Gettysburg

by Stephen W. Sears

  9. Howard report, OR 27.1:702; Joseph G. Rosengarten to Samuel P. Bates, Jan. 13, 1871, Howard to T. H. Davis, Sept. 14, 1875, Bates Collection, Pennsylvania State Archives; Howard to Sickles and to Slocum, July 1, Howard to Meade, July 1, OR 27.3:463, 457–58; Buford to Pleasonton, July 1, OR 27.1:924–25. Howard’s 1:30 messages to Sickles and Slocum are not on record, but their content can be inferred from Sickles to Howard, July 1, and Sickles to Meade, July 1, OR 27.3:463, 464. Slocum never acknowledged receipt of either of Howard’s dispatches.

  10. Tremain, Two Days of War, 14; Sickles to Howard, July 1, Sickles to Meade, July 1, Meade to Sickles, July 1, OR 27.3:463, 464, 466. Howard’s messenger did not immediately find Sickles, delaying the Third Corps’ start to the battlefield: E. P. Pearson to Howard, Jan. 22, 1886, O. O. Howard Papers, Bowdoin College.

  11. Geary report, OR 27.1:825; Julian W. Hinkley, A Narrative of Service with the Third Wisconsin Infantry (Madison: Wisconsin History Commission, 1912), 82; Brown, Twenty-seventh Indiana, 365–66; Slocum to T. H. Davis, Sept. 8, 1875, Bates Collection, Pennsylvania State Archives; Charles H. Howard to E. Whittlesey, July 9, C. H. Howard Papers, Bowdoin College.

  12. Doubleday report, OR 27.1:247; July 1, Wainwright, Diary of Battle, 234–35; Stannard report, OR 27.1:348–49; Busey and Martin, Regimental Strengths and Losses at Gettysburg, 21, 80–86; Howard, Osborn reports, OR 27.1:702, 748; Howard manuscript, n.d., Gettysburg National Military Park.

  13. Doubleday to Samuel P. Bates, Oct. 18, 1875, Bates Collection, Pennsylvania State Archives. The 37 Confederate infantry brigades averaged 2,162 present for duty, against the 51 Union brigades’ average of 2,196: Busey and Martin, Regimental Strengths and Losses at Gettysburg, 16,129.

  14. Ewell, Rodes reports, OR 27.2:439, 552; James M. Thompson, Reminiscences of Autauga Rifles (1879), cited in Robert K. Krick, “Three Confederate Disasters on Oak Ridge: Failures of Brigade Leadership on the First Day at Gettysburg,” Gary W. Gallagher, ed., Three Days at Gettysburg, 91.

  15. July 1, Hotchkiss, Make Me a Map, 156; Howard, Doubleday reports, OR 27.1:702, 248.

  16. Rodes report, OR 27.2:552; Brown narrative, Henry J. Hunt Papers, Library of Congress; Ewell report, OR 27.2:444.

  17. Pendleton report, OR 27.2:348–49; Morrison, ed., “Memoirs of Henry Heth,” Civil War History, 8:3 (1962), 305; Brown, Campbell Brown’s Civil War, 206; Blackford, War Years with Jeb Stuart, 228; McClellan, Life and Campaigns of Stuart, 330.

  18. Ewell, Rodes, Lee (Jan. 1864) reports, OR 27.2:444, 552–53, 317; Busey and Martin, Regimental Strengths and Losses at Gettysburg, 166; Krick, “Three Confederate Disasters,” Gallagher, ed., Three Days at Gettysburg, 96–97.

  19. Gary G. Lash, “Brig. Gen. Henry Baxter’s Brigade at Gettysburg, July 1,” Gettysburg Magazine, 10 (1994), 9–14; George W. Grant, “The First Army Corps on the First Day at Gettysburg,” Minnesota MOLLUS, Glimpses of the Nation’s Struggle (5: 1903), 30:49; Rodes, Carter reports, OR 27.2:553, 603; D. Scott Hartwig, “The 11th Army Corps on July 1, 1863,” Gettysburg Magazine, 2 (1990), 39; Robert E. Park in SHSP, 26 (1898), 13.

  20. Robinson report, OR 27.1:289; Lash, “Baxter’s Brigade,” Gettysburg Magazine, 10 (1994), 16–17; Gerard A. Patterson, “The Death of Iverson’s Brigade,” Gettysburg Magazine, 5 (1991), 15;“Twenty-third Regiment,” Clark, North Carolina Regiments, 2:235.

  21. Paul Clark Cooksey, “They Died as if on Dress Parade: The Annihilation of Iverson’s Brigade at Gettysburg and the Battle of Oak Ridge,” Gettysburg Magazine, 20 (1998), 102–5;“Twenty-third Regiment,” “Twentieth Regiment,” Clark, North Carolina Regiments, 2:238, 119; Krick, “Three Confederate Disasters,” Gallagher, ed., Three Days at Gettysburg, 102–4; Lash, “Baxter’s Brigade,” Gettysburg Magazine, 10 (1994), 19; Busey and Martin, Regimental Strengths and Losses at Gettysburg, 288; July 2, Henry R. Berkeley, Four Years in the Confederate Artillery: The Diary of Private Henry Robinson Berkeley, ed. William H. Runge (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1961), 50; Charles C. Blacknall memoir, North Carolina State Archives.

  22. Morrison, ed., “Memoirs of Henry Heth,” Civil War History, 8:3 (1962), 305; Brown narrative, Henry J. Hunt Papers, Library of Congress; Trimble, “Battle and Campaign of Gettysburg,” SHSP, 26 (1898), 121; June 26, Hotchkiss, Make Me a Map, 155.

  23. Grant, “First Army Corps,” Minnesota MOLLUS, Glimpses of the Nation’s Struggle (5: 1903), 30:50; Baxter report, OR 27.1:307; J. H. Stine, History of the Army of the Potomac (Washington, 1893), 484; John C. Robinson, “The First Corps,” in Sauers, ed., Gettysburg in the National Tribune, 114; Small, Road to Richmond, 100.

  24. William F. Fox, Regimental Losses in the American Civil War (Dayton: Morningside House, 1974), 261, 303; J. H. Basslerin SHSP, 37 (1909), 268–69.

  25. William H. Tipton memoir, cited in Frassanito, Early Photography at Gettysburg, 86; Doubleday report, OR 27.1:255. The John Burns story would be greatly embellished in later tellings, by Burns and others. The dimensions of the story as related here appear reliable. For the whole story, see Timothy H. Smith, John Burns: “The Hero of Gettysburg” (Gettysburg: Thomas Publications, 2000).

  26. Warren W. Hassler, Jr., Crisis at the Crossroads: The First Day at Gettysburg, 102–4;“2nd Battalion,” Clark, North Carolina Regiments, 4:256; James Stewart, “Battery B Fourth United States Artillery at Gettysburg,” Ohio MOLLUS, Sketches of War History (4: 1896), 4:185; D. Massy Griffin, “Rodes on Oak Hill: A Study of Rodes’ Division on the First Day of Gettysburg,” Gettysburg Magazine, 4 (1991), 44–45; Walton Dwight report, OR 27.1:342.

  27. Doubleday, Generals’ Reports, RG 94, National Archives; E. P. Halstead, “The First Day of the Battle of Gettysburg,” District of Columbia MOLLUS, War Papers (1: 1887), 42:5–6; Doubleday to Samuel P. Bates, Apr. 3, 1874, Bates Collection, Pennsylvania State Archives.

  28. July 1, Wainwright, Diary of Battle, 235–37.

  29. Edwin R. Gearhart memoir, cited in Kevin E. O’Brien, “‘Give Them Another Volley, Boys’: Biddle’s Brigade Defends the Union Left on July 1, 1863,” Gettysburg Magazine, 19 (1998), 44–45; Alexander Biddle reports, OR 27.1:323, OR Supplement 5:151; “Forty-seventh Regiment,” Clark, North Carolina Regiments, 3:90.

  30. Doubleday report, OR Supplement 5:101; McFarland report, OR 27.1:327; John T. Jones report, OR 27.2:643; Nathan Cooper to his wife, July 2, cited in Michael A. Dreese, “The 151st Pennsylvania Volunteers at Gettysburg: July 1, 1863,” Gettysburg Magazine, 23 (2000), 60; Dudley report, Ladd and Ladd, eds., Bachelder Papers, 2:941–42.

  31. Young, “Pettigrew’s Brigade at Gettysburg,” Clark, North Carolina Regiments, 5:120; R. M. Tuttle in SHSP, 28 (1900), 202–4; R. Lee Hadden, “The Deadly Embrace: The Meeting of the Twenty-fourth Regiment, Michigan Infantry, and the Twenty-sixth Regiment of North Carolina Troops…,” Gettysburg Magazine, 5 (1991), 28–33; Morrison, ed., “Memoirs of Henry Heth,” Civil War History, 8:3 (1962), 304–5.

  32. Sears, Chancellorsville, 286, 421.

  33. Barlow to his mother, July 7, Francis C. Barlow Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society; Howard, Autobiography, 1:414; Carl Schurz, The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz, 3:10; Schurz report, OR 27.1:728.

  34. Early, Autobiographical Sketch, 267–68; Robert Stiles, Four Years under Marse Robert (New York: Neale, 1903), 210–11; Hartwig, “11th Corps on July 1, 1863,” Gettysburg Magazine, 2 (1990), 43–44; William R. Kiefer, History of the One Hundred Fifty-third Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry (Easton, Pa., 1909), 214. The 41st New York of von Gilsa’s brigade was on detached duty on July 1.

  35. Barlow to his mother, July 7, Barlow to Robert Treat Paine, Aug. 12, Barlow Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society; G. W. Nichols, A Soldier’s Story of His Regiment (61st Georgia) (Jesup, Ga., 1898), 116; Hartwig, “11th Corps on July 1, 1863,” Gettysburg Magazine, 2 (1990), 44–45; Harris to Bachelder, Mar. 14, 1881, Ladd and Ladd, eds., Bachelder Papers, 2:744; New York Times, July 6. The Barlow-Gordon “incident,” much embellished by Gordon on the postwar lecture circu
it, has a factual basis about as narrated here. In Blue & Gray, 19:3 (2002), 6–7, Gregory C. White details what is known of the case, including the fact that it was Barlow, not Gordon, who first related the incident, at an 1879 Washington gathering.

  36. Hartwig, “11th Corps on July 1, 1863,” Gettysburg Magazine, 2 (1990), 44–49; Alfred Lee, “Reminiscences of the Gettysburg Battle,” Lippincott Magazine, 6 (1883), 56; Theodore A. Dodge, “Left Wounded on the Field,” Putnam’s Magazine (1869), in Dodge, On Campaign with the Army of the Potomac, 319–20; Philip P. Brown, in John S. Applegate, Reminiscences and Letters of George Arrowsmith (Red Bank, N.J., 1893), 217; C. D. Grace in Confederate Veteran, 5 (1897), 614.

  37. Charles W. McKay, “‘Three Years or During the War’ with the Crescent and the Star,” National Tribune Scrap Book, n.d., 131; Joseph W. Jackson, July 20, Boyd Civil War Papers, Louisiana State University; Lewis Heckman report, OR 27.1:755; July 1, Hotchkiss, Make Me a Map, 156; D. C. Pfanz, Richard S. Ewell, 307–8; Harry W. Pfanz, Gettysburg— Culp’s Hill and Cemetery Hill, 44. The Gettysburg losses for Gordon and Doles totaled 756, nearly all incurred on July 1: Busey and Martin, Regimental Strengths and Losses at Gettysburg, 286, 289.

  38. Hunt report, OR 27.1:230; July 1, Wainwright, Diary of Battle, 235–36; William W. Robinson report, OR 27.1:280; 0’Brien, “Biddle’s Brigade Defends the Union Left,” Gettysburg Magazine, 19 (1998), 49–50. James Lane’s brigade, on the far right of Pender’s division, skirmished with Gamble’s Federal cavalry and did not participate in the attack. Pender held Edward Thomas’s brigade in reserve.

  39. J. Michael Miller, “Perrin’s Brigade on July 1, 1863,” Gettysburg Magazine, 13 (1995), 25–28; A. A. Tompkins and A. S. Tompkins, “Fourteenth South Carolina Volunteers, Company K,” Recollections and Reminiscences, 1861–1865 (South Carolina Division, U.D.C., 1995), 6:424; J.F.J. Caldwell, The History of [Gregg’s] Brigade of South Carolinians (Philadelphia: King & Baird, 1866), 97–98.

  40. Dawes, Service with the Sixth Wisconsin, 176; W. G. Lewis report, OR 27.2:573; History of the 121st Pennsylvania Volunteers (Philadelphia, 1893), 56; July 1, Wainwright, Diary of Battle, 236–37.

  41. Richard A. Sauers, “The 16th Maine Volunteer Infantry at Gettysburg,” Gettysburg Magazine, 13 (1995), 37–41; Small, Road to Richmond, 101–2.

  42. John C. Hall, July 2, cited in Dawes, Service with the Sixth Wisconsin, 176n; Frederick C. Winkler, Letters of Frederick C. Winkler, 1862 to 1865 (William K. Winkler, 1963), 70–71; Mark H. Dunkelman and Michael J. Winey, “The Hardtack Regiment in the Brickyard Fight,” Gettysburg Magazine, 2 (1993), 21–22; Thomas Chamberlain, History of the One Hundred and Fiftieth Pennsylvania Volunteers (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1895), 136–39; John A. Leach to Bachelder, June 2, 1884, Ladd and Ladd, eds., Bachelder Papers, 2:1047.

  43. Bennett, Days of “Uncertainty and Dread,” 26–34; Sarah M. Broadhead, Diary of a Lady of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania (Hershey, Pa.: Hawbaker, 1990); Albertus McCreary, “Gettysburg: A Boy’s Experience of the Battle,” McClure’s Magazine, 33 (July 1909); Liberty Hollinger Glutz, Some Personal Recollections of the Battle of Gettysburg (1925), 3; Schurz, Reminiscences, 3:34–37; Anna Garlach Kitzmiller, “Mrs. Kitzmiller’s Story,” Gettysburg Compiler, Aug. 9, 1905.

  44. Perrin to Milledge L. Bonham, July 29, Mississippi Valley Historical Review, 24 (1938), 522; A. P. Hill report, OR 27.2:607.

  45. Small, Road to Richmond, 102; Hartwell Osborn, Trials and Triumphs: The Record of the Fifty-fifth Ohio Volunteer Infantry (Chicago: A. C. McClurg, 1904), 97.

  46. E. P. Halstead, “The First Day of the Battle of Gettysburg,” District of Columbia MOLLUS, War Papers (1: 1877), 42:6–7; Charles H. Morgan statement, Ladd and Ladd, eds., Bachelder Papers, 3:1350–52; Schurz, Reminiscences, 3:15–16; Warren testimony, Report of Joint Committee, 1 (1865), 377; Hancock to Meade, July 1, OR 27.1:366. The later dispute between Howard and Hancock over their Cemetery Hill meeting can be traced in H. W. Pfanz, Gettysburg— Culp’s Hill and Cemetery Hill, 379–81.

  47. Howard to Meade, July 1, Hancock to Meade, July 1, OR 27.1:696, 366; Doubleday to Samuel P. Bates, Oct. 18, 1875, Bates Collection, Pennsylvania State Archives.

  48. Schurz, Reminiscences, 3:15–16, 1920; Harry W. Pfanz, Gettysburg— The First Day, 333–35, 430n7; David G. Martin, Gettysburg, July 1, 470, 472, 371.

  9. We May As Well Fight It Out Here

  1. Thomas T. Munford memoir, Munford Papers, Duke University Library.

  2. Brown, Campbell Brown’s Civil War, 210–11; Henry Kyd Douglas, I Rode with Stonewall (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1940), 247; Rodes report, OR 27.2:555; Early, Autobiographical Sketch, 269; Ewell report, OR 2.27:446; James Power Smith, “With Stonewall Jackson in the Army of Northern Virginia,” SHSP, 43 (1920), 57; Lee report, Jan. 1864, OR 27.2:318.

  3. Brown, Campbell Brown’s Civil War, 211; H. W. Pfanz, Gettysburg— Culp’s Hill and Cemetery Hill, 77–78; James Power Smith, “General Lee at Gettysburg,” SHSP, 33 (1905), 145; Young, “Pettigrew’s Brigade at Gettysburg,” Clark, North Carolina Regiments, 5:121n.

  4. H. W. Pfanz, Gettysburg— The First Day, 347–48; D. C. Pfanz, Richard S. Ewell, 311–12; Thomas T. Turner statement, Early Papers, Virginia Historical Society; J. W. Bruce in Charlottesville Daily Progress, Mar. 22, 1904, John W. Daniel Papers, University of Virginia.

  5. H. W. Pfanz, Gettysburg— The First Day, 346–47; Jubal Early in SHSP, 4 (1877), 271–75. Early’s veracity may be judged by his having Lee remark at this conference, “Longstreet is a very good fighter when he gets in position and gets everything ready, but he is so slow.” That is a discourtesy Robert E. Lee would never have uttered within the hearing of his lieutenants.

  6. William Allan memoir, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina; Marshall to Early, Mar. 23, 1870, Mar. 13, 1878, Early Papers, Library of Congress; Ewell report, OR 27.2:446; Thomas T. Turner statement, Early Papers, Virginia Historical Society; Ira G. Grover report, OR 27.1:284–85; Sykes to Slocum, July 2, OR 27.3:483. Johnson did not say what time that night he sent out his reconnoitering party, but if the party immediately afterward captured a Federal dispatch written at 12:30 A.M. four miles away, it cannot have been much before 1:00 or 1:30— after Ewell returned from Lee’s camp.

  7. Alexander, Fighting for the Confederacy, 233; Brown, Campbell Brown’s Civil War, 212; For the postwar criticism of Ewell’s role on July 1, see Gary W. Gallagher, “Confederate Corps Leadership on the First Day at Gettysburg: A. P. Hill and Richard S. Ewell in a Difficult Debut,” Gallagher, ed., Three Days at Gettysburg, 25–43; and Harry W. Pfanz, “‘Old Jack’ Is Not Here,” Boritt, ed., The Gettysburg Nobody Knows, 56–74.

  8. Longstreet, Manassas to Appomattox, 358; Longstreet, “Lee in Pennsylvania,” Annals of the War, 421; Longstreet, “Lee’s Right Wing at Gettysburg,” Battles and Leaders, 3:329–30; Longstreet to McLaws, July 25, 1873, McLaws Papers, Southern Historical Collection; Brown, Campbell Brown’s Civil War, 218; Coddington, Gettysburg Campaign, 730n22. Longstreet’s accounts of the evening of July 1 are not consistent, but the earliest one, in the Philadelphia Weekly Times in 1877 (Annals of the War, 1879), appears the most reliable.

  9. Longstreet report, OR 27.2:358; Sorrel to Walton, July 1, OR 51.2:733; J.S.D. Cullen to Longstreet, May 18, 1875, in Annals of the War, 3:439; RaphaelJ. Moses, “Autobiography,” Southern Historical Collection. In their postwar vendetta against Longstreet, William Pendleton and Jubal Early invented an order by Lee for a sunrise attack on July 2, which Longstreet then disloyally disobeyed. For a disavowal by Lee’s staff of any such order, see Longstreet, “Lee in Pennsylvania,” Annals of the War, 437–38.

  10. Lee report, Jan. 1864, OR 27.2:318; Bauer, “Did a Food Shortage Force Lee to Fight?” Columbiad, 1:4 (1998), 65–70; Alexander, Fighting for the Confederacy, 234; Longstreet, “Lee in Pennsylvania,” Annals of the War, 421; Justus Scheibert in SHSP, 5 (1878), 92; Francis Lawley in London Times, Aug. 18.

  11. Lee report, Jan. 1864, OR
27.2:318; Longstreet to Wigfall, Aug. 2, Wigfall Papers, Library of Congress.

  12. Fremantle, Three Months in the Southern States, 256, 254; H. W. Pfanz, Gettysburg— The First Day, 350–51.

  13. Hancock report, OR 27.1:368; Howard to Meade, July 1, Sickles to Meade, July 1, OR 27.3:457–58, 464; Meade to Halleck, July 1, OR 27.1:71–72. In his report Hancock said he sent his aide to Meade at 4:00 P.M., but it is clear from Hancock’s 5:25 dispatch to headquarters (OR 27.1:366) that he himself did not reach Gettysburg until close to 4:30.

  14. Meade to Sickles, July 1, OR 27.3:466; Meade, Life and Letters, 2:41; A. G. Mason to Meade, Mar. 10, 1864 (march orders to Sykes and Slocum), OR 27.1:126; Meade to Sedgwick, July 1, OR 27.3:465, 467–68; Hancock testimony, Report of Joint Committee, 1 (1865), 405.

  15. Charles H. Howard to E. Whittlesey, July 9, C. H. Howard Papers, Bowdoin College; Daniel Hall to O. O. Howard, Feb. 19, 1877, O. O. Howard Papers, Bowdoin College; Meade to Hancock and Doubleday, July 1, OR 27.3:466; Slocum report, OR 27.1:758–59; Williams to his daughters, July 6, Williams, From the Cannon’s Mouth, 224–26.

  16. Humphreys testimony, Report of Joint Committee, 1 (1865), 389–90; C. B. Baldwin to Bachelder, May 20, 1865, Ladd and Ladd, eds., Bachelder Papers, 1:191; Humphreys to Archibald Campbell, Aug. 6, Humphreys Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

  17. Meade, Life and Letters, 2:62; Howard in Atlantic Monthly (July 1876), in Cozzens, ed., Battles and Leaders of the Civil War: Volume 5, 334; Schurz, Reminiscences, 3:20–21.

  18. July 2, Isaac L. Taylor, “Campaigning with the First Minnesota: A Civil War Diary,” Hazel C. Wolf, ed., Minnesota History, 25 (Dec. 1944), 360.

  19. Busey and Martin, Regimental Strengths and Losses at Gettysburg, 239–41, 253–55; Lance J. Herdegen, “The Lieutenant Who Arrested a General,” Gettysburg Magazine 4 (1991), 25–30; Charles H. Howard to E. Whittlesey, July 9, C. H. Howard Papers, Bowdoin College; Dodge, On Campaign with the Army of the Potomac, 320–21.