The Battle of Gettysburg 10

The Battle of Gettysburg 10

Geary's division of this corps having kept straight on up the pike

to Cemetery Hill, Hancock turned it off to the extreme left, partly

to make some show in that as yet unguarded quarter, about which he

felt by no means easy, partly to hold control of the Emmettsburg

and Taneytown roads (see map), by which more of the Union troops

were marching to the field. Stretching itself out in a thin line

as far as Little Round Top, and after sending one regiment out on

picket toward the Emmettsburg road, and just to the right of the

Devil's Den, the division slept on its arms, in a position destined

to become celebrated, first on account of Hancock's foresight in

seizing it, next by reason of its desertion by the general intrusted

with its defence.

 

[Sidenote: Second Corps nearly up.]

 

Hancock had the satisfaction of feeling that the position was safe

for the present when he rode back to Taneytown, first to meet his

own corps on the road, and next to find that the whole army had

already been ordered up. Throwing Gibbon an order to halt as he

passed, Hancock kept on to headquarters. His work was done.

 

[Sidenote: Union Line at Dark.]

 

Nothing but the importance which this critical period of the battle

has assumed to our own mind could justify the giving of all these

details by which the gradual patching up and lengthening out of the

line, until it took the form it subsequently held, and from a front

of a few hundred yards grew to be two miles long, may be better

followed.

 

[Sidenote: Part of Third Corps up.]

 

[Sidenote: Find Sherfy's on Map.]

 

[Sidenote: Other Corps where?]

 

As regards the rest of the army, some part of the Third Corps had

now reached the ground by the Emmettsburg road, though too late to

get into line; its pickets, however, were thrown out on that road

as far to the left as a cross-road leading down from Sherfy's house

to Little Round Top. The rest of this corps would come up by this

same road in the morning. The Second Corps was halting for the night

three miles back, also in a position to guard the left of the line.

Nominally, therefore, five of the seven corps were up at dark that

night, or at least near enough to go into position by daybreak. The

Fifth being then at Hanover, twenty-four miles back, and the Sixth,

which was the strongest in the army, at Manchester, thirty-five

miles from Gettysburg, it still became a question whether the

whole Union army could be assembled in season to overcome Lee's

superiority on the field.[50]

 

[Sidenote: Chances against Meade.]

 

Indeed, when Meade did finally order the whole army to Gettysburg,

the chances were as ten to one against its getting up in time to

fight as a unit.

 

Would that portion of the Union forces found on Cemetery Hill on the

morning of the second be beaten in detail, as the First and Eleventh

had been the day before?

 

[Sidenote: Lee's Plan.]

 

[Sidenote: Longstreet demurs.]

 

This seems, in fact, to have been Lee's real purpose, as he told

Longstreet at five o'clock, when they were looking over the ground

together, that if Meade's army was on the heights next day it must

be dislodged. Knowing that but two Union corps had been engaged that

day against him, Lee seemed impressed with the idea that he could

beat Meade before the rest of his army could arrive. Longstreet

strongly opposed making a direct attack, though without shaking his

chief's purpose. As Lee now had his whole army well in hand, one

division only being absent,[51] he seemed little disposed to begin a

new series of combinations, when, in his opinion, he had the Union

army half defeated, half scattered, and wholly at a disadvantage.

And we think he was right.

 

[Sidenote: Chances favor Lee.]

 

We have seen that Lee's conclusions with respect to the force before

him were so nearly correct as to justify his confidence in his own

plans. Ever since crossing South Mountain he had expected a battle.

It is true he found it forced upon him sooner than he expected,

yet his own army had been the first to concentrate, his troops had

gained a partial victory by this very means, and both general and

soldiers were eager to consummate it while the chances were still

so distinctly in their favor. Even if Lee was somewhat swayed by a

belief in his own genius, as some of his critics have suggested,--a

belief which had so far carried him from victory to victory,--we

cannot blame him. War is a game of chance, and Lee now saw that

chance had put his enemy in his power.

 

[Sidenote: Ewell says No.]

 

[Sidenote: Cemetery Hill too Strong.]

 

At the close of the day Lee therefore rode over to see if Ewell

could not open the battle by carrying Cemetery Hill. Ewell bluntly

declared it to be an impossibility. The Union troops, he said,

would be at work strengthening their already formidable positions

there all night, so that by morning they would be found well-nigh

impregnable. Culp's Hill had been snatched from his grasp. The

rugged character of these heights, the impossibility of using

artillery to support an attack, the exposure of the assaulting

columns to the fire of the Union batteries at short range, were all

forcibly dwelt upon and fully concurred in by Ewell's lieutenants.

In short, so many objections appeared that, willing or unwilling,

Lee found himself forced to give over the design of breaking through

the Union line at this point and taking the road to Baltimore.

 

[Sidenote: Ewell says, try the Left.]

 

It was then suggested that the attack should begin on the Union

left, where, to all appearances, the ridge was far more assailable

or less strongly occupied, because the Union troops seemed massed

more with the view of repelling this projected assault toward their

right.

 

Inasmuch as Ewell was really ignorant of what force was in his

front at that moment, his advice to Lee may have sprung from a not

unnatural desire to see that part of the army which had not been

engaged do some of the work cut out for him and his corps.

 

Be that as it may, Lee then and there proposed giving up Gettysburg

altogether, in order to draw Ewell over toward his right, thus

massing the Confederate army in position to strike the Union left,

as well as materially shortening his own long line.

 

[Sidenote: What, give up Gettysburg.]

 

But to this proposal Ewell as strongly demurred again. After losing

over three thousand men in taking it, he did not want to give

up Gettysburg. It involved a point of honor to which Jackson's

successor showed himself keenly sensitive. His arrival had decided

the day; and at that moment he held the bulk of the Union army

before him, simply by remaining where he was. If he moved off, that

force would be freed also. So where would be the gain of it?

 

"Well, then, if I attack from my right, Longstreet will have to make

the attack," said Lee at last; adding a moment later, and as if the

admission came from him in spite of himself, "but he is so slow."

 

[Sidenote: Lee's Dilemma.]

 

Finding that Ewell was averse to making an attack himself, averse

to leaving Gettysburg; that Hill was averse to putting his crippled

corps forward so soon again; and that Longstreet was averse to

fighting at all on that ground,--Lee may well have thought, like

Napoleon during the Hundred Days, that his generals were no longer

what they had been.[52] There was certainly more or less pulling at

cross purposes in the Confederate camp.

 

Meade did not reach the field until one in the morning. It was then

too early to see the ground he was going to fight on.

 

It thus appears that Lee had well considered all his plans for

attacking before Meade could so much as begin his dispositions for

defence. And this same unpreparedness, this fatality of having

always to follow your adversary's lead, had so far distinguished

every stage of this most unpromising campaign.

 

In the mellow moonlight of a midsummer's night, looking down into

the unlighted streets of Gettysburg, the tired soldiers dropped to

rest among the graves or in the fields wet with falling dew, while

their comrades were hurrying on over the dusty roads that stretched

out in long, weary miles toward Gettysburg, as if life and death

were in their speed.

 

[43] It seems plain that next to Reynolds Hancock was the one in

whom Meade reposed most confidence.

 

[44] This was the Seventh Indiana, which had been acting as escort

to the trains. It brought five hundred fresh men to Wadsworth's

division.

 

[45] By General Morgan's account, one thousand five hundred

fugitives were collected by the provost guard of the Twelfth Corps,

some miles in rear of the field.

 

[46] This was a brigade of nine months' men, called in derision the

"Paper Collar Brigade." No troops contributed more to the winning of

this battle, though only three of its five regiments were engaged.

 

[47] Johnson was then coming up. This is equivalent to an admission

that Ewell did not feel able to undertake anything further that

night with the two divisions that had been in action.

 

[48] While conveying the idea that the position was good, Hancock's

message was, in reality, sufficiently ambiguous. It, however, served

Meade's turn, as his mind was more than half made up already.

 

[49] The Seventh Indiana brought up five hundred men; Stannard's

brigade two thousand five hundred more.

 

[50] The Union corps would not average ten thousand men present in

the ranks, although the Sixth bore sixteen thousand on its muster

rolls. Some corps had three, some two divisions. There were too many

corps, and in consequence too many corps commanders, for the best

and most efficient organization.

 

[51] This was Pickett's, left at Chambersburg to guard the trains.

 

[52] Lee's corps commanders in council seem more like a debating society: Meade's more like a Quaker meeting.