It was now 1 o’clock. From the fields the heat was rising, but a west wind was blowing. The artillery along the entire line was silent. Skirmishing was light. Longstreet knew that all the orders had been issued and that all the troops were in position. He swept the field with his glasses to see if the guns were well placed and, at last, he wrote a note to Colonel Walton, his corps chief of artillery: “Let the batteries open; order great care and precision in firing….”7
There was one cannon shot, then another. It was 1:17 P.M. In a few seconds battery after battery, firing salvoes, acknowledged the signal. At first the answer of the Federals was slow; then from Cemetery Ridge came the swelling bass of guns in chorus. Smoke clouds rose opposite the Peach Orchard, to the right and to the left till the whole ridge was screened. It was on! For success or failure, for the refutation of Longstreet’s fears or for the vindication of his belief that the enemy’s position was impregnable, the testing bombardment had begun.
Although the smoke concealed the explosion of the shells, it was manifest that the Confederate fire was shaking the enemy. For once the Southerners appeared to have more guns in action than the enemy was employing on the front of attack. Far off to the left the guns of the Second Corps opened; nearer, the batteries of the Third Corps went into action. After Longstreet had watched the exchange for some minutes, he spurred his horse through the roar of the artillery duel and entered the woods in front of Pickett’s anxious men. Slowly dismounting, he waited. The ridges were shaking with the violence of the cannonade. Every battery was surrounded by smoke. The stench of battle was in the air. Shells struck and shattered limbs of trees, or ploughed up the stony earth of Cemetery Ridge, or shrieked in disappointed wrath overhead. The loudest shout of men was drowned by the ceaseless, pulsing roar of the guns.
A courier rode up to General Pickett and handed him a folded paper. Pickett read it and strode toward Longstreet. The moment had come. The note must be from Alexander. Now it was in Longstreet’s hands, open: “If you are coming at all you must come immediately or I cannot give you proper support; but the enemy’s fire has not slackened materially….” As Longstreet read, Pickett waited. Longstreet said nothing. “General,” asked Pickett, “shall I advance?” There was no reply. Pickett did not move. His eyes were on his chief. Slowly Longstreet dropped his chin on his uniform collar. That was his answer. Pickett wished only to be sure: “I shall lead my division forward, sir.” Not a word was there from Longstreet. He turned from Pickett and prepared to mount. By the time he was on his horse, Pickett had walked away.8
In the saddle of command again, the stir of action possessed Longstreet. Near the Peach Orchard he found Alexander blazing away with his guns and watching excitedly the little clump of trees. Union fire had slackened. No fresh guns had appeared. It was now or never for the infantry! If Pickett did not start at once, Alexander repeated, the artillery could not give adequate support. Ammunition was very low. Longstreet was startled: “Go and stop Pickett right where he is,” he cried, “and replenish your ammunition.”
“We can’t do that, sir! The train has but little. It would take an hour to distribute it, and meanwhile the enemy would improve the time.” Longstreet stood irresolute for a moment. Then, in unwonted emotion, he said: “I don’t want to make this charge; I don’t believe it can succeed. I would stop Pickett now, but that General Lee has ordered it and expects it.” He paused again. He would not ask explicitly whether the artillerist agreed with him; Alexander did not think he should express an opinion on so large a subject unless directed to do so. At length, as if the fates themselves gave the answer, down Seminary Ridge came Garnett’s brigade. On his right Kemper was emerging. At length Heth’s men advanced into the open. At a shouted word of command the long line was dressed. The west wind lifted the smoke. Nineteen battle flags began to flap.9
Kemper called out, “Armistead, hurry up! I am going to charge those heights and carry them, and I want you to support me.” Armistead answered, “I’ll do it! Look at my line; it never looked better on dress parade.” Every soldier within hearing was stirred by Pickett’s appeal: “Up, men, and to your posts! Don’t forget today that you are from Old Virginia.” Farther up the line Pettigrew called to one of his officers, “Now, Colonel, for the honor of the good old North State, forward!” Soon the line was passing Longstreet, whose pride rose with his concern. Salutes were exchanged. In old affection for the chief of the division he observed how jauntily Pickett went on. Garnett, too sick to walk, was wrapped in a blue overcoat, but he sat his great black horse in soldierly composure.10
Quietly Longstreet got down from his horse, perched his bulky form on a rail fence, and watched with sharp, professional eye as much as he could see of the attack. “The advance was made in very handsome style,” he said afterward. The flawless line halted briefly in a little depression and then went steadfastly into the full fury of the enemy’s fire. Most of the Confederate guns were silent by this time. If they were served any longer, no ammunition would be left for them when they followed the infantry.
An officer was directed to tell Wilcox to go forward at once; let him support the assault. Pickett’s troops were charging gloriously. They were within canister range; they defied it; they kept straight on. So did the right brigades of Heth’s division. On the left of Pettigrew’s division, Mayo’s men and Davis’s brigade began to hesitate. At the first report of this, Longstreet sent to Dick Anderson with instructions to move forward in support of Heth and Pettigrew.
Pickett and Pettigrew’s right brigades soon were converging on the little clump of trees. All the battle flags appeared to be running together. A Southern flag would cease to wave, would fall, would rise, would drop again. Shells cut gaps. The flanks withered under the flame. Amazingly on the right and center, the formation was retained. On the left, where Mayo had no support, discouraged soldiers were turning back or were lying down among the dead. The high quaver of the rebel yell was faintly audible through the wrathful roar of a hundred Federal guns. Pickett keeps on. Fry and Marshall do. More of Mayo’s men have halted; scores have started to retreat; some are running to the rear. Davis’s regiments, with untested leaders, are wavering on their left.
In support—and not en échelon—Scales and Lane are marching over Pettigrew’s fallen. The left has melted away or has merged with the right of Pettigrew. Now, the entire line has disappeared into the dust and smoke that overhang the ridge. The thin Southern ranks are grappling unseen beyond the stone wall. All the might of the enemy is now thrown against them. A mat of fallen red flags lies under the trees. Longstreet strains eyes and ears and knows who the victor in that unequal struggle will be. Sternly he orders an officer to halt the advance of Anderson. For a few moments there is the blank of utter suspense, then a perceptible decline in the infantry fire and then a slow trickle backward of men who do not appear to be wounded.11
The lines of advance of Pickett, Pettigrew, and Trimble at Gettysburg, afternoon on July 3, 1863. The encircled numerals indicate: (1-2) position of the massed artillery of the Third Corps; (3) advance of Poague’s artillery battalion, Third Corps; (4) position of Woolfolk’s battery, First Corps; (5) position of Wright’s brigade, which went out to rally the broken assault troops; (6) position of Cabell’s artillery battalion, First Corps; (7-8) position of the massed artillery of the First Corps; (9-10) intermediate position of Wilcox, directly in front of Garnett before the final stage of the assault.
Colonel Fremantle, joining Longstreet, cries, “I wouldn’t have missed this for anything!” Longstreet on the top of the worm fence laughed grimly as he replied, “The devil you wouldn’t! I would like to have missed it very much; we’ve attacked and been repulsed: look there!” Fremantle “then had a view of the open space between the two positions, and saw it covered with Confederates slowly and sulkily returning towards us in small broken parties under a heavy fire of artillery.”
Longstreet ordered Wright to move out and collect and rally the fugitives, but, strangely, he
did nothing to halt the advance of Wilcox or the little Florida brigade that was to follow Wilcox. Longstreet perhaps observed scarcely at all the advance of Wilcox because he now expected a counterattack and busied himself in preparations to meet it.12
The survivors of the charge were coming up the slope from the meadow. The men were in every mood of repulse. Some raged, some swore, some scarcely could believe they had been repulsed. Dazed and exhausted, some looked blankly ahead. In the face of others was the uncertainty of escape from pursuing furies. Every emotion there was of vain and costly assault, every one except a consciousness that more than a battle had been lost: The enemy had beaten them back; they could do no more. The rest of it—war’s decision, America’s destiny, the doom of the Confederacy—all this was read afterward into the story of their return.
Tense moments passed. The enemy continued an uncertain fire. Nobody knew what to expect next. Federal skirmishers advanced from Cemetery Ridge, with every indication that a line would follow, but in the face of artillery fire they withdrew. If the Confederates were disorganized, the enemy was irresolute. While Dick Anderson’s division stood ready to repel assault, where Longstreet had halted the line, no enemy came within range.13
After the fire of the opposing forces died in darkness, there was no further argument over the course the army must follow. One thing only could be done. With food supplies low and artillery ammunition almost exhausted, retreat was imperative. Instructions came from G.H.Q. The wagons and the wounded were, of course, to be started before the infantry moved. Withdrawal was to be by way of the Hagerstown road and across the mountains. Hill was to lead, Longstreet to follow, Ewell to bring up the rear.
On the morning of the fourth of July Longstreet was afield early to ascertain what was the prospect of the development the army had most to fear—a heavy attack by Meade. As the forenoon passed without a single thrust from Cemetery Ridge and nothing more formidable than Federal reconnaissance, Longstreet and the other Confederate commanders permitted themselves to hope that Meade had been too heavily injured to strike. It was the Glorious Fourth, a young artillerist reminded Longstreet: “We should have a salute from the other side at noon.” Noon came and passed. Not a gun was fired. Said Longstreet with satisfaction: “Their artillery was too much crippled yesterday to think of salutes. Meade is not in good spirits this morning.”14 In another hour rain began to fall. With difficulty the ambulances and the wagons were started toward the mountains through a downpour.
After darkness the infantry began to move from Seminary Ridge along the Hagerstown road. A grim but not a despairing march it was. In most hearts there was bitterness and humiliation that the columns were headed for the Potomac instead of Baltimore or Philadelphia. None realized, to repeat, that Gettysburg was more than a battle in which the army, winning two days, had been unable on the third to drive the enemy from a position of great strength. Mercifully or tragically, none could see that the afternoon of the Confederacy had come.
If any shadow of resentment still lay on the soul of James Longstreet, it was lightened at the fire of his own bivouac. There, while the rain poured down, Lee came and spoke briefly of the struggle. “It’s all my fault,” he said; “I thought my men were invincible.” Longstreet’s only recorded observations that day or the next were tactical. The mistake, he told Colonel Fremantle, was in not concentrating the army more, and failing to make the attack “with 30,000 men instead of 15,000.” The troops who gave way, he explained, “were young soldiers who had never been under fire before.” Not one word did Fremantle report of any contention by Longstreet that the basic tactics of battle had been defective.15
On the fifth of July resumed a retreat that seemed half nightmare, half mercy. Unvoiced, unadmitted, was the fear of many a leader that Meade by some miracle of march might catch the column while it was strung out on the road. On the morning of the seventh they took up a line to cover the crossings of the Potomac. The river was past fording, and Confederate detachments under the eyes of Jackson’s former quartermaster, Major J. A. Harmon, had to set to work building pontoons. Until July 12 nothing occurred except cavalry clashes and occasional skirmishes. That day the Federal infantry approached. Lee’s veterans steeled themselves for another Antietam, but the enemy appeared more anxious to cover himself with entrenchments than to prepare to attack.
During the night of July 13-14 and the forenoon of the fourteenth, at Williamsport and Falling Waters, the army passed back to Virginia. Harry Heth was left under vexing conditions to cover the rear. He did so with the loss of two guns and of approximately 500 stragglers from many brigades—difficulties considered, a wholly creditable performance.16
2
“JACKSON IS NOT HERE”
First reports in Southern newspapers were jubilant. “A brilliant and crushing victory”; 14,000 or 40,000 prisoners captured; Lee marching on Baltimore. When it was manifest, instead, that Lee had withdrawn to the Potomac, the public was assured that “there is nothing bad in this news beyond a disappointment.” Lee had fallen back to secure his “vast train of materials,” fifteen miles long. A few days later the result was declared “favorable to the South,” but the success “had not been decisive” because of “the semblance of retreat.” Not until July 25 could even the anti-administration Richmond Examiner bring itself to speak of the “repulse at Gettysburg.” By July 30, having blown hot, the Charleston Mercury blew cold and asserted: “It is impossible for an invasion to have been more foolish and disastrous.” That was an extremist’s view.17
In the state of mind that prevailed immediately after the battle, critical discussion was considered unpatriotic. The present-day student, on the other hand, finds Gettysburg the most interesting of all the battles of the Army of Northern Virginia. It is the campaign that provokes the warmest, longest debate because it is in bewildering contrast to the operations that preceded it. The reader must be cautioned at the outset that there is no “secret” of Gettysburg, no single failure which, if ascertained and appraised justly, “explains” the outcome. A score of circumstances, working together, rather than any one, wrought a major Confederate defeat.
Many reasons for the non-success of the invasion sprang from the reorganization necessitated by the death of Jackson. These inhered in the new organization included the absence of the more efficient cavalry units, the awkward leadership of men in new and more responsible positions, the state of mind of Stuart, Longstreet, and Ewell, the overconfidence of Lee, the poor handling of the artillery, and the lack of coordination in attack.
Of exterior factors, the first was the limitation imposed on Lee’s action by the factor of time. The campaign was fought while the army was living off the country. Much of the collection of supplies had to be undertaken with little cavalry. Lee stated this succinctly: “… we were unable to await an attack, as the country was unfavorable for collecting supplies in the presence of the enemy….”18 A second exterior factor was the extent and thinness of the line. Five miles and more in length and shaped like a great fish-hook, it made communication and concentration difficult.
Always to be considered were the skill, persistence, and might with which the Army of the Potomac defended on the second and third of July a position of natural strength. This third factor was a disillusioning reality and a gloomy warning of what the Confederacy might expect of Northern veterans under competent leadership. At Gettysburg the magnificent Federal divisions had strong ground, interior lines, the sense of fighting for home, knowledge of combat, and the intelligent, courageous leadership of Meade, Hancock, and other wholly capable captains. Vigorous and experienced as was Lee’s army, it could not prevail over that adversary.
These were the larger reasons for the defeat as seen from the standpoint of the high command. It will be observed that all the Confederate errors of overconfidence, bad organization, and inept leadership were aggravated by the factors of chance and circumstance which the Federals, for the first time in the long contest of the two armies, were in posi
tion to capitalize fully.
At the beginning, the approach of the Confederates to the battlefield was incautious. From the time the army entered Pennsylvania it was blinded by the absence of Stuart. Nothing was comparable to this in preparing the way for a tragedy. On July 1, having no information beyond that collected the previous day by Pettigrew, the van of the Third Corps advanced without cavalry. Before the Confederates were aware of it, their leading divisions were engaged beyond easy conclusion. For this the greater part of the blame rested on Stuart, who should have been present to reconnoiter.
As the Second Corps advanced to the aid of the Third, that first afternoon of the battle, Rodes’s line of battle was formed in a manner that put the best brigadiers where the fighting was lightest and the feeblest men in the most difficult fray. Ramseur and Doles should have formed, if possible, the column of attack. Lee would tell Rodes, “I am proud of your division,”19 but after all the facts were known, the employment of Rodes’s division must have been judged distinctly below expectations.
The final debate of the first day concerns Ewell’s conduct and, particularly, the question whether he should have assaulted Cemetery Hill as soon as he reached Gettysburg. Nothing that had happened from the time the army left the Rappahannock had indicated, even to the slightest, that Ewell was lacking in power of decision as a corps commander. Everything on the march had been marked by so much promptitude, positiveness, and unhesitating action that no superior would have hesitated to allow discretion to Ewell, or would have imagined for a moment that the commander of the Second Corps would hesitate to exercise that discretion.
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