Gettysburg

by Stephen W. Sears

  52. Trimble, “The Civil War Diary of General Isaac Ridgeway Trimble,” Maryland Historical Magazine, 17 (1822), 2; John H. Smith reminiscence, John W. Daniel Papers, University of Virginia; Franklin Sawyer report, OR 27.1:462; Hess, Pickett’s Charge, 308–9; Henry T. Owen, cited in Hoke, The Great Invasion, 426–27; July 3, Hotchkiss, Make Me a Map, 158.

  53. George T. Fleming, ed., Life and Letters of Alexander Hays (Pittsburgh, 1919), 464–65; Haskell, Haskell of Gettysburg, 173–74; Charles H. Morgan statement, George Meade to Bachelder, May 6, 1882, Ladd and Ladd, eds., Bachelder Papers, 3:1364, 3:856. A letter by a gunner on Hays’s front suggests Meade had already been told the Rebels “are just turning.” However, Meade may have concluded this referred only to the right of the line when he met Haskell at the center. John Egan to George Meade, Feb. 8, 1870, Ladd and Ladd, eds., Bachelder Papers, 1:389–90.

  54. Frederick M. Colston, “The Campaign of Gettysburg,” Campbell-Colston Papers, Southern Historical Collection; Fremantle, Three Months in the Southern States, 267–69.

  14. A Long Road Back

  1. Charles Gardner memoir, U.S. Army Military History Institute.

  2. Stuart report, OR 27.2:697; William A. Graham to H. B. McClellan, n.d., Ladd and Ladd, eds., Bachelder Papers, 3:1337; G. W. Beale cited in McClellan, Life and Campaigns of Stuart, 346–47; Daniel B. Balfour, 13th Virginia Cavalry (Lynchburg, Va.: H. E. Howard, 1986), 22; Busey and Martin, Regimental Strengths and Losses at Gettysburg, 194–99, 320–21.

  3. David McM. Gregg, “The Second Cavalry Division of the Army of the Potomac in the Gettysburg Campaign,” Pennsylvania MOLLUS, Military Essays and Recollections (1907), 59:124–25; Longacre, Cavalry at Gettysburg, 167; Lyman, Meade’s Headquarters, 17.

  4. Edwin E. Bouldin to Bachelder, July 20, 1886, Alanson M. Randol to Bachelder, Mar. 24, 1886, Ladd and Ladd, eds., Bachelder Papers, 3:1442, 2:1252; Stuart report, OR 27.2:698; Wert, Gettysburg: Day Three, 266–67; Luther S. Trowbridge, Feb. 19, 1886, Ladd and Ladd, eds., Bachelder Papers, 2:1207; Earl J. Hess, The Union Soldier in Battle: Enduring the Ordeal of Combat (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1997), 121; John A. Clark, July 30, Clark Papers, Clements Library, University of Michigan.

  5. Gregg, “Second Cavalry Division,” Pennsylvania MOLLUS, Military Essays and Recollections (1907), 59:125–26; William Brooke-Rawle in Annals of the War, 481; William E. Miller in Battles and Leaders, 3:404; William E. Miller, June 8, 1878, Ladd and Ladd, eds., Bachelder Papers, 1:653; Longacre, Cavalry at Gettysburg, 238–39; Daniel B. Balfour, 13th Virginia Cavalry (Lynchburg, Va.: H. E. Howard, 1986), 22–24.

  6. H. C. Parsons, “Farnsworth’s Charge and Death,” Battles and Leaders, 3:393; D. H. Hamilton, History of Company M, First Texas Volunteer Infantry (Waco: W. M. Morrison, 1962), 29; Longacre, Cavalry at Gettysburg, 241–42, 311–85; Thomas L. McCarty memoir, Gettysburg National Military Park; H. W. Berryman, July 9, Brake Collection, U.S. Army Military History Institute.

  7. Henry C. Potter memoir, Gettysburg College; Eric Wittenberg, Gettysburg’s Forgotten Cavalry Actions (Gettysburg: Thomas Publications, 1998), 32; Turner Vaughan, “Diary of Turner Vaughan, Co. C, 4th Alabama Regiment, C.S.A.,” Alabama Historical Quarterly 18 (Winter 1956), 589; H. C. Parsons, “Farnsworth’s Charge and Death,” Battles and Leaders, 3:394–96. The assertion that Farnsworth killed himself to defy capture is contradicted by the nature of his wounds. See Longacre, Cavalry at Gettysburg, 311–89.

  8. Hancock to Meade, July 3, OR 27.1:366; Meade testimony, Report of Joint Committee, 1 (1865), 333; Hancock quoted in Samuel P. Bates, The Battle of Gettysburg, 175; Meade to Smith, July 5, OR 27.3:539.

  9. July 3, Wainwright, Diary of Battle, 249; Cornelia Hancock, South after Gettysburg: Letters of Cornelia Hancock, 1863–1868, ed. Henrietta Stratton Jaquette (New York: Crowell, 1956), 7; George P. Erwin to his father, July 3, Erwin Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina; Haskell, Haskell of Gettysburg, 191.

  10. Henry W. Bingham to Hancock, Jan. 5, 1869, Ladd and Ladd, eds., Bachelder Papers, 1:352; Doubleday, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, 195.

  11. George Meade to Bachelder, May 5, 1882, Ladd and Ladd, eds., Bachelder Papers, 2:854–55; Franklin Sawyer reminiscence, cited in D. H. Daggett, “Those Whom You Left Behind You,” Minnesota MOLLUS, Glimpses of the Nation’s Struggle (5: 1903), 30:362; Harrison and Busey, Nothing But Glory: Pickett’s Division at Gettysburg, 169; Hess, Pickett’s Charge, 333, 335; Bruce A. Trinque, “Confederate Battle Flags in the July 3rd Charge,” Gettysburg Magazine, 21 (1999), 127; Richard Rollins, “The Damned Red Flags of Rebellion”: The Confederate Battle Flag at Gettysburg (Redondo Beach, Calif.: Rank and File, 1997), 194–95. Estimates of wounded prisoners from Pettigrew’s and Trimble’s commands are extrapolated from that figure in Pickett’s division.

  12. Harrison and Busey, Nothing But Glory: Pickett’s Division at Gettysburg, 169–70; Hess, Pickett’s Charge, 333, 335.

  13. Three-day Federal totals in Busey and Martin, Regimental Strengths and Losses at Gettysburg, less estimated losses on July 1 (Gates’s demi-brigade) and July 2. For Webb’s brigade, see Bradley M. Gottfried, Stopping Pickett: The History of the Philadelphia Brigade (Shippensburg, Pa.: White Mane Books, 1999), 178–79. For the 69th Pennsylvania, see D. Scott Hartwig, “It Struck Horror to Us All,” Gettysburg Magazine, 4 (1991), 99.

  14. July 4, Wainwright, Diary of Battle, 251–52.

  15. Bennett, Days of “Uncertainty and Dread,” 63–67; Albertus McCreary, “Gettysburg: A Boy’s Experience of the Battle,” McClure’s Magazine, 33 (July 1909);HenryE.Jacobs, “Howan EyeWitness Watched the Great Battle,” Philadelphia North American, June 29, 1913; Sarah M. Broadhead, Diary of a Lady of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania (Hershey, Pa.: Hawbaker, 1990); Henry Monath memoir, Gettysburg Compiler, Dec. 28, 1897.

  16. Schurz, Reminiscences, 3:34–35; Jennie McCreary to her sister, July 22, Adams County Historical Society.

  17. July 3, Hotchkiss, Make Me a Map, 157–58; Lee G.O. 75, July 4, OR 27.2:311; Imboden, “The Confederate Retreat from Gettysburg,” Battles and Leaders, 3:420–21.

  18. Lee to Imboden, July 4, OR 27.3:966–67; Hoke, The Great Invasion, 500; Imboden, “The Confederate Retreat from Gettysburg,” Battles and Leaders, 3:422–25; Steve French, “Hurry Was the Order of the Day,” North & South, 2:6 (1999), 36–38. The approximation of wounded in Imboden’s train takes into account the estimated number of wounded men captured by the Federals or left behind in the retreat.

  19. Dodge, On Campaign with the Army of the Potomac, 329; Fremantle, Three Months in the Southern States, 274; July 4, Hotchkiss, Make Me a Map, 158; July 4, 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), 52; Brown, Campbell Brown’s Civil War, 225; Robert Stiles, Four Years under Marse Robert (New York: Neale, 1903), 220. The Federals counted 6,802 wounded Confederates taken prisoner (OR 27.2:346), some 2,300 of them in Pickett’s Charge.

  20. Brown, Campbell Brown’s Civil War, 225; Hotchkiss to his wife, July 5, Hotchkiss Papers, Library of Congress; James M. Simpson to his mother, July 8, Allen-Simpson Papers, Southern Historical Collection; Wayland F. Dunaway, Reminiscences of a Rebel (New York: Neale, 1913), 93.

  21. Hess, Pickett’s Charge, 344–45; Morgan statement, Ladd and Ladd, eds., Bachelder Papers, 3:1367.

  22. Lee to Meade, Meade to Lee, July 4, OR 27.3:514; Fremantle, Three Months in the Southern States, 272–73.

  23. Meade to Halleck, July 4, OR 27.1:78; Meade to his wife, July 5, Meade Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania; Meade G.O. 68, July 4, OR 27.3:519.

  24. Lincoln to Halleck, July 6, OR 27.3:567; Elizabeth Blair Lee to her husband, July 4, Lee, Wartime Washington, 283; July 7, Welles, Diary, 1:363; Herman Haupt, Reminiscences of General Herman Haupt (Milwaukee: Wright & Joys, 1901), 227; Meade to his wife, July 5, 8, Meade Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

  25. Butterfield, Wa
rren testimony, Report of Joint Committee, 1 (1865), 426–27, 379; Meade to Halleck, July 5, OR 27.1:79; Warren to Henry W. Benham, July 7, OR 27.3:585–86; July 5, Fiske, Mr. Dunn Browne’s Experiences, 114.

  26. George Templeton Strong, The Diary of George Templeton Strong: The Civil War, 1860–1865, ed. Allan Nevins (New York: Macmillan, 1952), 328; New York Herald, July 6; Philadelphia Inquirer, July 6; July 7, Welles, Diary, 1:364; Halleck to Meade, July 7, Meade to Halleck, July 8, OR 27.1:83, 84. According to the recollection of Lincoln’s son Robert, the president sent a peremptory order to Meade to attack Lee immediately, “and that if he was successful in the attack he might destroy the order but if he was unsuccessful he might preserve it for his vindication.” No text of such an order has survived; if Lincoln did write it, it is virtually certain he did not send it; Meade says nothing of it in his unstinting letters to his wife in the Meade Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania. See Gabor S. Boritt, “‘Unfinished Work’: Lincoln, Meade, and Gettysburg,” in Boritt, ed., Lincoln’s Generals (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 98–99, 212–14n32.

  27. Army of the Potomac circular, July 5, OR 27.3:532–33; Dawes to Mary Gates, July 14, Dawes, Service with the Sixth Wisconsin, 187; Meade to Halleck, July 8, OR 27.1:85; Weld to his sister, July 16, Weld, War Diary and Letters, 243.

  28. July 6, Hotchkiss, Make Me a Map, 159; Alexander, Fighting for the Confederacy, 267; 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), 52–53. The number of Union prisoners is estimated by subtracting 1,300 paroled (OR 27.3:549) from the number captured at Gettysburg (Busey and Martin, Regimental Strengths and Losses at Gettysburg, 239). Lee gave conflicting figures. In his report of July 31 (OR 27.2:309) he claimed 6,000 Union prisoners, 2,000 of which he paroled. In his Jan. 1864 report (OR 27.2:325) he claimed 7,000 prisoners, including 1,500 he paroled.

  29. Eric J. Wittenberg, “The Midnight Fight in the Monterey Pass, July 4–5, 1863,” North & South, 2:6 (1999), 44–53; Kilpatrick report, OR 27.1:994; Fremantle, Three Months in the Southern States, 280; Ted Alexander, “Ten Days in July: The Pursuit to the Potomac,” North & South, 2:6 (1999), 1923; French to Halleck, July 4, OR 27.3:524; Imboden, “The Confederate Retreat from Gettysburg,” Battles and Leaders, 3:426–28.

  30. Alexander, “Ten Days in July,” North & South, 2:6 (1999), 16–18; Meade to his wife, July 8, Meade Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania; July 7, Weld, War Diary and Letters, 238.

  31. Alexander, Fighting for the Confederacy, 269–71; Kent Masterson Brown, “A Golden Bridge: Lee’s Williamsport Defense Lines and His Escape Across the Potomac,” North & South, 2:6 (1999), 56–58; July 8, 9, Hotchkiss, Make Me a Map, 159–60; Henry L. Abbott to John C. Ropes, Aug. 1, MOLLUS Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard University.

  32. Scheibert, Seven Months in the Rebel States, 120; Brown, “A Golden Bridge,” North & South, 2:6 (1999), 58; July 13, Hotchkiss, Make Me a Map, 161; Sorrel, Recollections of a Confederate Staff Officer, 165.

  33. Army of the Potomac itinerary, OR 27.1:146; July 11, Wainwright, Diary of Battle, 259; Meade to Halleck, July 10, OR 27.1:89; Smith to Meade, July 8, OR 27.3:611; Lincoln to Lorenzo Thomas, July 8, Lincoln, Works, 6:322; Meade to his wife, July 12, Meade Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania; Charles H. Brewster, When This Cruel War Is Over: The Civil War Letters of Charles Harvey Brewster, ed. David W. Blight (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1992), 244.

  34. Ropes to John C. Gray, Apr. 19, 1864, Gray and Ropes, War Letters, 319; Meade to his wife, July 12, Meade Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania; Meade, Humphreys, Warren, Wadsworth testimony, Report of Joint Committee, 1 (1865), 336, 396–97, 381, 415; R. F. Halsted to Emily Sedgwick, July 17, Sedgwick, Correspondence, 2:135; July 16, Hay, Inside Lincoln’s White House, 63.

  35. Humphreys testimony, Report of Joint Committee, 1 (1865), 397; Meade circular, July 13, OR 27.3:675; Halleckto Meade, July 13, OR 27.1:92.

  36. Brown, “A Golden Bridge,” North & South, 2:6 (1999), 59–60; W. P. Conrad and Ted Alexander, When War Passed This Way (Greencastle, Pa., 1982), 203; Rodes report, OR 27.2:559; Alexander, Fighting for the Confederacy, 272.

  37. Brown, “A Golden Bridge,” North & South, 2:6 (1999), 60–64; Longacre, Cavalry at Gettysburg, 268–69; J. H. Kidd, Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman (Ionia, Iowa, 1908), 183–86; Louis G. Young, “Death of Brigadier General J. Johnston Pettigrew,” Our Living and Our Dead, 1 (1874), 30–31; Alexander, “Ten Days in July,” North & South, 2:6 (1999), 34–60; Kilpatrick, Buford reports, OR 27.1:990, 929; R. M. Mayo report, OR Supplement 5:415–16.

  38. Noah Brooks, Washington in Lincoln’s Time, ed. Herbert Mitgang (New York: Rinehart, 1958), 91; July 14, Fiske, Mr. Dunn Browne’s Experiences, 122–23.

  Epilogue: Great God! What Does It Mean

  1. Meade to Halleck, July 14, OR 27.1:92; July 14, Hay, Inside Lincoln’s White House, 62; July 14, Welles, Diary, 1:370–71.

  2. Halleck to Meade, Meade to Halleck, Halleck to Meade, July 14, OR 27.1:92, 93, 93–94; Evelyn Page, ed., “Frederick Law Olmsted on the Escape of Lee,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 75 (Oct. 1951), 440–41; Meade to his wife, July 14, Meade Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania; Meade to McClellan, July 14, McClellan Papers, Library of Congress.

  3. Lincoln to Meade, July 14 (not sent), Lincoln, Works, 6:327–28; July 19, Hay, Inside Lincoln’s White House, 64–65.

  4. Meade to Halleck, July 31, Howard to Lincoln, July 18, OR 27.1:109, 700; Hunt to A. S. Webb, Jan. 19, 1888, PMHSM, 3:239; July 14, Wainwright, Diary of Battle, 261; Meade to his wife, July 12, 14, 18, Meade Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

  5. Union casualties at Gettysburg: Busey and Martin, Regimental Strengths and Losses at Gettysburg, 239. Additional Union campaign losses adapted from OR 27.1:193.

  6. Meade to his wife, July 26, Meade Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania; Lincoln to O. O. Howard, July 21, Lincoln, Papers, 6:341. On July 31 Meade wrote his wife that he had “recently received” Lincoln’s letter to Howard, and he sent it to her for safe-keeping: Meade Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

  7. Lee to Davis, July 4, 7, 8, 12, Lee, Wartime Papers, 539, 540–41, 543–44, 548; Lee quoted by John Seddon, c. July 15, in SHSP, 4 (1877), 154–55. It was Henry Heth who recorded and published Seddon’s recollection of his conversation with Lee.

  8. Confederate casualties at Gettysburg: Busey and Martin, Regimental Strengths and Losses at Gettysburg, 280, with modified figures for Pickett’s division from Harrison and Busey, Nothing But Glory: Pickett’s Division at Gettysburg, 169. Additional campaign losses: OR 27.2:442, 713–16, and adapted from table in North & South, 2:6 (1999), 21. Captured Confederate wounded: OR 27.2:346. Seven Days’ casualties: Stephen W. Sears, To the Gates of Richmond: The Peninsula Campaign (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1992), 243. Vicksburg captures: OR 24.1:62.

  9. Lee to Davis, Sept. 23, Lee, Wartime Papers, 603; unknown writer, Aug. 4, Bowles-Jordan Papers, University of Virginia; Aiken to his wife, July 11, South Caroliniana Library.

  10. Savannah Republican, July 20; Charleston Mercury, July 22, 30.

  11. Lee to Davis, July 31, Lee, Lee’s Dispatches, 110; Lee to Davis, Aug. 8, Davis to Lee, Aug. 11, Davis, Papers, 9:326–27, 337–38; Wigfall to C. C. Clay, Aug. 13, Clay Papers, Duke University.

  12. Fremantle, Three Months in the Southern States, 275, 274; Allen, conversation with Lee, Apr. 15, 1868, Gallagher, ed., Lee the Soldier, 14.

  13. Longstreet to A. B. Longstreet, July 24, in Longstreet, “Lee in Pennsylvania,” Annals of the War, 414–15; Longstreet to Wigfall, Aug. 2, Wigfall Papers, Library of Congress.

  14. Blackford to his wife, July 18, Susan Leigh Blackford, ed., Letters from Lee’s Army (New York: Scribner’s, 1947), 195; Lee report, Jan. 1864, OR 27.2:321.

  15. Allan, conversation with Lee, Feb. 15, 1868, in Gallagher, ed., Lee
the Soldier, 11.

  16. Goree to E. P. Alexander, Dec. 6, 1887, Thomas J. Goree, Longstreet’s Aide: The Civil War Letters of Major Thomas J. Goree, ed. Thomas W. Cutrer (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1995), 167; Longstreet, “Lee in Pennsylvania,” Annals of the War, 424.

  17. Longstreet to Wigfall, Aug. 2, Wigfall Papers, Library of Congress; Lee report, Jan. 1864, OR 27.2:320; Alexander to Thomas L. Rosser, Apr. 19, 1901, Rosser Papers, University of Virginia.

  18. Meade to his wife, July 26, 27, Meade Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania; Meade to John Gibbon, May 15, 1864, in Gibbon, Personal Recollections, 187. The chief contriver was Butterfield, who distorted Meade’s contingency plan for an orderly retreat into an abject giving up of the field. For Sickles’s campaign against Meade, see “Dan Sickles, Political General,” Sears, Controversies & Commanders, 217–22; and Richard A. Sauers, A Caspian Sea of Ink: The Meade-Sickles Controversy (Baltimore: Butternut & Blue, 1989).

  19. Abbott to his father, July 27, Abbott, Fallen Leaves, 192; Hunt to A. S. Webb, Jan. 19, 1888, PMHSM, 3:238–39.

  20. Brewster to his sister, July 12, Charles H. Brewster, When This Cruel War Is Over: The Civil War Letters of Charles Harvey Brewster, ed. David W. Blight (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1992), 244; Elisha Hunt Rhodes, All for the Union: A History of the 2nd Rhode Island Volunteer Infantry, ed. Robert Hunt Rhodes (Lincoln, R.I.: Andrew Mowbray, 1985), 117.

  21. July 22, Worthington Chauncey Ford, ed., A Cycle of Adams Letters, 1861–1865 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1920), 2:53; July 15, Fiske, Mr. Dunn Browne’s Experiences, 124.

  22. The definitive works on photography at Gettysburg are by William A. Frassanito: Gettysburg: A Journey in Time (New York: Scribner’s, 1975), and Early Photography at Gettysburg (Gettysburg: Thomas Publications, 1995). For the sketch artists, see W. Fletcher Thompson, Jr., The Image of War: The Pictorial Reporting of the American Civil War (New York: Yoseloff, 1959), 121–25.