James A. Hessler
Page 28
After Graham’s brigade retreats, Humphreys’ division is left alone to defend against the attacking brigades of Barksdale, Wilcox, and Lang. Pressed heavily from the front and on his left, Humphreys is forced to retreat from the Emmitsburg Road position.
As his men were withdrawing, Humphreys finally received orders from Birney to withdraw “to the Round Top ridge.” Falling back across open ground, Humphreys and his staff prevented his retreat from turning into an utter rout. “Twenty times did I bring my men to a halt & face about” to return fire on the Confederates, “forcing the men to do it,” he wrote. Veterans later debated whether the retreat was a total panic or an orderly withdrawal. Second Corps regiments in Humphreys’ right rear remembered fleeing Excelsiors crying out, “Run boys, we’re whipped, the day is lost.” Nearly everyone agreed that Humphreys was one of the day’s great heroes, a man who lived up to the image of the professional who fought for every inch of ground when the amateurs collapsed. One soldier called Humphreys “another man we did not like before the battle, but whom after the battle we were ready to swear by, for he showed himself to be a hero and a leader.”6
Hero or not, Humphreys was not pleased with the circumstances that conspired to thin his lines before the final combined Confederate attack. “[T]hey had taken away my reserve brigade to support others, and a large part of my second line I had to bring to my front line and part of it went to others. The troops that were to support me were sent to others…I have lost very heavily.” When he finally reached Cemetery Ridge, Humphreys called his division nothing more than “the fragments of many shattered regiments.” Humphreys suffered approximately 2,092 casualties out of 4,924 engaged (42.5%), the third highest numeric total in the Federal army. Birney’s division had the fourth highest numeric total (2,011). The heavy losses in both divisions served as testimonials to the inherent weakness of Sickles’ advanced position.7
After allowing for the passage of Wofford’s brigade and believing (or at least so he later wrote) “that the war was nearly over,” artillerist Porter Alexander limbered six batteries and “charged in line across the plain and went into action again at the position the enemy had deserted.” The gunner could not recall a “more inspiriting moment during the war than that of the charge of these six batteries. An artillerist’s heaven is to follow the routed enemy, after a tough resistance, and throw shells and canister into his disorganized and fleeing masses.…Now we would have our revenge, and make them sorry they had staid so long.” When he reached the Peach Orchard, Alexander quickly became disappointed by what he saw. “We had only a moderately good time with Sickles’ retreating corps after all. They fell back upon fresh troops in what seemed a strong position extending along the ridge north of Round Top…Our infantry lines had become disjointed in the advance, and the fighting became a number of isolated combats between brigades.” Despite his disappointment, Alexander set up his batteries in the orchard, “firing at everything in sight, and a sort of pell-mell fighting lasted until darkness covered the field and the fuses of the flying shells looked like little meteors in the air.”8
Historian John Imhof correctly observed that with the occupation of the Peach Orchard by Confederate artillery, “General Sickles’ prophecy had been fulfilled.” One of Sickles’ primary reasons for abandoning Meade’s Cemetery Ridge position was his fear that Confederate artillery would occupy the Emmitsburg Road ridge and pummel the Union line into submission. Sickles was right on the first count: Confederate leadership didassume that this location would serve as a platform to continue the attack. Sickles’ advanced line had, as Alexander noted from his vantage point, successfully caused Longstreet’s attacking infantry to suffer heavy casualties and become “disjointed” before ever reaching the heart of Cemetery Ridge. However, events ultimately proved Sickles wrong (along with Lee, Longstreet, and Alexander) when he assumed that the Rebel artillery could successfully utilize the Peach Orchard to defeat Meade’s army. Meade’s own “prophecy” was also proven true: the Peach Orchard was indeed neutral ground, and neither side would use it to advantage.9
While Wilcox, Perry, and Barksdale were driving back Humphreys’ division from the Emmitsburg Road line, Captain John Bigelow’s 9th Massachusetts Battery successfully retreated from the Wheatfield Road line to the Trostle house. The wounded Sickles had already been removed and Third Corps headquarters was now abandoned. For Bigelow, “no friendly supports, of any kind, were in sight; but Johnnie Rebs in great numbers. Bullets were coming into our midst from many directions and a Confederate battery added to our difficulties.” The battery was preparing to make a rush “for high ground in the rear” when Colonel Freeman McGilvery arrived with new orders. Not only had Sickles’ placement of the Third Corps opened a gap on Cemetery Ridge between the left of Hancock’s Second Corps and Little Round Top, but this gap had been widened when Caldwell’s division marched to Sickles’ support in the Wheatfield. To make matters worse, the retreating Third Corps troops were unable to rally and plug this hole. If something was not done quickly, Barksdale and Wilcox could reach this gap and, possibly, turn Meade’s left on Cemetery Ridge. “The crisis of the engagement had now arrived. I gave Captain Bigelow orders to hold his position as long as possible at all hazards, in order to give me time to form a new line of artillery,” wrote McGilvery. A “surprised and disappointed” Bigelow ordered his four remaining pieces to fire double canister at the pursuing Confederates, who soon appeared over the crest in their front. Bigelow held off Barksdale’s 21st Mississippi and some of Kershaw’s South Carolina skirmishers long enough for Colonel McGilvery to form a new artillery line approximately 400 yards in the rear.10
Colonel McGilvery formed his new artillery line near the banks of Plum Run “covering the opening which led into the Gettysburg and Taneytown road.” This location could have sustained the Third Corps artillery if Sickles had remained in his original position, since McGilvery would manage to successfully use it on both the second and the third days. According to McGilvery’s report, his artillery line included Watson’s battery, three of Phillips’ guns, two guns from Thompson’s battery, “a volunteer battery which I have never been able to learn the name of,” and Dow’s battery. “The rebel batteries had by this time moved up to the Peach Orchard and opened a very heavy fire on us,” wrote Phillips. Lieutenant Dow was approaching the front when he met “an ambulance with General Sickles in it, badly wounded.” McGilvery told Dow “he [McGilvery] had charge of the artillery of the Third Corps.” Dusk was approaching and there was still considerable confusion within the Union lines. Federal troops were racing down the Taneytown Road in McGilvery’s rear, while Second Corps reinforcements were arriving on the right. Barksdale’s 21st Mississippi pushed through the 9th Massachusetts’ now abandoned position. Spotting Watson’s battery unlimbering on the left of McGilvery’s line, Colonel Humphreys’ Mississippians “charged and captured these guns before they fired.”11
McGilvery’s artillery line alone was unlikely to stop Barksdale, Wilcox, and Perry’s brigades from reaching Cemetery Ridge. Fortunately for the Union cause, however, the Confederates were approaching General Hancock’s Second Corps front, and it was Hancock who vigorously corrected many of Sickles’ mistakes. Hancock wrote in his official report that “about this time” Meade “informed me that General Sickles had been wounded, and directed me to assume command of the Third Corps in addition to that of my own.” Hancock “had just before received an order from General Meade to send a brigade to the assistance of General Birney” and Hancock responded by sending in Colonel George Willard’s brigade. (Willard’s division commander General Alexander Hays sent Willard in with orders to “knock the hell out of the rebs.”) Barksdale had successfully helped crush Sickles’ line, but he had pushed his men beyond physical endurance and ready support. Willard’s New Yorkers slammed into Barksdale’s increasingly ragged formations in the low scrub and bushes lining Plum Run, stopping Barksdale just short of Cemetery Ridge. The Southern commander was mortally wounded
, later removed to a Union field hospital, and died during the pre-dawn hours of July 3. Colonel Willard was also killed after being struck in the face by an artillery fragment. One of his regiments, the 39th New York, drove ahead and recaptured Watson’s battery. Without support, Colonel Humphreys grudgingly ordered his 21st Mississippi to retreat toward the Peach Orchard.12
Hancock and staff had raced south along Cemetery Ridge in rear of Willard’s brigade, and just before putting them in action, Hancock “encountered General Birney, who informed me that his troops had all been driven to the rear, and had left the position to which I was moving. General Birney proceeded to the rear to collect his command.” Hancock later told historian John Bachelder that Birney informed Hancock that the Third Corps “had gone to pieces and fallen to the rear. This was on the spot where I put in Willard’s brigade.” Hancock could see the fleeing Third Corps soldiers for himself, but had little time to dwell on it since enemy fire was “shortly commencing to fall among us.” Hancock admitted that since the Third Corps was “all gone as a force [he] never really exercised any command over any part of the 3d corps in action, save the fragments of General Humphreys’ command.” The majority of the corps was “scattered, and could not be collected then. That was the end of it as a corps for that day.”13
Sickles and most of his men were out of the fight, but the ramifications of his movement forward to the Emmitsburg Road were not limited to Meade’s left flank. As Hancock continued to close the gaps, he requested more reinforcements. Meade responded by pulling the majority of the Twelfth Corps off Culp’s Hill on the far Union right, and by virtue of his interior lines, sent it to reinforce Cemetery Ridge. Corps commander Henry Slocum received the order to send his First Division, temporarily commanded by Brigadier General Thomas Ruger, and two brigades of Brigadier General John Geary’s Second Division. Ruger’s division arrived on Cemetery Ridge, but Geary’s two intended brigades accidentally marched too far south on the Baltimore Pike and out of the fight. Ruger’s men (mainly Henry Lockwood’s brigade) helped stabilize Hancock and McGilvery’s lines, but Ruger’s other two brigades largely stood idle. With hindsight, we know that Meade pulled more troops than necessary from Culp’s Hill because Longstreet’s attacks were eventually repulsed without any help from Geary and most of Ruger’s division. The thinning of the Union right left only one Union brigade under General George S. Greene on Culp’s Hill. This nearly proved fatal for Meade and the Army of the Potomac later that evening when Richard Ewell launched a heavy infantry attack against the rocky hill. Ironically, Meade had begun the morning focused on his right flank, and by the end of the day he nearly jeopardized his right by sending more troops than necessary to protect gaps on his far left. The after-effects of Sickles’ decision were still being felt on Culp’s Hill on July 3, as both sides battled for control of the strategic position.14
After putting Willard into action, General Hancock moved north on Cemetery Ridge and spotted Wilcox’s brigade, advancing on Barksdale’s left, making its way toward Cemetery Ridge. The nearest regiment available to him was another in Hancock’s own Second Corps, the 1st Minnesota. Colonel William Colvill’s regiment had been supporting Evan Thomas’ Battery C, 4th Artillery, which was harassing Wilcox’s advance. According to Colvill, the 1st Minnesota “arrived at this position just about the time Sickles’ troops, broken and disorganized, passed the ridge in retreat, and many of them, to the number of thousands passed between our files.” Hancock had earlier ordered Colvill to “stop and put them [Third Corps fugitives] in line; but found it impossible, and demoralizing to my own regiment to do so.” Wilcox’s Alabama troops arrived almost immediately behind Sickles’ fleeing men, but Hancock famously ordered Colvill to “Advance Colonel, and take those colors.” The 1st Minnesota charged at the double-quick down the slope into Wilcox’s line. The brave sacrifice staggered the Confederate attack, bringing it to a halt. The cost to the Minnesotans, however, was 215 in killed, wounded, and missing.15
By this time Wilcox was well beyond any Confederate support, and from the vantage point of the exhausted Alabamians, Cemetery Ridge appeared as a “stronghold of the enemy.” Wilcox ordered a withdrawal to “their original position in line;” Lang’s Floridians on Wilcox’s left followed suit. On Lang’s left, another of R. H. Anderson’s brigades under Brigadier General Ambrose R. Wright continued advancing and smashed into the center of Cemetery Ridge in the proximity of the “Copse of Trees” that would come to symbolize “Pickett’s Charge” on the following day. Alone and unsupported, Wright was repulsed by more of Hancock’s troops, a representative conclusion of how Lee’s offensive had gone awry. Having failed to drive the Federal left, Confederate attacks had deteriorated into a series of uncoordinated frontal assaults.16
General Meade, meanwhile, had passed an order to Major General John Newton’s First Corps (Newton having replaced John Reynolds) to bring two divisions forward. Momentarily alone on Cemetery Ridge with only a few members of his staff, Meade spotted a line of Rebels (probably Wright’s Georgians or remnants of Lang’s Floridians) heading straight for him. Meade “straightened himself in his stirrups” and braced for impact. In contrast to General Lee’s detached command style, Meade was right in the thick of the action. The tension was quickly broken when Newton’s two divisions arrived. According to Captain Meade, his father advanced with the First Corps skirmish line, offering the rather unspectacular command, “Come on, gentlemen.” In the best spirit of the old army, General Newton offered Meade a flask of whiskey as a Confederate shell dropped in front and showered the two generals with dirt. When an aide remarked that things had seemed pretty desperate, Meade replied “in his hearty way: ‘Yes, but it is all right now, it is all right now”17
While Anderson’s attack was dying out north of the Wheatfield Road, Longstreet’s attack south of the road was reaching its own high water mark. Portions of Benning’s, G. T. Anderson’s, Semmes’, and Kershaw’s brigades drove the Federals out of the Wheatfield and into Plum Run valley. Wofford’s brigade was on the far left of the ragged Confederate line, and while still primarily driving eastward down the Wheatfield Road, he did manage to capture one prize. His Georgians overran Lieutenant Aaron Walcott’s Massachusetts Light, 3d Battery (C) that had been awkwardly posted by one of Sickles’ staff officers in Plum Run valley near the John Weikert farm. The earlier confusion over the positioning of Watson’s guns, coupled with Walcott’s losses, demonstrate that Sickles’ staff had a poor day posting Fifth Corps batteries. Wofford had little time to savor his trophies. Brigadier General Samuel L. Crawford, commanding the Third Division of the Fifth Corps, charged across Plum Run valley and, along with Colonel David Nevin’s Sixth Corps brigade, drove Wofford back. Union counterattacks were beginning to secure the valley west of Little Round Top’s northern slope. With his flank mostly secure, Meade now had reinforcements to spare for fighting off Longstreet’s disjointed, and by now largely expended, attack.18
After obliterating Sickles’ advance line, General Longstreet had watched as Federal reinforcements from other parts of the field arrived to bolster the embattled Union flank. Longstreet’s troops had suffered heavy casualties with no hope for further support, while fresh defenders from the Fifth and Sixth corps greeted him in Plum Run valley. “While Meade’s lines were growing my men were dropping,” Longstreet complained bitterly in his memoir. [“W]e had no others to call to their aid, and the weight against us was too heavy to carry.…The sun was down, and with it went down the severe battle. I ordered a recall of the troops to the line of Plum Run and Devil’s Den.” Longstreet never hesitated to pronounce the Confederate effort that day as “the best three hours’ fighting ever done by any troops on any battle field,” but agreed that “to urge my men forward under these circumstances would have been madness, and I withdrew them in good order to the peach orchard that we had taken from the Federals early in the afternoon.”19
With Longstreet’s and R. H. Anderson’s survivors in full retreat, Hancock’s defend
ers unleashed a counterattack all along their lines, capturing large numbers of Confederate prisoners and rescuing abandoned Federal batteries. Since Sickles and Birney were both out of action, Andrew Humphreys was the last senior Third Corps officer still on the field. “The remnants” of his shattered division rallied with Hancock’s help on Cemetery Ridge, near the position Caldwell’s division had occupied prior to its charge into the Wheatfield. After rallying whatever able bodies were available, they joined the Union counterattacks and rushed with a yell across the fields they had just abandoned. It was one final measure of revenge for the battered Third Corps, whose survivors nearly reached the Emmitsburg Road before officers called a halt in an attempt to restore the mixed-up regiments. Humphreys bragged that “our troops got back close to the line I had occupied.” While his boast was not quite true—Longstreet and Porter Alexander still occupied the Peach Orchard and the Emmitsburg Road ridge south of the Klingle farm— Humphreys’ men had ended the day on an uplifting note. With darkness descending quickly on the battlefield, Cemetery Ridge was securely in Federal hands.20