The last regiment of Graham’s brigade fighting near the Sherfy house was the 105th Pennsylvania. Colonel Calvin Craig had positioned his Wild Cats on the right of the 57th Pennsylvania, but after only a “short time” he noticed the 114th and 57th regiments “cluster in groups behind the brick house and adjacent out-buildings.” A “few moments later” both regiments “fell to the rear…leaving my left flank entirely unprotected. The enemy, taking advantage of this, advanced across the Emmitsburg road, in front of the house, and immediately opened fire upon our left flank. Seeing this, I ordered my regiment to retire slowly a short distance.” Barksdale poured a “most murderous fire” into the 105th’s flank and rear as the regiment retreated. Although men fell like “grass before the scythe,” Colonel Craig later wrote that “the boys fought like demons. Their battle-cry was ‘Pennsylvania’.”12
With Graham’s line collapsing, the burden of saving Sickles’ front along the Emmitsburg Road fell to the 73rd New York. One advantage of the 114th’s retreat was that the Excelsiors now had a clear front, and they hit Barksdale with at least one volley that caused the Southerners to fall “in scores among the dead and wounded Pennsylvanians.” The Second Fire Zouaves even charged briefly to the west side of the Emmitsburg Road, but since this coincided with the collapse of Graham’s Peach Orchard line on their left, the move exposed the 73rd’s flank. Captain Moran claimed that “our thin line in the left could be seen melting away through the smoke and our wounded in hundreds went streaming back over the Emmitsburg road, and riderless horses went dashing among them in bewilderment and fright.” Realizing that their left was flanked, the New Yorkers quickly fell back, ignoring the pleas of an officer who asked them to save some artillery. “The smoke grew thicker each minute and the sound of exploding shells was deafening. Officers and men were falling every minute and on every side.” The men would “fire at the enemy, walk to the rear, loading as they went, take deliberate aim and fire again,” remembered one Federal officer, forcing the Confederates to keep a “respectful distance.” Captain Moran fell wounded during the retreat. He remained on the field with scores of other injured and killed in the unenviable position “between the fire of friends and foes, the field being open and affording no shelter whatever.” Within a few moments, Barksdale’s 13th Mississippi “came over me cheering and firing.”13
Longstreet had stacked his attack against the Peach Orchard with depth, for Brigadier General William Wofford’s Georgia brigade advanced behind Barksdale’s Mississippians. The sight of Wofford’s roughly 1,600 screaming Georgians following several hundred yards behind Barksdale did nothing to strengthen Graham’s resolve. Leading Wofford’s brigade was none other than General Longstreet himself. In his memoirs, Longstreet explained that his intent was to “urge the troops to their reserve power in the precious moments.” Given the lack of coordination between Confederate brigades all afternoon, it is not surprising that there was little apparent cooperation between the attacks delivered by Barksdale and Wofford. Barksdale’s three left regiments had wheeled to their left, and although they were not moving up the Emmitsburg Road, they were heading toward General Humphreys at a roughly northeast angle. Instead of moving directly behind the majority of Barksdale’s brigade, however, Wofford continued east down the Wheatfield Road. This put his Georgians within supporting distance of only Barksdale’s 21st Mississippi regiment. Wofford’s (or Longstreet’s) decision deprived the majority of Barksdale’s brigade of the support they would need for their drive onto lower Cemetery Ridge.14
The collapse of the Peach Orchard and Emmitsburg Road line sent the Union artillery scurrying toward the rear. Many retreated past Sickles’ headquarters at the Trostle farm, and the fleeing artillery and caissons began to block the entrance into Trostle’s farm lane. As the 68th Pennsylvania fell back from the Emmitsburg Road, General Graham halted Colonel Tippin and “ordered me at once to engage the enemy coming down on our right flank, which was promptly done under his directions.” The 68th, 2nd New Hampshire, and 3rd Maine temporarily formed a second line near the Wheatfield Road before being pushed back again. Colonel Madill’s 141st Pennsylvania claimed to be the last of Graham’s regiments to abandon the field. According to Madill, his regiment alone “held [the Confederates] in check for twenty minutes or upward,” but when a single Confederate volley took down as many as thirty men, the 141st crumbled. Colonel Madill reported 151 casualties out of 209 engaged. As he trudged to the rear, he was met by Sickles who exclaimed, “Colonel! For God’s sake can’t you hold on?” A teary-eyed Madill could only stammer, “Where are my men?” His regiment had suffered the highest casualty rate in Graham’s brigade.15
View of the Trostle farm, circa 1890. Sickles spent much of the battle headquartered under the large tree in the center of the photograph. He was wounded on the west side of the barn, just out of view on the left of the photograph. (See modern photo on page 203.) Sue Boardman
While Colonel Tippin and the 68th Pennsylvania were unsuccessfully trying to salvage their last position, General Graham fell wounded. Declining assistance, he directed Tippin to “take command and fight on.” Tippin, whose withdrawal of his 68th Pennsylvania from the Emmitsburg Road had helped open the floodgates for Barksdale, was also unable to hold this final position as “the ranks [were] very much decimated by the fire of the enemy, who were pushing forward in heavy masses, I ordered the command to retire in order, which was done.” According to John Bigelow, “it does not appear that he (Col. Tippin) took active charge of the brigade at this critical time.…None of the reports of the officers commanding the different regiments of the brigade, when they retired, nor of the batteries, make any reference to Col. Tippin, but each seems to have been left to their own resources.…There was no commanding officer to collect them and form a second line; nor use them to cover the long gap in the lines, between the Round Tops and the left of the 2nd Corps, which they were leaving open.”16
While steamrolling through the Peach Orchard, Colonel Benjamin Humphreys’ 21st Mississippi captured Charles Graham. General Graham was wounded twice while rallying his brigade, once by a shell fragment in the hip and again by a musket ball that tore through both shoulders. Exhausted by the loss of blood and having his horse shot out from under him, Graham turned command of the brigade over to Tippin and began to walk to the rear. “I supposed him [Graham] able to get to the rear,” Tippin reported, “as, after dismounting, he walked with apparently little difficulty.”17
According to Graham, his brigade had already broken as he was trudging to the rear. Another horse was brought to him, and lifted upon it, he “made an endeavor to collect the remnant of my troops.” Graham spotted a regiment approaching, “which I took at first for one of my own but which on approaching within 150 yards of me I discovered to belong to the enemy. As soon as the discovery was made, I turned my horse, drove my spurs into the flanks, at the same time throwing myself forward on his neck to present as little surface as possible.” The Confederates called on Graham to surrender, and flight being interpreted as a refusal, they fired at him. Graham’s horse was hit by five bullets and, as John McNeily of the 21st Mississippi wrote, “pitched the General over his head, leaving him in a dazed state of mind.” The stunned and bloodied Graham was pulled from beneath his horse, officially surrendered, and taken into captivity along with as many as 250 other Union soldiers. One captor recalled that Graham asked who led the charge against his brigade. “Our generals do not do that sort of thing,” he scoffed. Graham had followed Sickles from their old days together in New York all the way to the Peach Orchard, and would now spend the next several months in captivity as his reward.18
It is unknown if Dan Sickles fully appreciated the full extent of the Peach Orchard collapse. Whether or not George Meade had been too inattentive to affairs on his left flank earlier that morning, responsibility for the advance to the Peach Orchard was Sickles’ alone. Much of the Third Corps had fought gamely, thanks to timely support from others, but in the end, his position
was crushed because of a combination of factors. The awkward salient is often credited as a primary contributor, but ultimately it fell because Sickles simply did not have enough manpower to plug the numerous holes that routinely formed in his line. Longstreet’s assaulting infantry, later supported by Richard H. Anderson’s division from A. P. Hill’s Third Corps, charged across open fields under Federal artillery and a broiling sun, and fought with their usual spirit and skill. Still, Longstreet had repeatedly sent brigades into action without adequate support on their flanks. In the end, the battle did not reflect well upon the tactical judgment of either Sickles or Longstreet. Such thoughts might have occurred to Sickles during the long postwar years, but in the smoke, chaos, and fading daylight of July 2, Dan Sickles had many other things to worry about.
Modern view of the site of Sickles’ wounding. The monument in the foreground marks the general’s location at the time he was struck. This view looks east toward the Trostle barn. Author
In stark contrast to General Hancock, who would spend much of this day and the next vigorously riding up and down his lines, Sickles spent the majority of the July 2 battle near his headquarters at the Trostle farm. Numerous accounts placed him there or nearby throughout the day, where he kept aides like Henry Tremain busy running dispatches. Several officers remembered seeing Sickles at headquarters, such as Captain George Winslow who recalled that after being driven out of the Wheatfield, “I reported to Gen. Sickles some two or three minutes before he was wounded and was directed to get my command together and await further orders. The General up to that time supposed that my guns were lost.”19
Sometime around 6:00 p.m. the Trostle farm became, as Captain Randolph later told historian John Bachelder, “too hot for a corps headquarters; not so much from fire directed at that point as on account of high shots coming over the crest on both sides and centering there. Sickles concluded to move back to the rear of the [Trostle] houses…and was hit while on the way, by a round shot just below the knee.” A Confederate shot had flown parallel to Sickles’ horse and struck the general in the right leg without injuring his mount.20 Sickles elaborated on his wounding during an 1882 return visit to the Trostle farm:
A few moments before I was wounded I had, at the suggestion of my staff, passed around the farmhouse yonder. I had been standing upon the brow of the hill just above the barn, when several of my staff insisted that I had better put myself out of range of a heavy fire then concentrated upon us. ‘If you will show me a spot on this field where the bullets are not falling thick, I would like to see it,’ I replied. A few moments afterwards, I rode around through the low ground below the house and up to this knoll. I had hardly reached it when the shot struck me.21
Riding from the Trostle house and farm lane to the knoll where Sickles was wounded, it seems unlikely that Sickles or his staff would have considered the knoll a safe haven from enemy fire. The elevated ridge near the barn, where Sickles was struck, would have offered Sickles a considerably better view of his line than a position in the farm lane, but also would have increased his exposure to Confederate fire. Sickles claimed that he was barely aware of what had transpired:
I never knew I was hit. I was riding the lines and was tremendously interested in the terrific fighting which was going on along my front. Suddenly I was conscious of dampness along the lower part of my right leg, and I ran my hand down the leg of my high-top boots and pulling it out I was surprised to see it dripping with blood. Soon I noticed the leg would not perform its usual functions. I lifted it carefully over my horse’s neck and slid to the ground. Then I was conscious of approaching weakness, and the last thing I remembered was designating the surgeons of my staff who should examine the wound and treat it. They found that the knee had been smashed, probably by a piece of shell, and that the leg had been broken above and also below the knee; but while all this damage had been done I had not been unhorsed, and never knew exactly when the hurt was received.22
Confederate artillery shells were continuing to fall as Sickles dismounted. “By this time I was losing blood rapidly. Hurriedly calling to a trooper nearby, I ordered him to bring me a strap from his saddle, and with his aid I bound the leg close up to the body, stationed a guard of twenty men about me and directed that no surgeon be allowed to disturb me until the arrival of Dr. Calhoun.” Randolph admitted, “Most of the staff were absent, I do not recollect anyone but myself and a couple of orderlies being with him at the time. We bound his leg first with handkerchiefs and finally with a strap from a saddle, and sent for surgeons and ambulance.” The devoted Henry Tremain shortly returned from delivering Zook’s brigade to the Wheatfield and wrote, “not an officer was near him; nor was there, as far as I ever could ascertain, when the ball hit him.”23
Tremain found Sickles “reclining with apparent suffering against the wall of the barn, while a soldier was engaged under the general’s direction in buckling a saddle strap, which had been tightly wound around his leg above the knee—thus forming an improvised tourniquet.” Sickles ordered in a clear voice, “tell General Birney he must take command.” Fearing for the worst, Tremain watched as Sickles “produced the tiniest flask ever carried by a soldier, and wet his lips with its brandy.” General Birney reported that it was 6:00 p.m. when he arrived on the scene and took command at Sickles’ request. Birney apparently didn’t linger for long as he “immediately” went to Humphreys’ front.24 Later histories emphasized Sickles’ calm and cool demeanor while he was awaiting his ambulance, but Captain Randolph (who was a Sickles supporter) remembered the scene differently:
Meanwhile our line had been broken about the Peach Orchard and our infantry and artillery came pouring by in rapid retreat. Sickles’ only thought seemed to be fear of being taken prisoner. He repeatedly urged us not to allow him to be taken. It was a very long time (seemingly) before the ambulance and surgeon arrived, but they came in time to save him from the danger he feared most.25
“I had no sooner been wounded then the conflict became more terrific than ever,” Sickles recalled. About this time, or shortly after, the Third Corps began falling back from the Peach Orchard “toward the spot where I lay. In a moment I was removed from the ground to the field hospital.” An ambulance, probably the one that had earlier been summoned by Randolph, finally appeared. The Trostle farm became increasingly dangerous and Tremain thought the ambulance “would be shattered by shot and shell before the patient could be placed in it.” Tremain wrote to his family on July 10, “After we had succeeded with much difficulty in getting an ambulance and him into it, I thought he was dying. I was riding with him alone, holding his mangled leg, which was tightly bound by a strap.” While still in the ambulance, Tremain was joined by Father Joseph O’ Hagan, chaplain of the 74th New York. O’Hagan “also thought the general dying and we administered stimulants by the wholesale. Doubtless this was all that kept him alive.” As far as Tremain was concerned, “the end had come.”26
The wounding of Dan Sickles is one of the most well known aspects of his day at Gettysburg. Legend tells us that in one last act of bravado, Sickles was escorted from the field while theatrically chomping on a cigar and inspiring his men to hold their ground. The most widely read Sickles biography, W. A. Swanberg’s Sickles the Incredible (1956), is both representative of this image and significantly responsible for perpetuating it. Swanberg told his readers that Sickles “seemed only moderately upset.” After coolly directing the placement of an improvised tourniquet, “Sickles was not one to allow this moment to pass without making full use of its dramatic value. Being informed that a rumor had gone around that he was mortally wounded, he requested a stretcher-bearer to remove a cigar from [his inside pocket] and light it for him. He was carried away with the Havan projecting dauntily from his mouth.” The moment has become a permanent part of the July 2 imagery. Tellingly, neither Tremain, Randolph, nor even Sickles himself painted such a heroic moment. This raises the question: is the legend accurate? 27
Contemporary accounts are mixed on
the question. Correspondent Whitelaw Reid reported that he passed Sickles along the Baltimore Pike, not on July 2, but on the morning of July 3: “On a stretcher, borne by a couple of stout privates, lay General Sickles—but yesterday leading his corps with all the enthusiasm and dash for which he has been distinguished—today with his right leg amputated and lying there, grim and stoical, with his cap pulled over his eyes, his hands calmly folded across his breast, and a cigar in his mouth!” Reid’s account was widely reprinted in various forms during the late 1800s, but sometimes with variations that did not always clarify that his sighting occurred on July 3. Similarly, and perhaps as a result, a reporter for the May 28, 1899, edition of the Philadelphia Times “was told on the battlefield…that when he was carried from the field he lay on his stretcher smoking a cigar as serenely as if he was still unhurt.”28
Surgeon Thomas Sim didn’t mention cigar-theatrics when he talked to the Washington papers on July 7, but did assure them that Sickles had dismounted from his horse “with utmost coolness.” Private John Haley was fighting with his 17th Maine in the Wheatfield. Somewhere between the Trostle barn and the amputating table, Private Haley claimed a glimpse of Sickles. “Our last sight of him in the field is one we shall long remember,” wrote the private. “He was sitting in an ambulance smoking and holding his shattered limb and appeared as cool as though nothing had happened. A few minutes later his leg was amputated at or near the knee.” Lieutenant Colonel William E. Doster, commander of the 4th Pennsylvania cavalry, wrote in 1915 that while riding from Meade’s headquarters, he “noticed Sickles on a stretcher, smoking a cigar. They said his leg had been shot off in the last charge.”29
James A. Hessler Page 26