On the march from Chambersburg we learned that General Meade had
been placed in command of the Union Army, and we pushed on towards
Gettysburg, where A. P. Hill’s Corps had been heavily engaged. This
day I was prostrated by sickness, and rode in an ambulance until
nearly night, when I managed to get on my horse and go down to
the battle-field. Longstreet himself has described admirably the
fighting the next day; and, careless as he generally was of himself
under fire, he nowhere else exposed himself more recklessly. One
charge he led in person, and some prisoners whom we captured, when
they learned who it was that had ridden in front of our advancing
line, said they might expect to get whipped when a Corps commander
exposed himself in that way to show his men how to fight.
The following day, July 3, the ever-memorable battle of Gettysburg
was fought. Every arrangement was made to shell the enemy’s
position, on Cemetery Hill, and follow this up by an attack in
force. The whole of the long range guns in the army were placed
in battery along the low range of hills which we occupied, and at
three o’clock the cannonading began. The enemy made prompt reply.
Three or four hundred pieces of artillery were being fired as
rapidly as the cannoneers could load them. Being in the centre of
the front line, I had an excellent view of the fight. It was a
hellish scene. The air was dotted with clouds of smoke where shells
had burst, and the fragments of shell and the solid shot were
screaming and shrieking in every direction. Through it all, General
Longstreet was as unmoved as a statue, watching placidly the
enemy’s lines. In the meanwhile Pickett’s Division had been formed
in readiness for the charge. Three of his brigades were present;
those of Kemper, Armistead and Garnett, composed exclusively of
Virginians. Prayers were offered up in front of Armistead’s brigade
and Garnett’s brigade, before the advance began. Garnett remarked
to Armistead: “This is a desperate thing to attempt.” Brave old
Armistead replied: “It is; but the issue is with the Almighty, and
we must leave it in his hands.” Just then a hare which had been
lying in the bushes, sprang up and leaped rapidly to the rear. A
gaunt Virginian, with an earnestness that struck a sympathetic
chord in many a breast, yelled out: “Run old heah; if I were an old
heah I would run too.” The artillery firing ceased, and the order
to advance was given. Pickett was in the centre, with Wilcox’s
Division on the right, and Pender’s, commanded by Pettigrew, on
the left. The thin grey line of Virginians moved as steadily as on
parade, the battle flags catching a deeper red from the sun. Well
in front of their brigades were Kemper, and Garnett, and Armistead.
The last named was bare-headed, his grey locks floating in the
breeze. Waving his sabre and hat in hand, he cheered on his men.
They did what men could do; but more had been expected of them
than mortal men could accomplish. Armistead was mortally wounded
inside the enemy’s works. Garnett was killed instantly. Kemper was
severely wounded, and supposed to be dying. My recollection is that
only one field officer in Pickett’s Division escaped unhurt.
The attack had been made and had failed. There was a terrible gap
in our line, and the enemy threatened to advance. In the meanwhile
the staff officers were busily engaged in rallying the men, who had
made their way back from the front. I suppose that I was the first
man to whom Pickett spoke when he reached the line. With tears
in his eyes, he said to me: “Why did you not halt my men here?
Great God, where, oh! where is my division?” I told him that he
saw around him what there was left of it. General Lee, of course,
took all the blame on himself. As was well said by a writer at
this time: “General Lee was grand on the smoke-crowned hills of
Petersburg, on the sanguinary field of Chancellorsville, and on
the tragic plains of Manassas; but when at Gettysburg he told his
men, ‘It is my fault’, he rose above his race, and communed with
the angels of heaven.” That sad night not more than three hundred
men remained to us of what had been one of the finest divisions
in the service. The remnants of the companies were commanded by
corporals and sergeants; regiments by lieutenants; and a brigade by
a Major. Never had Virginia suffered a heavier blow. The division
was composed of the flower of her children, and there was weeping
and desolation in every part of the Old Dominion.
It was in every way an ugly time. There was always considerable
difficulty in obtaining a sufficient supply of artillery
ammunition. The first trouble was in making it, and the second was
in finding transportation for it. At no time did we have so large
a reserve as was necessary. What was true of the artillery was
true in a less degree of the infantry. There was even some delay
on our march into Pennsylvania in consequence of the detention of
a train of ordnance wagons, which did not arrive when expected.
A brigade of infantry with a battery of artillery, was sent as
an escort; for had that train been captured it would have been
risking too much to advance farther. The terrible cannonade on
the third day at Gettysburg exhausted the whole of the artillery
ammunition in reserve. My recollection is, that there was no long
range ammunition left except what was in the caissons and limber
chests. Under such circumstances, and having lost so heavily in
the attack on Cemetery Hill, General Lee determined to retreat to
Virginia; but we lay one day at least on the field awaiting the
attack which Meade did not venture to make. The Union forces had
suffered severely; but they could stand the loss of men better than
we could; and they had a right to claim Gettysburg as a decisive
victory, for we had failed utterly in what we had undertaken.
The march back to the Potomac was dreary and miserable indeed.
The rain fell in torrents. The clothing of the men was worn and
tattered, and too many of them were without shoes. It was a
heart-breaking business, and gloom settled down upon the army. The
enemy’s cavalry made an attempt to cut us off at Williamsport,
where the river was too high for fording, and they would have
succeeded but for the gallantry of the wagoners and “Company Q”
(the stragglers, and the disabled men with the trains), who had a
free fight with them, and drove them back. We crossed the river
on a pontoon bridge, leaving the cavalry in the entrenchments at
Williamsport, and plodded our way back towards Winchester. Just
about this time we received the news of the fall of Vicksburg. It
needed only this to intensify the feeling that the star of the
Confederacy was setting.
Passing from grave to gay, I may mention here that a sad trick
was played on me by Captain Innes Randolph, an Engineer officer
at our head-quarters. While we were at Bunker Hill, on the way to
Winchester, he invited me to dine with him, saying that his mess
had a very fine ’possum, which would be a novelty to me if I had
not tasted that succulent dish. It was finely served, and merited
the encomiums that Randolph lavished upon it. He was careful,
besides, to tell me that I should find, as I did, that it tasted
very much like roast sucking pig. Two or three years afterwards
Randolph told me that this famous dish was not ’possum after
all, but a sucking pig which he had bagged in the neighborhood,
and which he had dubbed ’possum in order to spare me the pain of
banqueting on a dish that I knew to be ---- I was going to say
“stolen,” but we called it “captured” in the army.
Resuming our march, we passed through Millwood and Chester Gap,
where we had a slight skirmish with the enemy. One of our brigades
charged across a field which was thick with blackberry bushes. The
fruit was ripe, and as the men moved forward firing they would
pick the blackberries and hastily eat them. No troops ever showed
more indifference to danger, or took fighting more as a matter of
course, than the veterans of the Army of Northern Virginia.
We went into camp at Culpepper Court House, and remained there a
considerable time.