GETTYSBURG--SECOND DAY.
The Confederate Commander reviews the Field and decides on Plan of
Battle--Positions on the Morning of July 2--Night March of the Federal
Sixth Corps--It was excelled by Law's Brigade of Confederates--The
Battle was opened after Mid-day--General Hood appeals for Permission
to turn the Federal Left--Failure to make the Flanking Movement by the
Confederate Right was a Serious Mistake--Hood, in his usual Gallant
Style, led his Troops forward among the Rocks--Desperate Charges
against an Earnest Adversary--Hood wounded--General Law succeeds him
in command of the Division--"Little Round Top" an Important
Point--"The Citadel of the Field"--It was a Fight of Seventeen
Thousand Confederates against twice their Number--Quiet along the
Lines of other Confederate Commands--"A Man on the Left who didn't
care to make the Battle win"--Evidence against the Alleged Order for
"Battle at Sunrise"--The "Order" to Ewell was Discretionary--Lee had
lost his Balance.
The stars were shining brightly on the morning of the 2d when I reported
at General Lee's head-quarters and asked for orders. After a time Generals
McLaws and Hood, with their staffs, rode up, and at sunrise their commands
filed off the road to the right and rested. The Washington Artillery was
with them, and about nine o'clock, after an all-night march, Alexander's
batteries were up as far as Willoughby's Run, where he parked and fed, and
rode to head-quarters to report.
As indicated by these movements, General Lee was not ready with his plans.
He had not heard from his cavalry, nor of the movements of the enemy
further than the information from a despatch captured during the night,
that the Fifth Corps was in camp about five miles from Gettysburg, and the
Twelfth Corps was reported near Culp's Hill. As soon as it was light
enough to see, however, the enemy was found in position on his formidable
heights awaiting us.
[Illustration: BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG. July 2nd, 1863.]
The result of efforts during the night and early morning to secure Culp's
Hill had not been reported, and General Lee sent Colonel Venable of his
staff to confer with the commander of the Second Corps as to opportunity
to make the battle by his left. He was still in doubt whether it would be
better to move to his far-off right. About nine o'clock he rode to his
left to be assured of the position there, and of the general temper of
affairs in that quarter. After viewing the field, he held conference with
the corps and division commanders. They preferred to accept his judgment
and orders, except General Early, who claimed to have learned of the
topographical features of the country during his march towards York, and
recommended the right of the line as the point at which strong battle
should be made. About ten o'clock General Lee returned to his
head-quarters, but his engineer who had been sent to reconnoitre on his
right had not come back. To be at hand for orders, I remained with the
troops at his head-quarters. The infantry had arms stacked; the artillery
was at rest.
The enemy occupied the commanding heights of the city cemetery, from which
point, in irregular grade, the ridge slopes southward two miles and a half
to a bold outcropping height of three hundred feet called Little Round
Top, and farther south half a mile ends in the greater elevation called
Round Top. The former is covered from base to top by formidable boulders.
From the cemetery to Little Round Top was the long main front of General
Meade's position. At the cemetery his line turned to the northeast and
east and southeast in an elliptical curve, with his right on Culp's Hill.
At an early hour of the 2d the Union army was posted: the Twelfth Corps at
Culp's Hill, extending its left to Wadsworth's division of the First; on
Wadsworth's left the Eleventh Corps; on the left of the Eleventh the other
troops of the First; on their left the Second, and left of that to Little
Round Top the Third Corps; the Fifth Corps stood in reserve across the
bend from the right of the Twelfth to the left of the Second Corps. Thus
there was formed a field of tremendous power upon a convex curve, which
gave the benefit of rapid concentration at any point or points. The
natural defences had been improved during the night and early morning. The
Sixth Corps was marching from Manchester, twenty-two miles from
Gettysburg. Its first order, received near Manchester before night of the
1st, was to march for Taneytown, but after passing the Baltimore pike the
orders were changed, directing a prompt march to Gettysburg. The march has
been variously estimated from thirty to thirty-five miles, but the
distance from Manchester _via_ Taneytown to Gettysburg is only twenty-nine
miles, and as the ground for which the corps marched was three miles east
of Gettysburg, the march would have been only twenty-six miles _via_
Taneytown; as the corps marched back and took the Baltimore pike, some
distance must have been saved. It was on the field at three o'clock of the
afternoon,--the Union cavalry under General Pleasonton in reach.
The Confederate left was covering the north and east curve of the enemy's
line, Johnson's division near Culp's Hill, Early's and Rodes's extending
the line to the right through Gettysburg; Pender's division on the right
of Rodes's; the other divisions of the Third Corps resting on Seminary
Ridge, with McLaws's division and Hood's three brigades near general
head-quarters; Pickett's brigades and Law's of Hood's division at
Chambersburg and New Guilford, twenty-two and twenty-four miles away. Law
had received orders to join his division, and was on the march. The
cavalry was not yet heard from. The line so extended and twisted about the
rough ground that concentration at any point was not possible.
It was some little time after General Lee's return from his ride to the
left before he received the reports of the reconnoissance ordered from
his centre to his right. His mind, previously settled to the purpose to
fight where the enemy stood, now accepted the explicit plan of making the
opening on his right, and to have the engagement general. He ordered the
commander of the Third Corps to extend the centre by Anderson's division,
McLaws's and Hood's divisions to extend the deployment to his right.
Heth's division of the Third was drawn nearer the front, and notice of his
plans was sent the commander of the Second Corps.
At the intimation that the battle would be opened on the right by part of
the First Corps, Colonel Alexander was asked to act as director of
artillery, and sent to view the field in time to assign the batteries as
they were up. It was eleven o'clock when General Lee's order was issued,
but he had ordered Law's brigade to its division, and a wait of thirty
minutes was necessary for it to get up. Law had received his orders at
three in the morning, and had marched twenty-three miles. The
battle-ground was still five miles off by the route of march, but Law
completed his march of twenty-eight miles in eleven hours,--the best
marching done in either army to reach the field of Gettysburg.
The battle was to be opened on the right by two divisions of the First
Corps, supported on their left by four of the brigades of Anderson's
division; the opening to be promptly followed on Lee's left by the Second
Corps, and continued to real attack if the opportunity occurred; the Third
(centre) Corps to move to severe threatening and take advantage of
opportunity to attack; the movements of the Second and Third Corps to be
prompt, and in close, severe co-operation, so as to prevent concentration
against the battle of the right. The little cavalry that was with the army
was kept on the extreme left. Not so much as one trooper was sent us.
General Lee ordered his reconnoitring officer to lead the troops of the
First Corps and conduct them by a route concealed from view of the enemy.
As I was relieved for the time from the march, I rode near the middle of
the line. General Lee rode with me a mile or more. General Anderson
marched by a route nearer the enemy's line, and was discovered by General
Sickles, who commanded the Third Corps, the left of the Union line. A
little uncomfortable at his retired position, and seeing that the battle
was forming against him, General Sickles thought to put the Third Maine
Regiment and the Berdan Sharp-shooters on outpost in a bold woodland
cover, to develop somewhat of the approaching battle, and presently threw
his corps forward as far as the Peach Orchard, half a mile forward of the
position assigned to it in the general line. The Tenth Alabama Regiment
was sent against the outpost guard, and, reinforced by the Eleventh
Regiment, drove it back, and Anderson's division found its place in proper
line.
General Birney's account of the affair at the outpost puts it at twelve
o'clock, and the signal accounts, the only papers dated on the field,
reported,--
"The enemy's skirmishers advancing from the west one mile from
here--11.45."
And presently,--
"The rebels are in force; our skirmishers give way--12.55."
There is no room for doubt of the accuracy of these reports, which go to
show that it was one o'clock in the afternoon when the Third Corps, upon
which the First Corps was to form, was in position.
Under the conduct of the reconnoitring officer, our march seemed
slow,--there were some halts and countermarches. To save time, I ordered
the rear division to double on the front, and we were near the affair of
Anderson's regiments with the outpost guard of Sickles. Anderson's
division deployed,--Wilcox's, Perry's, Wright's, Posey's, and Mahone's
brigades from right to left.
General Hood was ordered to send his select scouts in advance, to go
through the woodlands and act as vedettes, in the absence of cavalry, and
give information of the enemy, if there. The double line marched up the
slope and deployed,--McLaws on the right of Anderson, Hood's division on
his right, McLaws near the crest of the plateau in front of the Peach
Orchard, Hood spreading and enveloping Sickles's left. The former was
readily adjusted to ground from which to advance or defend. Hood's front
was very rugged, with no field for artillery, and very rough for advance
of infantry. As soon as he passed the Emmitsburg road, he sent to report
of the great advantage of moving on by his right around to the enemy's
rear. His scouting parties had reported that there was nothing between
them and the enemy's trains. He was told that the move to the right had
been proposed the day before and rejected; that General Lee's orders were
to guide my left by the Emmitsburg road.
In our immediate front were the divisions of the Third Corps under
Generals Humphreys and Birney, from right to left, with orders for
supports of the flanks by divisions of the Second and Fifth Corps. The
ground on the left of Birney's division was so broken and obstructed by
boulders that his left was dropped off to the rear, forming a broken line.
In rear of the enemy, and between his lines and Little Round Top, was a
very rough elevation of eighty feet formed by upheavals that left open
passage deep down Devil's Den. Smith's battery was on Birney's left,
Winslow's between the right and next brigade. Other batteries in position
were Clark's, Ames's, Randolph's, Seeley's, and Turnbull's.
As McLaws's division came up on line, Barksdale's brigade was in front of
a battery about six hundred yards off. He appealed for permission to
charge and capture it, but was told to wait. On his right was Kershaw's
brigade, the brigades of Semmes and Wofford on the second line. Hood's
division was in two lines,--Law's and Robertson's brigades in front, G. T.
Anderson's and Benning's in the second line. The batteries were with the
divisions,--four to the division. One of G. T. Anderson's regiments was
put on picket down the Emmitsburg road.
General Hood appealed again and again for the move to the right, but, to
give more confidence to his attack, he was reminded that the move to the
right had been carefully considered by our chief and rejected in favor of
his present orders.
The opportunity for our right was in the air. General Halleck saw it from
Washington. General Meade saw and was apprehensive of it. Even General
Pendleton refers to it in favorable mention in his official report.
Failing to adopt it, General Lee should have gone with us to his right. He
had seen and carefully examined the left of his line, and only gave us a
guide to show the way to the right, leaving the battle to be adjusted to
formidable and difficult grounds without his assistance. If he had been
with us, General Hood's messengers could have been referred to general
head-quarters, but to delay and send messengers five miles in favor of a
move that he had rejected would have been contumacious. The opportunity
was with the Confederates from the assembling on Cemetery Hill. It was
inviting of their preconceived plans. It was the object of and excuse for
the invasion as a substitute for more direct efforts for the relief of
Vicksburg. Confederate writers and talkers claim that General Meade could
have escaped without making aggressive battle, but that is equivalent to
confession of the inertia that failed to grasp the opportunity.
Beaten in the battle of the 1st, dislodged of position, and outgeneralled,
the Union army would have felt the want of spirit and confidence important
to aggressive battle; but the call was in the hands of the Confederates,
and these circumstances would have made their work more facile, while the
Union commander would have felt the call to save his capital most
imperative. Even as events passed it was thought helpful to the Union side
to give out the report that General McClellan was at hand and would
command the army.
Four of the brigades of Anderson's division were ordered to advance in
echelon in support of my left.
At three o'clock the artillery was ordered to open practice. General Meade
was then with General Sickles discussing the feasibility of withdrawing
his corps to the position to which it was originally assigned, but the
opening admonished him that it was too late. He had just sent a cipher
telegram to inform General Halleck, commander-in-chief, that in the event
of his having no opportunity to attack, and should he find the
Confederates moving to interpose between him and Washington, he would fall
back on his supplies at Westminster.[125] But my right division was then
nearer to Westminster, and our scouting parties of infantry were within
rifle range of the road leading to that point and to Washington. So it
would have been convenient, after holding our threatening attitude till
night, to march across his line at dark, in time to draw other troops to
close connection before the next morning.
Prompt to the order the combat opened, followed by artillery of the other
corps, and our artillerists measured up to the better metal of the enemy
by vigilant work. Hood's lines were not yet ready. After a little practice
by the artillery, he was properly adjusted and ordered to bear down upon
the enemy's left, but he was not prompt, and the order was repeated before
he would strike down.[126]
In his usual gallant style he led his troops through the rocky fastnesses
against the strong lines of his earnest adversary, and encountered battle
that called for all of his power and skill. The enemy was tenacious of his
strong ground; his skilfully-handled batteries swept through the passes
between the rocks; the more deadly fire of infantry concentrated as our
men bore upon the angle of the enemy's line and stemmed the fiercest
onset, until it became necessary to shorten their work by a desperate
charge. This pressing struggle and the cross-fire of our batteries broke
in the salient angle, but the thickening fire, as the angle was pressed
back, hurt Hood's left and held him in steady fight. His right brigade was
drawn towards Round Top by the heavy fire pouring from that quarter,
Benning's brigade was pressed to the thickening line at the angle, and G.
T. Anderson's was put in support of the battle growing against Hood's
right.
I rode to McLaws, found him ready for his opportunity, and Barksdale
chafing in his wait for the order to seize the battery in his front.
Kershaw's brigade of his right first advanced and struck near the angle of
the enemy's line where his forces were gathering strength. After
additional caution to hold his ranks closed, McLaws ordered Barksdale in.
With glorious bearing he sprang to his work, overriding obstacles and
dangers. Without a pause to deliver a shot, he had the battery. Kershaw,
joined by Semmes's brigade, responded, and Hood's men, feeling the
impulsion of relief, resumed their bold fight, and presently the enemy's
line was broken through its length. But his well-seasoned troops knew how
to utilize the advantage of their grounds and put back their dreadful
fires from rocks, depressions, and stone fences, as they went for shelter
about Little Round Top.
That point had not been occupied by the enemy, nor marked as an important
feature of the field. The broken ranks sought shelter under its rocks and
defiles as birds fly to cover. General Hood fell seriously hurt, and
General Law succeeded to command of the division, but the well-seasoned
troops were not in need of a close guiding hand. The battle was on, and
they knew how to press its hottest contention.
General Warren, chief engineer of the Federal army, was sent at the
critical moment to Little Round Top, and found that it was the citadel of
the field. He called for troops to occupy it. The Fifth Corps (Sykes's)
was hurried to him, and General Hancock sent him Caldwell's division of
the Second Corps. At the Brick House, away from his right, General Sickles
had a detachment that had been reinforced by General Hancock. This fire
drew Anderson's brigade of direction (Wilcox) a little off from support of
Barksdale's left. General Humphreys, seeing the opportunity, rallied such
of his troops as he could, and, reinforced by Hays's division (Willard's
brigade) of Hancock's corps, came against Barksdale's flank, but the
latter moved bravely on, the guiding spirit of the battle. Wright's
Georgia and Perry's Florida brigades were drawn in behind Wilcox and
thrown against Humphreys, pushing him off and breaking him up.
The fighting had by this time become tremendous, and brave men and
officers were stricken by hundreds. Posey and Wilcox dislodged the forces
about the Brick House.
General Sickles was desperately wounded!
General Willard was dead!
General Semmes, of McLaws's division, was mortally wounded!
Our left relieved, the brigades of Anderson's division moved on with
Barksdale's, passed the swale, and moved up the slope. Caldwell's
division, and presently those of Ayres and Barnes of the Fifth Corps, met
and held our strongest battle. While thus engaged, General Sykes succeeded
in putting Vincent's and Weed's brigades and Hazlett's battery on the
summit of Little Round Top, but presently we overreached Caldwell's
division, broke it off, and pushed it from the field. Of his brigade
commanders, Zook was killed, and Brooke and Cross were wounded, the
latter mortally. General Hancock reported sixty per cent. of his men lost.
On our side, Barksdale was down dying, and G. T. Anderson wounded.
We had carried Devil's Den, were at the Round Tops and the Wheat-Field,
but Ayres's division of regulars and Barnes's division were holding us in
equal battle. The struggle throughout the field seemed at its tension. The
brigades of R. H. Anderson's division could hold off other troops of
Hancock's, but were not strong enough to step to the enemy's lines. When
Caldwell's division was pushed away, Ayres's flank and the gorge at Little
Round Top were only covered by a sharp line of picket men behind the
boulders. If we could drive in the sharp-shooters and strike Ayres's flank
to advantage, we could dislodge his and Barnes's divisions, occupy the
gorge behind Sykes's brigades on Round Top, force them to retreat, and
lift our desperate fighters to the summit. I had one
brigade--Wofford's--that had not been engaged in the hottest battle. To
urge the troops to their reserve power in the precious moments, I rode
with Wofford. The rugged field, the rough plunge of artillery fire, and
the piercing musket-shots delayed somewhat the march, but Alexander dashed
up with his batteries and gave new spirit to the worn infantry ranks. By a
fortunate strike upon Ayres's flank we broke his line and pushed him and
Barnes so closely that they were obliged to use most strenuous efforts to
get away without losing in prisoners as well as their killed and wounded.
We gained the Wheat-Field, and were so close upon the gorge that our
artillery could no longer venture their fire into it. We were on Little
Round Top grappling for the crowning point. The brigade commanders there,
Vincent and Weed, were killed, also the battery commander, Hazlett, and
others, but their troops were holding to their work as firmly as the
mighty boulders that helped them. General Meade thought that the
Confederate army was working on my part of the field. He led some
regiments of the Twelfth Corps and posted them against us, called a
division of Newton's corps (First) from beyond Hancock's, and sent
Crawford's division, the last of the Fifth Corps, splitting through the
gorge, forming solid lines, in places behind stone fences, and making
steady battle, as veterans fresh in action know so well how to make. While
Meade's lines were growing my men were dropping; we had no others to call
to their aid, and the weight against us was too heavy to carry. The
extreme left of our lines was only about a mile from us across the enemy's
concentric position, which brought us within hearing of that battle, if
engaged, and near enough to feel its swell, but nothing was heard or felt
but the clear ring of the enemy's fresh metal as he came against us. No
other part of our army had engaged! My seventeen thousand against the Army
of the Potomac! The sun was down, and with it went down the severe battle.
I ordered recall of the troops to the line of Plum Run and Devil's Den,
leaving picket lines near the foot of the Round Tops. My loss was about
six thousand, Meade's between twelve and fourteen thousand; but his loss
in general and field officers was frightful. When General Humphreys, who
succeeded to Barksdale's brigade, was called back to the new line, he
thought there was some mistake in the orders, and only withdrew as far as
a captured battery, and when the order was repeated, retired under
protest.
General Stuart came down from Carlisle with his column of cavalry late in
the afternoon of the 2d. As he approached he met a cavalry force of the
enemy moving towards the Confederate left rear, and was successful in
arresting it. He was posted with Jenkins's three thousand cavalry[127] on
the Confederate left.
Notwithstanding the supreme order of the day for general battle, and the
reinforcement of the cavalry on our left, the Second and Third Corps
remained idle during all of the severe battle of the Confederate right,
except the artillery, and the part of that on the extreme left was only in
practice long enough to feel the superior metal of the enemy, when it
retired, leaving a battery of four guns in position. General Early failed
to even form his division in battle order, leaving a brigade in position
remote from the line, and sending, later, another to be near Stuart's
cavalry. The latter returned, however, before night.
At eight o'clock in the evening the division on our extreme left, E.
Johnson's, advanced. The brigades were J. M. Jones's, Nicholls's,
Steuart's, and Walker's. Walker's was detached, as they moved, to look for
a detachment of the enemy reported threatening the far away left. When the
three brigades crossed Rock Creek it was night. The enemy's line to be
assaulted was occupied by Greene's brigade of the Twelfth Corps. It was
reinforced by three regiments of Wadsworth's division and three from the
Eleventh Corps. After brave attack and defence, part of the line was
carried, when the fight, after a severe fusillade between the infantry
lines, quieted, and Walker's brigade returned to the division. Part of the
enemy's trenches, east of the point attacked (across a swale), vacated
when the corps moved over to the left, General Johnson failed to occupy.
Before this, General Rodes discovered that the enemy, in front of his
division, was drawing off his artillery and infantry to my battle of the
right, and suggested to General Early that the moment had come for the
divisions to attack, and drew his forces from entanglements about the
streets to be ready. After E. Johnson's fight on our extreme left, General
Early ordered two brigades under General Harry T. Hays to attack. Hays had
with his Louisiana brigade Hoke's North Carolina brigade under Colonel
Avery. He made as gallant a fight as was ever made. Mounting to the top of
the hill, he captured a battery, and pushed on in brave order, taking some
prisoners and colors, until he discovered that his two brigades were
advancing in a night affair against a grand army, when he found that he
was fortunate in having night to cover his weakness, and withdrew. The
gallant Colonel Avery, mortally wounded and dying, wrote on a slip of
paper, "_Tell father that I died with my face to the enemy_." When Rodes
was prepared, Hays had retired, and the former did not see that it was
part of the order for general engagement to put his division in night
attack that could not be supported.
[Illustration: SECOND DAY'S BATTLE, GETTYSBURG]
Thus the general engagement of the day was dwarfed into the battle of the
right at three o'clock, that on the left at eight by a single division,
and that nearer the centre at nine o'clock by two brigades.
There was a man on the left of the line who did not care to make the
battle win. He knew where it was, had viewed it from its earliest
formation, had orders for his part in it, but so withheld part of his
command from it as to make co-operative concert of action impracticable.
He had a pruriency for the honors of the field of Mars, was eloquent,
before the fires of the bivouac and his chief, of the glory of war's gory
shield; but when its envied laurels were dipping to the grasp, when the
heavy field called for bloody work, he found the placid horizon, far and
away beyond the cavalry, more lovely and inviting. He wanted command of
the Second Corps, and, succeeding to it, held the honored position until
General Lee found, at last, that he must dismiss him from field service.
General Lee ordered Johnson's division of his left, occupying part of the
enemy's trenches about Culp's Hill, to be reinforced during the night of
the 2d by two brigades of Rodes's division and one of Early's division.
Why the other brigades of those divisions were not sent does not appear,
but it does appear that there was a place for them on Johnson's left, in
the trenches that were vacated by the Federal Twelfth Corps when called
over to reinforce the battle of Meade's left. Culp's Hill bore the same
relations to the enemy's right as Little Round Top did to his left.
General Fitzhugh Lee quotes evidence from General Meade that had Culp's
Hill been occupied, in force, by Confederates, it would have compelled the
withdrawal of the Federal troops.[128]
General Meade, after the battle of his left, ordered the divisions of his
Twelfth Corps back to their trenches, to recover the parts occupied by the
Confederate left. It was night when the First Division approached. General
Ruger, commanding, thought to feel his way through the dark by a line of
skirmishers. He found the east end of his trenches, across the swale,
unoccupied, and took possession. Pressing his adventure, he found the main
line of his works occupied by the Confederates in force, and disposed his
command to wait for daylight. The Second Division came during the night,
when General Williams, commanding the corps, posted it on the left of the
First, and the division commanders ordered batteries in proper positions.
During the night, General Meade held a council, which decided to fight it
out. So it began to look as if the vicissitudes of the day had so worked
as to call General Meade from defensive to aggressive battle for Culp's
Hill. But the Confederates failed to see the opportunity and force the
issue as it was presented.
In General Meade's evidence before the Committee on the Conduct of the
War, he puts his losses of the first and second days at twenty thousand,
and assigns two-thirds of these to the battle of the 2d. As the fighting
against the three brigades of our left after night, and two brigades,
later in the night, from our centre, could not have been very severe, I
claim that his loss in the battle of his left was from twelve to fourteen
thousand.
As events of the battle of the 2d passed, it seems fair to claim that with
Pickett's brigades present at the moment of Wofford's advance for the
gorge at Little Round Top, we could have had it before Crawford was there.
Under ordinary circumstances this account of the second day, made from the
records, would be complete and conclusive; but the battle of Gettysburg,
which may be called the epitome of the war, has been the subject of many
contentions of words. Knights of the quill have consumed many of their
peaceful hours in publishing, through books, periodicals, and newspapers,
their plans for the battle, endeavoring to forestall the records and to
find a scapegoat, and their representations may be given, though they do
not deserve it, a word of reply.
General W. N. Pendleton led off when making a lecturing tour through the
South for a memorial church for General Lee. He claims that he made a
reconnoissance on the afternoon of the 1st of July, and that upon his
reporting it, General Lee ordered General Longstreet to attack at sunrise
the next day. He did not venture to charge that the Second and Third
Corps, that were on the field and had had a good night's rest, were part
of the command ordered for the early battle, for the commanders, both
Virginians, and not under the political ban, could have brought confusing
evidence against him; nor did he intend to put General Lee in the
anomalous position, inferentially, of ordering part of the First
Corps--that should march through the night and all night--to make the
battle alone. The point of battle was east of the Emmitsburg road; to find
it, it was necessary to cross that road, but General Sickles was moving
part of his corps over the road during that afternoon, and rested there
the latter part of the day and during the night. So, to make the
reconnoissance, General Pendleton passed the Union troops in Confederate
uniform--he was military in his dress--and found the point of battle.
Giving him credit, for the moment, for this delicate work and the mythical
order, let us find the end to which it would lead.
The only troops that could come under the order were McLaws's division,
part of Hood's, and the artillery,--about ten thousand men. These, after a
hurried all-night's march, reached General Lee's head-quarters about
sunrise of the 2d, and by continued forced march could have reached the
point of battle, about five miles away, by seven o'clock, where they would
have encountered a division of the Third Corps (Birney's); presently the
Second and Fifth Corps under Hancock and Sykes; then the First, Eleventh,
and Twelfth under Newton, Howard, and Slocum; then the balance of the
Third coming in on our rear along the Emmitsburg road,--making sixty
thousand men and more. There was reason to be proud of the prowess of the
troops of the First Corps, but to credit a part of it with success under
the circumstances was not reasonable.
That the Confederate Second Corps did not have orders for the alleged
sunrise battle is evidenced by the report of its commander, who,
accounting for his work about Culp's Hill during the night of the 1st and
morning of the 2d, reported of the morning, "It was now daylight, and too
late," meaning that it was too late for him to attack and carry that hill,
as General Lee had authorized and expected him to do during the night
before. If he had been ordered to take part in the sunrise battle, he
would have been in the nick of time. That the Third Corps was not to be in
it is evidenced by the position of the greater part of it on Seminary
Ridge until near noon of the 2d. So General Lee must have ordered a
position carried, at sunrise, by ten thousand men, after it had gathered
strength all night,--a position that he would not assault on the afternoon
of the 1st with forty thousand men, lest they should encounter
"overwhelming numbers."[129]
As the other corps, after receiving their orders for the afternoon battle
of the 2d, failed to engage until after nightfall, it is not probable that
they would have found the sunrise battle without orders.
General Pendleton's official report is in conflict with his memorial
lecture. In the former he makes no reference to the sunrise-battle order,
but mentions a route by which the left of the enemy could be turned.
Letters from the active members of General Lee's staff and from his
military secretary, General A. L. Long, show that the sunrise battle was
not ordered, and a letter from Colonel Fairfax shows that the claim that
it was so ordered was set up after General Lee's death.[130]
In a published account, General Long mentions my suggestion on the
afternoon of the 1st for the turning march around the enemy's left, which
he says, after consideration, was rejected.[131]
Colonel Taylor claims that the attack by the Confederate right should have
been sooner, and should have met the enemy back on his first or original
line, and before Little Round Top was occupied. But Little Round Top was
not occupied in force until after my battle opened, and General Sickles's
advance to his forward lines was made in consequence of the Confederate
threatening, and would have been sooner or later according as that
threatening was made. He calls the message of General Lee to General Ewell
on the afternoon of the 1st an order. General Lee says,--
"The strong position which the enemy had assumed could not be attacked
without danger of exposing the four divisions present, exhausted by a
long and bloody struggle, to overwhelming numbers of fresh troops.
General Ewell was thereupon instructed to carry the hill occupied by
the enemy if he found it practicable."
It is the custom of military service to accept instructions of a commander
as orders, but when they are coupled with conditions that transfer the
responsibility of battle and defeat to the subordinate, they are not
orders, and General Ewell was justifiable in not making attack that his
commander would not order, and the censure of his failure is unjust and
_very ungenerous_.
The Virginia writers have been so eager in their search for a flaw in the
conduct of the battle of the First Corps that they overlook the only point
into which they could have thrust their pens.
At the opening of the fight, General Meade was with General Sickles
discussing the feasibility of moving the Third Corps back to the line
originally assigned for it, but the discussion was cut short by the
opening of the Confederate battle. If that opening had been delayed thirty
or forty minutes the corps would have been drawn back to the general line,
and my first deployment would have enveloped Little Round Top and carried
it before it could have been strongly manned, and General Meade would have
drawn off to his line selected behind Pipe Creek. The point should have
been that the battle was opened too soon.
Another point from which they seek comfort is that Sedgwick's corps
(Sixth) was not up until a late hour of the 2d, and would not have been on
the field for an earlier battle. But Sedgwick was not engaged in the late
battle, and could have been back at Manchester, so far as the afternoon
battle was concerned. And they harp a little on the delay of thirty
minutes for Law's brigade to join its division. But General Lee called for
the two divisions, and had called for Law's brigade to join his division.
It was therefore his order for the division that delayed the march. To
have gone without it would have justified censure. As we were not strong
enough for the work with that brigade, it is not probable that we could
have accomplished more without it.
Colonel Taylor says that General Lee urged that the march of my troops
should be hastened, and was chafed at their non-appearance. Not one word
did he utter to me of their march until he gave his orders at eleven
o'clock for the move to his right. Orders for the troops to hasten their
march of the 1st were sent without even a suggestion from him, but upon
his announcement that he intended to fight the next day, if the enemy was
there.[132] That he was excited and off his balance was evident on the
afternoon of the 1st, and he labored under that oppression until enough
blood was shed to appease him.