The battle of July 2 now was ending. On the extreme right, along the western slope of Little Round Top, Hood’s men were building with boulders a fortification to protect the barren ground they had won. The Peach Orchard remained in Confederate hands. Far to the left, Maryland Steuart’s men were holding a section of the front trenches of the enemy. These three strips of Pennsylvania soil might be, as Lee hoped, points of departure for a decisive attack the next day. But the contrast with a corresponding night two months before was worse than a humiliation. At Chancellorsville, May 2, all the troops working together to strike a joint blow; at Gettysburg, July 2, a battle of divisions, of brigades even! In tactical effort this was not the army of Chancellorsville, but the army of Malvern Hill. It had unlearned the lessons of a year. Said Walter Taylor afterward: “The whole affair was disjointed. There was an utter absence of accord in the movements of the several commands….”31
Every division on the field had been engaged either the first day or the second. Two brigades only had escaped lightly—Extra Billy Smith’s of Early’s command, and Mahone’s of Anderson’s. The sole infantry reinforcement was Pickett’s division of Longstreet’s corps, which had reached the field in the afternoon. No other reinforcement of any sort would be available except Stuart’s cavalry.
Jeb at last had rejoined the army. After his night march from Hanover he had reached Dover, west of York, on the morning of July 1 but had not found any Confederates there. He started the column for Carlisle, reasoning that if the Southern infantry had advanced to the Susquehanna and were not in the vicinity of York, they must be around Carlisle or Harrisburg. It was late afternoon when the van reached Carlisle and found the pleasant little town garrisoned. The weary, hungry troopers scarcely were in condition to clear the place. By report militia held the town, and when Stuart arrived he had a flag of truce sent in to demand the garrison’s surrender. When this was refused, Stuart renewed the demand and gave warning that if the town was not given up he would burn it. Hoping to drive out the militia in panic, he began a slow shelling.
Happily, Stuart was saved both waste of his shells and the destruction of civilian property. Up the road from the south came one of the scouts he had sent out. The rider had found the army! It had been engaged that first of July with the enemy’s advance; General Lee directed that Stuart move to Gettysburg. Jeb did not delay compliance. Exhausted troopers mounted their staggering horses. It was afternoon of July 2 when Stuart, riding ahead, reached his anxious chief on Seminary Ridge. No record of the exchange between them is known to exist. The tradition is that Lee said, “Well, General Stuart, you are here at last”—that and little besides.32
Stuart may have been disappointed that no applause greeted his return from his longest raid, which he was to persuade himself was his greatest; but of his thoughts he said nothing. Much the same silence covers the reflections of the two other men whose state of mind added to the dangers of the invasion. To the extent that Ewell’s report may be assumed to reflect his feelings at the time of the battle, he was chagrined that Rodes had not be able to advance because of assumed lack of support on the right. Said Ewell: “… had it been otherwise, I have every reason to believe, from the eminent success attending the assault of Hayes and [Hoke], that the enemy’s lines would have been carried.”
Longstreet, the last of the trio, had lost something of his sullenness, though not of his depression. Outwardly he seemed almost philosophical. “We have not been so successful as we wished,” he told an Austrian military observer, and attributed this chiefly to the fact that Barksdale had been killed and Hood wounded. Inwardly, Longstreet still was determined to argue that Meade’s position could be turned and the tactical defensive recovered. After darkness offered concealment, he sent out his scouts toward the southern end of Round Top, and he did not go to army headquarters to report or to ask for orders.33
CHAPTER 27
Gettysburg and Its Cost
1
LONGSTREET’S BITTEREST DAY
At dawn July 3, Dick Ewell proceeded to execute his orders for a renewal of the attack against the Federal right. With six brigades at his disposal, Allegheny Johnson unhesitatingly prepared to assault Culp’s Hill. Maryland Steuart’s brigade alone had gained strategic ground in the twilight attack of the previous evening. Less than a mile west of him was a “little clump of trees” that was destined to be the objective that day of the decisive charge of the battle. With the dawn there swept over Steuart’s troops a furious Federal bombardment. To it the Confederates could not oppose anything heavier than a rifle. Johnson moved Daniel’s brigade close to that of Steuart and directed the two to deliver an attack with the support of the units on the right. Neither Steuart nor Daniel believed the attack could succeed, but they made ready to advance.
Steuart drew his saber, yelled “Charge bayonets!” and started forward with his men. The left was checked; the right became exposed; the center pressed on until the fire was overwhelming. Daniel had to halt when Steuart did. With the failure of this attack the Confederates yielded the initiative to the Federals, who, by 10:30 A.M., had recovered most of the ground occupied by the Confederates on the second. The heavy losses of those wasteful assaults was the more lamentable by reason of the fact that half an hour after Johnson attacked in accordance with orders, a courier brought a message in which Lee told Ewell that Longstreet would not advance till 10 o’clock; Ewell was directed to delay his forward movement until he could deliver it simultaneously with Longstreet.1
During the night of July 2-3, Longstreet had not reconciled himself to a continuance of the offensive. Although Lee wrote later that he gave Longstreet on the second orders “to attack the next morning,” Longstreet either was slow or else he was resolved to oppose to the last a plan he believed dangerous. He said afterward that he never was “so depressed as upon that day,” but he took grim encouragement from a report by his scouts that no enemy was found beyond the southern end of Round Top. He determined to start troops in that direction and take the eminence in reverse, and was working on the details when Lee rode up to his field headquarters.
With scant ceremony Longstreet began: “General, I have had my scouts out all night, and I find that you still have an excellent opportunity to move around to the right of Meade’s army, and maneuver him into attacking us.” He probably elaborated, but he could not shake Lee’s conviction that the only practicable course left the Confederates was to break the Union center. Lee did not feel that his troops had been defeated. He considered that failure on the second had been due to lack of coordination, and he still believed that, if the army could throw its full strength against the enemy from the positions already gained, he could win the battle. In this belief, Lee reaffirmed his intention of attacking Cemetery Ridge. The whole of the First Corps, he said, must make the assault.2
The forces thus assigned for the attack, about 15,000 men, did not seem adequate to Longstreet. He later quoted himself as replying to Lee, “General, I have been a soldier all my life … and should know, as well as anyone, what soldiers can do. It is my opinion that no 15,000 men ever arrayed for battle can take that position.” Lee reiterated his purpose to attack. Soon Longstreet was back with a new objection. Hood’s division and McLaws’s were exposed to attack from the Round Tops and were weakened by the battle of July 2. If they were withdrawn, the enemy would turn the Confederate right. On this point Longstreet prevailed. Probably in the hope of placating him and giving him faith in the movement, Lee agreed to leave Hood and McLaws where they were. Their place would be taken by Heth’s division and half of Pender’s. This decision to use Heth appears to have been made quickly and without ascertaining the condition of the troops. The omission was to prove itself one of the worst of the many mistakes of Gettysburg.
Longstreet next argued that the distance, about 1,400 yards, was too great for a successful assault. He insisted that the column of attack would be enfiladed from Round Top. To this Colonel Armistead Long of Lee’s staff, an artillerist
of high reputation, answered that the guns on the eminence could be silenced. Tactically this assurance almost certainly was unjustified, but the state of mind of the two generals was such that neither of them disputed Long’s assertion. Longstreet now had exhausted his arguments. Bitterly he wrote afterward of Lee, “He knew that I did not believe that success was possible … and he should have put an officer in charge who had more confidence in his plan. Two thirds of the troops were of other commands, and there was no reason for putting the assaulting forces under my charge.” To this, of course, the answer was that Lee, with Jackson dead, had no other subordinate of the same experience or military grasp as Longstreet.3
The troops designated for the assault were at hand. Pickett’s division had arrived by 9 o’clock and moved to the western side of Seminary Ridge. When Pickett rode up to report, Longstreet explained the plan of operation. The plan was the simplest: When all preparations had been made, the artillery was to bombard the front and weaken or silence the Federal batteries. This fire was to center on a “little clump of trees” opposite Pender’s position. After the bombardment, the line of battle, previously established by Pickett, was to come over Seminary Ridge and go forward to converge on the grove. Pickett, who had three brigades only, decided to put Garnett and Kemper in the first line and Armistead in the second. In rear and to the right, Longstreet determined to employ Wilcox as a flank guard. On Pickett’s left, Johnston Pettigrew was to advance the division of the wounded Harry Heth. In support of Pettigrew were to be Scales’s and Lane’s brigades of Dorsey Pender’s division, to the command of which Trimble belatedly was appointed. Over Trimble and Pettigrew, Longstreet was to have control for the day, and if he needed additional troops he was to call on A. P. Hill for them.
Colonel Alexander had the responsible duty of posting the batteries to deliver the preparatory bombardment. He was instructed, also, to observe the fire and determine when Pickett should charge. Besides directing these arrangements with manifest depression of spirits, Longstreet had twice to ride the length of the corps front with Lee, who was resolved that for the success of the decisive attack on the Federal center no preparation should be neglected. Longstreet was not pleased with the supervision.
Powell Hill was assumed to understand equally well the part his corps was to have in the unfolding drama. The two lieutenant generals were on speaking terms and had in some measure abandoned the antagonism that led to the transfer of Hill from Longstreet after the Seven Days, but they were not cordial and may not even have been genuinely cooperative in spirit. Lee must have taken it for granted that they would arrange between themselves the preparation of the troops of the Third Corps for the assault. Actually, each seems to have left this to the other. The sensitive Hill, always mindful of military etiquette, may have concluded that he must not interfere after his troops temporarily were transferred. Longstreet may have considered that the troops would be supervised by Hill until ordered to advance. No inquiry ascertained whether the regimental command of Pettigrew’s division was adequate after the losses of July 1. Brockenbrough’s weak brigade under Colonel Robert M. Mayo and Joe Davis’s shattered, inexperienced troops, almost without field officers, were to be on the extreme left. If anyone questioned the prudence of this arrangement, no hint has survived.
Lee intended that Pender’s two brigades should be en échelon on the left of Pettigrew, as a second line; but, here again, the records do not show that either of the two corps commanders gave instruction to effect this. When Lane came to Longstreet to report for orders, Longstreet told him to form in rear of Pettigrew. Nowhere did Lane indicate in his report that he was told of any plan for échelon.4
Military remissness always is clearer in retrospect than in prospect. The man who now became the central figure for two bloody hours at Gettysburg was so depressed by his conviction of the unwisdom of an attack that he was not conscious of any failure in preparation. Longstreet was not and could not be reconciled to delivering the assault, but he and the cause he represented now were being dragged by the very ticking of his watch to the inevitable hour. During the early morning there scarcely had been a cannon shot on the Confederate right. As the warming sun rose higher, the skirmishers quieted. Over the Confederate center and right there hung a sinister silence.
Now, an hour before noon, blue skirmishers undertook to wrest from Hill’s men a barn and dwelling in front of Pettigrew’s right. Hill’s guns became heavily engaged for over half an hour. Neither Hill nor his chief of artillery seems to have asked whether so much of the artillery ammunition of the corps should have been wasted in any unnecessary cannonade. To the right, Porter Alexander forbade his seventy-five guns to have any part in this exchange, knowing he would need every round of his short supply if he was to clear the way for Pickett and Pettigrew.
Longstreet was attentive to Alexander’s preparations, and about noon sent word to the artillerist that he would himself give the signal for the opening of the bombardment. With Pickett, on Seminary Ridge, Longstreet waited. When it was reported to him that the batteries had been informed of the signal—two guns fired in succession by Miller’s company of the Washington Artillery—Longstreet answered quietly, “All right, tell Colonel Walton I will send him word when to begin.”5
The last of Pickett’s infantry was in position. Dick Garnett was there with officers who had won their stars and wreath while he vainly sought to correct the injustice he felt Jackson had done him after Kernstown. Lewis Armistead was in place, Armistead of Malvern Hill. James L. Kemper had his brigade on the ridge. Wilcox was close by. To the left, only one of Heth’s brigades was going into the charge under its regular commander—that one the newest and least experienced of them all, Joe Davis. The brigade of Pettigrew would be under Colonel J. K. Marshall; Archer’s would be led by Colonel B. D. Fry. Both Archer’s and Davis’s brigades were almost without field officers because of the tragic losses of July 1. In the most difficult charge the Army of Northern Virginia ever had made, many of these regiments would be directed by company officers.
One of the supporting brigades of Pender’s division, James H. Lane’s, was headed by its regular commander. The other brigade was Alfred Scales’s, formerly Pender’s, which had lost fifty-five officers on the first of July. This command now was to be taken into action by Colonel William Lowrance of the 34th North Carolina, an officer who never previously had exercised brigade command in the field. In a word, of six brigades to the left of Pickett, that of Lane alone was in the keeping of a brigadier of tested combat experience.
The dangerous deployment of the second line was not relieved as the hour of the attack approached. Scales and Lane were in rear of Heth’s division, where Longstreet had told them to take station, but their front was by no means as long as that of Heth. The two brigades were centered, moreover, on Pettigrew’s line. The result would be that the left of the broad column of attack would consist of one line only. None of the officers inquired whether this was as Longstreet desired. Isaac Trimble had arrived to take command of Pender’s men after Lane had put them in position, and of the disposition of the troops Trimble knew scarcely anything. The time he might have given to an examination of the front he devoted to making a speech to his men. No question was raised concerning any shift of the second line to the extreme left, nor was Trimble told that his two brigades in support of Pettigrew were expected to advance en échelon to cover the left of Pettigrew. The overconfidence of Lee, the depression of Longstreet, and the probable misapprehension of A. P. Hill caused many thing to be overlooked that July day.6
Afternoon it now was. The bombardment must begin. Longstreet realized this but said later he was unwilling to entrust himself with the entire responsibility of ordering the guns to open. With dragging hand, he wrote Alexander, “If the artillery fire does not have the effect to drive off the enemy or greatly demoralize him so as to make our efforts pretty certain, I would prefer that you should not advise General Pickett to make the charge. I shall rely a great deal on your
good judgment to determine the matter….”
After this came one of the strangest incidents of a bewildering day: Longstreet went off into the woods and lay down. This was done, he explained in his old age, “to study for some new thought that might aid the assaulting column.” Colonel Fremantle, the British observer who was with Longstreet at the time, recorded that “The General then dismounted and went to sleep for a short time.” Sleeping or reflecting, the general was aroused when a courier brought back from Alexander a note which showed that the young artillerist thought Longstreet had in mind some alternative to an assault. The note made it clear, also, that he did not think he should be asked to assume the responsibility of the corps commander.
“General,” he wrote, “I will only be able to judge of the effect of our fire on the enemy by his return fire, for his infantry is but little exposed to view and the smoke will obscure the whole field. If, as I infer from your note, there is any alternative to this attack, it should be carefully considered before opening our fire, for it will take all the artillery ammunition we have left to test this one thoroughly, and if the result is unfavorable, we will have none left for another effort.”
The depressed Longstreet evidently did not grasp the full meaning of what Alexander said about the supply of ammunition. Nor did he reflect that Alexander, like himself, was doubtful of the success of the charge now that responsibility for it was being placed on him. The point that stuck in Longstreet’s mind was that Alexander apparently wanted to know how to determine when the charge should be made. Accordingly, Longstreet wrote: “The intention is to advance the infantry if the artillery has the desired effect of driving the enemy off, or having other effect such as to warrant us in making the attack. When the moment arrives advise General P.” Subsequently Longstreet explained, “I still desired to save my men, and felt that if the artillery did not produce the desired effect, I would be justified in holding Pickett off.”
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