Gettysburg

  LEE ARRIVES ON THE BATTLEFIELD, 2:30 PM

  Lee arrived in Gettysburg on a small rise of ground called Belmont Ridge next to the Chambersburg Pike that afternoon. He met with Hill and they observed the battle already underway as Union and Confederate artillery dueled across the open plain. To the north, three of General Ewell’s brigades were engaging the Union line around Blocher’s Knoll. Heth arrived and asked if he could renew the attack with his full division. Lee replied, “I do not wish to bring on a general engagement today. Longstreet is not up.” Heth was sent back to his division to await events as Lee continued to observe Ewell’s attack.

  Stuart was on a useless, showy parade almost under the guns of the Washington forts...

  When he rejoined Lee it was with exhausted horses and half worn-out men in the closing hours of Gettysburg.

  Had he been with Lee where would our commander have made his battle? Possibly, not on that unfavorable ground of Gettysburg. Lee with his personally weak opponent, and Stuart by him, could almost have chosen the spot where he would be sure to defeat the Union Army.

  —Lieutenant Colonel Moxley Sorrel

  John Burns, the “Old Patriot” of Gettysburg. Photo credit: Timothy H. O’Sullivan, Library of Congress.

  THE “OLD PATRIOT”

  As the Union army prepared for the renewed Confederate attack along McPherson’s Ridge, an officer was approached by an odd-looking old man. He was wearing a long frock coat and a felt hat, and was carrying a flintlock musket and a pocket full of ammunition. This was John Burns, age sixty-nine, a veteran of the War of 1812, and a retired constable of Gettysburg—something of a cantankerous town character. He told the officer he wanted to fight. Told to join the “Wisconsin fellers,” Brown fell in among the blue clad soldiers and blazed away with his antique weapon at the advancing rebels. Clipped by three bullets and taking one to the leg, his short military career ended, but John Burns survived his wounds to become a national hero. When President Lincoln visited Gettysburg later that November, he made it a point to visit with the “Old Patriot.”

  Here was the opportunity Lee had been looking for upon entering Pennsylvania. He knew the Union army was marching great distances in very hot weather to meet his army in battle. Lee intended to overwhelm any Union advance he encountered by massing his army against them, forcing them to retreat. In this way he could outnumber and destroy one Union corps after another and achieve an overwhelming victory. Yet the events of this day were by chance, not design, and without Stuart’s help, Lee had no knowledge of which enemy forces were behind the two corps already at Gettysburg. Nor did Lee know the exact layout of the terrain past the town until the battle was already underway.

  Just then a staff officer from Stuart’s cavalry arrived. At last, there was word that Stuart’s forces were thirty miles away, heading toward Carlisle and trying to link up with Ewell’s corps. Lee sent the officer back to Stuart with orders to ride for Gettysburg at once. When Stuart and his troopers finally arrived the next afternoon, exhausted and dirty with only some captured wagons to boast of, Lee welcomed his wayward cavalryman with an icy glare: “Well, General, you are here at last.”

  Watching a division of Ewell’s under the command of Jubal Early advance against Blocher’s Knoll to the north, Heth returned to Lee and again requested that his division be allowed to attack. Knowing his forces were in a position to carry the day even without Long-street’s support, Lee approved. Within the hour, Heth advanced two fresh brigades against the Union’s Iron Brigade at McPherson’s Ridge and forced them back toward the town.

  “The failure to crush the Federal army in Pennsylvania in 1863, in the opinion of almost all of the officers of the Army of Northern Virginia, can be expressed in five words—the absence of the cavalry.”

  —Major General Henry Heth

  Boy Colonel—July 1, 1863. The Confederacy’s youngest Colonel, twenty-one-year-old Henry King Burgwyn Jr., commander of the 26th North Carolina, raised his sword as the troops pressed forward to drive the Northerners out of Gettysburg’s Herr Ridge. Illustrated by Don Troiani.

  THE 2ÓTH NORTH CAROLINA VS. THE 24TH MICHIGAN

  Among the attacking Confederate units was the 26th North Carolina regiment of Pettigrew’s brigade, with 843 men. Led by the twenty-one-year-old “boy general” Colonel Henry K. Burgwyn, the 26th North Carolina was the largest regiment in either army at Gettysburg. Forced to advance over open terrain, across Willoughby’s Run, against the Iron Brigade’s 24th Michigan regiment under Colonel Henry A. Morrow (who was deployed in the Herbst Woods along McPherson’s Ridge), the Confederate attack was quickly bloodied. As the Tarheels reached the woods, the two enemies stood only forty yards apart, firing volley after volley into each other’s ranks until finally the Union soldiers were forced to withdraw. Private William Cheek described the fateful moments:

  Our regiment had been formed in line of battle and advanced a considerable distance towards the Federal lines. Our colors were very prominent in the center. Time after time they were shot down by the hot fire of infantry and artillery, and in all they fell fifteen times, sometimes the staff being broken and sometimes a color-bearer being shot down.

  The color-sergeant was killed quite early in the advance and then a private of F company took the flag. He was shot once, but rose and went on, saying, “Come on, boys!” and as the words left his lips was again shot down, when the flag was taken by Captain McCreary, who was killed a moment or two later.

  Colonel Henry King Burgwyn Jr.

  Colonel Henry A. Morrow

  Then Colonel Burgwyn himself took the colors and as we were advancing over the brow of a little hill and he was a few feet in advance of the center of the regiment, he was shot as he partly turned to give an order, a bullet passing through his abdomen. He fell backwards, the regiment continuing its advance, Lieutenant Colonel John R. Lane taking command and at the same time taking the flag from Colonel Burgwyn. In a moment, it seemed, he was shot, and then Captain W. S. Brewer, of my company, took the flag and carried it through the remainder of the advance, Major John Jones having then assumed command of the regiment.

  By the end of the day’s fighting the 26th North Carolina has lost over 500 men— killed, wounded, or missing. The unit would fight again on July 3, in Pickett’s Charge, and finish the battle suffering 687 total casualties. The 24th Michigan lost 363 of their 496 men by the end of the fighting on July 3. Numerically, each of these proud regiments lost more than any other during the Battle of Gettysburg.

  The Iron Brigade—July 1, 1863. The 24th Regiment Michigan Volunteers, led by Col. Henry A. Morrow, fights a desperate rear guard action near the Lutheran Seminary at Gettysburg. After numerous color bearers had been shot down, Col. Morrow raised the battle flag to encourage his men until he was grazed by a bullet in the head. Illustrated by Don Troiani.

  Among the wounded during this attack was Major General Henry Heth, struck in the head by an enemy bullet. His life was spared by some rolled up newspaper he used in the brim of his hat to fit it snugly on his head. The folded papers were just enough to deflect the bullet, knocking the general unconscious for twenty-four hours and out of his command at Gettysburg. Brigadier General James Johnston Pettigrew would take command of Heth’s division for Pickett’s Charge on July 3.

  THE FIRST CORPS WITHDRAWS TO SEMINARY RIDGE

  Crushed from two directions, the Union lines were quickly outflanked on both ends of the field. The fighting at Blocher’s Knoll and at McPherson’s Woods was merciless and often at ranges as close as twenty paces.

  General Doubleday, now commanding the First Corps, ordered his men to fall back to Seminary Ridge before they were overwhelmed. The Iron Brigade made a fighting retreat, contesting every inch of ground as they fell back. To the north, Howard’s Eleventh Corps was also forced back in disarray less than an hour into the fight. All hope of saving the day now rested on the defense of a new line along Seminary Ridge, just in front of the college building near town. Colonel Rufus Dawe
s recalled the withdrawal:

  Major General Abner Doubleday. Photo credit: Library of Congress.

  Under pressure of the battle, the whole line of Union troops fell back to the Seminary Ridge. I could plainly see the entire movement...

  The enemy advanced so that the low ground between us and the Seminary Ridge in our rear was swept by their fire. It would cost many lives to march in line of battle through this fire. I adopted the tactics of the rebels earlier in the day, and ordered my men to run into the railroad cut. Then instructing the men to follow in single file, I led the way, as fast as I could run, from this cut to the cut in the Seminary Ridge. About a cart load of dirt was ploughed over us by the rebel shell, but otherwise not a man was struck.

  The ranks were promptly reformed, and we marched in the woods on the Seminary Ridge to the same position from which we had advanced. The whole first army corps was now in line of battle on the Seminary Ridge, and here that grand body of veteran soldiers made a heroic effort to stay the overwhelming tide that swept against them. brought in ... No provision had yet been made for their care in the town and they were laid on the floor. We remained there quite a while giving them water and doing what we could for their relief...

  As the afternoon wore away the churches and warehouses on Chambers-burg, Carlisle, and York Streets nearest the line of battle, were filled with wounded. Then the court house, as well as the Catholic, Presbyterian and Reformed churches and the school house in High Street received the injured soldiers, until those places had reached their capacity, when private homes were utilized, citizens volunteering to take them in and care for them.

  THE TOWNSPEOPLE HELP THE WOUNDED

  Daniel Skelly ran into the streets where the townspeople were busy doing whatever they could to help the wounded soldiers who were pouring into Gettysburg from the battlefield:

  I walked down to our Centre Square and there met my mother carrying two buckets of water, looking for one of the improvised hospitals, to give it to the wounded...

  We went down Carlisle Street to the McCurdy warehouse, just below the railroad, where the wounded were being

  THE FALL OF SEMINARY RIDGE

  In a grove before the Lutheran Seminary the survivors of the Iron Brigade and two other Pennsylvania brigades made a final stand behind a wood-and-stone fence. Heth now advanced two fresh brigades of North and South Carolinians to break the Union line. Rufus Dawes and his 6th Wisconsin were at the center of this action, as Dawes relates:

  Battery “B,”4th U.S. artillery, under command of Lieutenant James Stewart, came up, and General Wadsworth directed me to support it with my regiment... And now came the grand advance of the enemy... Along the Seminary Ridge, flat upon their bellies, lay mixed together in one line of battle, the “Iron Brigade” and Roy Stone’s “Bucktails.” For a mile up and down the open friends in front, the splendid lines of the veterans of the Army of Northern Virginia swept down upon us. Their bearing was magnificent. They maintained their alignments with great precision.

  Stewart fired shell until they appeared on the ridge east of Willoughby Run; when on this ridge they came forward with a rush. The musketry burst from the Seminary Ridge, every shot fired with care, and Stewart’s men, with the regularity of a machine, worked their guns upon the enemy. The rebels came half way down the opposite slope, wavered, began to fire, then to scatter and then to run, and how our men did yell, “Come on, Johnny! come on!” Falling back over the ridge they came on again more cautiously, and pouring upon us from the start a deadly fire of deadly musketry. This killed Stewart’s men and horses in great numbers, but did not seem to check his fire.

  Lieutenant Clayton E. Rogers, aide on General Wadsworth’s staff, came riding rapidly to me. Leaning over from his horse, he said very quietly: “The orders, colonel, are to retreat beyond the town. Hold your men together.” I was astonished. The cheers of defiance along the line of the first corps, on Seminary Ridge, had scarcely died away. But a glace over the field to our right and rear was sufficient. There the troops of the eleventh corps appeared in fill retreat, and long lines of Confederates, with fluttering banners and shining steel, were sweeping forward in pursuit of them without let or hindrance. It was a close race which could reach Gettysburg first, ourselves, or the rebel troops of Ewell’s corps, who pursued our eleventh corps...

  The weather was sultry. The sweat streamed from the faces of the men. There was not a drop of water in the canteens, and there had been none for hours. The streets were jammed with crowds of retreating soldiers, and with ambulances, artillery, and wagons. The cellars were crowded with men, sound in body, but craven in spirit, who had gone there to surrender... The rebels began to fire on us from houses and cross-lots.. . and the men returned their fire, shooting wherever the enemy appeared. It cleared the street of stragglers in short order. The way being open I marched again toward the Cemetery Hill.

  We hurried along, not knowing certainly that we might not be marching into the clutches of the enemy. But the colors of the Union, floating over a well ordered line of men in blue, who were arrayed along the slope of Cemetery Hill, became visible... With swifter steps we now pressed on up the hill, and, passing in through the ranks open to receive us, officers and men threw themselves in a state of almost perfect exhaustion on the green grass and the graves of the cemetery.

  THE RETREAT THROUGH TOWN

  Not all the regiments who fought that day were as well led or as lucky as the 6th Wisconsin. As the Eleventh Corps retreated through Gettysburg, units scattered and it became every man for himself in a vicious, close quarters street fight. Hundreds of Union soldiers were taken prisoner by the advancing Confederates. Trapped by the violence, the townspeople took shelter in the cellars of their homes.

  Elizabeth Salome “Sallie” Myers was a twenty-one-year-old schoolteacher who lived in Gettysburg. As Union batteries and soldiers began retreating through the town she realized the coming danger. Union officers rode through the streets to warn the people to seek shelter. Elizabeth remembered the moment:

  Then came the order: “Women and children to the cellars; the rebels will shell the town.” We lost little time in obeying the order. My home was on West High Street, near Washington Street, and in the direct path of the retreat. From four to six we were in the cellar and those two hours I can never forget...

  The noise above our heads, the rattling of musketry, the screeching of shells, and the unearthly yells, added to the cries of the children, were enough to shake the stoutest heart. After the rebels had gained full possession of the town, some of our men who had been captured were standing near the cellar window. One of them asked if some of us would take their addresses and the addresses of friends and write to them of their capture. I took thirteen and wrote as they requested... While the battle lasted we concealed and fed three men in our cellar.

  GENERAL HANCOCK ARRIVES ON CEMETERY HILL

  Colonel Fremantle arrived in time to witness the fall of Seminary Ridge: “At 4.30 PM we came in sight of Gettysburg, and joined General Lee and General Hill, who were on the top of one of the ridges which form the peculiar feature of the country around Gettysburg. We could see the enemy retreating up one of the opposite ridges, pursued by the Confederates with loud yells. The position into which the enemy had been driven was evidently a strong one. His right appeared to rest on a cemetery, on the top of a high ridge to the right of Gettysburg, as we looked at it.”

  Indeed, the Union forces had fallen back to a position of strength. What Fremantle and Lee saw was a brigade occupying Cemetery Hill, which had been placed there that afternoon in reserve. The ridgeline was heavily defended by cannon and by 5:00 pm another 7,000 men from the Union First and Eleventh corps fell back to the ridge, adding to its defense. Unknown to Lee, the Union position was also being superbly led by General Hancock, who arrived about 4:30 pm just as the retreating soldiers reached Cemetery Hill.

  Cemetery Hill—July 1, 1863. The celebrated General Winfield Scott Hancock is seen directing Major G
eneral A. Double-day to send his troops to secure Culp’s Hill as the embattled Major General Oliver O. Howard looks on. Around them the troops of dozens of splintered commands begin to rally. Illustrated by Don Troiani.

  Hancock’s stern presence restored ordered to the exhausted and demoralized survivors of the day’s fighting. Hancock knew that Cemetery Hill was the key position to fight a defensive battle. At 5:25 pm he sent a message to Mead: “We can fight here as the ground appears not unfavorable with good troops.”

  Holding Cemetery Hill was a victory for the Union, but with a very high price. General Reynolds and almost a thousand of his men were dead. Four-and-a-half thousand more lay wounded on the field and thousands more taken prisoner. Yet as the hours went by, the Union position became stronger. As the survivors rallied around Hancock, more regiments began to arrive in a continuous stream to take their places along the line. While the Confederates had routed and nearly destroyed two Union corps that day, unless the Army of the Potomac withdrew, the battle was not over. Meade, now informed that his army was in a good defensive position at Gettysburg, intended to fight.

  CULP’S HILL AND THE GHOST OF STONEWALL JACKSON