, but the phrase “holding them in check sufficiently long” clearly suggests a deception to lure the Confederates into pursuit. Without such a bait, Lee would have little reason to give battle at Pipe Creek.

  7. Meade to Reynolds, June 30, Reynolds to Meade, June 30, Meade to Hancock, July 1, OR 27.3:419–20, 417–18, 461; Meade to Couch, July 1, Couch to Halleck, July 1, OR 27.3:458, 473.

  8. Meade, Life and Letters, 2:36; Meade to Hancock, July 1, OR 27.3:461; Walker, Second Army Corps, 264–65; Halleck to Meade, June 27, OR 27.1:61; Meade to Sedgwick, July 1, OR 27.3:465.