Gettysburg (71 page)

The troubled look that John Dooley perceived on the face of Robert E. Lee was less the mark of any rumination on the coming day than it was a sign of Lee’s concern over an even more immediate problem: Pickett’s Division was running well behind the schedule he had projected when he sent out his broad directives a few hours earlier. After dispatching a courier to Richard Ewell to advise him of the delay, Lee hastened to Longstreet’s headquarters, located in a schoolhouse adjacent to Willoughby Run, about nine hundred yards west of Warfield Ridge. On his way there, he passed a coffle of Federal prisoners, one of whom would remember seeing “General Lee and his staff making their way to the front.”

Still believing that Lee’s nonspecific orders for him to envelop the enemy’s flank provided ample latitude, Longstreet greeted his chief with the words “General, I have had my scouts out all night, and I find that you still have an excellent opportunity to move around to the right of Meade’s army and maneuver him into attacking us.”

In his final report on the Gettysburg campaign, Robert E. Lee would limit his comments regarding this moment to the terse statement that “General Longstreet’s dispositions were not completed as early as was expected.” Longstreet would admit in his own report that his interpretation of Lee’s broad directives had involved his passing “around the hill occupied by the enemy on his left, … [with a view] to gain it by flank and reverse attack.” Realizing that he had been unclear as to his intentions, Lee pointed with his fist toward Cemetery Ridge. “‘The enemy is there, and I am going to strike him,’” he said. Lee was not interested in undertaking a flank move. He still anticipated that the two First Corps divisions already on the field would renew their attacks.

Now Longstreet comprehended that his understated summary of the night before had failed to convey the battered state of those two divisions. “I thought that would not do,” Longstreet decided, and so he proceeded to give Lee the facts as he knew them, advising him “that the point had been fully tested the day before, by more men, when all were fresh; that the enemy was there looking for us [and that the enemy’s units were well positioned to] strike the flank of the assaulting column, crush it, and get on our rear.”

Lee listened to Longstreet’s explanation, slowly coming to grips with the reality that his first plan was not going to be practicable. Yet he never wavered from his objective. “‘I am going to take them where they are on Cemetery Hill,’” he said, putting an end to that part of the discussion. A new plan would have to be drawn up, and, as the steady rumble of cannon and musketry fire coming from Culp’s Hill reminded him, drawn up quickly. While Lee and Longstreet set out for a point where they could more clearly survey the enemy lines, aides went off to summon A. P. Hill to join them.

Edward Muhlenberg’s bombardment was Gettysburg’s wake-up call for day three. Sarah Broadhead remembered it as a “fierce cannonading” that sent families throughout the town hustling back into their cellars. “May I never again be roused to the consciousness of a new-born day by such fearful sounds!” wrote diarist Jane Smith. “It seemed almost like the crashing of worlds.”

The firing also roused the snipers in town, who paid special attention to the artillerymen plying their trade from Cemetery Hill. Eugene Blackford, whose 5th Alabama Battalion had adroitly parried the advance of the Eleventh Corps north of town on July 1, now had his men assigned to suppressing, as far as they could, the Yankee cannon. Declared Blackford, “My orders were to fire incessantly, without regard to ammunition.”

Jeb Stuart’s cavalry column, perhaps 4,500 riders in all, uncoiled from near Rock Creek, north of Benner’s Hill, and began a slow march to the northeast, following the York Pike. “We could only hear the battle, not see it,” wrote one of Stuart’s staff officers. Appended to the column was the independent brigade commanded until yesterday by Albert Jenkins. Colonel Milton J. Ferguson was supposed to be in charge, but he was likely guarding prisoners with the 17th Virginia Cavalry, leaving Lieutenant Colonel Vincent A. Witcher as the senior officer. Stuart’s men moved at a slow pace, partly in deference to their worn-out animals but also in recognition of the fact that until the infantry made its move, they would have to watch and wait.

Ironically, the Federal cavalry force that had so nettled James Walker the day before had now been moved closer to the Baltimore Pike, leaving the Hanover Road wide open. Alfred Pleasonton, whose poor judgment had already allowed John Buford’s division to depart the battlefield, had decided that keeping a closer watch over the infantry near Culp’s Hill was more important than taking an advanced position to shield that flank along the Hanover Road. Brigadier General David McMurtrie Gregg, whose two brigades had been picketing that road, disagreed.

Even as he carried out his orders, Gregg protested to Pleasonton that the area where the Hanover Road was intersected by the Low Dutch Road (about three miles east of Gettysburg) was strategically significant. According to one of his officers, Gregg argued that leaving this crossroads uncovered “would invite an attack upon our rear with, possibly, disastrous results.” Pleasonton relented to the extent that he authorized the posting of a brigade from Judson Kilpatrick’s division in that position, but he would not budge from his insistence that Gregg’s men stay closer to the Baltimore Pike. Convinced that leaving the back door wide open was a very bad idea, Gregg sent one of his aides to corral the allotted brigade while he directed his own pair south from the Hanover Road.

With George Steuart’s brigade pinned in its earthworks by the slow but steady Twelfth Corps artillery fire, the Confederate effort on Culp’s Hill shifted to the upper summit, where the Louisiana troops under Jesse Williams and James Walker’s Stonewall Brigade tried to overwhelm George Greene’s entrenched line. Little had changed from the previous evening, save that the Yankee boys had more light to aim by.

“I think it was the hardest battle we ever had,” reflected a soldier in the 33rd Virginia. Another member of that regiment, named John Burner, was mortally wounded before he could get off a single shot. It would fall to Burner’s brother-in-law to tell his sister that she was now a widow. Her husband was felled by a “ball entering his right side just below his arm, and pas[s]ing through near his heart to the left,” her brother wrote. He “was conscious of his situation and wished to die that he might be relieved of his suffering. He told Lt. Buswell as soon as he was shot that he was killed, and said it seemed as if [there] were a dozen balls in his body.”

With the entire Twelfth Corps now on hand, the Federals on Culp’s Hill were able to mount an aggressive defense. Even as the Louisiana troops began pressing the lines in their front, a single Yankee regiment, the 66th Ohio, swung out from the summit to take a precarious position outside the trenches and at a right angle to them. Then, as later related by the regiment’s commander, “protected behind stones logs trees &c we turned our fire down upon the enemy.” A similar but more truncated movement on the opposite flank, by the 147th Pennsylvania, added to the killing crossfire that ripped into the broken waves of Rebels trying to force their way up the slope.

When the only Confederate reinforcements available, the regiments of William Smith’s Virginia brigade, began reaching the scene in piece-meal fashion, they were posted on Steuart’s left. Henry Kyd Douglas of Johnson’s staff led the troops to their assigned place. He paid a price for the sense of an officer’s dignity and propriety that kept him exposed on horseback: “There came little puffs of smoke, a rattle of small arms, the sensation of a tremendous blow and I sank forward on my horse, who ceased his prancing when my hold was loosened on his bridle reins,” Douglas recalled. Friendly hands bore the wounded young aide to the rear, where he retained enough sensation to hear the rattle of musketry crescendo into tearing torrents as Smith’s men entered the action.

Smith’s men had hustled into a blocking position guarding the Confederate right flank just as a hastily organized Union threat manifested itself. The train of events on the Federal side began with the imagined right-wing commander, Henry Slocum, who at around 6:30
A.M.
bypassed his own chain of authority by directly instructing Brigadier General Thomas Ruger, whose troops were holding the area just south of Culp’s Hill, to attack what Slocum thought was a “shaky” Rebel flank, an assessment Ruger himself did not credit. It would be better, he argued, to probe the enemy strength before committing any large force. Slocum agreed.

Ruger decided that two regiments advancing with a skirmish line could do the job. If the widely dispersed voltigeurs provoked a strong response, the regiments could retire; if they discovered the enemy pulling out, the pair would be ready to take advantage of it. It was an eminently sensible plan. Unfortunately, however, Ruger was not familiar with the terrain, nor did he adequately brief the aide he sent to carry the orders to Silas Colgrove, whose troops were to be used for the operation. By the time the aide reached Colgrove, it seemed from the sounds to the north that some advance was already under way along the Union line, so the messenger urged a similar action on this front. The force deployed could still have been a regimental line screened by skirmishers, but after examining the ground, Colgrove concluded that there was not enough cover for the exposed advance line. The best option, as he saw it, would be a quick rush by two regiments.

From the five regiments in his brigade, Colgrove picked the 2nd Massachusetts and the 27th Indiana for the job. When the message reached Lieutenant Colonel Charles Mudge of the 2nd he was aghast. “‘Are you
sure
that is the order?’” he demanded. Assured that it was, he remarked, “‘Well, it is murder, but it’s the order.’” Mudge formed his men quickly for the action and, without waiting for the Hoosiers to untangle themselves from portions of a New Jersey unit blocking their way, ordered the charge.

There was nothing shaky about this portion of the Confederate line, held mostly by Virginia troops of William Smith’s brigade, who were anything but disorganized and only too eager for a little payback. For trained soldiers secure behind cover defending against an enemy advancing in the open, it was a turkey shoot. Massachusetts men fell every step of the way; color-bearer after color-bearer went down, either dead or wounded. A bullet ripped into Charles Mudge’s throat, killing him. Isolated and getting further shredded by the second, the 2nd Massachusetts was saved only by the late-arriving 27th Indiana, which drew most of the fire, allowing the dazed Bay State soldiers to tumble back. The Indiana troops also suffered severely—also without gaining any advantage—before retreating on Silas Colgrove’s orders.

The 2nd Massachusetts lost 45 killed and 90 wounded out of 316 men in the charge, while the 27th Indiana lost 111 killed and wounded out of 339.

Along Cemetery Ridge, opposite the Bliss farm buildings, the Confederate riflemen were again making life hell for the soldiers in the main Federal line. Once more, Alexander Hays gave orders for the farm to be retaken, and in response a party of about thirty men drawn from the Ist Delaware and 12th New Jersey tried a rush that failed. As they tumbled back, they were covered by several Federal batteries that in turn drew counterbattery fire from Rebel cannon along Seminary Ridge. The Bliss farm remained in Confederate hands.

This action spread as far south as Sherfy’s peach orchard, where Parker’s Virginia Battery was posted. Anticipating that they would soon become engaged, some of the gunners walked out into the fields in their front, which were dotted with Yankee dead and wounded. According to one Rebel artilleryman, “We told the wounded men to come into our lines as many as could walk as we would commence firing over them. A number of them came into our lines and we then commenced firing.”

Still working out a new offensive battle plan for his right flank, Robert E. Lee conferred with James Longstreet and A. P. Hill in front of Heth’s Division. Although not yet fit to resume command of his unit, Henry Heth was present, as were several of Lee’s staff, including Armistead Long, Walter Taylor, and Charles S. Venable. Because the aides kept a respectful distance, their recollections of this meeting would be fragmentary and incomplete, though few would recognize that fact. A courier standing even farther away than the favored aides would later note that a “consultation was held and the situation fully discussed.”

It is likely that Lee was considering reversing himself on the use of McLaws’ and Hood’s Divisions. Staff officer Taylor clearly “understood the argument to be that General Longstreet should endeavor to force the enemy’s lines in his front. That front was held by the divisions of Hood and McLaws.” By the time Armistead Long patched into the conversation, “it was decided that General Pickett should lead the assaulting column, to be supported by the divisions of McLaws and Hood and such other force as A. P. Hill could spare from his command.” Wearily, one suspects, Longstreet renewed his objections to employing those well-worn units. He later summarized his argument with the comment, “To have rushed forward my two divisions, then carrying bloody noses from their terrible conflict the day before, would have been madness.”

No one would dare gainsay Longstreet regarding the condition of his own troops, though the silent challenge to Lee must have made for an awkward moment. Suddenly A. P. Hill, whose demeanor on July 2 had been less than assertive, spoke up with energy and enthusiasm, offering his entire corps for the effort. Lee graciously thanked Hill but pointed out that his troops now occupied an important central position, especially with regard to the Cashtown Gap in their rear. Nevertheless, the possibility of supplementing Pickett’s fresh division with some of Hill’s men was on the table.

Someone—most likely Henry Heth himself—volunteered Heth’s Division for the task, and Lee quickly assented. Given his own shaky condition, it is improbable that Heth was current on the state of his command, but he may have felt that he needed to make up somehow for the coarse way he had managed affairs on July 1. The selection of Heth’s Division also provided a focal point for the attack, since it was roughly opposite the Federal center; then, too, there was a concealed position to the right of Heth’s line that offered room enough for Pickett’s men.