The Battle of Gettysburg 9

The Battle of Gettysburg 9

[38] The First Corps finally held a line of about a mile and a half,

from the Hagerstown to the Mummasburg road.

 

[39] The head of this corps arrived at about 12.45 and the rear

at 1.45 P.M. It would take not less than an hour to get it into

position from a half to three-fourths of a mile out of Gettysburg.

 

[40] It is a well-settled principle of war as well as of common

sense that a corps commander may disregard his orders whenever

their literal execution would be in his opinion unwarranted by

conditions unknown to, or unforeseen by, the general in command of

the army when he issued them. This refers, of course, to an officer

exercising a separate command, and not when in the presence of his

superior.

 

[41] The positions of the several corps that afternoon were as

follows, except the First and Eleventh: Second at Taneytown, Third

at Emmettsburg, Fifth at Hanover, Sixth at Manchester, and Twelfth

at Two Taverns.

 

[42] Heth, Rodes, and Early admit a loss of five thousand eight

hundred without counting prisoners. The prisoners taken by the First

Corps would swell this number to about eight thousand.

 

 

 

 

VI

 

CEMETERY HILL

 

 

[Sidenote: Lee wants to push Things.]

 

We have seen Lee arriving on the field his troops had carried just

as ours were streaming over Cemetery Hill in his plain sight. Seeing

Ewell already established within gunshot of this hill, Lee wished

him to push on after the fugitives, seize Cemetery Hill, and so reap

all the fruits of the victory just won.

 

Ewell hesitated, and the golden opportunity slipped through Lee's

fingers. At four o'clock he would have met with little resistance:

at six it was different.

 

[Sidenote: Hancock arrives.]

 

[Sidenote: Finds Situation gloomy.]

 

By riding hard, Hancock[43] got to Gettysburg soon after Lee did.

The road leading from the battlefield was thronged with fugitives,

wounded men, ammunition wagons, and ambulances, all hurrying to

the rear (the unmistakable débris of a routed army), as Hancock

spurred up Cemetery Hill. His trained eye took in the situation at

a glance. Everywhere he saw the gloom of defeat. A few disordered

battalions sullenly clung around their colors, but the men seemed

stunned and disheartened, not so much by defeat as by the palpable

fact that they had been abandoned to defeat for want of a scrap

of paper, more or less. Instead of cheers, set faces and haggard

eyes greeted Hancock as he rode along the diminished ranks. He saw

divisions reduced to brigades; brigades to battalions; battalions to

companies; batteries to a single gun. One of Steinwehr's brigades

and some of his batteries, with a regiment of the First Corps that

had not been in action,[44] was the only force remaining intact.

These guns were sending an occasional shot down into the streets

of Gettysburg; while more to the left--cheering sight!--Buford's

cavalry stood drawn up before the heights steady as on parade, first

in the field and last out of it.

 

Hancock's animating presence gradually put heart into the men. He

saw just what ought to be done, and instantly set about doing it.

 

[Sidenote: Order is restored.]

 

[Sidenote: First Reinforcements.]

 

A swift and comprehensive view of the ground--and his grasp of its

capabilities was singularly just--seems to have convinced Hancock

that no better place to fight in was likely to be found, even

should the enemy allow them the time to concentrate in the rear,

which was become the all-important question just then. He gave his

orders rapidly, broken ranks were re-formed, fugitives brought back

to their colors,[45] the tide of retreat stayed. As the last gun

was fired from Cemetery Hill, Stannard's Vermont brigade[46] came

marching up the Emmettsburg road, and was at once put in line south

of the Cemetery, with pickets thrown out in front. Though small,

this reinforcement was thrice welcome at a time when it could not

be known whether the enemy would attack or not, and it had a good

effect.

 

[Sidenote: Culp's Hill.]

 

[Sidenote: Commands Cemetery.]

 

In riding up, Hancock had not failed to notice--indeed, no one

could--a wooded hill standing off at some distance to the right

of Cemetery Hill, from which it was separated by a wide and deep

hollow, yet at the same time joined by a ridge so low and narrow

as to be hardly seen when looking down from above. This low,

connecting ridge is several hundred yards in extent, and, forming as

if does a natural parapet for infantry, was all that stood in the

way of pushing a force through between Cemetery and Culp's Hill to

the rear of the Union troops. Of the two hills it is enough to say

that as Culp's Hill is much the higher, whoever held Culp's Hill

would also hold the key to the Union position, as Hancock found it.

 

[Sidenote: Ewell sees it too.]

 

[Sidenote: But Hancock seizes it.]

 

The enemy had not been slow to perceive this on his part, and while

hesitating what to do Early had pointed it out to Ewell, his chief,

who fully agreed with him that it should be seized as soon as

Johnson's fresh division got up.[47] But while they were hesitating

Hancock was sending what was left of Wadsworth's division,

reinforced by the Seventh Indiana, with a battery, to occupy Culp's

Hill; so that when Johnson's scouts went there after dark, instead

of finding the hill unoccupied and undefended, they fell into the

hands of Wadsworth's men. Meredith's worn but undaunted brigade

dropped into position behind the narrow strip of ridge spoken of,

a sure guaranty that no enemy would break through at that place.

In this instance Hancock's eagle glance and no less prompt action

undoubtedly saved the whole position, since if Ewell had succeeded

in establishing himself on Culp's Hill, it would have taken the

whole Union army to drive him out.

 

[Sidenote: Hancock reports all safe.]

 

Considered merely as a rallying point for broken troops, Cemetery

Hill had now served its purpose. Hancock could now say to Meade, not

that the position was the best they could have taken for disputing

the enemy's progress, but that all was safe for the present, or

equally in train for the withdrawal of the troops, should that be

the decision. In a word, he would not commit himself unreservedly to

a simple yes or no.[48]

 

[Sidenote: Meade's Decision.]

 

It was now Meade's turn, and right nobly did he rise to the crisis.

Such as it was, Hancock's report enabled him to come to a quick

decision. Instead of ordering a retreat, he instantly ordered the

corps to Gettysburg. From the moment he became satisfied that there

was a fighting chance in front, Meade's conduct was anything but

that of a defeated or even timid general; he seems never to have

looked behind him. Had he been so unalterably wedded to his own

chosen line of defence as some critics profess to believe, it is

difficult to see what stronger excuse could have offered itself for

falling back than the defeat he had just suffered. And if he had

shrunk from the hazard of fighting so far from his base before, how

much more easily could he have justified his refusal to do so after

the loss of ten thousand men, the sudden disruption of his plans,

with the increased sense of responsibility all this involved! We

think few would deny that the bringing up of four-sevenths of the

army over distances varying from thirteen to thirty-six miles must

appear a far bolder act, even to the unmilitary mind, than causing

three-sevenths to fall back some fifteen miles. Fortunately Meade

was one in spirit with his soldiers, who with one voice demanded

to be led against the enemy. The shock of battle seems to have

aroused all the warrior's instinct within him. Reynolds may have

forced the fighting, Hancock suggested, or even advised, but it was

Meade, and Meade alone, on whose deliberate judgment the battle of

Gettysburg was renewed, and who therefore stands before history as

its undoubted sponsor.

 

[Sidenote: Twelfth Corps comes up, 5 P.M.]

 

To return to the now historic Cemetery Hill. Here the right,

reinforced by at least three thousand fresh troops,[49] had been

strongly occupied. Everything appeared in surety on this side. But

all the way from the Taneytown Road to Little Round Top there was

not one solitary soldier or gun except some cavalry pickets. By the

time, however, that Hancock had succeeded in bringing order out

of this chaos and courage out of despair, the whole situation was

changed by the arrival of the Twelfth Corps from Two Taverns. As

it came up by the Baltimore pike the leading division (Williams')

turned off to the right, feeling its way out in this direction as

far as Wolf's Hill and the Hanover road; but on finding the enemy

already installed on that side, the division was massed for the

night on the Baltimore pike, so rendering secure our extreme right

at Culp's Hill. There was no longer anything to apprehend on this

side. We cannot refrain from asking what would have been the effect

of the appearance of these troops on Early's flank an hour or two earlier in the afternoon?