damages caused by the cannonade--re-forming ranks, replacing
dismantled guns, rectifying positions, exhorting the men to stand
firm, and, in short, themselves offering the highest examples of
coolness and soldierly conduct.
[Sidenote: Union Defences.]
We had a first line of infantry posted along the foot of the
heights,--some behind stone walls, when these followed the natural
line of defence, as they now and then did; some behind rocky
inequalities of the ground,--with artillery above and behind it;
and there was a second line of infantry back of the crest. Although
Meade is said to have expected, and even told some of his officers,
that Lee's next blow would fall on the Union centre, we detect no
specific preparation to meet it.
[Sidenote: The Storming Column.]
The troops designated for the assault were waiting only for the
order to advance, Pickett's splendid division on the right,
Pettigrew's, lately Heth's, on the left, with two brigades in
support of Pickett, two in support of Pettigrew, and still another
marching at some distance in the rear. Though the equals of any
in that army, Heth's soldiers had been so much shaken by their
encounter with the First Corps that they were far from showing the
same ardor as Pickett's men. All told, the assaulting force numbered
not less than fifteen thousand, and probably more.[74]
Pickett was watching the effect of the artillery-fire when a courier
brought him word from the batteries that if he was coming at all
now was his time, as the Union guns had slackened their fire. After
reading it himself, Pickett handed the note to Longstreet at his
side. "General, shall I advance?" Pickett asked his chief. Mastered
by his emotions, Longstreet could only give a nod of assent and turn
away. "I shall lead my division forward, sir," was the soldierly
reply.
As the charging column passed through them to the front, fifteen or
eighteen guns followed close behind in support.
Friend and foe alike have borne testimony to the steadiness with
which this gallant band met the ordeal--by much the hardest that
falls to the soldier's lot--of having to endure a terrible fire
without the power of returning it. No sooner had the long gray lines
come within range than the Union artillery opened upon it, right
and left. For a quarter of an hour the march was kept up in the face
of a storm of missiles. Cemetery Hill was lighted up by the flashes.
Little Round Top struck in sharply. Smoke and flame burst from the
batteries along Cemetery Ridge. Solid shot tore through the ranks;
shells were bursting under their feet, over their heads, in their
faces; men, or the fragments of men, were being tossed in the air
every moment, but, closing up the gaps and leaving swaths of dead
and dying in their track, these men kept up their steady march to
the front, as if conscious that the eyes of both armies were upon
them. They had been told that the enemy's artillery was silenced!
[Sidenote: Pickett's Advance.]
As soon as they could do so without injury to their own men, the
Confederate guns began afresh, so that again shells streamed through
the air and balls bounded over the plain without intermission, dense
smoke shutting out the assailants from view.
Protected by the fire of this redoubtable artillery, the column
continued its deliberate march. When within five hundred yards, or
about to cross the Emmettsburg road, it suddenly moved off by the
left flank a short distance, as if to close up a break in the line
or recover the true point of attack--some say one and some say the
other. Be that as it may, Pickett's men first received the fire of
Stannard's Vermont brigade while making this flank march, and again
encountered it on their flank after facing to the front for the
purpose of resuming their advance toward the heights.
This must be considered, we think, as the turning-point in the
assault. Stannard's attack, made at such close quarters, so
shattered Pickett's right brigade that this flank of the assaulting
column never reached the crest at all, but drifted more and more to
the rear, lost to all organization. Thus was repeated that memorable
manœuvre of the Fifty-second Regiment against the Imperial Guard at
Waterloo, and with like results; for before the close and deadly
fire poured in upon them at only a few rods' distance--a fire they
were powerless to return--Pickett's right was either shot to pieces
or crowded in upon the centre, so throwing it into disorder and
checking its momentum, while the Green Mountain boys, aided now by
other troops, clung to their mutilated flank, following it up step
by step, and firing into it as fast as the men could load.
Eight batteries were now pouring canister into Pickett at
point-blank range, carrying away whole ranks of men at every
discharge. Before him, between two little clumps of trees, which Lee
himself had carefully pointed out and Pickett was making such heroic
efforts to reach, lay the Second Union Corps. As the men of this
corps realized that the brunt of the charge was to fall on them,
they grew restive and anxious; but Gibbon, curbing their impatience
with voice and gesture, quietly said, as he passed along the ranks,
"Hold your fire, boys--they are not near enough yet."
[Illustration: Point where Pickett's Charge was stopped.]
[Sidenote: The Final Charge.]
Pickett's first line had come within a hundred and fifty yards when
the order was given to fire. It was followed by a terrible volley
before which that line went down like grass before the scythe. When
the smoke rolled away the charging lines were seen inextricably
mixed together, all order lost--a frantic mob covered with blood
and dirt, with scarce a general officer left, but not in retreat.
On the contrary, with a rush and a roar, heard above the din of
cannon and musketry, the surging mass came rolling and tumbling on,
like waves against a rocky shore, firing, screeching, brandishing
swords and battle-flags, one moment swallowed up in smoke, the next
emerging a few paces nearer. Officers became separated from their
men; generals no longer led their own brigades, but with uplifted
swords rushed on to the front, calling on their men to follow. One
after another they fall. Individual example and heroism were the
only things that could count here, and neither was wanting. One
thought and one purpose seemed to animate them, and that was that
they must either conquer or die. Sublime heroism! Sublime folly!
In this manner one portion of the Confederates struck and
overwhelmed the first Union line, driving its defenders back upon
the second. Here they turned and faced their infuriated assailants,
who, led on by Armistead, had leaped the last stone wall, shooting
down or bayoneting all those found crouching behind it, had then
rushed up to seize the solitary gun that had just fired its last
shot in their faces, and, as if victory was assured, already had
raised their cry of triumph on the disputed summit.
[Sidenote: The Repulse.]
Though divided and thrown off by this entering wedge, the Union
soldiers, who now came swaying up from right to left, soon seized it
as in a vise. For a few minutes an indescribable mêlée raged here
on half an acre of ground, at push of bayonet, hand to hand, muzzle
to muzzle, breast to breast. Gradually the enclosing lines surged
forward. Armistead was shot down by the side of the captured gun.
The Confederates turned to fly, but found the way barred to them on
every side. Imbedded by its own force, the living wedge could not
be withdrawn. They surrendered in swarms, while those who dared the
dangers of again crossing that fatal plain, now spread themselves
out over it in every direction.
When it was all over with Pickett, the two supporting brigades came
up on the right, only to be repulsed by a few volleys. Pettigrew had
been defeated almost before he could come to close quarters, Pickett
destroyed, Wilcox brushed away.
From his post of observation Longstreet had watched the advance up
the ridge. "I saw," he says, "the crest of the hill lit up with a
solid sheet of flame. When the smoke cleared away the division was
gone. Nearly two-thirds lay dead on the field, and the survivors
were sullenly retreating down the hill. Mortal man could not have
stood that fire."
Again the old story. An assaulting column has been driven through an
opposing line, it is true, but with the loss of all organization,
without a supporting force to follow up the advantage it has
gained, it finds itself in a trap where it is in danger of being
sacrificed to the last man. Unable to execute the simplest manœuvre,
it is at the mercy of any organized body brought against it. Lee
seemed to have forgotten Fredericksburg. Longstreet did better at
Chickamauga.
[Sidenote: Cavalry Battles.]
Two cavalry battles belong to the complete history of this
remarkable day, though in no way affecting the main result. In the
first Stuart attacked and was defeated. This was cavalry against
cavalry; and as Pickett's front attack was repulsed, that in the
rear amounted to little in itself. In the second Kilpatrick made
a bold dash into Hood's rear, about Round Top, with the view of
throwing the enemy into confusion, breaking up his line there, and
so facilitating an advance by the Union forces in that quarter.
This was cavalry against infantry in position, and the ground the
worst possible for cavalry manœuvres. For an hour the enemy had our
troopers riding round them with drawn sabres, receiving the fire
first of one regiment and then of another. No advantage being taken
of the diversion, the cavalry was nearly cut to pieces.
[72] To this day the woods show the destructive effects of this
cannonade.
[73] "I instructed the chiefs of artillery and battery commanders
to withhold their fire for fifteen or twenty minutes after the
cannonade commenced, then to concentrate their fire with all
possible accuracy upon those batteries which were most destructive
to us, but slowly, so that when the enemy's ammunition was exhausted
we should have enough left to meet the assault."--_Gen. Hunt, Chief
of Artillery._
[74] Pickett's division with two brigades absent was probably
five thousand five hundred strong, Heth's not less, and the three
supporting brigades as many more. The troops were no doubt selected
as the very best that offered.
X
THE RETREAT
[Sidenote: Gettysburg evacuated.]
[Sidenote: Lee's New Position.]
Thrice had the sun gone down on that ensanguined field, where one
hundred and fifty thousand men had striven for the mastery and forty
thousand sealed their devotion with their blood. Exhausted by their
efforts, the Confederates thought only of making good their retreat.
Gettysburg was immediately evacuated and both wings drawn back on
the main body, so that, as now re-formed and contracted, Lee's army
stretched from Oak Hill to the peach orchard. Behind this line, and
under cover of its woods, he was now getting ready to retreat.
Such plain indications could hardly be overlooked.[75] A
reconnoisance from the Union left found the Confederates retiring.
During the night the Union troops went forward to the battlefield of
the 2d.
[Sidenote: Lost Chances.]
Lee's lost opportunity on the 1st was as nothing to Meade's on the
3d. It came when the Confederates were in the confusion resulting
from their repulse. It was lost, however, because the great captain
was not there. Meade was unequal to exacting a supreme effort at
this moment, either from his army or himself. To let slip this
opportunity was to tempt fortune itself, and it never came again.
[Sidenote: Strange Inaction.]
But if from any of the many causes alleged,[76] or all of them put
together, the one chance out of a thousand, for which all this
marching and fighting had been going on, had eluded Meade's grasp,
or if it be conceded that he found Lee's new position so strong as
to hold out no hope of a successful assault, history will still
demand to know why this beaten army, short of ammunition, encumbered
with its wounded, its prisoners, and its wagons, thirty to forty
miles from the Potomac, with a mountain defile to pass and a wide
river to cross, was suffered to march off unmolested with all its
immense spoil, and not only to do that, but to remain eleven days
between Gettysburg and the Potomac without being once seriously
attacked.
[Sidenote: Lee in a Tight Place.]
That Lee could not long remain on Seminary Ridge, let his position
be ever so strong, was a self-evident proposition. He had exhausted
his means of attack, his army was cut down by more than twenty
thousand men, his ammunition was nearly expended, nor could it be
replenished short of Virginia. His means of defence were therefore
extremely limited. If it had been possible to detain Lee where
he was, even for a few days longer, his surrender was a foregone
conclusion without firing another shot. But taking the situation as
we find it, we do not see how he could have been more critically
placed, if in the presence of an enterprising opponent. Lee's
attitude after the battle savors far more of bravado than a desire
to be attacked. To block his retreat it would have been necessary
to seize the Monterey Pass immediately after the battle.[77] Meade
had the shorter line. His cavalry would have kept Lee at bay until
the infantry could come up. He should never have suffered Lee to
put South Mountain between them without making an energetic effort
to prevent it. As the Union army remained immovable until this was
done, we have only to chronicle in brief the inglorious ending of an
otherwise glorious campaign.
[Sidenote: Read over Chap. I.]
All the 4th the two armies lay in the positions just now described.
Lee's direct line of retreat to the Potomac was by the Fairfield
and Hagerstown road, which crossed the mountain below and behind
him through the Monterey defile. To withdraw his army and trains by
this one road was altogether impracticable. The trains and wounded
were therefore started off during the afternoon of the 4th, in a
drenching rain, by the Chambersburg road, under a strong escort of
cavalry and artillery, but no infantry.[78] When stretched out on
the road this train was seventeen miles long.
[Sidenote: Lee's Wounded.]
Being ordered to push on to the Potomac without halting, the
sufferings of the wounded were horrible beyond description.
Travelling all night and avoiding Chambersburg, this column struck
across the country to Greencastle, and after fighting its way all
day against detachments of Union cavalry, finally got to the
Potomac at Williamsport, on the afternoon of the 5th, with the loss
of a few wagons. After the escort had passed through Greencastle,
the citizens turned out and attacked the wagons in the rear with
axes, so disabling some and delaying the rest.
When the wagon train got there, the Potomac was found too high to be
forded. The bridges were gone, and the trains could not get across
that way.[79] So there Lee met his first check.
After giving his trains a twelve hours' start, Lee put his army
in motion for the Potomac by way of Fairfield and Hagerstown, by
daylight of the 5th.
[Sidenote: Lee's Infantry move off.]
[Sidenote: A Lame Pursuit.]
The road being unencumbered by trains,[80] the Confederates were
able to move with celerity and silence. As soon as his departure
was discovered, the Fifth and Sixth Corps moved out in pursuit. But
it was then too late. Lee had stolen a march on his pursuers. An
officer of this force says of its tardy operations:--
"As we moved, a small rear-guard of the enemy retreated. We
followed it up to Fairfield, in a gorge of the mountains. There we
again waited for them to go on. Then only one brigade, with the
cavalry, continued to follow them, while the rest of the corps
turned off to the left, toward Boonsboro," to which point the main
body was now directing its march. Lee had got the short road and
left Meade the long one.
[Sidenote: Union Army en Route.]
Lee's army was thus safe back again in the Cumberland Valley before
Meade was ready to pursue.[81] Having abandoned the idea of forcing
the Monterey Pass, and so following up and harassing the enemy's
rear, we have just seen the infantry turning off to the south, on
the Gettysburg side of South Mountain, as if to head off Lee from
the Potomac by this roundabout way, or, in short, by a march of
fifty miles to his thirty, and after giving him a start of ten.
This was to force the Union army to efforts which had just proved
so exhausting. Nothing could exceed the impotence of this pursuit.
In reality, the march up to Gettysburg to find and attack Lee was
now being repeated. But fate, not Meade, was so checking Lee at
every point that but for the weakness or delays of his adversary the
Confederate general could never have saved his army as he did.
[Sidenote: Lee brought to a Halt.]
[Sidenote: Lee Escapes.]
Even before Lee could reach Fairfield, General French[82] had
reoccupied Harper's Ferry, destroyed the enemy's pontoon train at
Williamsport and Falling Waters, and captured the guards. Finding
his means of crossing gone, nothing remained for Lee but to show
a bold front until they could be restored. And the long détour
the Union army was making left him ample time in which to render
his new position between Hagerstown and Williamsport so strong
that when Meade[83] finally got his army up before it he again
hesitated to attack. The tables were now fairly turned on him.
His generals mostly shared in this feeling of respectful fear.
Stung by the President's censure, Meade at last bestirred himself.
Again he was too late. How often during this campaign have we been
obliged to repeat those ill-omened words! In the language of the
general-in-chief, Halleck:--
"Instead of attacking Lee in this position, with the swollen
waters of the Potomac in his rear, without any means of crossing
his artillery, and when a defeat must have caused the surrender of
his entire army, he was allowed time to construct a pontoon bridge
with lumber collected from canal-boats and the ruins of wooden
houses, and on the morning of the 14th his army had crossed to the
south side of the river. His rear-guard, however, was attacked by
our cavalry and suffered considerable loss. Thus ended the rebel
campaign north of the Potomac, from which important political and
military results had been expected. Our own loss in this short
campaign had been very severe; namely, 2,834 killed, 13,709 wounded,
and 6,643 missing--in all, 23,182. We captured 3 guns, 41 standards,
13,621 prisoners, 28,178 small-arms."
The Confederate losses, considering that they were always the
assailants, must have exceeded these figures.[84] As it is well
known that Pickett's losses were suppressed by Lee's order, any
compilation must be necessarily incomplete.
Ten whole days thus elapsed from the time Lee fell back defeated
from Cemetery Ridge until he recrossed the Potomac. He had brought
off his army, his plunder, with upward of four thousand Union
prisoners, by his opponent's leave, as one might say. There is a
saying that a British army may be gleaned in a retreat, but not
reaped. So far, in this war, barren victories had been the rule, and
fruitful ones the rare exception.
We do not find much to say in praise of a retreat that was nowhere
seriously molested. It has, we know, been lauded as a marvel of
skill. Lee's patience alone was severely tested. The crossing of the
Potomac was effected without hinderance in the presence of Meade's
whole army, partly by the bridge at Falling Waters, partly by the
fords at Williamsport. True, the Union cavalry did a great deal
of hard riding and scouting; but it, too, failed to destroy Lee's
trains on the 6th, when it was in its power to have done so, and, in
all probability, compelled his surrender.
[75] Lee's cavalry had also left its menacing post in the Union rear.
[76] It has been claimed that the Union right was too much
disordered for a counter-attack, and that one on the left was
impracticable.
[77] Meade sent his cavalry out, not in a body, but in detachments,
on the morning of the 4th. Gregg was ordered to the Chambersburg
road, Kilpatrick to the Hagerstown, and Buford to Williamsport, by
way of Frederick. Kilpatrick attacked and dispersed the small force
then guarding the Monterey Pass that evening, but no steps seem to
have been taken for holding it, and Kilpatrick therefore went on
over the mountains next day in pursuit of the enemy's trains. We
observe, in this connection, that Lee threw every sabre he had into
Meade's rear in anticipation of his retreat on July 3d.
[78] Lee told the officer in command that he could spare him all the
artillery he wanted, but no infantry.
[79] The Union cavalry attacked this train on the 6th without
success. Had they succeeded, all of Lee's immense plunder would have
fallen into their hands. As it was, the trains were got across by
a rope ferry; also the four thousand Union prisoners that the army
brought along with it.
[80] The corps trains had to move with the army mostly.
[81] The whole Union army did not leave Gettysburg before the
morning of the 6th. The Confederates were then nearly up to
Hagerstown.
[82] French, it will be remembered, had been ordered to hold
Frederick. He now occupied the lower passes for which Meade was
making, so reinforcing Meade.
[83] The infantry reached Middletown on the morning of the 9th,
crossed South Mountain that day, and on the next came in front of
the enemy's intrenchments.
[84] The Confederate losses have been variously estimated all the
way from twenty thousand four hundred (total) to thirty thousand.
There exists no accurate basis for a fair count. The first figure is
far too low; the last, perhaps, too high.
XI
THINGS BY THE WAY
The battle of Gettysburg has often been called the turning-point
of the war between the States. It was certainly the greatest of
the many great conflicts of that war--the greatest exhibition, we
will say, of stubborn fighting. There, if ever, it was that Greek
met Greek. During three sweltering midsummer days, two numerous,
well-appointed, veteran armies, ably led and equally nerved to their
utmost efforts, fought for the mastery with equal resolution and
bravery. For three days the result hung in suspense. Through all
those terrible days the battle constantly grew in its proportions
and intensity. From first to last, until the last gun was fired, the
hush of expectancy fell upon the land. It was felt that this battle
must be decisive. On one side, at least, was the determination to
make it so. The impoverished Confederacy was staking its fortunes
upon a last throw.
Yet this battle was singularly indecisive. On the first day the
Union forces suffered a serious reverse; on the second they narrowly
escaped a defeat; but on the third the Confederates were so signally
repulsed that nothing was left them but retreat. This they effected
with boldness and skill, in spite of the victors, in spite of the
elements--in fine, in spite of that fortune which seemed to have
turned against them from the moment of their defeat.
Considered, then, only as a battle, Gettysburg was a series of
isolated combats, delivered without unity and followed by no
irremediable reverse to the vanquished. In no military sense,
therefore, can it be called decisive. In a political sense it was
even less so, because Lee's army was neither destroyed, nor were the
resources of the Confederacy fatally crippled. Rather was it a trial
of strength between two athletes, one of whom, after throwing the
other, tells him to get up and go about his business--in short, a
mere pounding match.