Gettysburg (82 page)

Also heading back to Seminary Ridge was J. Johnston Pettigrew, whose horse had been killed and whose hand had been broken by a shell burst. With his aide Louis Young, Pettigrew began reforming his regiments as their members came stumbling back. Not long after reaching the ridge, Pettigrew encountered Robert E. Lee, who approved his efforts to rally his men. Before leaving him, Lee said one more thing: “‘General, I am sorry to see you wounded; go to the rear.’”

George Meade’s ride to Cemetery Ridge brought him in through Ziegler’s Grove, where Alexander Hays’ men were tasting victory. An artillery officer in Woodruff’s battery, having just watched Hays ride along his line dragging a captured Rebel standard behind him in the dirt, was a bit nonplussed when Meade rode up, addressed him by name, and asked if the enemy had turned. “I said yes, see General Hays has one of their flags,” the cannoneer later recalled. To his surprise, Meade looked quite cross at hearing this reply. “‘1 don’t care for their flag,’” he snapped. “‘Have they turned[?]’” The officer said yes, adding, “They are just turning.” At that, Meade set off toward the Copse of Trees, where the fighting was still raging.

Supported to their left by the Alabama and Tennessee regiments of what had been Archer’s Brigade, and on their right by all that was left of Kemper’s command, the soldiers of Garnett’s Brigade were able to push into the section of the outer angle that had been abandoned by the 71st Pennsylvania. The rattle of musketry from both sides had crescendoed into a constant tearing. At some points along the wall, the Yankees had fled, and Garnett’s men stood on the stones yelling triumphantly at their foes. Their commander sent word for Armistead to come forward right away, and then, anticipating the extra push that brigade would provide, ordered his own troops to fall back a little.

A Federal regiment now appeared ahead of Garnett on the crest, set itself, and fired a volley that swept through the Virginia files. Private Robert H. Irvine saw but could hardly comprehend what happened next: “Just as the General turned his horse’s head slightly to the left he was struck in the head by a rifle or musket ball and fell dead from his horse.” The image of Garnett’s terrified bay galloping wildly to the rear was one that some would later regard as being emblematic of Confederate fortunes this day.

The last hope for a Southern victory on Cemetery Ridge emerged from the gunpowder fog, its ranks still holding enough shape to denote the regiments, its colorful battle flags defiantly marking the intervals. Lewis Armistead was marching toward his moment of destiny.

The situation was becoming desperate for the 69th Pennsylvania. On its left flank, friendly fire from Cowan’s battery had killed two Company G privates and possibly two more in Company K. This added an unnerving extra element of risk to the hard fight in their front, mostly against Kemper’s men positioned over the rough ground. A number of Pennsylvanians cracked and ran, some through Cowan’s battery, others into the Copse of Trees.

A squad of Rebels made a desperate rush into the weakened flank, aiming for Cowan’s guns. It cost Cowan two crewmen engaged in loading double canister charges. Behind the gunners appeared Henry Hunt, whose usual composure was another casualty of the moment: “‘See’em!’” he cried, and fired his revolver at the charging enemy squad. “‘See’em!’” Hunt’s horse reared and fell, trapping him under its weight. The battery salvoed its shotgun blasts and obliterated the Confederate intruders, but with more Rebel infantry teeming nearby, it was time for Cowan’s gunners to get out. They hauled their cannon back over the ridge, stopping on the way to free the Army of the Potomac’s artillery chief from underneath his dead animal.

Like its predecessors, Armistead’s Brigade had taken losses in covering the distance from the Emmitsburg Road to the Federal line along Cemetery Ridge. After carefully dressing the formation of his company in the 9th Virginia, which had been disordered in clambering over the fence along the road, Lieutenant John C. Niemeyer turned to a friend and exclaimed, “‘John, what a beautiful line.’” Minutes later, Niemeyer was dead. Another lieutenant, this one in the 53rd Virginia, thought it “awful the way the men dropped” as they approached the enemy position. The combination of Federal fire and the mobs of friendly troops near the stone wall caused Armistead’s advance to lose steam. The brigadier general was with Lieutenant Colonel Rawley W. Martin as he reached the impasse. “‘Martin, we can’t stay here; we must go over that wall,’” Armistead said. “‘Then we’ll go forward,’” Martin responded. Armistead stuck his felt hat on the tip of his sword and raised it high for all to see, then dodged ahead to stand atop the stone wall. “‘Boys, give them the cold steel!’” he cried. “‘Who will follow me?’”

The 71st Pennsylvania, reunited in its support position, was holding its section of the stone wall, leading the brigade commander, Alexander Webb, to conclude that if only he could plug the gap at the angle, he might stand a good chance of ending the Confederate effort once and for all. The 72nd Pennsylvania was perfectly disposed to accomplish this, as its volleys had already told heavily on the enemy troops there. But conceiving a plan was one thing, and getting others to carry it out was something else again, as Webb soon discovered. In his frenzy to make things happen, he ignored the chain of command, bypassing the 72nd’s colonel to call personally upon the men to charge. Most could not hear him amid the tumult, and those who could had little idea who he was; certainly none intended to follow him into a nest of deadly Rebels. To a man, the members of the 72nd stood their ground, deaf to Webb’s pleas for them to advance. Driven by a mixture of irritation, frustration, and shame, Alexander Webb walked down the slope to the right flank of the 69th.

Sharing his frustration was Frank Haskell, whose pride and anger had been stirred by the sight of the “damned red flags of the rebellion” sprouting along the section of the wall conceded by the 71st. After trying without success to rally some stragglers (he thought they were from the 72nd, but more likely they were fragments of the 69th), he rode south along the ridge in search of help and found Norman Hall, pursuant to his conversation with Hancock, advancing his little brigade toward the copse of trees. Having confirmed Hall’s intentions, Haskell continued on and observed some regiments from Harrow’s brigade moving to the same purpose. Pointing toward the maelstrom, Haskell shouted, “‘See the gray-backs run!’”

The enemy’s surge into the angle positioned Rebel soldiers to fire into the rear of the 69th. Someone in the regiment ordered the three right companies to change front to meet the new threat. Companies A and 1, on the extreme end of the line, accordingly began wheeling east, backstepping south to face north. The captain in charge of Company F, however, was killed before he could issue the order, so his men remained facing west. Attracted by the opening, Rebel squads swarmed along the wall, coming up on Company F from behind and killing, wounding, or capturing every last man in its ranks. To an officer of the 69th, it seemed “as though our regiment would be annihilated, [as] the contest here became a hand to hand affair.” At some point during this melee, the 69th’s commander, Dennis O’Kane, was mortally wounded.

Sword still aloft, the pierced felt hat he had raised on its tip now resting on its hilt, Lewis Armistead pushed along with the surge that wiped out Company F. Inside the outer angle, there were at least 150 men, maybe more, representing both wings of the advance that had spread across more than a mile at its outset. Armistead had just reached the left gun of Cushing’s abandoned pair when his luck ran out: hit in the chest and arm, he fell only a few yards inside the outer angle. The shock of his wounding was such that those around him thought he was dead. Armistead had been the driving force behind the last effort, and there was no one on hand to take up the initiative. Almost as quickly as it had come crashing in, the Rebel tide inside the outer angle ebbed back to the wall.

Little Round Top this day was more a point of observation than a place of danger, though Rebel snipers along Houck’s Ridge made it deadly enough for the unwary. With a few precautions, the Federal signal station remained active throughout the day, affording its operators a bird’s-eye view of the Cemetery Ridge assault. Signalman Norman H. Camp was not unused to the curiosities of combat situations, but even he was surprised by the reaction of the nearby infantry supports. As Camp recalled it, “When the gallant Virginians had pierced our first Artillery line, the men of a New York regiment … arose from their kneeling positions in a rifle pit running close to my signal station, and loudly applauded the rebel bravery by clapping their hands as if at a theater.”

A
rmistead’s fall roughly coincided with the arrival on the scene of Union reinforcements from the southern sector of the Cemetery Ridge line. Some of the units swung to the north of the Copse of Trees, while others angled around south of it.
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In the thick of things, working to coordinate the counterstrokes, John Gibbon was shot in his left arm; the bullet fractured his shoulder blade on its way out. The fighting general was led from the field, “the sounds of the contest on the hill still ringing in my ears,” as he later remembered. His men carried on without him: newly strengthened on both its flanks, the 69th Pennsylvania, whose center had never relinquished the front wall, restored its line. For the Confederates still within the perimeter, the options no longer included victory. “The final moment has come where there must be instant flight, instant surrender, or instant death,” noted one of Pickett’s officers.

Among the new arrivals was Battery C, 5th United States Light Artillery, Gulian Weir commanding. The young lieutenant had spent the worst night of his life convinced that he had lost almost all of his battery to the enemy. The morning light, however, had revealed the (to him) incredible sight of his missing guns in camp just a short distance away. Weir had reorganized his battery, gotten it resupplied, and then spent several frustrating hours trying to find something for it to do. Once the bombardment began, his short-range Napoleons were not in demand, as the call was for long-range rifled cannon; he and his gunners were actually on their way back to the artillery reserve when a frantic rider brought orders for all guns to go to the front. After several more misadventures, Weir’s six tubes rolled into position on Cemetery Hill, replacing Arnold’s battered Rhode Island command.

Weir’s gunners set up after the charge had reached its climax but while everything was still in a state of general confusion. Not knowing precisely where matters stood, Weir’s well-drilled crews simply did as they had been trained, firing canister blasts into the Confederate troops mobbed in their front. Unfortunately, many of those men were at that moment trying to surrender. The young Yankee officer himself recollected that “numbers of the enemy came up in front of, and through the battery to give themselves up, throwing themselves on the ground, as my guns in their front were fired.” Weir probably sensed that the situation was beyond anyone’s control as his guns belched round after round into the enemy. When one frightened Rebel stumbled out of the maelstrom to ask him, “‘Where can I go to get out of this Hellish fire?,’” Weir pointed rearward and advised, “‘Go down there, I wish I could go with you.’”

The surviving officers of Pickett’s and Archer’s commands first tried to consolidate their units just a short distance from the stone wall, hoping to provide a base of fire that would bolster the next assault wave when it appeared. Among their number was Joseph Mayo, now commanding Kemper’s Brigade. Mayo was looking to the rear—now bereft of men in gray, save for the knots of wounded men slowly heading back toward Seminary Ridge—when a private standing next to him voiced his very thought: “‘Oh! Colonel,’” he said, “‘why don’t they support us.?’”

There would be no support for them this day. James Longstreet, entrusted by Lee with responsibility for continuing the action if he believed it might succeed, had determined that it could not. According to Richard Anderson, who had already committed Wilcox’s and Perry’s Brigades to the effort, “I was about to move forward Wright’s and Posey’s brigades, when Lieutenant-General Longstreet directed me to stop the movement, advising that it was useless, and would only involve unnecessary loss, as the assault had failed.”
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Robert Rodes, whose division was in a similar position to support the left wing, also received notice “that the attack had already failed.”

Waiting in Gettysburg on Ewell’s orders to strike if the opportunity presented itself, Jubal Early was visited by a courier bringing news: “Longstreet & Hill have been driven back,” he reported.

As the Confederates began retreating across the fields in groups or rough formations, some Federals chased after them, firing as they went. One defiant Rebel was shot dead after refusing to lower his gun when surrounded by members of the 13th Vermont. Most, however, were more resigned: a Second Corps staff officer saw many dispirited Rebels “holding up their handkerchiefs or a piece of white paper in token of surrender.” Along the front held by the 69th Pennsylvania, the focus shifted from fighting to regrouping the various companies, tending to the wounded, and identifying the dead.
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“As soon as the smoke lifted sufficiently to permit us to see,” recollected a member of the 1st Minnesota, “all that could be seen of the mighty force … was scattered and running to the rear.” “It was a time of indescribable enthusiasm and excitement,” added a New York officer. “Hats and caps and shouts filled the air. Sallies to the front were made, and battle-flags and trophies of our victory were gathered and brought in.” A burst of gunfire from one portion of the line brought Alexander Hays riding over, still dragging the captured Confederate flag behind him. “‘Stop firing, you — fools; don’t you know enough to stop firing[?],’” he shouted. “‘It’s all over—stop! stop! stop!’”

Several companies shook out from the main line and advanced cautiously as far as the Emmitsburg Road to round up prisoners and view the carnage. “We could have picked off many of them,” a Federal rifleman reflected, “[but] somehow, we did not have much desire to kill someone.” Such charity was not universal. A Yankee squad out gathering up prisoners faced off against a desperate Rebel who turned his gun on the officer in charge, dropping it only when the Federal covered him with his own revolver. The officer recalled, “It was all I could do to keep the boys from killing him.” “There were literally acres of dead lying in front of our line,” wrote one of Hays’ officers. “I counted 16 dead bodies on one rod square.”