between the two Union corps, and promptly pushed his soldiers into
it; but they were not to get possession so easily, for Doubleday
now ordered up his last division to stem the tide surging in upon
his uncovered flank. These troops gallantly rushed into the breach,
where a murderous contest began at close quarters, with the result
that, failing to close up the gap, the division was finally drawn
around the point of the ridge, where the Mummasburg road descends
into the plain, so forming a natural bastion from which the Union
soldiers now drove back their assailants with great slaughter. Many
of Iverson's brigade were literally lying dead in their ranks after
this repulse.
In front of Meredith, who still held the wood, and Stone's
"Bucktails," who lay at their right, "no rebel crossed the run for
one hour and lived." Beyond them Biddle was still holding his own
at the left, though his ranks were fast thinning. On both sides
the losses were enormous. In twenty-five minutes Heth had lost two
thousand seven hundred out of seven thousand men. This division
having been fought out, Pender's was brought up, the artillery
redoubled its fire, Rodes pushed his five brigades forward again,
and a general advance of comparatively fresh troops was begun all
along the line.
But it was on the right that disaster first fell with crushing force.
[Sidenote: Early strikes in.]
Here Rodes' assault on the left of the Eleventh Corps met stout
resistance. But while the troops here were fighting or shifting
positions to repel Rodes' rapid blows, Early's division was seen
advancing down the Harrisburg road against the right, which it
almost immediately struck. Thus reinforced and connected, not quite
one-half of Lee's whole army was now closing in around two-sevenths
of the Union army.
Obstinate fighting now took place all along the line. The First
Corps held out some time longer against repeated assaults, losing
men fast, but also inflicting terrible punishment upon their
assailants, Rodes alone losing two thousand five hundred men before
he could carry the positions before him. The Confederate veterans,
though not used to praising their opponents, freely said that the
First Union Corps did the fiercest fighting on this day of which
they ever had any experience.
[Sidenote: His Attack is decisive.]
But Early's attack on the right, though sternly resisted by Barlow,
proved the last straw in this case. The right division being rolled
back in disorder by an assault made both in front and flank, the
left also gave way in its turn, and soon the whole corps was in full
retreat across the fields to the town, which the exultant enemy
entered along with them, picking up a great many prisoners on the
way or in the streets, notwithstanding a brigade of the reserve came
down from Cemetery Hill to check the pursuit.
[Sidenote: All in Retreat.]
[Sidenote: Union Losses.]
The Eleventh Corps being thus swept away, the First fell back
rather forsaken than defeated, a few regiments on the left making a
final stand at the seminary to enable those on the right to shake
off their pursuers. But at last the winding lines came down from
Seminary Ridge into the plain. Buford's cavalry again came to the
rescue in this part of the field, riding with drawn sabres between
pursuers and pursued, so that the Confederates hastily formed some
squares to repel a charge, while the wreck of the Union line,
disdaining to run, doggedly fell back toward the town, halting now
and then to turn and fire a parting volley or rally its stragglers
round their colors. It was not hard pushed except at the extreme
right, where some of Robinson's division fell into the enemy's
hands; nor did resistance cease until its decimated battalions
again closed up their ranks on the brow of Cemetery Hill--noble
relic of one of the hardest-fought battles of this war. Of the
eight thousand two hundred men who had gone into action in the
morning, five thousand seven hundred and fifty had been left on the
blood-dyed summit of Oak Ridge, or in the enemy's hands. The losses
were frightful. In one brigade alone, one thousand two hundred and
three men had fallen. In all, the losses more than equalled half the
effective strength.
The Eleventh Corps also lost heavily, though mostly in prisoners. In
both corps ten thousand soldiers were missing at roll-call.
[Sidenote: The Enemy in Gettysburg.]
Early's soldiers were now swarming about Gettysburg in great
spirits. Hays' brigade alone entered the town, Avery going into
a field on the East, and the others out on the York road. Rodes
presently came up at the west, much disordered from his pursuit
of Robinson. These Confederates then set about re-forming their
shattered ranks, under the fire of the Union artillery from Cemetery
Hill and of the sharp-shooters posted in the houses along its
slopes. This fire became so galling that the enemy's infantry were
obliged to get under cover of the nearest ridges or houses. In this
way Ewell's Corps came to be planted nearest the approaches to
Cemetery Hill.
[Sidenote: Heth and Pender.]
Heth and Pender did not advance beyond Seminary Ridge. They had had
fighting enough for one day.[42] Lee was also there examining the
new Union position through his glass. Notwithstanding the general
elation visible about him, the victory did not seem quite complete
to Lee so long as the Federals still maintained their defiant
attitude at the Cemetery. There was evidently more, and perhaps
harder, work ahead.
There is no evading the plain, if unwelcome, truth that this
battle had been lost, and two corps of the Union army nearly
destroyed, for want of a little more decision when decision was most
urgently called for, and a little more energy when activity was
all-important. The fate of most great battles has been decided by an
hour or two, more or less. Two of indecision decided this one.
[33] Buford's information was quite exact. "June 30, 10.30 P.M. I am
satisfied that A. P. Hill's corps is massed just back of Cashtown,
about nine miles from this place. Pender's division of this corps
came up to-day, of which I advised you. The enemy's pickets,
infantry and artillery, are within four miles of this place, at the
Cashtown road."--_Buford to Reynolds._
[34] Colonel Chapman Biddle puts the Confederate force in camp
around Cashtown or Heidlersburg, each eight miles from Oak Ridge, at
thirty-five thousand of all arms; perhaps rather an over-estimate of
this careful writer.
[35] His horse carried him a short distance onward before he fell.
His body was carried to the rear, in a blanket, just as Archer was
being brought in a prisoner.
[36] When attacked in this way a battery is at the mercy of its
assailants.
[37] General Abner Doubleday succeeded to the command of the First
Corps on Reynolds' death.
[38] The First Corps finally held a line of about a mile and a half,
from the Hagerstown to the Mummasburg road.
[39] The head of this corps arrived at about 12.45 and the rear
at 1.45 P.M. It would take not less than an hour to get it into
position from a half to three-fourths of a mile out of Gettysburg.
[40] It is a well-settled principle of war as well as of common
sense that a corps commander may disregard his orders whenever
their literal execution would be in his opinion unwarranted by
conditions unknown to, or unforeseen by, the general in command of
the army when he issued them. This refers, of course, to an officer
exercising a separate command, and not when in the presence of his
superior.
[41] The positions of the several corps that afternoon were as
follows, except the First and Eleventh: Second at Taneytown, Third
at Emmettsburg, Fifth at Hanover, Sixth at Manchester, and Twelfth
at Two Taverns.
[42] Heth, Rodes, and Early admit a loss of five thousand eight
hundred without counting prisoners. The prisoners taken by the First
Corps would swell this number to about eight thousand.
VI
CEMETERY HILL
[Sidenote: Lee wants to push Things.]
We have seen Lee arriving on the field his troops had carried just
as ours were streaming over Cemetery Hill in his plain sight. Seeing
Ewell already established within gunshot of this hill, Lee wished
him to push on after the fugitives, seize Cemetery Hill, and so reap
all the fruits of the victory just won.
Ewell hesitated, and the golden opportunity slipped through Lee's
fingers. At four o'clock he would have met with little resistance:
at six it was different.
[Sidenote: Hancock arrives.]
[Sidenote: Finds Situation gloomy.]
By riding hard, Hancock[43] got to Gettysburg soon after Lee did.
The road leading from the battlefield was thronged with fugitives,
wounded men, ammunition wagons, and ambulances, all hurrying to
the rear (the unmistakable débris of a routed army), as Hancock
spurred up Cemetery Hill. His trained eye took in the situation at
a glance. Everywhere he saw the gloom of defeat. A few disordered
battalions sullenly clung around their colors, but the men seemed
stunned and disheartened, not so much by defeat as by the palpable
fact that they had been abandoned to defeat for want of a scrap
of paper, more or less. Instead of cheers, set faces and haggard
eyes greeted Hancock as he rode along the diminished ranks. He saw
divisions reduced to brigades; brigades to battalions; battalions to
companies; batteries to a single gun. One of Steinwehr's brigades
and some of his batteries, with a regiment of the First Corps that
had not been in action,[44] was the only force remaining intact.
These guns were sending an occasional shot down into the streets
of Gettysburg; while more to the left--cheering sight!--Buford's
cavalry stood drawn up before the heights steady as on parade, first
in the field and last out of it.
Hancock's animating presence gradually put heart into the men. He
saw just what ought to be done, and instantly set about doing it.
[Sidenote: Order is restored.]
[Sidenote: First Reinforcements.]
A swift and comprehensive view of the ground--and his grasp of its
capabilities was singularly just--seems to have convinced Hancock
that no better place to fight in was likely to be found, even
should the enemy allow them the time to concentrate in the rear,
which was become the all-important question just then. He gave his
orders rapidly, broken ranks were re-formed, fugitives brought back
to their colors,[45] the tide of retreat stayed. As the last gun
was fired from Cemetery Hill, Stannard's Vermont brigade[46] came
marching up the Emmettsburg road, and was at once put in line south
of the Cemetery, with pickets thrown out in front. Though small,
this reinforcement was thrice welcome at a time when it could not
be known whether the enemy would attack or not, and it had a good
effect.
[Sidenote: Culp's Hill.]
[Sidenote: Commands Cemetery.]
In riding up, Hancock had not failed to notice--indeed, no one
could--a wooded hill standing off at some distance to the right
of Cemetery Hill, from which it was separated by a wide and deep
hollow, yet at the same time joined by a ridge so low and narrow
as to be hardly seen when looking down from above. This low,
connecting ridge is several hundred yards in extent, and, forming as
if does a natural parapet for infantry, was all that stood in the
way of pushing a force through between Cemetery and Culp's Hill to
the rear of the Union troops. Of the two hills it is enough to say
that as Culp's Hill is much the higher, whoever held Culp's Hill
would also hold the key to the Union position, as Hancock found it.
[Sidenote: Ewell sees it too.]
[Sidenote: But Hancock seizes it.]
The enemy had not been slow to perceive this on his part, and while
hesitating what to do Early had pointed it out to Ewell, his chief,
who fully agreed with him that it should be seized as soon as
Johnson's fresh division got up.[47] But while they were hesitating
Hancock was sending what was left of Wadsworth's division,
reinforced by the Seventh Indiana, with a battery, to occupy Culp's
Hill; so that when Johnson's scouts went there after dark, instead
of finding the hill unoccupied and undefended, they fell into the
hands of Wadsworth's men. Meredith's worn but undaunted brigade
dropped into position behind the narrow strip of ridge spoken of,
a sure guaranty that no enemy would break through at that place.
In this instance Hancock's eagle glance and no less prompt action
undoubtedly saved the whole position, since if Ewell had succeeded
in establishing himself on Culp's Hill, it would have taken the
whole Union army to drive him out.
[Sidenote: Hancock reports all safe.]
Considered merely as a rallying point for broken troops, Cemetery
Hill had now served its purpose. Hancock could now say to Meade, not
that the position was the best they could have taken for disputing
the enemy's progress, but that all was safe for the present, or
equally in train for the withdrawal of the troops, should that be
the decision. In a word, he would not commit himself unreservedly to
a simple yes or no.[48]
[Sidenote: Meade's Decision.]
It was now Meade's turn, and right nobly did he rise to the crisis.
Such as it was, Hancock's report enabled him to come to a quick
decision. Instead of ordering a retreat, he instantly ordered the
corps to Gettysburg. From the moment he became satisfied that there
was a fighting chance in front, Meade's conduct was anything but
that of a defeated or even timid general; he seems never to have
looked behind him. Had he been so unalterably wedded to his own
chosen line of defence as some critics profess to believe, it is
difficult to see what stronger excuse could have offered itself for
falling back than the defeat he had just suffered. And if he had
shrunk from the hazard of fighting so far from his base before, how
much more easily could he have justified his refusal to do so after
the loss of ten thousand men, the sudden disruption of his plans,
with the increased sense of responsibility all this involved! We
think few would deny that the bringing up of four-sevenths of the
army over distances varying from thirteen to thirty-six miles must
appear a far bolder act, even to the unmilitary mind, than causing
three-sevenths to fall back some fifteen miles. Fortunately Meade
was one in spirit with his soldiers, who with one voice demanded
to be led against the enemy. The shock of battle seems to have
aroused all the warrior's instinct within him. Reynolds may have
forced the fighting, Hancock suggested, or even advised, but it was
Meade, and Meade alone, on whose deliberate judgment the battle of
Gettysburg was renewed, and who therefore stands before history as
its undoubted sponsor.
[Sidenote: Twelfth Corps comes up, 5 P.M.]
To return to the now historic Cemetery Hill. Here the right,
reinforced by at least three thousand fresh troops,[49] had been
strongly occupied. Everything appeared in surety on this side. But
all the way from the Taneytown Road to Little Round Top there was
not one solitary soldier or gun except some cavalry pickets. By the
time, however, that Hancock had succeeded in bringing order out
of this chaos and courage out of despair, the whole situation was
changed by the arrival of the Twelfth Corps from Two Taverns. As
it came up by the Baltimore pike the leading division (Williams')
turned off to the right, feeling its way out in this direction as
far as Wolf's Hill and the Hanover road; but on finding the enemy
already installed on that side, the division was massed for the
night on the Baltimore pike, so rendering secure our extreme right
at Culp's Hill. There was no longer anything to apprehend on this
side. We cannot refrain from asking what would have been the effect
of the appearance of these troops on Early's flank an hour or two
earlier in the afternoon?
[Sidenote: Geary at Little Round Top.]
[Sidenote: Fix this on the Map.]
Geary's division of this corps having kept straight on up the pike
to Cemetery Hill, Hancock turned it off to the extreme left, partly
to make some show in that as yet unguarded quarter, about which he
felt by no means easy, partly to hold control of the Emmettsburg
and Taneytown roads (see map), by which more of the Union troops
were marching to the field. Stretching itself out in a thin line
as far as Little Round Top, and after sending one regiment out on
picket toward the Emmettsburg road, and just to the right of the
Devil's Den, the division slept on its arms, in a position destined
to become celebrated, first on account of Hancock's foresight in
seizing it, next by reason of its desertion by the general intrusted
with its defence.
[Sidenote: Second Corps nearly up.]
Hancock had the satisfaction of feeling that the position was safe
for the present when he rode back to Taneytown, first to meet his
own corps on the road, and next to find that the whole army had
already been ordered up. Throwing Gibbon an order to halt as he
passed, Hancock kept on to headquarters. His work was done.
[Sidenote: Union Line at Dark.]
Nothing but the importance which this critical period of the battle
has assumed to our own mind could justify the giving of all these
details by which the gradual patching up and lengthening out of the
line, until it took the form it subsequently held, and from a front
of a few hundred yards grew to be two miles long, may be better
followed.
[Sidenote: Part of Third Corps up.]
[Sidenote: Find Sherfy's on Map.]
[Sidenote: Other Corps where?]
As regards the rest of the army, some part of the Third Corps had
now reached the ground by the Emmettsburg road, though too late to
get into line; its pickets, however, were thrown out on that road
as far to the left as a cross-road leading down from Sherfy's house
to Little Round Top. The rest of this corps would come up by this
same road in the morning. The Second Corps was halting for the night
three miles back, also in a position to guard the left of the line.
Nominally, therefore, five of the seven corps were up at dark that
night, or at least near enough to go into position by daybreak. The
Fifth being then at Hanover, twenty-four miles back, and the Sixth,
which was the strongest in the army, at Manchester, thirty-five
miles from Gettysburg, it still became a question whether the
whole Union army could be assembled in season to overcome Lee's
superiority on the field.[50]
[Sidenote: Chances against Meade.]
Indeed, when Meade did finally order the whole army to Gettysburg,
the chances were as ten to one against its getting up in time to
fight as a unit.
Would that portion of the Union forces found on Cemetery Hill on the
morning of the second be beaten in detail, as the First and Eleventh
had been the day before?
[Sidenote: Lee's Plan.]
[Sidenote: Longstreet demurs.]
This seems, in fact, to have been Lee's real purpose, as he told
Longstreet at five o'clock, when they were looking over the ground
together, that if Meade's army was on the heights next day it must
be dislodged. Knowing that but two Union corps had been engaged that
day against him, Lee seemed impressed with the idea that he could
beat Meade before the rest of his army could arrive. Longstreet
strongly opposed making a direct attack, though without shaking his
chief's purpose. As Lee now had his whole army well in hand, one
division only being absent,[51] he seemed little disposed to begin a
new series of combinations, when, in his opinion, he had the Union
army half defeated, half scattered, and wholly at a disadvantage.
And we think he was right.
[Sidenote: Chances favor Lee.]
We have seen that Lee's conclusions with respect to the force before
him were so nearly correct as to justify his confidence in his own
plans. Ever since crossing South Mountain he had expected a battle.
It is true he found it forced upon him sooner than he expected,
yet his own army had been the first to concentrate, his troops had
gained a partial victory by this very means, and both general and
soldiers were eager to consummate it while the chances were still
so distinctly in their favor. Even if Lee was somewhat swayed by a
belief in his own genius, as some of his critics have suggested,--a
belief which had so far carried him from victory to victory,--we
cannot blame him. War is a game of chance, and Lee now saw that
chance had put his enemy in his power.
[Sidenote: Ewell says No.]
[Sidenote: Cemetery Hill too Strong.]
At the close of the day Lee therefore rode over to see if Ewell
could not open the battle by carrying Cemetery Hill. Ewell bluntly
declared it to be an impossibility. The Union troops, he said,
would be at work strengthening their already formidable positions
there all night, so that by morning they would be found well-nigh
impregnable. Culp's Hill had been snatched from his grasp. The
rugged character of these heights, the impossibility of using
artillery to support an attack, the exposure of the assaulting
columns to the fire of the Union batteries at short range, were all
forcibly dwelt upon and fully concurred in by Ewell's lieutenants.
In short, so many objections appeared that, willing or unwilling,
Lee found himself forced to give over the design of breaking through
the Union line at this point and taking the road to Baltimore.
[Sidenote: Ewell says, try the Left.]
It was then suggested that the attack should begin on the Union
left, where, to all appearances, the ridge was far more assailable
or less strongly occupied, because the Union troops seemed massed
more with the view of repelling this projected assault toward their
right.
Inasmuch as Ewell was really ignorant of what force was in his
front at that moment, his advice to Lee may have sprung from a not
unnatural desire to see that part of the army which had not been
engaged do some of the work cut out for him and his corps.
Be that as it may, Lee then and there proposed giving up Gettysburg
altogether, in order to draw Ewell over toward his right, thus
massing the Confederate army in position to strike the Union left,
as well as materially shortening his own long line.
[Sidenote: What, give up Gettysburg.]
But to this proposal Ewell as strongly demurred again. After losing
over three thousand men in taking it, he did not want to give
up Gettysburg. It involved a point of honor to which Jackson's
successor showed himself keenly sensitive. His arrival had decided
the day; and at that moment he held the bulk of the Union army
before him, simply by remaining where he was. If he moved off, that
force would be freed also. So where would be the gain of it?
"Well, then, if I attack from my right, Longstreet will have to make
the attack," said Lee at last; adding a moment later, and as if the
admission came from him in spite of himself, "but he is so slow."
[Sidenote: Lee's Dilemma.]
Finding that Ewell was averse to making an attack himself, averse
to leaving Gettysburg; that Hill was averse to putting his crippled
corps forward so soon again; and that Longstreet was averse to
fighting at all on that ground,--Lee may well have thought, like
Napoleon during the Hundred Days, that his generals were no longer
what they had been.[52] There was certainly more or less pulling at
cross purposes in the Confederate camp.
Meade did not reach the field until one in the morning. It was then
too early to see the ground he was going to fight on.
It thus appears that Lee had well considered all his plans for
attacking before Meade could so much as begin his dispositions for
defence. And this same unpreparedness, this fatality of having
always to follow your adversary's lead, had so far distinguished
every stage of this most unpromising campaign.
In the mellow moonlight of a midsummer's night, looking down into
the unlighted streets of Gettysburg, the tired soldiers dropped to
rest among the graves or in the fields wet with falling dew, while
their comrades were hurrying on over the dusty roads that stretched
out in long, weary miles toward Gettysburg, as if life and death
were in their speed.
[43] It seems plain that next to Reynolds Hancock was the one in
whom Meade reposed most confidence.
[44] This was the Seventh Indiana, which had been acting as escort
to the trains. It brought five hundred fresh men to Wadsworth's
division.
[45] By General Morgan's account, one thousand five hundred
fugitives were collected by the provost guard of the Twelfth Corps,
some miles in rear of the field.
[46] This was a brigade of nine months' men, called in derision the
"Paper Collar Brigade." No troops contributed more to the winning of
this battle, though only three of its five regiments were engaged.