The Boys of '61 Part 33

The head of the Eleventh Corps reached Gettysburg about twelve o'clock. The first and third division pa.s.sed through the town, moved out beyond the college, and joined the right of the First Corps. Howard sent three batteries and his second division, Steinwehr's, to take possession of the cemetery and the hill north of the Baltimore pike.

Thus far success had attended the Union arms. A large number of prisoners had been taken with but little loss, and the troops were holding their own against a superior force. About half past twelve cavalry scouts reported that Ewell was coming down the York road, and was not more than four miles distant. General Howard sent an aid to General Sickles, who was at Emmettsburg, requesting him to come on with all haste. Another was sent down the Baltimore pike to the Two Taverns, three miles distant, with a similar message to General Sloc.u.m. The Second Corps was there,-resting in the fields. They had heard the roar of the battle, and could see the clouds of smoke rising over the intervening hills. General Sloc.u.m was the senior officer. He received the message, but did not, for reasons best known to himself, see fit to accede to the request. He could have put the Twelfth Corps upon the ground in season to meet Ewell, but remained where he was till after the contest for the day was over.

It was a quarter before three when Ewell's lines began to deploy by John Blocher's house on the York road. The Rebel batteries were wheeled into position, and opened on Wadsworth. Weiderick's battery in the cemetery replied. Again a messenger went in haste to the delinquent officer.

"I sent again to General Sloc.u.m, stating that my right flank was attacked; that it was in danger of being turned, and asking him if he was coming up," said General Howard.

The message was delivered to Sloc.u.m, who was still at the Two Taverns, where he had been through the day. Weiderick's battery was in plain view from that position, but General Sloc.u.m did not move.

This officer on Thursday and Friday did hard service. He afterward commanded acceptably one of Sherman's wings in the march from Atlanta to the sea, but on the first day at Gettysburg his inaction, unless satisfactorily explained, will compel the impartial historian to a.s.sign him a lower place on the scroll of fame than would otherwise have been accorded him.

Sickles was too far off to render a.s.sistance. Meanwhile Ewell was pressing on towards the college. Another division of Rebels under General Pender came in from the southwest, and began to enfold the left of Howard's line.

"I want a brigade to help me!" was the word from Schurz, commanding the two divisions in front of Ewell, beyond the college.

"Send out Costa's brigade," said Howard to his chief of staff. The brigade went down through the town accompanied by a battery, and joined the line, upon the double-quick. An hour pa.s.sed, of close, desperate fighting. It wanted a quarter to four. Howard confronted by four times his own force, was still holding his ground, waiting for Sloc.u.m. Another messenger rode to the Two Taverns, urging Sloc.u.m to advance.

"I must have reinforcements!" was the message from Doubleday on the left. "You must reinforce me!" was the word from Wadsworth in the centre.

"Hold out a little longer, if possible; I am expecting General Sloc.u.m every moment," was Howard's reply. Still another despatch was sent to the Two Taverns, but General Sloc.u.m had not moved. The Rebel cannon were cutting Wadsworth's line. Pender was sweeping round Doubleday; Ewell was enclosing Schurz. Sickles was five miles distant, advancing as fast as he could. Sloc.u.m was where he had been from early morning, three miles distant. The tide was turning. The only alternative was a retreat. It was past four o'clock. For six hours the ground had been held against a greatly superior force.

Major Howard, the General's brother, a member of his staff, dashed down the pike in search of Sloc.u.m, with a request that he would move at once, and send one division to the right and the other to the left of Gettysburg. Sloc.u.m declined to go up to the front and take any responsibility, as he understood that General Meade did not wish to bring on a general engagement. He was willing, however, to send forward his troops as General Howard desired, and issued his orders accordingly. Under military law the question might be raised whether a senior officer had a right to throw off the responsibility which circ.u.mstances had forced upon him; also whether he could turn over his troops to a subordinate.

The color-bearer.

But before the divisions of the Twelfth Corps could get in motion, the Rebels had completely enfolded both flanks of Howard's line. The order to retreat was given. The two corps came crowding through the town. The Rebels pressed on with cheers. Most of the First Corps reached the cemetery ridge, and were rallied by Howard, Steinwehr, and Hanc.o.c.k. This officer had just arrived. The troops were streaming over the hill, when he reined up his steed in the cemetery. He came, under direction of General Meade, to take charge of all the troops in front. The Eleventh Corps was hard pressed, and lost between two and three thousand prisoners in the town.

The Rebels of Ewell's command pushed up the northern slope, through the hay-fields, flushed with victory; but Weiderick's battery poured canister in quick discharges into the advancing ranks, breaking the line.

The retreat was so orderly and the resistance so steady that the Rebels gave utterance to their admiration. Said General Hill,-

"A Yankee color-bearer floated his standard in the field and the regiment fought around it; and when at last it was obliged to retreat, the color-bearer retired last of all, turning round now and then to shake his fist in the face of the advancing Rebels. He was sorry when he saw him meet his doom."[46]

Three color-bearers of the Nineteenth Indiana were shot. The Sergeant-Major, Asa Blanchard, ran and took the flag when the third man fell, waved it, and cried "Rally, boys!" The next moment he fell. His comrades stopped to carry him off. The Rebels were close at hand.

"Don't stop for me," he cried. "Don't let them have the flag. Tell mother I never faltered." They were his parting words to his comrades, who saved the flag.

General Hanc.o.c.k met General Howard and informed him of his instructions, saying, "General Meade undoubtedly supposed that I was your senior, but you outrank me."

"It is no time to talk about rank. I shall most cheerfully obey your instructions and do all in my power to co-operate with you," was Howard's reply, thus waiving the command which was his by right. They perfectly agreed in what was to be done. General Howard took charge of the troops and batteries on the right of the line, while General Hanc.o.c.k brought order out of confusion on the left.

The Rebels having been repulsed by the batteries, and satisfied with the work of the day, made no further attack, although they greatly outnumbered the Union force.

General Sickles arrived at seven o'clock, and General Sloc.u.m also came up, he being the senior officer, General Howard turned over the command to him, while General Hanc.o.c.k went back to see General Meade at Taneytown, to inform him of the state of affairs. The Third Corps filed into position on the left of the First, south of the cemetery, while the Twelfth took possession of Culp's Hill.

So closed the first day at Gettysburg.

SECOND DAY.

Thursday, July 2.

General Meade arrived on the battle-field at three o'clock on the morning of the 2d, and had an interview with General Howard soon after by the cemetery gate. They rode along the lines together.

"I am confident that we can hold this position," said General Howard.

"I am glad to hear you say so, for it is too late to leave it," said Meade.

The cannonade began at daybreak, the guns in the cemetery and those of the Rebels near Blocher's house keeping up a steady fire for an hour, when both parties, as if by mutual consent, became silent; but the pickets were at it all along the lines.

While I was conversing with General Howard, his brother, Major Howard, who was keeping a sharp look upon the Rebels, came running up. "There is a splendid chance to cut them up, General; just see them!"

A column of Rebels was moving along the Chambersburg road, and stood out in bold relief.

"Let Osborn pitch in the sh.e.l.ls from his rifled pieces," said the Major.

General Howard surveyed them a moment and replied: "We might do them some damage, but we are not quite ready to bring on a general engagement. It isn't best to hurry. We shall have enough fighting before night."

The battle had not commenced in earnest. Lee was moving his troops towards the left. The Union pickets were posted along the Emmettsburg road; some were lying down in the wheat-fields beyond it, keeping up a steady interchange of shots with the Rebels. It was a favorable time to ride over the ground where the great contest was to take place.

The first division, General Ames's, of the Eleventh Corps, was north of the Baltimore pike, the third division, Schurz's, was on both sides of it, and the second division, Steinwehr's, in the cemetery, lying behind the stone wall, which forms its western boundary. Colonel Osborn's batteries were on the crest of the ridge, in position to fire over the heads of the infantry. Robinson's division of the First Corps was posted at the left of Steinwehr's, crossing the Taneytown road. Wadsworth's and Doubleday's divisions of the First were north of the Baltimore pike, to the right of General Ames, reaching to Culp's Hill, where they joined the Twelfth Corps.

Riding down the road towards Taneytown, I came upon General Stannard's brigade of nine months' Vermont boys, lying in the open field in rear of the cemetery. Occasionally a sh.e.l.l came over them from the Rebel batteries, by Blocher's. It was their first experience under fire. They were in reserve, knowing nothing of what was going on the other side of the hill, yet tantalized by a flank fire from the distant batteries. A short distance farther I came to General Meade's head-quarters, in the house of Mrs. Leister. General Meade was there surrounded by his staff, consulting maps and issuing orders. General Hanc.o.c.k's head-quarters' flag,-the tree-foil of the Second Corps,-was waving on the ridge southwest of the house. General Sloc.u.m's,-the star-flag,-was in sight, on a conical hill a half-mile eastward. The crescent flag of the Eleventh was proudly planted on the highest elevation of the cemetery. The Maltese cross of the Fifth Corps was a half-mile south, toward Round-top.

Turning into the field and riding to the top of the ridge, I came upon Hayes's division of the Second Corps, joining Robinson's of the First; then Gibbons's and Caldwell's of the Second, reaching to a narrow roadway running west from the Taneytown road to the house of Abraham Trostle, where, a half-mile in advance of the main line, was planted the diamond flag of the Third Corps, General Sickles. Pushing directly west, through a field where the gra.s.s was ripening for the scythe, I approached the house of Mr. Codori, on the Emmettsburg road. But it was a dangerous place just then to a man on horseback, for the pickets of both armies were lying in the wheat-field west of the road. General Carr's brigade of the Third Corps was lying behind the ridge near the house of Peter Rogers. Soldiers were filling their canteens from the brook in the hollow. Further down by the house of Mr. Wentz, at the corner of the narrow road leading east from the Emmettsburg road, and in the peach-orchards on both sides of it, were troops and batteries. The Second New Hampshire, the First Maine, and the Third Michigan were there, holding the angle of the line, which here turned east from the Emmettsburg road. Thompson's battery was behind Wentz's house. General Sickles had his other batteries in position along the narrow road, the muzzles of the guns pointing southwest. Ames's New York battery was in the orchard, and the gunners were lying beneath the peach-trees, enjoying the leafy shade. Clark's New Jersey battery, Phillips's Fifth Ma.s.sachusetts, and Bigelow's Ninth Ma.s.sachusetts were on the left of Ames. Bigelow's was in front of Trostle's house, having complete command and the full sweep of a beautiful slope beyond the road for sixty rods.

The slope descends to a wooded ravine through which winds a brook, gurgling over a rocky bed. Beyond the brook are the stone farm-house and capacious barn of John Rose, in whose door-yard were the Union pickets, exchanging a shot now and then with the Rebels of Longstreet's corps, south of Rose's, who were lying along the Emmettsburg road.

General Barnes's division of the Third Corps was in the woods south of the narrow road, and among the rocks in front of Weed's Hill.

Sickles had advanced to the position upon his own judgment of the fitness of the movement. He believed that it was necessary to hold the ravine, down to Round-top, to prevent the enemy from pa.s.sing through the gap between that eminence and Weed's Hill.

General Meade had called his corps commanders to his head-quarters for consultation. Sickles did not attend, deeming it of vital importance to prepare for the advance of the enemy, and his soldiers were levelling fences and removing obstructions.

A peremptory order reached Sickles requiring his presence. He rode to the head-quarters of the army, but the conference was over, and he went back to his command followed by General Meade.

"Are you not too much extended? Can you hold your front?" asked the Commander-in-Chief.

"Yes, only I shall want more troops."

"I will send you the Fifth Corps, and you may call on Hanc.o.c.k for support."

"I shall need more artillery."

"Send for all you want. Call on General Hunt of the Artillery Reserve. I will direct him to send you all you want."

The pickets were keeping up a lively fire.

"I think that the Rebels will soon make their appearance," said Sickles.