Authors: Noah Andre Trudeau
Once Longstreet’s assault was under way, there was little for Daniel E. Sickles to do but send for help. He made a few trips to Sherfy’s peach orchard to observe the movement to the south and offer some inspiration to his boys, but otherwise he stayed close to his headquarters, located near the Abraham Trostle farm. There was no sign of panic in his demeanor or in his exchanges with subordinates, one of whom would recall that he spoke “in an easy, quiet tone without any excitement.” A passing artillery officer remembered seeing “General Sickles … standing beneath a tree close by, staff officers and orderlies coming and going in all directions.” By Sickles’ own recollection, after George Meade departed from the peach orchard, he “received no communication from Gen. Meade, nor did I again see him on the field.” He did meet with Samuel Zook before his Second Corps brigade engaged the enemy at the stony hill, but there is no record of what they discussed.
With most of his staff off seeking assistance or helping to place units where they were needed, Sickles often had no more than a few officers or orderlies aiding him. One who remained nearby was George E. Randolph, the Third Corps’ artillery chief. Randolph later noted that at about the time Barksdale’s men attacked the peach orchard salient, the area around the Trostle farm “became too hot for a corps headquarters; not so much from fire directed at that point as on account of high shots coming over the crest on both sides and centering there.”
Sickles had just decided to move his operations behind the Trostle buildings, to take advantage of the extra cover they offered, when a round shot struck his right knee a glancing blow. There was something appropriately bizarre in the way the cannon ball managed to shatter his lower leg without even spooking his horse. Once Sickles had succeeded in dismounting, it became clear from the bleeding that his wound was severe. “We bound his leg first with handkerchiefs and finally with a strap from a saddle,” Randolph recounted, “and sent for Surgeons and [an] ambulance.”
The Third Corps commander asked to be moved behind a nearby boulder for protection and then, as the collapse of Graham’s brigade in the peach orchard become more and more obviously inevitable, “repeatedly urged us not to allow him to be taken [prisoner],” according to his artillery chief. When Sickles’ resourceful staff officer Henry Tremain returned from one of his many missions, Sickles instructed him to “tell General Birney he must take command.” Birney himself arrived just as Tremain was leaving to find him. The aide’s effort to brief the deputy
about the situation was interrupted by Sickles, who announced loudly and clearly, “‘General Birney, you will take command, sir.’” Birney bent over his chief, exchanged a few words with him, and rode off. Before the ambulance appeared to transport him to the Third Corps field hospital, the wounded Sickles had himself propped up with cigar in mouth, jauntily urging the soldiers who passed to stand firm.
Lafayette McLaws had set up his assault force in two waves. Backing up Joseph Kershaw’s South Carolina brigade were Paul Semmes’ Georgians, both units engaged around the Rose farm. Behind Barksdale’s Mississippians was Brigadier General William T. Wofford’s all-Georgia brigade, which now came on. James Longstreet led the procession toward the Emmitsburg Road, until a courier who was riding with him pointed out “the danger of being shot down by our own troops.” Thus cautioned, Longstreet “checked his horse and waited until Wofford’s men had gotten in front of us.”
Wofford apparently lacked specific orders to keep station with Barksdale, who in turn seems to have made no attempt to coordinate with him. Meanwhile, the hard-pressed Kershaw had been appealing for help at the stony hill. Once his battle line reached the debris-littered peach orchard, Wofford kept it heading east, toward Kershaw. The South Carolinian’s report reflected the great relief he felt, on looking up from his efforts to rally his brigade near the Rose farm, at seeing “Wofford coming in splendid style.”
George Meade did everything he could to make good on the position staked out for him by his Third Corps commander, appalled though he was by what Sickles had done. He seems never even to have considered using the reserves on hand to establish his preferred Cemetery Ridge line and then allowing the Third Corps to fight its way back to that point; instead he directed every available military asset into the cauldron, desperate to shore up what his professional judgment told him was an unacceptable position.
It was George Meade who began moving George Sykes’ Fifth Corps toward Sickles even before Longstreet’s assault took shape. It was Meade who instructed Hancock to release Caldwell’s division to fight in Rose’s wheat field. Immediately after leaving Sickles, Meade had returned to the
Leister house, where he found John Sedgwick, arriving well ahead of his Sixth Corps. “General Meade said that he had been out to the front; that General Sickles had not taken the position he had directed, but had moved out from a quarter to three-quarters of a mile in advance,” Sedgwick related. “I asked General Meade why he had not ordered him back. He reported that it was then too late; that the enemy had opened the battle.”
Meade instructed Sedgwick to bring his corps forward to support the beleaguered left flank. After Sedgwick departed, Meade turned to Henry Slocum for help. Except for the artillery duel, there was no real fighting going on in his sector, nor any visible evidence that Rebel infantry were being committed there. In his anxiety to salvage his left flank, Meade was willing to risk his right, but only with the agreement of the subordinate most responsible for that part of the line. In conversation with Slocum, Meade may have wished aloud that he could shift both Twelfth Corps divisions over to the left, and he expressed his desire for Slocum to release all the troops he could spare to assist Sickles.
Slocum at once ordered one of his two divisions to abandon Culp’s Hill and head for the left flank. Tagged for this detail was Alpheus S. Williams, whose three brigades had been responsible for extending the Culp’s Hill line southward and over to the Baltimore Pike. In short order Williams had his men out of their just-constructed earthworks, forming up, and marching toward the sound of the guns. For reasons he would never explain, Henry Slocum was convinced that Meade wanted the entire Twelfth Corps to shift over, if at all possible. His decisions would do as much to imperil the Union right as Daniel Sickles’ had done to endanger the left.
He may have been a touch fastidious in his personal habits, and conversely, his reputation for swearing might be one of the most formidable in the Union Army, but if someone had to be nominated to command a forlorn hope in a tight spot, Andrew Atchinson Humphreys was the best possible choice. An army regular with extensive prewar engineering experience, the fifty-three-year-old officer seemed genuinely indifferent to whether or not his stern leadership style made him popular. In the year after Gettysburg, he would confess to one fondness appropriate for a warrior: “Ah,” he said, “war is a very bad thing in the sequel, but before and during the battle it is a fine thing!”
The collapse of David Birney’s position in the peach orchard meant real trouble for Humphreys, who faced an aggressive enemy flush with victory on his right and rear, with all the signs in his front indicating that a serious attack was coming there next. It did not help when Birney brought the news that Sickles was down and he was in charge, and then with his new authority proposed that Humphreys bend back his left flank, in order to connect with what remained of his division and form a new line back to Big and Little Round Top. It took just one southward glance for Humphreys to recognize the utter impossibility of the scheme, for there was, he noted, “nobody to form a new line but myself—Birney’s troops [having] cleared out.”
Nevertheless, the threat posed by Barksdale forced Humphreys to protect his left. He ordered the officer holding that section, Colonel William R. Brewster, to pivot his brigade eastward, changing its orientation from west to southwest. Brewster executed the directive, but not all of his regiments kept their nerve, and the new line threatened to collapse until the 120th New York made a forceful stand that stiffened the rest. Even as this repositioning was being carried out, there was an ominous movement to the west, where the next of Lee’s troops began advancing to challenge what remained of the Third Corps’ position. One of Humphreys’ aides would never forget the moment: “The crash of artillery and the tearing rattle of our musketry was staggering, and added to the noise in our side, the advancing roar & cheer of the enemy’s masses, coming on like devils incarnate.”
William T. Wofford’s decision to direct his Georgia brigade east toward the stony hill instead of following Barksdale had a dramatic effect on the fighting there. His approach reinvigorated the offensive spirit among the South Carolinians of Kershaw’s Brigade and the Georgians under Semmes and Anderson, who renewed their efforts against the Union Second and Fifth Corps brigades spread across the hill and the wheat field.
Brooke’s brigade, which had driven to the edge of the Rose farm fields, was flanked on its right, forcing it to backpedal, a regiment at a time. As Brooke’s men began retreating, they were joined by the members of Zook’s brigade and the Irish Brigade.
*
Because there was little
coordination among units of different corps, the three regiments of Sweitzer’s Fifth Corps brigade, which had only just been repositioned forward, suddenly found themselves holding the southern end of Rose’s wheat field all alone.
Fortunately, more help had come up from a different quarter, in the form of five small regiments of regular U.S. army troops, constituting Colonel Sidney Burbank’s Fifth Corps brigade of Ayres’ division. Making a sacrificial stand in the middle of the wheat field, Burbank’s regulars provided enough cover to allow Sweitzer’s men to exit. An admiring volunteer on the field later remarked that “for two years the U.S. Regulars taught us how to be soldiers[;] in the Wheatfield at Gettysburg, they taught us how to die like soldiers.”
After breaking away from the rest of Barksdale’s Brigade, Benjamin G. Humphreys and his 21st Mississippi embarked on one of the most memorable freelance odysseys of the entire battle. Passing through the peach orchard, the 21st engaged a Yankee regiment, the 2nd New Hampshire, one of whose members would recall this fighting as “close, stubborn and deadly work.” Among those left in its wake when the New Hampshiremen reeled back toward Cemetery Ridge was Charles K. Graham, who had taken a musket ball through both shoulders and had a chunk of hip gouged by some shrapnel. Graham tried to ride to safety, “throwing myself forward on [my horse’s] … neck to present as little surface as possible” as a target. The practical Rebels brought down Graham’s horse, then pulled the bloody officer out from under his mount and took him prisoner.
While several of the Federal batteries that had been lining the Wheatfield Road had already limbered and left, one, Captain A. Judson Clark’s 2nd Battery, New Jersey Light, was slow to go. A few of Benjamin Humphreys’ Mississippians scrambled among the departing cannon. “Halt, you Yankee sons of —; we want these guns,” a Confederate yelled. “Go to h—l,” came the rejoinder. “We want to use them yet awhile.” Another retreating Union regiment paused long enough to supply a covering volley that shook the Rebels off the guns and let Clark’s men escape. But the 21st Mississippi was not yet done for the day.
James Longstreet’s acting artillery chief, Edward P. Alexander, could barely restrain himself. “When I saw their [peach orchard] line broken &
in retreat, I thought the battle was ours,” he later reflected. A big factor in Longstreet’s decision to give the young officer authority exceeding his rank and seniority had been his boldness, and now Alexander more than justified that trust. It was no time to rest on laurels. Mentally getting beyond the damage some of his batteries had sustained in their long exchange with the Yankee tubes, Alexander “rode along my guns, urging the men to limber to the front as rapidly as possible, telling them we would ‘finish the whole war this afternoon.’” He led his cannoneers on a wild, bouncing ride across the body-cluttered fields, quickly deploying them along a rough line running from the peach orchard north along the Emmitsburg Road.
The sight that met his eyes was disappointing, even discouraging. Alexander had been under the impression that the Emmitsburg Road position was the hard shell of the Yankee defense, which, once cracked, would reveal nothing but softness inside. He now saw that such was not the case. The enemy’s principal position “loomed up near 1000 yards beyond us,” he realized, “a ridge giving good cover behind it & endless fine positions for batteries. And batteries in abundance were showing up & troops too seemed to be marching & fighting every where.” Alexander’s only solace was that there were “plenty [of targets] to shoot at.” Grateful that he had no greater responsibility than his guns, he soon had his crews sweating and the cannon firing.
Even as Alexander was setting his guns into place, James Longstreet was making one of the hardest decisions of his life. Carefully evaluating the ebb and flow of the combat that engulfed his two divisions, Longstreet concluded that a victory was not possible. Every thrust forward had met with a riposte, or what Longstreet called “the sturdy regular blow that tells a soldier instantly that he has encountered [enemy] reserves or reinforcements. … To urge my men forward under these circumstances would have been madness.” With the same determination he had shown after launching this day’s action, James Longstreet now began to bring it to an end.
With the advance of Wofford’s Brigade, the torch was passed from Longstreet’s Corps to A. P. Hill’s. Next in the Confederate line extending northward from Warfield Ridge to Seminary Ridge were units belonging to Richard H. Anderson’s division, which had seen no action the previous day.
Earlier, when the Alabama regiments of Cadmus M. Wilcox’s brigade were finished scrapping with Berdan’s sharpshooters and had taken position on Hill’s extreme right, orders had arrived from division headquarters describing the role they were to play. “My instructions were to advance when the troops on my right should advance, and to report this to the division commander in order that the other brigades should advance in proper time,” Wilcox later recorded.