Gettysburg

  Colonel Régis de Trobriand was promoted to Major General by the end of the war. He remained in the army, serving in the Dakota territories and later in New Orleans during reconstruction. He published a book, Four Years with the Army of the Potomac, in 1889, and passed away at the age of eight-one in 1897. He is buried at St. Ann’s Episcopal Cemetery in Sayville, New York.

  Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain was relieved from command after Gettysburg to recover from malaria and dysentery. He returned to command a brigade at the Siege of Petersburg, where he was nearly killed by a round through the hip and groin. Presumed to be dying, General Grant promoted Chamberlain to Brigadier General. Surviving against all odds, Chamberlain recovered and took command of the 1st Brigade of the 1st Division of Fifth Corps, who he fought with during Grant’s last advance toward Appomattox. Wounded a second time, Chamberlain was brevetted to the rank of major general by President Abraham Lincoln. He presided over the final parade of the Army of Northern Virginia at their surrender at Appomattox in April 1865. He would go on to serve four terms as governor of Maine after the war. He passed away in 1914 at the age of eighty-five and is buried in Pine Grove Cemetery in Brunswick, Maine.

  Reverend William Corby went on to serve two terms as president of the University of Notre Dame. The school’s Corby Hall is named for him. There is a statue dedicated to Corby at Gettysburg memorializing his general absolution to the Irish Brigade on the second day of the battle. He also wrote Memoirs of Chaplain Life: Three Years with the Irish Brigade in the Army of the Potomac. He passed away in 1897.

  Lieutenant Colonel Rufus Dawes returned to Ohio and married his fiancé Mary Beman Gates in January 1864. He fought again at the Battle of the Wilderness and at the Siege of Petersburg. In July 1864, Dawes declined the promotion to colonel and mustered out of the army. In honor of his service, he was brevetted as a brigadier general of volunteers by President Andrew Johnson in 1866. Dawes returned to Marietta, Ohio, and entered business. He would serve a single term in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1881. His memoir, Service with the 6th Wisconsin Volunteers, was published in 1890. Dawes passed away in 1899, at the age of sixty-one in Marietta, Ohio, and is buried in Oak Grove Cemetery. His son, Charles G. Dawes, served as vice president of the United States under Calvin Coolidge.

  Brigadier General John Buford fought with his cavalry through the remainder of 1863, but fell ill in December possibly from typhoid fever. Resting at a friend’s home in Washington, DC, Lincoln was informed the general was dying and promoted him to major general “for distinguished and meritorious service at the Battle of Gettysburg.” He died on December 16, 1863.

  Brigadier General George Armstrong Custer was promoted to command a cavalry division and fought through all of the 1864–1865 campaign to Appomattox. After the war, Custer went on to lead the 7th Cavalry Regiment in the Great Sioux War of 1876. At the Battle of the Little Big Horn on June 25, 1876, in the Montana Territory, Custer and over 200 of his soldiers were surrounded and killed by warriors from three different Indian tribes.

  Major General Daniel Sickles survived the amputation of his right leg and recuperated in Washington, DC, where he was visited by President Lincoln after the battle. Sickles was not charged with insubordination for moving his corps forward at Gettysburg on July 2, and became a dedicated enemy of Gordon Meade. Sickles claimed that victory at Gettysburg had been possible because of his actions and that Meade had secretly planned to withdraw the army. True to his nature and political connections, Sickles lobbied to have himself awarded the Medal of Honor, which he eventually received thirty-four years later. His leg bone was preserved by the Army Surgeon General as a wartime injury specimen and can be seen today at the National Museum of Health and Medicine. Sickles passed away in New York City in 1914 at the age of ninety-four and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

  Major General Winfield Scott Hancock survived the wound to his right thigh and returned to command the Second Corps in the 1864 Battle of the Wilderness, Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse and Cold Harbor, and the Siege of Petersburg. Hancock was promoted to brigadier general in the regular army after that. In 1865, Hancock was assigned to supervise the execution of the Lincoln assassination conspirators. In 1880, Hancock lost in a presidential bid against James A. Garfield. He passed away in 1886 at Governors Island and is buried in Montgomery Cemetery near Norristown, Pennsylvania.

  Major General George Gordon Meade was promoted to Brigadier General in the regular army and received the Thanks of Congress for his victory at Gettysburg. He would retain command of the Army of the Potomac for the rest of the war, serving under Ulysses S. Grant and fighting inconclusive battles against Lee’s fixed defenses in the 1864 campaign. Meade passed away in Philadelphia at the age of fifty-six in 1872, and is buried at Laurel Hill Cemetery.

  THE ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA

  Private Wesley Culp was killed fighting with the 2nd Virginia Infantry on his uncle’s land at Culp’s Hill on July 2. He was buried by members of his unit, but the gravesite was lost to time. In his pocket was the last letter from Johnston Skelly to Mary Virginia Wade, who never knew the fate of her fiancé before she was killed the following day.

  Colonel William Calvin Oates went on to fight again at Chickamauga, at the Battle of the Wilderness and at the Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse. Promoted to Brigadier General and given command of the 48th Alabama Regiment, we was badly wounded in the siege of Petersburg and lost his right arm. After the war, Oates returned to his law practice and was eventually elected in 1880 to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served seven consecutive terms. He was elected as Governor of Alabama in 1894. Oates passed away in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1910, at the age of seventy-four and is buried in Oakwood Cemetery.

  Brigadier General Lewis Addison Armistead died of his wounds at a Federal hospital on July 5. Lewis Armistead is buried next to his uncle, Lieutenant Colonel George Armistead, commander of the garrison of Fort McHenry during the Battle of Baltimore, at the Old Saint Paul’s Cemetery in Baltimore, Maryland.

  Major General James Ewell Brown Stuart fought valiantly on July 3 against Union cavalry and brilliantly defended Lee’s retreat to the Potomac in the following weeks. He was mortally wounded the following year on May 11, 1864, at Yellow Tavern, Virginia. One of the true Confederate heroes and among the best cavalry leaders, Gettysburg was the only serious blemish on his legendary career.

  Lieutenant General Richard Stoddert Ewell fought with his corps again in May 1864, in both the Battle of the Wilderness and the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House. Due to lingering effects of his wartime injuries and combat fatigue, Lee assigned Ewell to command the garrison of the Department of Richmond. After the war, Ewell retired to work as a “gentleman farmer” on his wife’s farm near Spring Hill, Tennessee. He passed away in 1872 at the age of fifty-four and is buried in Old City Cemetery in Nashville, Tennessee.

  “So far from engaging in a war to perpetuate slavery, I am rejoiced that Slavery is abolished. I believe it will be greatly for the interest of the South. So fully am I satisfied of this that I would have cheerfully lost all that I have lost by the war, and have suffered all that I have suffered to have this object attained.”

  —Robert E. Lee, May 1, 1870

  Lieutenant General Ambrose Powell Hill, Jr. fought with his Third Corps in the 1864 campaign in the Battles of the Wilderness and Spotsylvania Courthouse, Cold Harbor, and finally at the Siege of Petersburg. He was killed by an enemy sharpshooter on April 2, 1865, as he rode along the lines at Petersburg. He is buried in Richmond, Virginia.

  Lieutenant General James Longstreet remained in command of his First Corps and fought brilliantly at the Battle of the Wilderness, where he was badly wounded by a round through the shoulder. He recuperated in time to command the defenses of Richmond and retreated with Lee to Appomattox where they surrendered to Longstreet’s close friend, Ulysses S. Grant. After the war, Longstreet settled in New Orleans, where he entered business and later moved to Gainesvil
le, Georgia. Longstreet was the only Confederate general to join the Republican Party in the years after the Civil War, supporting Ulysses S. Grant’s run for the presidency in 1868. Often blamed for failing Lee at Gettysburg, Longstreet became a scapegoat for the “Lost Cause” of the Confederacy by those who wished to defend Lee’s reputation. Longstreet published his memoir, From Manassas to Appomattox, in 1896, in which he defended his actions. He passed away in 1902 at the age of eighty-two in Gainesville and is buried in Alta Vista Cemetery.

  General Robert E. Lee skillfully withdrew his army out of Pennsylvania after the battle and back to Virginia, where he took up defensive positions around Richmond. In 1864, Lee would face off against Ulysses S. Grant, who planned a massive campaign of maneuver and attrition against all Confederate armies with the aim to capture Richmond. Lee’s army fought heroically but was eventually forced to abandon Richmond and Petersburg, retreating westward toward Appomattox, where they were nearly surrounded in April of 1865 by Grant’s forces. Lee agreed to Grant’s generous terms of surrender for his army. After the war Lee became the president of what is now Washington and Lee University and was a leading advocate of reconciliation with the North. He died in 1870 at the age of sixty-three in Lexington, Virginia, and is buried at the Lee Chapel at Washington and Lee University. Lee’s citizenship was restored after a joint resolution of the U.S. Senate in 1975.

  PRESIDENT ABRAHAM LINCOLN

  Abraham Lincoln won re-election in 1864 by a landslide, aided greatly by major victories on the battlefield at the end of that year. The last few months of his life were devoted to passing the Thirteenth Amendment to abolish slavery and to bring an end to the war. In March 1865, just weeks before Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, Lincoln met with Generals Grant and Sherman and Admiral Porter aboard the River Queen to discuss the end of hostilities. Lincoln made his intentions clear: “I want no one punished.” These simple instructions paved the way for an end to the bloodshed and the start of reconciliation between North and South. A few weeks later, on April 14, Lincoln was assassinated at Ford’s Theater in Washington, DC, by the actor John Wilkes Booth, a Confederate sympathizer. The Thirteenth Amendment to end slavery was passed by the Senate on April 8, 1864, by the House on January 31, 1865, and adopted on December 6, 1865.

  “With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.”

  —Abraham Lincoln

  Appendix A

  ARMY OF THE POTOMAC ORDER OF BATTLE

  First Corps, commanded by Maj. Gen. John F. Reynolds, with divisions commanded by Brig. Gen. James S. Wadsworth, Brig. Gen. John C. Robinson, and Maj. Gen. Abner Doubleday.

  Second Corps, commanded by Maj. Gen. Winfield S. Hancock, with divisions commanded by Brig. Gens. John C. Caldwell, John Gibbon, and Alexander Hays.

  Third Corps, commanded by Maj. Gen. Daniel E. Sickles, with divisions commanded by Maj. Gen. David B. Birney and Maj. Gen. Andrew A. Humphreys.

  Fifth Corps, commanded by Maj. Gen. George Sykes (George G. Meade until June 28. 1863), with divisions commanded by Brig. Gens. James Barnes, Romeyn B. Ayres, and Samuel W. Crawford.

  Sixth Corps, commanded by Maj. Gen. John Sedgwick, with divisions commanded by Brig. Gen. Horatio G. Wright, Brig. Gen. Albion P. Howe, and Maj. Gen. John Newton.

  Eleventh Corps, commanded by Maj. Gen. Oliver O. Howard, with divisions commanded by Brig. Gen. Francis C. Barlow, Brig. Gen. Adolph von Steinwehr, and Maj. Gen. Carl Schurz.

  Twelfth Corps, commanded by Maj. Gen. Henry W. Slocum, with divisions commanded by Brig. Gens. Alpheus S. Williams and John W. Geary.

  Cavalry Corps, commanded by Maj. Gen. Alfred Pleasonton, with divisions commanded by Brig. Gens. John Buford, David McMurtrie Gregg, and H. Judson Kilpatrick.

  Artillery Reserve, commanded by Brig. Gen. Robert O. Tyler. (The preeminent artillery officer at Gettysburg was Brig. Gen. Henry J. Hunt, chief of artillery on Meade’s staff.)

  Union Casualties at Gettysburg:

  Killed: 3,155

  Wounded: 14,531

  Missing: 5,369

  Total: 23,055

  (from Regimental Strengths and Losses at Gettysburg by John W. Busey and David G. Martin.)

  ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA ORDERu OF BATTLE

  First Corps, commanded by Lt. Gen. James Longstreet, with divisions commanded by Maj. Gens. Lafayette McLaws, George E. Pickett, and John Bell Hood.

  Second Corps, commanded by Lt. Gen. Richard S. Ewell, with divisions commanded by Maj. Gens. Jubal A. Early, Edward “Allegheny” Johnson, and Robert E. Rodes.

  Third Corps, commanded by Lt. Gen. A. P. Hill, with divisions commanded by Maj. Gens. Richard H. Anderson, Henry Heth, and W. Dorsey Pender.

  Cavalry division, commanded by Maj. Gen. J. E. B. Stuart, with brigades commanded by Brig. Gens. Wade Hampton, Fitzhugh Lee, Beverly H. Robertson, Albert G. Jenkins, William E. “Grumble” Jones, and John D. Imboden, and Col. John R. Chambliss.

  Confederate Casualties at Gettysburg:

  Killed: 4,708

  Wounded: 12,693

  Missing: 5,830

  Total: 23,231

  Appendix B

  GETTYSBURG: INTERESTING FACTS AND TRIVIA

  ARMY MASCOTS

  The dog at the foot of the Irish Brigade’s monument at Gettysburg is an Irish wolfhound, the brigade’s mascot. Two Irish wolfhounds were adopted by the 69th New York Infantry and were clad in green coats bearing the number “69” in gold letters. They would parade immediately to the rear of the Regimental Color Guard. Most Civil War units, North and South, often adopted a mascot of some kind—dogs, cats, birds, bears, raccoons, badgers, and in one case, a camel.

  THE UNION CHEER VS. THE REBEL YELL

  The Irish Brigade was famous for its war cry, “Faugh a ballagh,” which means “clear the way.” Many Union units had their own war cries, and Union soldiers were famous for cheering on the battlefield to celebrate victory, or on occasion, to salute the gallantry of an enemy unit.

  The Confederate troops preferred their own form of battle cry called “the rebel yell.” It is said to be a high pitched “Wa-woo-woohoo, wa-woo woohoo” almost always reserved for the attack. Shelby Foote notes that historians are not quite sure how the yell sounded, being described as “a foxhunt yip mixed up with sort of a banshee squall.” Union Soldiers described the yell with reference to “a peculiar corkscrew sensation that went up your spine when you heard it,” along with the comment that “if you claim you heard it and weren’t scared that means you never heard it.”

  THE AMAZING DANIEL SICKLES

  Before the Civil War, Union General Dan Sickles shot and killed Phillip Barton Key, the son of Francis Scott Key in Lafayette Park in Washington, DC, over an alleged romance with Sickles’s wife. Sickles was acquitted of the murder by using the “not guilty by reason of insanity” defense, the first American to successfully make such a plea. One of his defense lawyers was Edwin M. Stanton, who became Secretary of War under President Lincoln. Sickles’s severed leg bone from his wounding at Gettysburg is still on display at the National Museum of Health and Medicine. He outlived all the other general officers who fought at Gettysburg, passing away on May 3, 1914, at the age of ninety-four, in New York City.

  THE UNION’S “MEDAL OF HONOR” VS. THE CONFEDERATE “ROLL OF HONOR”

  On July 12, 1862, Congress passed a resolution to establish the Medal of Honor for military personnel who “distinguished themselves by their gallantry in action.” Sixty-three soldiers received this award for their actions at Gettysburg, including Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain.

  The Confederate Congress authorized a Confederate Medal of Honor in October 1862, but no official awards for gallantry were ever issued to soldiers. Instead a
“Roll of Honor” was established to contain the names of deserving soldiers selected one-per-company by their peers at each engagement. To be “mentioned in dispatches” on official after-action reports was a great honor.

  ABRAHAM LINCOLN

  Lincoln was the tallest president. At 6 feet, 4 inches, Lincoln towered over most other people. The average height for a man during that time was about 5 feet, 6 inches. When seated, the president was about the same height as an average man; he just had exceptionally long legs. His height and appearance were often the subject of jokes he made about himself, which he used with great effect to gain the attention of onlookers before a speech. One of his favorite jokes was, “If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?”

  Lincoln’s stovepipe top hat served as more than fashionable headgear. He used it to store and carry notes, letters, and even bills. It is said he liked to wear his tall hat in order to be easily seen in a crowd and to stand above his political rivals.

  Before Abraham Lincoln, there had never been a U.S. president with a beard. Since his presidency, four presidents have had full beards.

  Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America, were born only a few dozen miles apart from each other in Kentucky.

  Abraham Lincoln was the first president to be born outside of the original thirteen states.

  Lincoln was a deeply religious Christian, but never formally joined any church. He read the Bible often. When asked if he thought the Lord was on the side of the North in the Civil War, Lincoln responded, “I am not at all concerned about that. . . But it is my constant anxiety and prayer that I and this nation should be on the Lord’s side.”