The Battle of Gettysburg 6
It was not until nightfall of the 30th, or forty-eight hours after
it was begun, that Meade knew of the enemy's movement toward
Gettysburg; and even then he did not feel at all sure of having
detected the true point of concentration. Indeed, his want of
accurate information on this head seems surprising. By that time
his own army was stretched out from Emmettsburg, on the northwest,
to Manchester at the east, thus putting it out of Meade's power to
concentrate it at Gettysburg in one day. By endeavoring to cover
too much ground his army had been dangerously scattered. Even
without cavalry Lee had fairly stolen a march on him. And it is
not improbable that Hooker might now have been "shocked," in his
turn.[32]
[Sidenote: Union Left Wing in Advance.]
Our present business is now wholly with the left wing of the Union
army,--its right being quite out of reach--that is to say, with the
three infantry and one cavalry corps commanded by that thorough
soldier, so beloved by the whole army, General Reynolds, the actual
chief of the First Corps.
[Sidenote: Buford finds the Enemy.]
Buford had spent the 29th in scouring the passes of South Mountain
as far north as Monterey, without getting sight of the enemy,
however, until he halted for the night at Fountaindale, when he then
perceived the camp-fires of a numerous body of troops stretching
along in his front and lighting up the road toward Gettysburg.
Evidently they had just crossed South Mountain from the valley.
[Sidenote: He attacks.]
To Buford this sight was indeed as a ray of light in a dark place.
No friendly force could be in that quarter. He determined to know
who and what it was without loss of time. Before dawn his troopers
were again in the saddle. They soon fell in with a strong column
of infantry moving toward Gettysburg on the Fairfield (Hagerstown)
road. After exchanging a few shots, and having learned what he
wanted to know, Buford hastened back to Reynolds, at Emmettsburg,
with the news.
Reynolds immediately sent Buford back to Gettysburg, in order, if
possible, to head off the enemy before he should reach that place,
for which he was evidently making. A courier was also despatched to
headquarters. This was the first trustworthy intelligence of Lee's
movement to the east that Meade had thus far received. Could the
enemy be massing on his left? It certainly looked like it. After
this night there was only one word on the tongues of all men in that
army--Gettysburg! Gettysburg!
[Sidenote: Reynolds marches up.]
The First Corps, also marching for Gettysburg, went into camp some
five miles short of that town; the Eleventh lay at Emmettsburg; the
Third at Taneytown. It is with them alone that we shall have to deal
in what follows.
[Illustration: Positions, June 30th.]
[Sidenote: Pipe Creek.]
We have already seen that Meade had not designed advancing one
step farther than might be found effectual for turning Lee back
from overrunning the State. This was the first great object to
be attained. And this had now been done. To avoid being struck
from behind, Lee had been forced to halt, face about, and look for
a place to fight in. When the enemy should be fairly in motion
southward, Meade meant to take up the position along Pipe Creek,
and await an attack there. But he no longer had the disposing of
events. In order to gain this position now, Reynolds must have
fallen back one or two marches; nor could Meade know that Lee was
then coming half way to meet him; or that--strange confusion of
ideas!--Lee had promised his generals not to fight a pitched battle
except on ground of his own choosing; certainly not on one his
adversary had chosen for him; least of all where defeat would carry
down with it the cause of the Southern Confederacy itself.
[Sidenote: Reynolds.]
Reynolds, therefore, held the destinies of both armies in his
keeping on that memorable last night of June. He now knew that any
further advance on his part would probably result in bringing on
a combat--a combat, moreover, in which both armies might become
involved, for his military instinct truly foreshadowed what was
coming. There was still time to fall back on the main army, to avoid
an engagement. But Reynolds was not that kind of general. He was the
man of all others to whom the whole army had looked in the event
of Hooker's incapacity from any cause, as well as the first whom
the President had designed to replace him. He now shared Meade's
confidence to the fullest extent. He was a soldier of the finest
temper, a Pennsylvanian, like Meade himself, neither rash on the one
hand, nor weighed down by the feeling that he or his soldiers were
overmatched in any respect on the other. To him, at least, Lee was
no bugbear. Having come there expressly to find the enemy, he was
not going to turn his back now that the enemy was found. Reynolds
was, therefore, emphatically the man for the hour. He knew that
Meade would support him to the last man and the last cartridge. He
fall back? There was no such word in Reynolds' vocabulary. His order
was "Forward!"
So history has indissolubly linked together the names of Reynolds
and of Gettysburg, for had he decided differently there would have
been no battle of Gettysburg.
Thus it was that all through the silent watches of that moonlit
summer's night the roads leading to Gettysburg from north and south,
from east and west, were lighted up by a thousand camp-fires.
Without knowing it, the citizens of that peaceful village were
sleeping on a volcano.
[25] Besides Meade, there were Hancock, Reynolds, and Humphreys--a
triumvirate of some power with that army. Pennsylvania had also
seventy-three regiments and five batteries with Meade.
[26] While thus feeling for Lee along the mountain passes with his
left hand, Meade was reaching out the right as far as possible
toward the Susquehanna, or toward Early at York.
[27] This was Longstreet's scout, Harrison. "He said there were
three corps near Frederick when he passed there, one to the right
and one to the left; but he did not succeed in getting the position
of the other."--_Longstreet._
[28] This shows how little foundation exists for the statements
of the Comte de Paris and others that Hooker's strategy compelled
Lee to cross the mountain, when it is clear that he knew nothing
whatever of Hooker's intentions. This is concurred in by both Lee
and Longstreet. Moreover, Hooker had scarcely put his strategy in
effect when he was relieved.
[29] In point of fact, the concentration was first ordered for
Cashtown, "at the eastern base of the mountain."--_Lee._ Ewell
and Hill took the responsibility of going on to Gettysburg, after
hearing that the Union cavalry had been seen there.
[30] On the night of June 30th, Meade's headquarters and the
artillery reserve were at Taneytown, the First Corps at Marsh
Run, Eleventh at Emmettsburg, Third at Bridgeport, Twelfth at
Littlestown, Second at Uniontown, Fifth at Union Mills, Sixth and
Gregg's Cavalry at Manchester, Kilpatrick's at Hanover--a line over
thirty miles long.
[31] By being compelled to ford streams without taking off shoes or
stockings, the men's feet were badly blistered.
[32] Upon taking command, Meade is said to have expressed himself as
"shocked" at the scattered condition of the army.
V
THE FIRST OF JULY
[Sidenote: Buford.]
Since early in the afternoon of June 30th, the inhabitants of
Gettysburg had seen pouring through their village, taking position
on the heights that dominate it, and spreading themselves out over
all the roads leading into it from the west and north, squadron
after squadron of horse, dusty and travel-stained, but alert,
vigilant, and full of ardor at the prospect of coming to blows with
the enemy at last.
This was a portion of that splendid cavalry which, under the lead
of Pleasonton, Buford, Gregg, and Kilpatrick, at last disputed the
boasted superiority of Stuart's famous troopers. At last the Union
army had a cavalry force. These men formed the van of that army
which was pursuing Lee by forced marches for the purpose of bringing him to battle.
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