In the drama of July 1, it is difficult to criticize Ewell for anything he did until he entered the town, and as difficult to praise him for anything he did thereafter. The picture is of a man who could not come to a decision within the time swift action might have brought victory. In most informed opinion, an attack delivered within an hour after the defeat of the I and XI corps would have been successful; at any subsequent hour an assault would have been repulsed. The impression persists that Ewell did not display the initiative, resolution, and boldness to be expected of a good soldier.
On July 2 coordination among the corps was lacking, with the result that the battle opened late. Reconnaissance was inadequate. The Confederate high command was deceived concerning the strength of the Federal left. When action was begun, it was poorly directed on both flanks. The engagement on the right of Lee’s line probably should not have been fought at all under the vague and misfounded plan of the commanding general. Errors of subordinates deprived it of whatever chance of success it might have had. This is a broad indictment, but historically, count by count, it is a “true bill.”
All reasons for Longstreet’s failure to attack during the forenoon are the subject of one of the most familiar controversies of Gettysburg. There can be no escaping the conclusion that his behavior was that of a man who sulked because his plan was rejected by his chief. This conclusion need not be framed from the testimony of those who hated Longstreet after the war as a political renegade. Longstreet’s own A.A.G., Moxley Sorrel, is the only witness who need be called. Sorrel wrote, with all the evidence before him, “We can discover that he did not want to fight on the ground or on the plan adopted by the General-in-Chief. As Longstreet was not to be made willing and Lee refused to change or could not change, the former failed to conceal some anger. There was apparent apathy in his movements. They lacked the fire and the point of his usual bearing on the battlefield.”20
Beyond this it is not just to go in criticizing Longstreet’s conduct on the second prior to the time his march to the right was begun. His attitude was wrong but his instinct was correct. He should have obeyed orders, but the orders should not have been given. Information concerning the enemy’s left was scant and inaccurate. The early-morning reconnaissance of Captain S. R. Johnston was accurate—so far as he went. No Federals were on Little Round Top when he climbed the slope there at 5:30 A.M., but he missed them on that eminence by a margin of minutes. Two brigades of the XII Corps were moving northward when Johnston was on the ridge of Round Top. He did not see them. If he had …
That is not the end of the curious factor of chance that fateful morning. Johnston did not attempt to climb the southern stretches of Cemetery Ridge. Had he done so he might have been captured; but if he had escaped he might have brought back information the Confederate critics of Longstreet never possessed. It was this: By 9:00 A.M. July 2 the Federals had between Ziegler’s Grove and the Round Tops at least 18,200 men ready to fight. The troops thought to be moving into position on the ridge, while Longstreet loitered, actually had been there since early morning.21
All question of the effect of Longstreet’s delay must, therefore, be limited to what might have been accomplished early in the day on the extreme Federal left, at the Round Tops or directly north of them. The tradition must be discarded that the southern stretches of Cemetery Ridge were unoccupied on the morning of the second. By the time McLaws and Hood arrived, that part of the ridge was held by strong, well-placed troops. In that fact, much of the criticism of Longstreet evaporates. There remains the consideration whether a thorough reconnaissance could have been made; and whether, in the absence of it, battle should have been joined. The chief blame is that of Stuart, absent when most needed for reconnaissance.
Obviously, when the commander of the column of attack found the plan contrary to the hard actualities of the field, he should have notified Lee. Had Longstreet been himself in temper, he would have done this. When the belated attack reluctantly was delivered by Longstreet, it lacked even an approach to unity. Hood’s division was allowed to wear dull its fighting edge before McLaws went into action. McLaws’s advance was not followed immediately by that of Anderson, who apparently knew little of what was planned. Scarcely at any time during the afternoon was the full strength of any division hurled against the enemy. The participation of Hill and his artillery in the operation was so slight that his name scarcely appeared in reports of the day’s operations.
The mismanagement of the action during the afternoon of July 2 in front of Ewell’s corps was principally in loose direction or in no direction at all. Apparently Ewell knew little of the condition of his units in the assault on Culp’s Hill. Early’s attack was prompt and vigorous but was delivered with only two of his brigades. Smith’s brigade was treated as if that leader could not be trusted in action. Such frail liaison as existed between Early and Rodes was effected by those two officers and not by Ewell. The lieutenant general did not know what division was on the right of his corps and did not take any step to elicit its aid till the attack was about to be launched.
Ewell’s semi-passive role did not destroy the initiative of all his subordinates. Early’s conduct was soldierly. His attack on East Cemetery Hill followed quickly that of Johnson on Culp’s Hill. Early was wise also in abandoning the assault when he did. On Early’s left, Allegheny Johnson’s performance on July 2, though not brilliant, was vigorous.
Rodes manifestly should not have neglected, as he did, to calculate the time required for him and for Early to deliver their attacks simultaneously. To the allegation that Rodes should have assaulted Cemetery Hill, an answer is found in the character of the men who shared his decision against delivering the attack. Ramseur and Doles were among the most daring, hardest fighters of the army. If they agreed with their militant commander that the hill could not be carried, few who knew them would maintain the contrary. It is difficult to escape the conclusion that Rodes’s second of July was in disappointing contrast to his second of May. Dash was lacking.
The employment of Ewell’s artillery on July 2 was as inefficient as that of Hill’s guns. While Latimer was being driven from his position at the price of a wound that proved fatal, four batteries and no more were preparing for the advance of Early and Rodes. Two battalions of artillery were left idle all the while north of Gettysburg. Some of the inaction of the gunners of the Second Corps could be attributed to the absence of the wounded corps chief of artillery, Stapleton Crutchfield, but that circumstance should have made Ewell more diligent. It did not.
On the third of July the lack of coordination in attack was scarcely less than on the second. The first question, of course, is whether an attempt should have been made to break the center of the Federal position. On this, little more is to be said. Lee felt that the assault was in a measure unavoidable and that, if the full strength of the army could be brought to bear, the attack would be successful. He accepted the responsibility, and he meant precisely what he said when he told Longstreet, “It’s all my fault; I thought my men were invincible.”22
The second criticism of the Confederate operations of the third day is that the artillery preparation for the charge of Pickett and Pettigrew was inadequate, and that when the bombardment was well-handled it had to be halted because ammunition was exhausted. This criticism is justified. Gettysburg demonstrated that the reorganization of the artillery gave flexibility within a corps, but among the corps there was little cooperation. Pendleton had neither the prestige nor the authority to assure the employment of all the guns as one weapon under one leader. He appears in the campaign more as a consultant than as a commander. Porter Alexander subsequently argued convincingly that if sufficient guns had been massed on the Confederate center to silence the batteries on Cemetery Hill, the column that attacked Cemetery Ridge would not have been exposed to so heavy a flank fire. In addition, there was scant liaison. In Hill’s and Ewell’s corps, Alexander computed that fifty-six guns were not used, and that of the eighty-four employed, eight
y were parallel to the line of the enemy, though an enfilade of part of the Union position would have been possible.23
So far as the records show, no check was made on the morning of July 3 to ascertain how heavily the firing of the previous days had depleted the ammunition supply. The Third Corps caissons were drawn upon heavily during the useless morning cannonade. When battalion commanders sent their caissons to the point designated by Pendleton as the position of the ordnance train, they found the wagons had disappeared—moved without notice farther to the rear. As a result, many of the guns of the Third Corps and a number of those of the First stood idle for lack of ammunition at a time when the Federals were shattering the flank of the advancing line. Fundamentally, the lack of effective general supervision of the artillery and of the ordnance supplies was responsible.24
The column that delivered the attack, like the cannonade that preceded it, was inadequate for the task assigned it, and tactically, in at least three respects, was not well employed. First of all, a wrong choice was made when Heth’s division was chosen to join Pickett’s in the final assault. Headquarters was guilty of a most serious omission in not ascertaining the condition of the command before it was designated for further action. Its loss had been worse on July 1 among officers than in the ranks. Davis’s brigade on the left flank was almost without field officers. In Pettigrew’s division not one of the men who led a brigade during the charge possessed experience in handling so many men. Heth himself had not resumed his duties because of the head wound received on the first. His luck then had been extraordinary. A minié ball had broken the outer coating of the skull and cracked the inner coating, but had not penetrated the brain. Heth thought this was because of the folds of paper inside the sweat band of his hat, inserted by a clerk when the hat was fitted at Cashtown.25 His troops came under the direction of Johnston Pettigrew, a man of large intellectual capacity but of limited field service. He never had led a division in action.
It seems reasonable to suppose that Pender’s division would have done better than Heth’s if for no other reason than that it had suffered less in the first day’s battle. Anderson might have used Mahone and Wilcox, or Mahone and Wright, to support Pender in the manner Lane and Scales supported Heth.
The column of attack, in the second place, had its supporting troops improperly placed. Rather than supporting Pettigrew’s left en échelon, the brigades of Lane and Scales were in a foreshortened second line that was aligned on Pettigrew’s right. Lane moved the two brigades into position knowing nothing of any orders to advance en échelon. It evidently was not the intention of Lee to permit Lane to carry the division into action, but the delay in assigning Trimble was overlong. It is doubtful if Trimble knew enough, on short notice, to see how dangerous his deployment was.
Part of the blame should be placed at Longstreet’s door, yet here he was not well served. Lane was aware of the situation—he explained in his report, “there was consequently no second line in rear of [Pettigrew’s] left”—but did not notify Longstreet. Trimble’s account contains no reference to the fact that his line was not so long as Pettigrew’s. He certainly did not report it to Longstreet. If it is fair to say that Longstreet should have been acquainted with his own order of battle, it may be answered that the officers on that flank should have seen that he was better informed.26
Although Hill technically was relieved of responsibility when Pettigrew’s division and half of Pender’s were placed under Longstreet, it would have been the part of good comradeship to send an officer to Longstreet to say that the lines were formed and the second line extended to such and such a point in rear of Pettigrew. This may have been expecting too much of a man who had disliked Longstreet, but it is by lack of cooperation in matters seemingly as small as this that battles sometimes are lost. The question of the relative responsibility of handling these Third Corps units is sharply pointed in the tragic wastage of Wilcox’s brigade in a futile advance after Pickett had gone forward. Wilcox apparently was under everybody’s order and nobody’s.
The third tactical defect was that two weak units were put on the left flank. Brockenbrough’s brigade, on the unsupported left of Pettigrew’s line, had been Field’s, but he had been absent for ten months. Under Harry Heth it recovered somewhat; then, at Chancellorsville, under Brocken-brough, it was greatly reduced in numbers. The troops suffered further in the action of July 1. On July 3 the brigade was commanded by Colonel Robert M. Mayo of the 47th Virginia. Successive change of leaders doubtless weakened the discipline of the brigade. Next to the right was the brigade of Joseph R. Davis—brave, inexperienced troops under an officer who matched his men. In the battle of July 1, Davis had lost all except two of his field officers and many of his company officers.
Neither Davis’s brigade nor Brockenbrough’s should have been placed on the exposed left, which was without help from Trimble’s short line. To say that the relative strength of the various brigades of this division should have been known to Longstreet would be overcritical, but to say that the weakness on the left should have been disregarded by all the responsible officers would be to set an exceedingly low standard of command. Through negligence or overconfidence, the organization failed to provide the strongest order of battle its numbers made possible. All the contemporary accounts agree that the first wavering and then the first abandonment of the charge were in these brigades on the left. Men from nearly all the regiments pressed on and reached the ridge, but could not hold their ground. Most of the troops under Mayo and Davis started back to their own lines before they reached the ridge.
Stuart refused, as always, to admit any shortcomings on his part in the Pennsylvania campaign, but the other three men who were responsible for the chief failures at Gettysburg accepted the blame without hesitation. Next to that of Malvern Hill, the Battle of Gettysburg was the worst fought of all the engagements of General Lee. When he said “It’s all my fault,” he meant that his own responsibility was greater than that of any and all other officers. Ewell was no less frank. Months later he told General Hunton that “it took a dozen blunders to lose Gettysburg and he had committed a good many of them.” Longstreet wrote to his uncle three weeks after the battle: “I cannot help but think that great results would have obtained had my views been thought better of; yet I am much inclined to accept the present condition as for the best…. As we failed, I must take my share of the responsibility…. As General Lee is our commander, he should have the support and influence we can give him. If the blame, if there is any, can be shifted from him to me, I shall help him and our cause by taking it.”27
Lee never gave any intimation that he considered Longstreet’s failure at Gettysburg more than the error of a good soldier. It was not until years afterward, when Gettysburg was seen as the turning point of the war, that criticism of Longstreet became, in effect, blame for the loss of the battle that lost the war. The sum of just accusation against him is that he held too tenaciously to his favorite theory of defensive tactics, that he sulked and delayed on July 2 when his tactics were rejected, that he did not use his forces in their full strength on the second, and that he did not exercise the same care in the direction of the Third Corps units that he gave to his own dispositions on the final day of the battle. To Longstreet’s credit was the belief that Cemetery Ridge, on July 2-3, was too strong to be stormed successfully. If, when the balance of Longstreet’s account is struck, it still is adverse to him, it does not warrant the traditional accusation that he was the villain of the piece. The mistakes of Lee and of Ewell and the long absence of Stuart were personal factors of failure as serious as Longstreet’s.
3
THE PRICE OF GETTYSBURG
The Confederate casualties of the Gettysburg campaign made the hardest veteran shudder. Of the rank and file, the killed have been computed at 4,637, the wounded at 12,391, and the missing at 5,846, a total of 22,874—virtually the same as the Federal aggregate of 22,813. Not even at Sharpsburg had bullets claimed so many general officers. Six h
ad been killed or mortally wounded, three captured, eight wounded. Almost exactly a third of the fifty-two general officers in the campaign had become casualties. In addition to the six who had been slain, at least five had been made prisoners or been wounded so severely that their ability to take up their duties again was in doubt. By the most optimistic estimate, 20 per cent of the general officers would have to be replaced. Several others, it was apparent, ought not again be entrusted with troops.
Among the lost officers were several of established place or developing promise. The killed or mortally wounded were Lewis A. Armistead, William Barksdale, Richard B. Garnett, Dorsey Pender, Johnston Pettigrew, and Paul Semmes. The captured were Isaac R. Trimble and James L. Kemper, both badly hurt, and James J. Archer. The most seriously injured of those carried back to Virginia were John B. Hood and Wade Hampton.
Until the great charge at Gettysburg, Lewis Armistead never had such an hour as came to him at Malvern Hill, but he had been consistently a good officer. Always a leader, at the stone wall he was among the first to leap over. Beyond it he fell. William Barksdale, though not professionally trained to arms, had proved his mettle at Fredericksburg in the battle of the pontoons, and he died where he would have chosen—in battle at the head of his men. Dick Garnett had won the affection of all his officers during the months he commanded a brigade in Pickett’s division. He had been sick and was almost incapacitated for duty on the third of July, but insisted on leading the charge of his brigade though he had to ride and offer a target to every marksman. Of like spirit was Paul Semmes, whose brother Raphael captained the Alabama. Semmes was seriously wounded in the advance of McLaws’s division on the afternoon of the second. He came to his end in Virginia on July 10 with the proud assurance, “I consider it a privilege to die for my country.”28
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