Gettysburg (74 page)

The section of Cemetery Ridge held by Hancock’s Second Corps covered about half a mile, into which were placed five infantry brigades and some twenty-eight cannon. Its northern end was situated in a small piece of woodland named Ziegler’s Grove. Here, posted mainly behind a stone wall, were two of Alexander Hays’ three brigades. Colonel Thomas A. Smyth’s Second Brigade, which had been heavily tasked in the Bliss farm operations, held the wall, backed by the late George Willard’s battered unit, now led by Colonel Eliakim Sherrill. The missing brigade was Samuel Carroll’s, still detached to eastern Cemetery Hill, save for the 8th Ohio, performing skirmish duty near the Emmitsburg Road.

The stone wall ran southward a short distance toward a group of small trees—soon to be capitalized as the Copse of Trees—that had managed to grow in the rocky soil. It jogged sharply right (the “inner angle”) before resuming its original southern course, creating a nearly 90-degree bend that the veterans would come to know as the Angle (the “outer angle”). This was the responsibility of Alexander Webb’s brigade of John Gibbon’s division, three Pennsylvania regiments providing close support for two batteries on either side of the copse. A fourth regiment was held in reserve. Except for the 71st Pennsylvania, which had seen brief and unhappy service on Culp’s Hill on July 2, this brigade had been only lightly engaged thus far in the battle.

Next to the south were the brigades of Colonel Norman J. Hall and Brigadier General William Harrow. All of Harrow’s regiments had seen action on July 2, as had some of Hall’s. Prolonging the line below Harrow was a late-arriving portion of the First Corps, three Vermont regiments commanded by Brigadier General George J. Stannard. These volunteer units had been called up for just nine months’ service, a term that was due to expire soon. One of the regiments, the 13th Vermont, had gotten in on the end of yesterday’s action, but the other two had yet to see combat.

“I could not help wishing all the morning that this line of … the 2nd Corps were stronger,” Frank Haskell worried. “But I was not Gnl. Meade, who alone had power to send other troops there; and he was satisfied, with that part of the line as it was.” Since nothing seemed to be stirring on the Rebel side, the idea spread among Gibbon’s staff that a picnic lunch would be in order. From various nooks came potatoes, bread, butter, coffee, tea, and some chickens, which Haskell pronounced “in good
running
orders.” An invitation was extended to Winfield Hancock, who accepted with alacrity; when George Meade came by on an inspection tour, room was made for him as well, and then for several other officers whose noses brought them to the scene.

The food was consumed, cigars were lit, and the generals talked shop, with the small gaggle of aides hanging on their every word. According to Haskell, “Meade still thought that the enemy would attack his left again to day, towards evening. … Hancock [thought] that the attack would be upon the position of the 2nd Corps.” Then, one by one, the officers departed for their commands, leaving only the original instigators, Gibbon and his staff. “We dozed in the heat,” recollected Haskell, “and lolled upon the ground, with half open eyes.”

Jeb Stuart’s cavalry column, now heading in a southeasterly direction from the York Pike, began collecting in the woods on the northern end of Cress Ridge, about a mile and a half distant from the intersection of Low Dutch Road and the Hanover Road. Stuart’s aide Henry B. McClellan deemed the position a good one: “The roads leading from the rear of the Federal line of battle were under … [Stuart’s] eye and could be reached by … the road by which he had approached. Moreover, the open fields, although intersected by many fences, admitted of movement in any direction,” he wrote. Although he did not expect it to last long, McClellan noted that for the moment, “the scene was as peaceful as if no war existed.”

Missed in this pastoral survey was George Custer’s brigade, now posted on low ground near the crossroads. David McMurtrie Gregg was with Custer, having been relieved of most of his picketing duties once the threat to Culp’s Hill had faded. Gregg had brought along one of his brigades, an important piece of field intelligence, and some orders. The information had come through Oliver Otis Howard, on Cemetery Hill, whose signal officers had spotted “large columns of the enemy’s cavalry … moving toward the right of our line.” In response to the sighting, Alfred Pleasonton, in one of his rare sound decisions, had dispatched Gregg with a brigade back to the Hanover Road. He immediately negated the value of that action, however, by instructing Gregg to release Custer’s brigade to rejoin its proper division, then on the Union left. Gregg was unhappy about the latter order but was nonetheless carrying it out when Jeb Stuart lent a hand.

Up until this moment in his flank march, Stuart had operated with circumspection; while he had not made any extraordinary effort to cloak his movements, he had undertaken them in such a way as to avoid any casual observation. Accordingly, he had two brigades concealed behind the woods on the northern side of Cress Ridge, within easy striking distance of the Hanover Road. Until now, Stuart’s aide McClellan had thought he understood his chief’s plan, but what Stuart did next would puzzle him to the end of his days. As McClellan watched, Stuart called up one of the four guns in Captain Thomas A. Jackson’s Charlottesville Horse Battery
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and had it fire “a number of random shots in different directions, himself giving orders to the gun.” Almost with his next breath, Stuart instructed Vincent A. Witcher to advance a dismounted force to take control of the John Rummel farm, half a mile distant.

Responding to the cannon shots and the appearance of the Rebel skirmishers, George Custer had his horse battery return the compliments, and at the same time sent forward his own voltigeurs from the 5th and 6th Michigan Cavalry Regiments. When he met with Gregg, Custer expressed his feeling that there would be fighting here soon. Gregg replied “that if such was his opinion, I would like to have the assistance of his brigade.” Although he was under orders to proceed to Big Round Top, Custer was not one to ride away from a fight. “‘If you will give me an order to remain I will only be too happy to do it,’” he said.

Gregg gave the order. Things were beginning to heat up along the Hanover Road.

Many of the correspondents on the scene took advantage of the relative lull to polish their notes, get something to eat, or simply rest. One exception was the reporter covering the action for the
Augusta
(Georgia)
Daily Constitutionalist
, who watched in amazement as battery after battery was eased into position in a continuous row stretching the length of the Confederate line. From his various sources, he learned of the impending attack against the Federals.

For many of the Northern newsmen, George Meade’s headquarters was the best place to catch a whiff of what was happening. Sam Wilkeson of the
New York Times
was frantic with worry over unconfirmed reports that his son, Bayard, had been badly wounded on July 1 and was now in Confederate hands. He was particularly struck by the paradoxical peace-fulness around the Leister house, a calm highlighted by “the singing of a bird, which had a nest in a peach tree within the tiny yard of the whitewashed cottage.” Whitelaw Reid noted only the steady activity: “Meade was receiving reports in the little house, coming occasionally to the door to address a hasty inquiry to some one in the group of staff officers under the tree.” “Aid[e]s were coming and going; a signal-officer in the yard was waving his flags in response to one on Round-top,” added the
Boston Journal’s
Charles Coffin. A reporter present for the
New York World
recorded the curious advent of a “flock of pigeons” in numbers large enough to darken “the sky above” over the battlefield.

Some important details regarding the assault ordered by Lee had yet to be ironed out. Critical to the proper coordination of the advance would be the joining of Heth’s Division to Pickett’s, or, more specifically, of Heth’s rightmost brigade (Archer’s) to Pickett’s leftmost (Garnett’s). With Archer now in a Federal POW stockade, Colonel Birkett D. Fry commanded the mixed force of Alabama and Tennessee regiments that had been so roughly handled on July 1. At the direction of Brigadier General J. Johnston Pettigrew (commanding the division while Heth convalesced), Fry went looking for George Pickett. The Virginia general “appeared in excellent spirits,” Fry recollected, “and … expressed great confidence in the ability of our troops to drive the enemy when they had been ‘demoralized by our artillery.’”

Some minutes later, Richard Garnett joined them. The forty-four-year-old West Point graduate was moving slowly, beset by constant leg pain from a kick by a horse. The trio agreed that Fry’s would be the brigade of direction, meaning that all other units assigned to the first wave would orient themselves in relation to it.

As he made his way back to his command, Fry was unable to shake the memory of a meeting he had had the day before with A. P. Hill, during which the two had taken a careful survey of the Federal line on Cemetery Hill. Asked his opinion, Fry had conceded that the enemy position looked very strong. In reply, Hill had snapped shut his field glass and asserted that it was “entirely too strong to attack in front.”

Once the Army of the Potomac’s artillery chief, Henry Hunt, was satisfied that the situation on Culp’s Hill was under control, he rode over to Cemetery Ridge. He was quite surprised by what he saw along the enemy’s side: “Our whole front for two miles was covered by batteries already in line or going into position. … Never before had such a sight been witnessed on this continent, and rarely, if ever, abroad. What did it mean?” he wondered. His astonishment was of short duration; almost at once, he began moving several reserve units forward to within close supporting distance of Cemetery Ridge.

William Mahone was shocked when he learned of the assault plans that were taking shape. The brigadier general, whose command in Richard Anderson’s division (Hill’s Corps) would suffer fewer casualties in this battle than any other infantry brigade in Lee’s army, “begged” his division commander to accompany him to a point of observation. “I said to him what was plain to my mind,” Mahone later recounted. “That no troops ever formed a line of battle that could cross the plain of fire to which the attacking force would be subjected, and … that I could not believe General Lee would insist on such an assault after he had seen the ground.” Anderson, however, refused to confront Lee on the matter, “saying, in substance, that we had nothing to do but to obey the order.”

“Never was I so depressed as upon that day,” James Longstreet would afterward admit. “With my knowledge of the situation, I could see the desperate and hopeless nature of the charge and the cruel slaughter it would cause.” Nonetheless, he did everything he could to maximize the chances of success: “Division commanders were asked to go to the crest of the ridge and take a careful view of the field, and to have their officers there to tell their men of it, and to prepare them for the sight that was to burst upon them as they mounted the crest,” he explained.

All necessary steps had been taken to synchronize the infantry advance and designate the artillery targets. It remained only to coordinate the artillery with the infantry. Longstreet had thus far shouldered the burden of this operation alone, but as he stood poised to act on his final orders, he sought to apportion some responsibility. “I was so much impressed with the hopelessness of the charge, that I wrote the following note to … [Edward P.] Alexander,” he recalled.

Then, remembered Longstreet, “I rode to a woodland hard by, to lie down and study for some new thought that might aid the assaulting column.”

The slow crescendo of carbine and rifle popping to the south along the Emmitsburg Road signaled a threat to Lee’s extreme right flank that could not be ignored. Union Brigadier General Wesley Merritt’s cavalry brigade, encamped this morning at Emmitsburg, had followed that road toward Gettysburg, making contact with Confederate pickets about a mile south of where Hood’s Division had staged its attack the day before.

Merritt was moving his small brigade of mostly regular-army units
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with no more serious purpose than to “annoy” the enemy’s right and rear. Of course, no one on the Confederate side was privy to the Federal cavalryman’s orders, so when news reached James Longstreet, whose flank it was, he had to react. “It was called a charge,” he remembered, “but was probably a reconnaissance.” Robert E. Lee had passed on to Longstreet a detachment of South Carolina cavalry under Colonel John L. Black, about a hundred troopers in all. These Longstreet sent along to assist Evander Law, who had taken over Hood’s Division and was responsible for that sector.

By the time Black reached the infantry skirmish line, the Confederate pickets from the 9th Georgia were gamely trading shots with the Union troopers, who had dismounted once the action began. After adding his hundred to the screen, Black went looking for Evander Law, who was on his way with help: the divisional commander had pulled two more of G. T. Anderson’s Georgia regiments off the area near the Round Tops and was bringing them himself. Law, knowing that the Yankee cavalryman was utilizing his greater mobility to stretch out the defenders, feared that his own “line beyond that road would soon become so weak that it might easily be broken by a bold cavalry attack.”

Edward P. Alexander was standing near some of his guns, conversing idly with Ambrose Wright of Richard Anderson’s division, when Longstreet’s message was handed to him. “This note rather startled me,” Alexander later recalled. “If that assault was to be made on General’s Lee’s judgment it was all right, but I did not want it on mine.” He checked with Wright, who advised him to send Longstreet a reply stating his reservations. This Alexander did.