Gettysburg

  Lee and Longstreet viewed the Union position along Cemetery Hill from Seminary Ridge. Lee knew that the Confederates had won the day, but a complete victory could not be claimed until the Union forces were driven from the high ground. Lee sent a message to Ewell “to carry the hill occupied by the enemy, if he found it practicable, but to avoid a general engagement until the arrival of the other divisions of the army.” In other words, Ewell was to take the enemy position if he could without bringing on a larger battle than his corps could handle.

  Major General Jubal Anderson Early

  Ewell had two brigades he could advance against Cemetery Hill, but the position was being fortified and supported by Union artillery. He wisely concluded that such an attack could not succeed without support. He sent a message to Lee that he would advance if Lee would support him with additional forces to his right.

  Upon receiving Ewell’s message, Lee inquired how close the first division of Long-street’s corps was to Gettysburg. They were six miles away. It was now after 5:00 PM and darkness would fall before Longstreet’s men could be in position. Lee replied to Ewell that “he regretted that his people were not up to support him on the right, but he wished him to take the Cemetery hill if it were possible.” Lee had several brigades available but chose to keep them in reserve. Unsure of the force opposing him, Lee did not want to risk an all-out attack.

  Knowing that an unsupported attack on the Union defenses would fail, Ewell quickly identified another objective. Eight hundred yards to the east of Cemetery Hill was Culp’s Hill. If occupied, any artillery placed there could fire down upon the Union line along Cemetery Ridge and force its evacuation. The Army of the Potomac would be forced to leave Gettysburg. It was, therefore, a key piece of terrain, and scouts reported that the hill was indeed undefended.

  Ewell met with his division commanders, Jubal Early and Edward “Allegheny” Johnson, who commanded the elite “Stonewall Division” now approaching Gettysburg on the Chambersburg Pike. After a twenty-five-mile march the troops were delayed behind Hill’s wagon train. It would take them at least an hour to reach the field, and there was now only two hours of daylight remaining. Johnson warned Ewell that his men may not reach the field in time.

  Ewell reconsidered his options and ordered Johnson to take Culp’s Hill with his division when they arrived but was only to advance if the hill remained unoccupied by the enemy—a discretionary order. Ewell then left for a conference with Lee and the other corps commanders that did not end until almost midnight.

  Johnson’s men arrived after dark and were positioned around the base of Culp’s Hill. With a discretionary order in hand, and perhaps unnerved by the prospect of advancing in darkness against an unknown enemy position (a rare event in Civil War battles), Johnston did not follow through on Ewell’s orders to occupy the hill.

  Thus, when Ewell returned to his command after midnight and discovered the situation, he ordered scouts to determine if Culp’s Hill had been occupied by the enemy. Nearing the crest of the hill, lit by moonlight, the party was ambushed and fell back under heavy fire. Whatever chance there had been to seize Culp’s Hill without a fight had passed, and a key opportunity to complete the day’s victory lost.

  Major General Edward “Allegheny” Johnson

  Always mystify, mislead, and surprise the enemy, if possible; and when you strike and overcome him, never let up in the pursuit so long as your men have strength to follow; for an army routed, if hotly pursued, becomes panic-stricken, and can then be destroyed by half their number.

  —Lieutenant General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson

  General Ewell had performed magnificently the entire campaign up to this point, marching his corps to Gettysburg in perfect timing to crush the Union Eleventh Corps that morning. Yet here, at a critical moment of the battle, he left the decision to advance on Culp’s Hill to a subordinate and failed to oversee that his orders were carried out. The result of this indecisiveness would prove costly beyond measure. As Union reinforcements arrived throughout the night the Union line was fortified with trenches and breastworks of logs and stone. The Confederates were sure to face a formidable position by morning.

  ELIZABETH SALOME “SALLIE” MYERS BECOMES A NURSE

  Sallie Myers was called along with other women to assist the wounded. The Catholic church was just down the street from her father’s home and she went to volunteer however she could. She had always feared the sight of blood and was terrified what might be asked of her.

  On pews and floors men lay, the groans of the suffering and dying were heartrending. I knelt beside the first man near the door and asked what I could do. “Nothing,” he replied, “I am going to die.” I went outside the church and cried. I returned and spoke to the man—he was wounded in the lungs and spine, and there was not the slightest hope for him. The man was Sergeant Alexander Stewart of the 149th Pennsylvania Volunteers. I read a chapter of the Bible to him, it was the last chapter his father had read before he left home. The wounded man died on Monday, July 6th.

  Sergeant Stewart was the first wounded man brought in, but others followed. The sight of blood never again affected me and I was among wounded and dying men day and night. While the battle lasted and the town was in possession of the rebels, I went back and forth between my home and the hospitals without fear. The soldiers called me brave, but I am afraid the truth was that I did not know enough to be afraid and if I had known enough, I had no time to think of the risk I ran, for my heart and hands were full.

  THE 6TH WISCONSIN DIGS IN ON CULP’S HILL

  Rufus Dawes recalled the early evening hours on Culp’s Hill with his men. His 6th Wisconsin regiment had marched hard and fought all day, had suffered over 50 percent casualties, and yet had managed to make a fighting retreat in good order to their current position. Then without even having anything to eat, the men began digging in, preparing for the upcoming fight they knew was close at hand. Dawes reflected:

  Taking our place on the right of the line of the brigade, I ordered the regiment to entrench. The men worked with great energy ... There were no orders to construct these breastworks, but the situation plainly dictated their necessity.

  The men now lay down to rest after the arduous labors of this great and terrible day. Sad and solemn reflections possessed, at least, the writer of these papers. Our dead lay unburied and beyond our sight or reach. Our wounded were in the hands of the enemy. Our bravest and best were numbered with them. Of eighteen hundred men who marched with the splendid brigade in the morning, but seven hundred were here.

  We had been driven, also, by the enemy, and the shadow of defeat seemed to be hanging over us. But that afternoon, under the burning sun and through the stifling clouds of dust, the Army of the Potomac has marched to the sound of our cannon. We had lost the ground on which we had fought, we had lost our commander and our comrades, but our fight had held the Cemetery Hill and forced the decision for history that the crowning battle of the war should be at Gettysburg.

  FREMANTLE PREDICTS THE COMING STORM

  Colonel Freemantle, accompanying Longstreet that evening, heard the opinions of the Confederate officers:

  At supper this evening, General Long-street spoke of the enemy’s position as being “very formidable.”He also said that they would doubtless entrench themselves strongly during the night. The Staff officers spoke of the battle as a certainty, and the universal feeling in the army was one of profound contempt for an enemy whom they have beaten so constantly, and under so many disadvantages .. . In the fight to-day nearly six-thousand prisoners had been taken, and ten guns. About twenty-thousand men must have been on the field on the Confederate side. The enemy had two corps engaged. All the prisoners belong to the First and Eleventh corps. This day’s work is called a “brisk little scurry,” and all anticipate a “big battle” tomorrow.

  The Jacob Weikert barn as it appears today. Photo credit: The Gettysburg Daily.

  DANIEL FINDS HIS HOME OCCUPIED BY REBELS

  Danie
l returned home that evening and found that his street had become part of the battlefield:

  When I went out in front of the house about 7 o’clock in the evening, the Confederate line of battle had been formed on East and West Middle Streets, Rodes Division of Ewell’s Corps lying right in front of our house. We were now in the hands of the enemy... these veterans of the Confederate Army were under perfect discipline. They were in and about our yard and used our kitchen stove by permission of my mother... gentlemanly and courteous to us at all times ... We settled down quietly this night. There was no noise or confusion among the Confederate soldiers sleeping on the pavement below our windows and we all enjoyed a good night’s rest after the feverish anxiety of the first day’s battle.

  TILLIE BECOMES A NURSE FOR THE WOUNDED

  Tillie Pierce remembered the final hours of July 1, as the wounded began arriving at the Weikert farm seeking aid and shelter:

  I was toward the close of the afternoon of this day that some of the wounded from the field of battle began to arrive where I was staying. They reported hard fighting, many wounded and killed, and were afraid our troops would be defeated and perhaps routed.

  The first wounded soldier whom I met had his thumb tied up. This I thought was dreadful, and told him so.

  “Oh,” said he,” this is nothing; you’ll see worse than this before long.”

  “Oh! I hope not,” I innocently replied.

  Soon two officers carrying their arms in slings made their appearance, and I more fully began to realize that something terrible had taken place.

  Now the wounded began to come in greater numbers. Some limping, some with their heads and arms in bandages, some crawling, others carried on stretchers or brought in ambulances. Suffering, cast down and dejected, it was a truly pitiable gathering. Before night the barn was filled with the shattered and dying heroes of this day’s struggle.

  That evening, Beckie Weikert, the daughter at home, and I went out to the barn to see what was transpiring there. Nothing before in my experience had ever paralleled the sight we then and there beheld. There were the groaning and crying, the struggling and dying, crowded side by side, while attendants sought to aid and relieve them as best they could.

  We were so overcome by the sad and awful spectacle that we hastened back to the house weeping bitterly.

  As we entered the basement or cellar-kitchen of the house, we found many nurses making beef tea for the wounded... a chaplain who was present in the kitchen stepped up to me while I was attending to some duty and said:

  “Little girl, do all you can for the poor soldiers and the Lord will reward you. ”

  The first day had passed, and with the rest of the family, I retired, surrounded with strange and appalling events, and many new visions passing rapidly through my mind.

  THE MOONLIT NIGHT OF JULY I

  General Carl Schurz of the Union Eleventh Corps recalled the moonlit battlefield on the night of July 1: “We of the Eleventh Corps occupying the cemetery, lay down, wrapped in cloaks, with the troops among the grave stones. There was profound stillness in the graveyard, broken by no sound but the breathing of the men and here and there the tramp of a horse’s foot; and sullen rumblings mysteriously floating on the air from a distance all around.” Throughout the night both armies gathered and rested before dawn.

  In the dim moonlight beyond the lines moved lanterns, like fireflies, as men searched for wounded comrades. By unspoken mutual consent, neither side would fire on those performing such missions of mercy. In the darkness, the cries of the wounded begging for help, for water, and some for their loved ones could be heard by the soldiers in the line. Each side did the best they could to retrieve the wounded who could be reached.

  Among these men was Dr. LeGrand Wilson from Jackson, Mississippi. Searching through the thousands of wounded and dying men by lantern and under the full moon he later wrote of his efforts to save as many as he could: “This was my first experience on the battlefield after the fighting. And it was horrible beyond description. If every human being could have witnessed the result of the mad passions of men I saw that night, war would cease. There would never be another battle.”

  Major General Carl Schurz

  Chapter Four

  Thursday,

  July 2, 1863

  Fix bayonets, my brave Texans! Forward and take those heights!

  —John Bell Hood

  Meade arrived at Cemetery Ridge in the hours before dawn on July 2. Met by his corps commanders and chief engineer Gouverneur Warren, Meade toured his army’s position in the moonlight and personally noted the positions he wanted for the infantry and guns. The Union line had been heavily reinforced during the night by Henry Slocum’s Twelfth Corps, Dan Sickles’s Third Corps, and John Gibbon’s Second Corps. By early morning, George Sykes’s Fifth Corps was taking its place in reserve with John Sedgwick’s Sixth Corps only a few hours behind. Unknown to Lee, the hard-driving Meade had his entire army assembled by that afternoon—about 93,000 men to face Lee’s 71,000.

  “Batteries are all about us; troops are moving into position; new lines seem to be forming, or old ones extending. Two or three general officers, with a retinue of staff and orderlies, come galloping by. Foremost is the spare and somewhat stooped form of the Commanding General. He is not cheered, indeed he is scarcely recognized. He is an approved corps General, but he has not yet vindicated his right to command the Army of the Potomac.”

  —Whitelaw Reid, Cincinnati Gazette

  Meade established his headquarters in a small farmhouse just off the Taneytown Road behind the center of the Union line on Cemetery Hill. The Union position was a strong one, and Meade was a professional soldier and engineer. He knew how to use the terrain to his advantage. Stretching over Culp’s Hill, the northern section of the Union line formed the curve of a fishhook-shaped defensive line, along the crest of Cemetery Ridge at the center to the top of Little Round top at the southern end of the line.

  Meade’s farmhouse headquarters off the Taneytown Road. This photo was taken just after the battle. Photo credit: Alexander Gardner, Library of Congress.

  Lieutenant Frank Aretas Haskell

  The main advantage of the Union’s position was due to its elevation over the surrounding countryside. Any attack from the Confederates would have to move over open ground and then uphill to reach the Union defenses. Culp’s Hill and Little Round Top provided a natural fortress at either end of Meade’s line, helping to anchor his defenses. The heights also gave the Union batteries longer range than the Confederate guns. Lastly the fishhook curve of the Union line allowed for Meade to shift reinforcements along interior lines over shorter distances than Lee’s army if needed.

  Lieutenant Frank Haskell, arriving with Second Corps, described the position as nearly ideal:

  On the whole this was an admirable position to fight a defensive battle, good enough, I thought, when I saw it first, and better I believe than could be found elsewhere in a circle of many miles. Evils, sometimes at least, are blessings in disguise, for the repulse of our forces, and the death of Reynolds, on the first of July, with the opportune arrival of Hancock to arrest the tide of fugitives and fix it on these heights, gave us this position—perhaps the position gave us the victory.

  All, all was ready—and yet the sound of no gun had disturbed the air or ear today. And so the men stacked their arms—in long bristling rows they stood along the crests—and were at ease. Some men of the Second and Third Corps pulled down the rail fences near and piled them up for breastworks in their front. Some loitered, some went to sleep upon the ground, some, a single man, carrying twenty canteens slung over his shoulder, went for water. Some made them a fire and boiled a dipper of coffee. Some with knees cocked up, enjoyed the soldier’s peculiar solace, a pipe of tobacco. Some were mirthful and chatty, and some were serious and silent.

  TILLIE MEETS GENERAL MEADE

  Tillie awoke at the Weikert farmstead and knew it would be another blistering hot day:

 
The day dawned bright and clear; the hot rays of the July sun soon fell upon the landscape.

  As quickly as possible I hurried out of the house, and saw more troops hurrying toward town.

  About ten o’clock many pieces of artillery and large ammunition trains came up, filling the open space to the east of us.

  Regiment after regiment continued to press forward. I soon engaged in the occupation of the previous day; that of carrying water to the soldiers as they passed... and while still supplying water to the passing troops, from the pump, three officers on horseback came riding up to the gate. The centre one kindly requested me to give him a drink. I asked him to please excuse the tin cup I then held in my hand. He replied:

  “Certainly; that is all right. ”

  After he had drunk he thanked me very pleasantly. The other two officers did not wish any.

  As they were about turning away, the soldiers around gave three cheers for General Meade. The one to whom I had given the drink turned his horse about, made me a nice bow, and then saluted

  the soldiers. They then rode rapidly away. I asked a soldier:

  “Who did you say that officer was?” He replied:

  “General Meade. ”

  DaNIEL SEES GENERAL LEE

  Daniel woke that morning to find Gettysburg still occupied by Confederate soldiers. The rebels had thrown up barricades in the streets to defend against any Union attack.

  Day dawned on the second of July bright and clear, and we did not know what to do or expect; whether to remain quietly in our homes, or go out in the town as usual and mingle with our people. But we were soon assured that if we kept within certain restrictions we could go about the town. It was hot and sultry and the lines of battle were quiet with the exception of an occasional exchange of shots between pickets or sharpshooters.