Gettysburg: The Last Invasion

by Allen C. Guelzo

  25. Hassler, Crisis at the Crossroads, 99; James J. Dougherty, “ ‘We Have Come to Stay!’ The 143rd Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry and the Fight for McPherson’s Ridge,” Gettysburg Magazine 24 (July 2001), 49–50; Peter Tomasak, “The 143rd Pennsylvania Volunteer Regiment in Hell’s Firestorm on July 1st at Gettysburg,” Gettysburg Magazine 38 (January 2008), 44–45; Chamberlin, History of the One Hundred and Fiftieth Regiment, 124–25; Swisher, Warrior in Gray, 131–32; “Memoranda of Lt. Col. Huidekoper Concerning the 150th Regt. Pa.,” in Bachelder Papers, 2:951, 953.

  26. Chamberlin, History of the One Hundred and Fiftieth Regiment, 133; Dougherty, Stone’s Brigade, 59, 65, 77–78, 85–86; Sgt. William R. Ramsey to J. B. Bachelder (April 16, 1883), H. H. Spayd, “The Colors of the 149th Pa. at Gettysburg,” and Capt. John H. Bassler to J. B. Bachelder (December 7, 1881), in Bachelder Papers, 2:763, 765–66, 949; Bassler, “The Color Episode of the 149th Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers,” SHSP 37 (January–December 1909), 275–76; Richard K. Sauers, Advance the Colors: Pennsylvania Civil War Battle Flags (Harrisburg, PA: Capitol Preservation Committee, 1991), 2:434; Bates, History of Pennsylvania Volunteers, 4:488–89; Fremantle, Three Months in the Southern States, 254–55; M. D. Roche, “143rd Regiment Infantry,” in Pennsylvania at Gettysburg, 2:703.

  27. “Reports of Brig. Gen. Henry J. Hunt, U.S. Army” (September 27, 1863), in O.R., series one, 27 (pt. 1):230–31; Hess, Lee’s Tar Heels, 122; Lt. Col. George F. McFarland, “Report of the 151st Regt. Pa. Vols.” (March 16, 1864), in Bachelder Papers, 1:89–90; John F. Krumwiede, Disgrace at Gettysburg: The Arrest and Court-Martial of Brigadier General Thomas A. Rowley, U.S.A. (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2006), 9, 88, 126, 191; Shue, Morning at Willoughby Run, 230–31; Cole, Command and Communications Frictions in the Gettysburg Campaign, 36; Dougherty, Stone’s Brigade, 73; Hassler, “The Color Episode of the 149th Regiment,” 287; Cook, “Personal Reminiscences of Gettysburg” (December 12, 1903), in War Talks in Kansas, 325–26. Rowley was far from the only one: the colonel of the 149th Pennsylvania was also staggering under the weight of alcoholic comfort, something one soldier regretted was “well-known to the men of his regiment.” And a lieutenant in the 80th New York walked unevenly along the line, “insensible to shot and shell whistling around him,” and entertained the men with a rendition of a bawdy ballad until brought up short before his colonel. “Raising his cap and wiping his heated face,” the lieutenant boldly informed him, “Colonel, it’s damned hot out there.”

  28. Cook, “Personal Reminiscences of Gettysburg” (December 12, 1903), in War Talks in Kansas, 324; Shue, Morning at Willoughby Run, 185; Michael A. Dreese, The One Hundred Fifty-First Pennsylvania Volunteers at Gettysburg: Like Ripe Apples in a Storm (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2000), 41; Martin, Gettysburg, July 1, 181; Scott L. Mingus, Gettysburg Glimpses: True Stories from the Battlefield (LaVergne, TX: Xlibris, 2009), 45–46; Mahood, General Wadsworth, 174; Nelson, The Battles of Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, 134; Wainwright, diary entry for July 1, 1863, in A Diary of Battle, 235; McFarland, “Report of the 151st Regt. Pa. Vols.” (March 16, 1864), in Bachelder Papers, 1:89.

  29. Brown, A Colonel at Gettysburg and Spotsylvania, 77; Ernsberger, Also for Glory Muster, 35–36, 38–39; Mills, History of the 16th North Carolina Regiment in the Civil War, 36; Gragg, Covered with Glory, 29–31; Clark, ed., Histories of the Several Regiments and Battalions from North Carolina in the Great War, 1861–’65, 2:368; Archie K. Davis, Boy Colonel of the Confederacy: The Life and Times of Henry King Burgwyn, Jr. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985), 327; Hassler, Crisis at the Crossroads, 111–12.

  30. Clark, ed., Histories of the Several Regiments and Battalions from North Carolina in the Great War, 1861–’65, 2:343; Hess, Lee’s Tar Heels, 120–21, 131–32; Julius Leinbach, “Regimental Band of the Twenty-Sixth North Carolina,” ed. Douglas McCorkle, Civil War History 4 (September 1958), 227, 28–29; B. F. Brown, “McGowan’s South Carolina Brigade in the Battle of Gettysburg,” Confederate Veteran 31 (February 1923), 53; “Extract from Chapter 9 of Caldwell’s History of Gregg’s (McGowan’s) Brigade, Battle of Gettysburg, July 1, 1863,” in Bachelder Papers, 2:903; Herdegen and Beaudot, In the Bloody Railroad Cut at Gettysburg, 217; Beecham, Gettysburg, 72; William M. Cheek, “How Colonel Henry King Burgwyn Lost His Life,” SHSP 36 (January–December 1908), 245–46.

  31. Hess, Lee’s Tar Heels, 132–33; “Report of Col. Henry A. Morrow, Twenty-fourth Michigan Infantry” (February 22, 1864), “Report of Col. William W. Robinson, Seventh Wisconsin Infantry” (November 18, 1863), and “Report of Lieut. Col. George F. McFarland, One hundred and fifty-first Pennsylvania Infantry” (March 15, 1864), in O.R., series one, 27 (pt. 1):268, 280, 327; Lt. Col. George F. McFarland (March 16, 1864, and February 7, 1867) and Capt. Albert M. Edwards (May 27, 1878) to J. B. Bachelder, in Bachelder Papers, 1:300, 613–14; Venner, The 19th Indiana Infantry at Gettysburg, 64, 71, 72; Curtis, History of the Twenty-fourth Michigan of the Iron Brigade, 164–65; Chamberlin, History of the One Hundred and Fiftieth Regiment, 134; Nolan, The Iron Brigade, 246–47; George L. Kilmer, “Fighting for the Flag—A Brave Defense of Regimental Colors at Gettysburg,” Los Angeles Times (July 8, 1894).

  32. Hess, Lee’s Tar Heels, 128; Theodore Burr Gates, The “Ulster Guard” (20th N.Y. State Militia) and the War of the Rebellion (New York: Benjamin H. Tyrrel, 1879), 442–43; J. B. Hardenburgh to Theodore B. Gates (October 9, 1878), in Theodore Gates Miscellaneous Manuscripts, folder 1, New-York Historical Society; Cook, “Personal Reminiscences of Gettysburg,” 326–27; “Report of Lt. Col. William W. Dudley,” in Bachelder Papers, 2:942.

  CHAPTER TWELVE Go in, South Carolina!

  1. Naiswald, Grape and Canister, 279; Murray, Artillery Tactics of the Civil War: A Study of the Tactical Use of Artillery Based on the First Day’s Battle at Gettysburg (Wolcott, NY: Benedum Books, 1998), 51, 52, 53, 54; Beecham, Gettysburg, 77–81; McFarland to J. B. Bachelder (February 7, 1867), in Bachelder Papers, 1:302; Charles Edward Benton, As Seen from the Ranks: A Boy in the Civil War (New York: G. P. Putnam’s, 1902), 26–27; A. T. Marsh, “North Carolina Troops at Gettysburg,” Confederate Veteran 16 (October 1908), 516–17; Peel, in Ernsberger, Also for Glory Muster, 41.

  2. Early, “A Southern Boy’s Experience at Gettysburg,” Journal of the Military Service Institution of the United States 48 (May 1911), 419.

  3. Peel, in Ernsberger, Also for Glory Muster, 41; Cheek, “How Colonel Henry King Burgwyn Lost His Life,” SHSP 36 (January–December 1908), 246; Tevis and Marquis, History of the Fighting Fourteenth, 84–85; Early, “A Southern Boy’s Experience at Gettysburg,” 419.

  4. Thomas Chamberlin, “150th Regiment” (September 11, 1889), in Pennsylvania at Gettysburg, 2:758–59; Abram P. Smith, History of the Seventy-Sixth Regiment, New York Volunteers (Cortland, NY: Truaie, Smith & Miles, 1867), 240; “Testimony of Major General Abner Doubleday” (March 1, 1864), in Report of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, 4:308; Doubleday, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, 147–49; Perrin to Milledge L. Bonham (July 29, 1863), in Bonham, “A Little More Light on Gettysburg,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review 24 (March 1938), 522; B. F. Brown, “Some Recollections of Gettysburg,” Confederate Veteran 31 (February 1923), 53; Beecham, Gettysburg, 88–89; Brown, A Colonel at Gettysburg and Spotsylvania, 78–79; Bowden and Ward, Last Chance for Victory, 168–69, 173–75; Dougherty, Stone’s Brigade, 95–96.

  5. Dawes, “With the Sixth Wisconsin at Gettysburg,” 378; Venner, 19th Indiana Infantry, 85–86; Theodore Gates to J. B. Bachelder (January 30, 1864), McFarland to Bachelder (February 7, 1867), and John A. Leach to Bachelder (September 12, 1882) in Bachelder Papers, 1:83, 301; 2:904–5; G. T. Stevens, “Stevens’ Fifth Maine Battery,” in Maine at Gettysburg, 84–85; Bowden and Ward, Last Chance for Victory, 173; Donald J. Frey, Longstreet’s Assault—Pickett’s Charge: The Lost Record of Pickett’s Wounded (Shippensburg, PA: White Mane Books, 2000), 45–46; Perrin to Bonham (July 29, 1863), in Bonham, �
�A Little More Light on Gettysburg,” 522; “Report of Col. William W. Robinson, Seventh Wisconsin Infantry” (November 18, 1863), in O.R., series one, 27 (pt. 1): 280; B. F. Brown, “McGowan’s South Carolina Brigade in the Battle of Gettysburg,” Confederate Veteran 31 (February 1923), 51.

  6. Brown, “Some Recollections of Gettysburg,” 53; George F. McFarland, “151st Regiment Infantry” (July 1, 1888), in Pennsylvania at Gettysburg, 2:770; Smith, John Burns, 63–71; “Extract from Chapter 9 of Caldwell’s History of Gregg’s (McGowan’s) Brigade, Battle of Gettysburg, July 1, 1863,” Edward N. Whittier to J. B. Bachelder (July 16, 1863), McFarland to Bachelder (March 16, 1864), and John A. Leach to Bachelder (September 12, 1882) in Bachelder Papers, 1:26–27, 83, 90–91, 301; 2:903; “Report of Col. Henry A. Morrow, Twenty-fourth Michigan Infantry” (February 22, 1864), and “Reports of Brig. Gen. Henry J. Hunt, U.S. Army” (September 27, 1863), in O.R., series one, 27 (pt. 1):231, 268–69; Nolan, The Iron Brigade, 247; Tomasak, “The 143rd Pennsylvania Volunteer Regiment,” 52; James Stewart, “Battery B, 4th United States Artillery at Gettysburg,” in W. H. Chamberlin, ed., Sketches of War History, 1861–1865: Papers Read Before the Ohio Commandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, 1890–1896 (Cincinnati: Robert Clarke, 1896), 4:186–87; Smith, History of the Seventy-Sixth Regiment, New York Volunteers, 241; Hassler, Crisis at the Crossroads, 121–24; Mahood, General Wadsworth, 176; E. P. Halstead, “The First Day of the Battle of Gettysburg,” 8–9.

  7. Doubleday, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, 147–48; Halstead, “The First Day of the Battle of Gettysburg,” 7–8; Col. George H. Chapman [3rd Indiana Cavalry] to J. B. Bachelder (March 30, 1864), in Bachelder Papers, 1:130–31; Brown, A Colonel at Gettysburg and Spotsylvania, 214–15; Longacre, General John Buford, 198, 199.

  8. “Mrs. Joseph [Harriet] Bayley’s Story of the Battle,” Gettysburg National Military Park (GNMP hereafter), Library Vertical Files; Tyson to Noble D. Preston (January 16, 1884), in “A Refugee from Gettysburg,” ed. William McKenna, Civil War Times Illustrated 27 (November–December 1989), 73–74; E. S. Breidenbaugh, ed., The Pennsylvania College Book, 1832–1882 (Philadelphia: Lutheran Publication Society, 1882), 270; Jacobs, Lincoln’s Gettysburg World-Message (Philadelphia: United Lutheran Publication House, 1919), 31; Colver, “Reminiscences of the Battle of Gettysburg,” 1902 Spectrum (Gettysburg College Yearbook, Special Collections, Musselman Library, Gettysburg College), 179–80; Sheldon, When the Smoke Cleared at Gettysburg, 61; Frassanito, Early Photography at Gettysburg, 83; Skelly, A Boy’s Experiences During the Battle of Gettysburg (Hershey, PA: Gary T. Hawbaker, 1932), 10; McCreary, “Gettysburg: A Boy’s Experience of the Battle,” McClure’s Magazine 33 (July 1909), 244; Bennett, Days of “Uncertainty and Dread,” 20–24.

  9. Sheldon, When the Smoke Cleared at Gettysburg, 61; Henry Eyster Jacobs, “Gettysburg Fifty Years Ago,” The Lutheran (July 24, 1913); Linda G. Black, “War Comes to Professor Michael Jacobs,” Gettysburg Magazine 6 (January 1992), 99, 101; Watkins, “Gettysburg War Incidents,” 1902 Spectrum, 182; Samuel G. Hefelbower, The History of Gettysburg College, 1832–1932 (Gettysburg: Gettysburg College, 1932), 205; Michael A. Dreese, The Hospital on Seminary Ridge at the Battle of Gettysburg (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2002), 67; “Henry Lewis Baugher, Sr., D.D.,” in Jens Christian Jensson, American Lutheran Biographies; or, Historical Notices of over Three Hundred and Fifty Leading Men of the American Lutheran Church (Milwaukee: A. Houtkamp & Son, 1890), 63–65; H. E. Jacobs, Lincoln’s Gettysburg World-Message, 36; Catherine Mary White Foster, “Battle of Gettysburg: A Citizen’s Eyewitness Account,” Adams County Historical Society; M. Jacobs, Notes on the Rebel Invasion of Maryland and Pennsylvania, 25; David Garber, in “Around College During the Battle,” Pennsylvania College Monthly 1 (December 1877), 297.

  10. Salome Myers, in The Ties of the Past: The Gettysburg Diaries of Salome Myers Stewart, 1854–1922, ed. Sarah Sites Rodgers (Gettysburg: Thomas Publications, 1995), xxx; Kirby, “A Boy Spy in Dixie,” National Tribune (July 5, 1888); Sidney G. Cooke, “The First Day at Gettysburg” (November 4, 1897), in War Talks in Kansas, 283–84; Cole, Command and Communication Frictions in the Gettysburg Campaign, 55; Jacobs, Notes on the Rebel Invasion of Maryland and Pennsylvania, 26.

  11. Dawes, “With the Sixth Wisconsin at Gettysburg,” 379–80; Hartwell Osborn, Trials and Triumphs: The Record of the Fifty-fifth Ohio Volunteer Infantry (Chicago: A. C. McClurg, 1904), 97; Reminiscences of Carl Schurz, 3:12–13; Doubleday, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, 150; Cheney, History of the Ninth Regiment, New York Volunteer Cavalry, 113; Lt. Col. Edward S. Salmon, “Gettysburg” (January 17, 1912), in Civil War Papers of the California Commandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, 398–99; Kirby, “A Boy Spy in Dixie,” National Tribune (July 5, 1888); Albert Rowe Barlow, Company G: A Record of the Services of One Company of the 157th N.Y. Volunteers, 129–30; Venner, The 19th Indiana Infantry at Gettysburg, 89–90; Cook, “Personal Reminiscences of Gettysburg,” 328–29.

  12. In the years following the battle, 1st Corps and 11th Corps veterans would freely accuse each other of having been more demoralized and disorderly than the other. A surgeon in the 6th Wisconsin, who had set up shop in the Adams County Court House at Baltimore and High streets, declared that the 11th Corps “fled for dear life, forming a funnel-shaped tail, extending to the town … I did not see an officer attempt to rally them or check them in their headlong retreat.” Another Iron Brigade surgeon, Jacob Ebersole of the 19th Indiana, opened David McConaughy’s railroad sheds for use as a hospital, then stopped in amazement to see the 11th Corps “falling back in utter confusion … the colors trailing in the dust, and our men falling on every side.” Men in “Robinson’s division have a very vivid remembrance of a division of the Eleventh Corps throwing away its guns and manifesting intense anxiety to regain the charming shelter of Cemetery Hill.” Officers in Schimmelpfennig’s brigade as much as admitted that “the greatest confusion reigned” in the 11th Corps, to the point where the “retreat became a rout” that reminded them all too keenly of their Chancellorsville disgrace two months before. The Confederates, meanwhile, debated which rebel regiment was the first to set foot in the town in pursuit. Officers in both the 1st and 14th South Carolina, from Hill’s corps, claimed to have the honors of conquest. Washington Shooter of the 1st South Carolina saw “the Yankees running in wild disorder and everything went merry as a marriage bell”; they were just as insistently contradicted by the 3rd Alabama in Rodes’ division, claiming that they were “the first troops to enter the town,” and by the 4th North Carolina in Ramseur’s brigade, who asserted that “we were the first to enter the town of Gettysburg, and halted to rest on the road leading out toward the west.” See Salmon, “Gettysburg,” 399; Cook, “Personal Reminiscences of Gettysburg,” 329; Cooke, “The First Day of Gettysburg,” 284; Herdegen and Beaudot, In the Bloody Railroad Cut at Gettysburg, 221–23; Thomas Chamberlin, “150th Regiment Infantry” (September 11, 1889), Pennsylvania at Gettysburg, 2:759; Scott A. Richardson, “Col. Henry A. Morrow, 24th Michigan,” Gettysburg Magazine 37 (January 2008), 36–37; Bennett, Days of “Uncertainty and Dread,” 30–31; Chamberlin, History of the One Hundred and Fiftieth Regiment, 136; Sgt. William Ramsey to J. B. Bachelder (May 7, 1883), in Bachelder Papers, 2:958; Butts, A Gallant Captain of the Civil War, 76–77; “United at Gettysburg,” New York Times (July 3, 1888).

  13. McCreary, “Gettysburg: A Boy’s Experience of the Battle,” 245; Reminiscences of Carl Schurz, 3:18–19; Slade and Alexander, Firestorm at Gettysburg, 64; Michael A. Dreese, “The 151st Pennsylvania Volunteers at Gettysburg: July 1, 1863,” Gettysburg Magazine 23 (January 2001), 65; “At Gettysburg—First Day’s Work of the Eleventh Corps,” National Tribune (December 12, 1889); Pula, “The Fifth German Rifles at Gettysburg,” Gettysburg Magazine 37 (January 2008), 56, 59; Brown, A Colonel at Gettysburg and Spotsylvania, 223–24; Sheldon, When the Smoke Cleared at Gettysburg, 66, 67, 70; Cook, “A Day at Gettys
burg,” National Tribune (April 7, 1898); Chaplain Charles M. Blake to J. B. Bachelder (June 14, 1882), in Bachelder Papers, 2:888; “Colonel Fowler’s Recollections of Gettysburg” (July 28, 1863), in History of the Fighting Fourteenth, 136; Bennett, Days of “Uncertainty and Dread,” 31–33; “Report of Capt. John E. Cook, Seventy-sixth New York Infantry” (July 11, 1863), in O.R., series one, 27 (pt. 1):286; Vautier, History of the 88th Pennsylvania, 149; John C. Robinson, “The First Corps—Its Important Services at the Battle of Gettysburg,” National Tribune (April 21, 1887).

  14. Coffin, The Boys of ’61, 290; Kiefer, History of the One Hundred and Fifty-third Regiment, 79; Charles Wainwright, diary entry for July 1, 1863, in A Diary of Battle, 238; Harry E. Pfanz, Gettysburg—The First Day (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 335.

  15. Howard, Autobiography, 1:419; Bucholz, Moltke and the German Wars, 124; Charles A. L. Totten, Strategos: A Series of American Games of War, Based upon Military Principles and Designed for the Assistance of Both Beginners and Advanced Students (New York: D. Appleton, 188), 170–73; Nolan, The Iron Brigade, 256; Bowden and Ward, Last Chance for Victory, 195–96. There is as much uncertainty about the last Union soldier or regiment to clear the town as there is about the first Confederates to enter it. Edward Salmon of the 82nd Illinois declared in 1912 that “the regiment under my command was the last troops to ascend Cemetery Hill” on July 1st. Abner Doubleday is sometimes described as the last general officer out of the town, “as cool and, except for his flushed face and bad humor, as easy in his style that dreadful afternoon as I have seen him since on ordinary occasions.” The honors for the last officer to bring up the rear have been claimed for Capt. James D. Wood, of the Iron Brigade staff, “making every effort to keep the ranks closed up in the different Columns, to prevent confusion.” See Edward Salmon, “Gettysburg” (January 17, 1912), in Civil War Papers of the California and the Oregon Commandery, 399; Kirby, “A Boy Spy in Dixie,” National Tribune (July 5, 1888); and Charles A. Stevens, Berdan’s United States Sharpshooters, 295.