James A. Hessler
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7. OR 27/1: 505, 508, 524, 889; Craft, History of the 141st Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers, 121–122; Haynes, A History of the Second Regiment, New Hampshire Volunteer Infantry, 179–180; Ladd, Bachelder Papers, 1: 480, 2: 846–847; Pennsylvania at Gettysburg, 2: 910; Georg, “The Sherfy Farm and the Battle of Gettysburg,” 17; Pfanz, Gettysburg: The Second Day, 339. The question remains as to whether or not Thompson’s battery had replaced Ames. Thompson later said that he did. See Murray, E. P. Alexander and the Artillery Action in the Peach Orchard, 98, for a discussion. Kathleen Georg seemed to accept that Thompson had replaced Ames, and Watson then came up to support Thompson. See Georg, 17.
8. OR 27/1: 532–533, 559; Tremain, Two Days of War, 79–81; Imhof, Gettysburg Day Two, 141–142; New York at Gettysburg, 2:605–606; Hawthorne, Gettysburg: Stories of Men and Monuments, 77.
9. Ladd, The Bachelder Papers, 1:225, 2:773, Gottfried, Brigades of Gettysburg, 220–221.
10. OR 27/1: 503; Pennsylvania at Gettysburg, 2: 605–606, 612; Imhof, Gettysburg Day Two, 143, 146; Gottfried, Brigades of Gettysburg, 192; Georg, “The Sherfy Farm and the Battle of Gettysburg,” 22. The rules governing monument placement dictated that statues must face the enemy. Dedicating the regiment’s monument in 1888, Sergeant (later Captain) A.W. Givin noted that the lone Zouave statue atop the monument faces to the left (roughly south rather than to the west) “looking to our left which is being driven back.…Men of the One hundred and fourteenth stood as this man stands, contesting the ground inch by inch.”
11. OR 27/1: 497; Pennsylvania at Gettysburg, 1:356; Georg, “The Sherfy Farm and the Battle of Gettysburg,” 19–22; Gottfried, Brigades of Gettysburg, 192–193. Of the fifty-five members of the 57th Pennsylvania who were captured at Gettysburg, forty-four reportedly died in southern prisons. See Pennsylvania at Gettysburg, 2; 357.
12. OR 27/1: 500–501; Scott, History of the One Hundred and Fifth Regiment of Pennsylvania Volunteers, 83.
13. The Bachelder Papers, 1:225, 2:773; Georg, “The Sherfy Farm and the Battle of Gettysburg,” 24; Imhof, Gettysburg Day Two, 148–151; Gottfried, Brigades of Gettysburg, 220–221.
14. Longstreet, From Manassas to Appomattox, 372; Alexander, Military Memoirs, 399; Fremantle, Three Months in the Southern States, 261; Wert, General James Longstreet, 275–76. John Imhof, 150, considered “one of the most important, yet least discussed controversies” of the battle to be: “why did Longstreet divert Wofford’s men from their role as support for Barksdale?” Longstreet claimed he wanted to strike Federal forces in the Wheatfield and Plum Run Valley in the right flank and “lift our desperate fighters to the summit” of Little Round Top.
15. OR 27/1: 58, 498–499, 505, 887; Ladd, The Bachelder Papers, 2: 846–847, 3:1797; Imhof, Gettysburg Day Two, 151, 155–156; Pfanz, Gettysburg: The Second Day, 338–339; Toombs, New Jersey Troops, 253–254; Busey and Martin, Regimental Strengths and Losses, 247; Haynes, A History of the Second Regiment, New Hampshire Volunteer Infantry, 180–182; Craft, History of the 141st Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers, 122–123. Busey and Martin estimated the 141st’s casualties at 149 out of 209 total men (71.3%), including twenty-five killed, 103 wounded, and twenty-one MIA. Although the 68th and 114th had higher numeric casualties, the 141st had the highest rate in Graham’s brigade. The 68th suffered 152 casualties out of 320 engaged (47.5%), while the 114th’s totals were 155 out of 259 (59.8%). See Busey and Martin, Regimental Strengths and Losses, 245.
16. OR 27/1: 498–499; Bigelow, The Peach Orchard, 12.
17. OR 27/1: 498–499; Charles Graham account, February 16, 1865, Participants Accounts File 5, GNMP; Craft, History of the 141st Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers, 137; Ladd, The Bachelder Papers, 1: 480–481.
18. Charles Graham account, February 16, 1865, Gettysburg Participants Accounts File 5, GNMP; OR 27/1: 498–499; Craft, History of the 141st Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers, 137; Tucker, High Tide at Gettysburg, 278–279; Gottfried, Brigades of Gettysburg, 412–413; Trudeau, Gettysburg: A Testing of Courage, 380; Dedication of the New York Auxiliary State Monument, 146–147. Among the Federal infantry, estimated missing/captured in Graham’s brigade alone was 165. Among other nearby regiments, the 3rd Maine’s estimate was forty-five, the 3rd Michigan was seven, and the 2nd New Hampshire was thirty-six. See Busey and Martin, 245–247.
19. Ladd, The Bachelder Papers, 1:591.
20. Ibid., 1: 239–240. The horse was evidently later hit by a bullet. See Tremain, Two Days of War, 88. As usual, there was some discrepancy on the precise time that the wound occurred. Randolph told John Bachelder in 1886 that it was “towards 5 or 6 o’clock.” David Birney reported that it occurred “at 6 o’clock.” See OR 27/1. The New York Times reported under a July 14 byline that Sickles wound occurred “about” 6 o’clock. See “Affairs at Gettysburgh,” New York Times, July 18, 1863. Sickles said in 1884 that the incident occurred between 5:30 and 6:00, as “the last memorandum in my field book was made at 5:38 p.m.” See “Seventy Five Years Ago,” news clipping, Box B-36, Misc. Info—Gen. Daniel Sickles, GNMP.
21. 1882 Sickles interview, undated newspaper, J. Howard Wert Scrapbook, #34, Vol. 3, 4–5, ACHS.
22. Dedication of the New York Auxiliary State Monument, 112–113; 1882 Sickles interview, undated newspaper, J. Howard Wert Scrapbook, #34, Vol. 3, 4–5, ACHS.
23. 1882 Sickles interview, undated newspaper, J. Howard Wert Scrapbook, #34, Vol. 3, 4–5, ACHS; Ladd, The Bachelder Papers, 1: 239–240; Tremain, Two Days of War, 88–89.
24. Tremain, Two Days of War, 88–89; OR 27/1: 483, 494.
25. Ladd, The Bachelder Papers, 1:239–240.
26. 1882 Sickles interview, undated newspaper, J. Howard Wert Scrapbook, #34, Vol. 3, 4–5, ACHS; Tremain, Two Days of War, 89–90, 105.
27. Swanberg, Sickles the Incredible, 216–217.
28. The Reid passage was quoted in Trimble, “Agate: Whitelaw Reid Reports From Gettysburg,” Gettysburg Magazine 7, 27; Andrews, The North Reports the Civil War, 422; Brown, History of the Third Regiment, Excelsior Brigade, 105; “Longstreet and Sickles to Meet at Gettysburg,” Philadelphia Times, May 28, 1899, copy in GNMP files 11–60. For examples of Reid’s reprinted account, see: Davis, Life of David Bell Birney, 184–185 and Scott, History of the One Hundred and Fifth Regiment of Pennsylvania Volunteers, 84–85.
29. Jorgensen, “John Haley’s Personal Recollections of the Battle of the Wheatfield,” Gettysburg Magazine 27, 73; Ladd, The Bachelder Papers, 2: 768; Doster, Lincoln and Episodes of the Civil War, 217. Sim spoke to the Washington Republican on July 7 and was re-printed in the Detroit Free Press, July 10, 1863, Robert L. Brake Collection, USAMHI.
30. Johnson, Campfire and Battlefield, 265–266. The quotation used by Johnson is sometimes mis-credited to Captain Don Piatt, an Ohio officer who was not at Gettysburg. But Regis de Trobriand did have a Captain Benjamin Piatt on his staff. See de Trobriand’s OR 27/1: 521.
31. W.H. Bullard to Dan Sickles, September 13, 1897, Misc. Mss. Daniel Sickles, courtesy of New York Historical Society.
32. Ibid.
33. Ibid.
34. Ibid.
35. Brown, History of the Third Regiment, Excelsior Brigade, 105.
36. Tremain, Two Days of War, 105.
37. Pinchon, Dan Sickles, 201–202.
38. Swanberg, Sickles the Incredible, 216–217, 404 (n. 10–14); Brown, History of the Third Regiment, Excelsior Brigade, 105; Letter from Felix Brannigan to Father, original in Library of Congress, copy on file GNMP.
39. Stackpole, They Met at Gettysburg, 215; Tucker, High Tide at Gettysburg, 272; Coddington, The Gettysburg Campaign: A Study in Command, 414, 755 (n. 27); Pfanz, Gettysburg: The Second Day, 334–335, 534 (n. 131).
40. Knoop, I Follow The Course, Come What May, 1–2, 169 (n. 2).
41. Trudeau, Gettysburg: A Testing of Courage, 377, 628; Sears, Gettysburg, 301.
42. Keneally, American Scoundrel, 287–289.
43. Trudeau, Gettysburg: A Testing of Courage, 377, 628; Keneally
, American Scoundrel, 287–289, 369–370 (n. 29–30).
44. 1882 Sickles interview, undated newspaper, J. Howard Wert Scrapbook, #34, Vol. 3, 4–5, ACHS; “The Medal of Honor,” Box B-36, Misc. Info-Gen. Daniel Sickles, GNMP.
45. Dedication of the New York Auxiliary State Monument, 112–113.
Chapter 12: Let Me Die on the Field
1. Kershaw, “Kershaw’s Brigade at Gettysburg,” in Battles and Leaders, 3: 336–337; OR 27/1: 386, 400–401, 394; Ladd, The Bachelder Papers, 1: 167–168, 480–481, 2:1141; Hartwig, “Caldwell’s Division in the Wheatfield,” in The Second Day at Gettysburg, 162–163; Jorgensen, Gettysburg’s Bloody Wheatfield, 108–112; Imhof, Gettysburg Day Two, 169–73.
2. OR 27/2: 608, 614, 618; Winschel, “Their Supreme Moment,” Gettysburg Magazine 1, 74. The reports of Generals Hill, Anderson, and Wilcox appear to agree on the role of Anderson’s division in Longstreet’s attack. Hill wrote that he was to cooperate “with such of my brigades from the right as could join in,” and unlike Longstreet’s commanders, Hill specifically referred to their attack as being “en echelon.” Longstreet’s post-battle writing implies that a contributing factor to the attack’s failure was Wilcox’s alleged inability to cover McLaws’ left flank. This caused Wilcox to join the legion of postwar Longstreet detractors. An indignant Wilcox wrote to Jubal Early’s Southern Historical Society in 1878, “the orders given me during the day were to advance when the troops on my right moved forward; and I may add now that these orders were repeated three times during the day. Nothing was ever said or ordered of an echelon movement of which my brigade was to be the directing brigade, or that I was to guard McLaws’ flank.” See OR 27/2: 359; Wilcox, “General C. M. Wilcox on the Battle of Gettysburg,” in SHSP, 6:98.
3. OR 27/1: 533; Ladd, The Bachelder Papers, 1:225–226; De Trobriand, Four Years With The Army of the Potomac, 503; Pfanz, Gettysburg: The Second Day, 365.
4. OR 27/1: 533; Ladd, The Bachelder Papers, 1: 607–608; Gottfried, Brigades of Gettysburg, 221; Pfanz, Gettysburg: The Second Day, 347–348.
5. OR 27/1: 559, 566; Toombs, New Jersey Troops, 237–240; Gottfried, Brigades of Gettysburg, 221–222; Pfanz, Gettysburg: The Second Day, 347–348; Imhof, Gettysburg Day Two, 161; Winschel, “Their Supreme Moment,” Gettysburg Magazine 1, 74. The 120th reported practically as many casualties, 203 total (53.0% casualty rate), as the 71st and the 72nd regiments combined. Although historians have been quick to assail the Excelsiors’ performance, the 70th did manage 117 casualties (40.6%), including only four M/C, while the 71st (91 K/W/C) and 72nd (114 K/W/C) both estimated 37.4%. The 72nd had the highest number of M/C in Brewster’s brigade at twenty-eight. See Busey and Martin, 246.
6. OR 27/1: 422, 533, 27/2: 618, 631; Wilcox, “General C.M. Wilcox on the Battle of Gettysburg,” in SHSP, 6:99; Imhof, Gettysburg Day Two, 157, 166, 171–179; Pfanz, Gettysburg: The Second Day, 348–349; Meade, Life and Letters, 2:88–89; Humphreys, Andrew Atkinson Humphreys, 198–199; Gottfried, Brigades of Gettysburg, 212, 221; Coddington, The Gettysburg Campaign, 413–414, 755 n.22; Hyde, The Union Generals Speak, 191; Ladd, The Bachelder Papers, 1:193–194; Felix Brannigan to father, undated, original in Library of Congress, copy in ALBG files, GNMP; Brown, History of the Third Regiment, Excelsior Brigade, 104; Rafferty, “Gettysburg,” in Personal Recollections of the War of the Rebellion, 26–27.
7. Humphreys, Andrew Atkinson Humphreys, 198–199; OR 27/1: 422, 533; Busey and Martin, Regimental Strengths and Losses, 246, 272; Gottfried, Brigades of Gettysburg, 221; Coddington, The Gettysburg Campaign, 413–414, 755 (n. 22); Hyde, The Union Generals Speak, 191; Imhof, Gettysburg Day Two, 157, 179. Based on Busey and Martin’s estimates, only Wadsworth and Rowley’s First Corps divisions suffered higher numeric losses. See Busey and Martin, 272.
8. Alexander, “The Great Charge and Artillery Fighting at Gettysburg,” in Battles and Leaders, 3:360.
9. Imhof, Gettysburg Day Two: A Study in Maps, 166; Hartwig, “Was Dan Sickles the Savior of the Union Left on July 2?,” North & South, Vol. 8, Number 4, 59.
10. Bigelow, The Peach Orchard, 16–19, 22, 55–58, 60; Ladd, The Bachelder Papers, 1:168; OR 27/1: 882, 897.
11. Bigelow, The Peach Orchard, 22–26; Ladd, The Bachelder Papers, 1:168–169; OR 27/1: 882–883, 897; Winschel, “Their Supreme Moment,” Gettysburg Magazine 1, 76; Campbell, “Remember Harper’s Ferry,” Gettysburg Magazine 7, 70.
12. OR 27/1: 370, 472, 660; Winschel, “Their Supreme Moment,” Gettysburg Magazine 1, 76; Pfanz, Gettysburg: The Second Day, 349, 404, 408–409; Bigelow, The Peach Orchard, 22–26; Dedication of the New York State Auxiliary Monument, 138–139; Campbell, “Remember Harper’s Ferry,” Gettysburg Magazine 7, 51–59, 62–65, 70; Gottfried, Brigades of Gettysburg, 175–176; Ladd, The Bachelder Papers, 1:481, 3: 1868–1869.
13. OR 27/1: 370; Ladd, The Bachelder Papers, 2: 1134, 3:1356; Hancock, Reminiscences of Winfield S. Hancock, 196; Campbell, “Remember Harper’s Ferry,” Gettysburg Magazine 7, 64–65; Hyde, The Union Generals Speak, 216.
14. OR 27/1: 371, 759, 770, 778, 804; Cleaves, Meade of Gettysburg, 154; Pfanz, Culp’s Hill and Cemetery Hill, 194–197; Ladd, The Bachelder Papers, 2:1135; Imhof, Gettysburg Day Two, 190–193, 206, 224. For a discussion on exactly how many men Meade intended to detach from Culp’s Hill, see Pfanz, Culp’s Hill and Cemetery Hill, 194–195.
15. OR 27/1:371, 425; Meade, Life and Letters, 2:88; Hancock, Reminisces of Winfield S. Hancock, 199–200; Ladd, The Bachelder Papers, 1, 256–257, 2: 1135; Imhof, Gettysburg Day Two, 193, 197; Hill, Throll, and Johnson, “On This Spot…,” Gettysburg Magazine 32, 96–97; Pfanz, Gettysburg: The Second Day, 374.
16. OR 27/2: 608, 614, 619, 621, 623–624, 631–633; 27/1: 422; Wilcox, “General C.M. Wilcox on the Battle of Gettysburg,” in SHSP, 6:103; Swinton, Campaigns of the Army of the Potomac, 352; Imhof, Gettysburg Day Two, 197–198, 201–203.
17. Meade, Life and Letters, 2:88–89; Cleaves, Meade of Gettysburg, 152–154.
18. Jorgensen, Gettysburg’s Bloody Wheatfield, 124–125, 129; OR 27/1: 593, 654, 657, 662, 685; Meade, Life and Letters, 2:87–88; Pennsylvania at Gettysburg, 1: 224–226; Ladd, The Bachelder Papers, 2: 1198; Styple, Generals in Bronze, 84. Many of the Sixth Corps men were resting and making coffee when they were called into action. Sedgwick’s chief of staff Martin McMahon later wondered if this was the cause of the rumors that Sykes’ Fifth Corps delayed their support of Sickles in order to make coffee. See Styple, 84.
19. OR 27/2: 358–359; Longstreet, “Lee’s Right Wing at Gettysburg,” in Battles and Leaders, 3:341; Longstreet, From Manassas to Appomattox, 373; Longstreet, “General Longstreet’s Second Paper On Gettysburg,” in SHSP, 5:258. Of course Longstreet’s claims that he was facing the entire Federal army was an exaggeration, but as he once explained, “It has never been claimed that we met this immense force of 65,000 men at one time; nor has it been claimed that each and every one of them burnt powder in our faces. But they were drawn off from other parts of the field to meet us, and were hurried to our front and massed there, meaning to do all the mischief they could.” See Longstreet, “General Longstreet’s Second Paper On Gettysburg,” in SHSP, 5:261.
20. OR 27/1: 371, 422, 434, 501,534, 804–806; New York at Gettysburg, 2: 606–607; Humphreys, Andrew Atkinson Humphreys, 198–199; Brown, History of the Third Regiment, Excelsior Brigade, 105; Busey and Martin, Regimental Strengths and Losses, 246; Coddington, The Gettysburg Campaign, 423–424; Imhof, Gettysburg Day Two, 213.
21. OR 27/1: 593; Byrne and Weaver, Haskell of Gettysburg, 123; Cleaves, Meade of Gettysburg, 153.
22. “Affairs at Gettysburgh,” New York Times, July 18, 1863; Tremain, Two Days of War, 90, 103–105; New York at Gettysburg, 2: 579. In a letter written to his sister on July 5, Twichell said, “I met the ambulance in which he had been placed, accompanied it, helped lift him out….” Thus it is plausible that Twichell accompanied the ambulance for all or some portion of its ride to the hospital. But taken within the context of
Twichell’s entire letter, it appears that Twichell was at the hospital, and not on the front line, when he met the ambulance. Perhaps he accompanied the ambulance some short distance to the amputating table. See Jos. Hopkins Twichell to Sister, July 5, 1863, Yale University Library, quoted in Messent and Courtney, Civil War Letters of Joseph Hopkins Twichell, 249.
23. “Affairs at Gettysburgh,” New York Times, July 18, 1863; 1882 Sickles interview, undated newspaper, J. Howard Wert Scrapbook, #34, Vol. 3, 4–5, ACHS; Ladd, The Bachelder Papers, 1:239.240; The Medical and Surgical History of the Civil War, 2:142, 11:254; Coco, A Strange and Blighted Land, 197; Styple, Generals in Bronze, 152–153; 225; Detroit Free Press, July 10, 1863, Robert L. Brake Collection, USAMHI. Some historians have mistakenly followed Sickles’ lead: Knoop in I Follow the Course, Come What May (1–2) chooses Calhoun over Sim.
24. Tremain, Two Days of War, 90, 105; Ladd, The Bachelder Papers, 1:239–240; “Affairs at Gettysburgh,” New York Times, July 18, 1863; New York at Gettysburg,2: 579–580; Coco, A Strange and Blighted Land, 197; The Medical and Surgical History of the Civil War, 11: 242; Messent and Courtney, Civil War Letters of Joseph Hopkins Twichell, 249; Detroit Free Press, July 10, 1863; Henry, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, 11, 29–30.
25. Tremain, Two Days of War, 105; “Affairs at Gettysburgh,” New York Times, July 18, 1863; The Medical and Surgical History of the Civil War, 2:143; Detroit Free Press, July 10, 1863; “Second Day at Gettysburg,” Industrial School News, August 13, 1903, copy in Box B-36, GNMP; Pfanz, Gettysburg: The Second Day, 334–335.
26. Messent and Courtney, Civil War Letters of Joseph Hopkins Twichell, 249; “Affairs at Gettysburgh,” New York Times, July 18, 1863; W.H. Bullard to Dan Sickles, September 13, 1897, Misc. Mss. Daniel Sickles, New York Historical Society; The Medical and Surgical History of the Civil War, 11: 242; Coco, A Strange and Blighted Land, 197–200; Dedication of the New York Auxiliary State Monument, 112–113; Detroit Free Press, July 10, 1863; Coco, A Vast Sea of Misery, 80–81; Accounts of S.Chase, E.L. Townsend, and New York Herald, July 6, 1863 in Box B-36, GNMP; Andrews, The North Reports the Civil War, 422.