Three Years in the Federal Cavalry Part 16

Our feeble and decimated forces took possession of Cemetery Hill, south of the town, and being reenforced by General Sickles' Corps, they began to intrench themselves with earthworks and rifle-pits, to extend their lines to right and left, and to select the best positions for our batteries. This work was continued quite late into the evening, the broad moonlight greatly facilitating the operations.

General Meade, who had selected his ground for the impending battle along the banks of Pipe Creek, and who at one o'clock P. M. was at Taneytown when the news of the fight, and the death of the brave Reynolds at Gettysburg, reached him, despatched General Hanc.o.c.k to the scene of conflict to take command, and to ascertain whether Gettysburg afforded better ground than that which had been selected. Hanc.o.c.k arrived at Cemetery Hill just as our broken lines were hastily and confusedly retreating from the village; our advance, however, had already taken this commanding position and was making some preparation for resistance. The newly arrived general began at once to order the forces which had been engaged and others which were occasionally arriving. He ordered the occupancy of Culp's Hill on our extreme right, and extended the lines to our left well up the high ground in the vicinity of Round Top, a rocky eminence about two miles from Gettysburg, and nearly equi-distant from the Emmitsburg and Taneytown roads. The line having been made as secure as possible, Hanc.o.c.k wrote to Meade that the position was excellent. His despatch had scarcely gone, when he was relieved by General Sloc.u.m, a ranking officer, and so, leaving the field, Hanc.o.c.k hastened to report in person to his chief the condition of things at Gettysburg. On arriving, Meade informed him that he had decided to fight at Gettysburg, and had sent orders to the various commands to that effect; then together they rode to Gettysburg, arriving about eleven o'clock at night.

All night long our forces were concentrating before this historic village, where they were all found on the morning of the second of July, except the Sixth Corps, General Sedgwick's, which did not arrive until two o'clock in the afternoon, after marching nearly all the previous night.

SECOND DAY'S FIGHT.

Until three o'clock all was quiet along the battle lines, except an occasional picket or sharpshooter's fire. However, there had been considerable manoeuvring. On our left General Sickles, in his eagerness for a fight, had advanced his corps across the Emmitsburg road, and on a wood-crowned ridge in the immediate vicinity of the main portion of the Rebel army. General Meade, in his inspection of the lines, remonstrated against the perilous position which Sickles had taken the liberty to gain. He, however, intimated that, if desired, he would withdraw to the ridge which Meade had justly indicated as the proper place where our forces would be better protected, and would be able to cover Round Top, a point which it was considered essential to retain. General Meade thereupon expressed his fear to Sickles that the enemy would not permit him quietly to retire from the trap in which he had placed his foot; and the last words had scarcely fallen from his lips, when the Rebel batteries were opened with fearful accuracy and at short range, and the infantry came on with their fierce charging yell.

General Longstreet was in command.

With so long and strong lines of infantry in his front, which lapped over his flanks on either side, and a fearful enfilading fire from the heavy batteries on Seminary Hill, Sickles and his brave men were torn, shattered, overwhelmed, and with terrible loss and in great confusion, fell back to the ridge from which he ought not to have advanced. In the struggle the Rebels made a desperate attempt to reach and possess Round Top, which they came near doing before General Sykes, who had been ordered to advance and hold it, had gained the elevation. But their failure to possess this coveted prize proved a great disaster; for before they could withdraw their charging columns across the plain between Round Top and the ridge where Sickles stood at the beginning of the fray, they were attacked by General Hanc.o.c.k with a heavy force, and driven almost like chaff before the wind. Their loss was terrible. At the close of this encounter our lines stood precisely where General Meade desired they should be before the fight commenced, with Round Top fully in our possession and now strongly fortified with heavy artillery and good infantry support.

On our right General Ewell had succeeded in pushing back some portions of our lines under Sloc.u.m, who occupied Culp's Hill, and some of our fortified lines and rifle-pits were occupied by the Rebels. Night came on to close the dreadful day. Thus far the battle had been mostly in the advantage of the Rebels. They held the ground where Reynolds had fallen, also Seminary Ridge, and the elevation whence the Eleventh Corps had been driven. They also occupied the ridge on which Sickles had commenced to fight. Sickles himself was _hors de combat_, with a shattered leg which had to be amputated, and not far from twenty thousand of our men had been killed, wounded, and captured! The Rebels had also lost heavily; but, as they themselves believed, they were the winners.

General Lee, in his official report, says: "After a severe struggle, Longstreet succeeded in getting possession of and holding the desired ground. Ewell also carried some of the strong positions which he a.s.sailed; and the result was such as to lead to the belief that he would ultimately be able to dislodge the enemy. The battle ceased at dark.

These partial successes determined me to continue the a.s.sault next day."

During these days of deadly strife and of unprecedented slaughter, our cavalry was by no means idle. On the morning of the first, Kilpatrick advanced his victorious squadrons to the vicinity of Abbottstown, where they struck a force of Rebel cavalry, which they scattered, capturing several prisoners, and then rested. To the ears of the alert chieftain came the sound of battle at Gettysburg, accompanied with the intelligence, from prisoners mostly, that Stuart's main force was bent on doing mischief on the right of our infantry lines, which were not far from the night's bivouac.

He appeared instinctively to know where he was most needed; so in the absence of orders, early the next morning he advanced to Hunterstown. At this point were the extreme wings of the infantry lines, and as Kilpatrick expected, he encountered the Rebel cavalry, commanded by his old antagonists, Stuart, Lee, and Hampton. The early part of the day was spent mostly in reconnoitring; but all the latter part of the day was occupied in hard, bold, and b.l.o.o.d.y work. Charges and counter-charges were made; the carbine, pistol, and sabre were used by turns, and the artillery thundered even late after the infantry around Gettysburg had sunk to rest, well-nigh exhausted with the b.l.o.o.d.y carnage of the weary day. But Stuart, who had hoped to break in upon our flank and rear, and to pounce upon our trains, was not only foiled in his endeavor by the gallant Kilpatrick, but also driven back upon his infantry supports, and badly beaten.

In the night, Kilpatrick, after leaving a sufficient force to prevent Stuart from doing any special damage on our right, swung around with the rest of his troopers to the left of our line, near Round Top, and was there prepared for any work which might be a.s.signed him.

THE LAST EFFORT.

_Friday, July 3._--The sun rose bright and warm, and looked down upon the blackened corpses of the dead, which were strewn over the b.l.o.o.d.y earth; upon the wounded who had not been cared for, and upon long glistening lines of armed men, ready to renew the conflict. Each antagonist, rousing every slumbering element of power, seemed to be resolved upon victory or death. The fight commenced early by an attack of General Sloc.u.m's men, who, determined to regain the rifle-pits they had lost the evening before, descended like an avalanche upon the foe.

The attack met with a prompt response from General Ewell. But after several hours of desperate fighting, victory perched upon the Union banners, and with great loss and slaughter the Rebels were driven out of the breastworks, and fell back upon their main lines near Benner's Hill.

This successful move on the part of our boys in blue was followed by ominous lull or quiet, which continued about three hours. Meanwhile the silence was fitfully broken by an occasional spit of fire, while every preparation was being made for a last, supreme effort, which, it was expected, would decide the mighty contest. The scales were being poised for the last time, and upon the one side or the other was soon to be written the "_Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin_." Hearts either trembled or waxed strong in the awful presence of this responsibility.

At length one o'clock arrived; a signal-gun was fired, and then at least one hundred and twenty-five guns from Hill and Longstreet concentrated and crossed their fires upon Cemetery Hill, the centre and key of our position. Just behind this crest, though much exposed, were General Meade's headquarters. For nearly two hours this hill was ploughed and torn by solid shot and bursting sh.e.l.l, while about one hundred guns on our side, mainly from this crest and Round Top, made sharp response. The earth and the air shook for miles around with the terrific concussion, which came no longer in volleys, but in a continual roar. So long and fearful a cannonade was never before witnessed on this continent. As the range was short and the aim accurate, the destruction was terrible. But the advantage was decidedly in favor of the Rebels, whose guns were superior in number to ours, and of heavier calibre, and had been concentrated for the attack. A spectator of the Union army thus describes the scene:

"The storm broke upon us so suddenly, that soldiers and officers--who leaped, as it began, from their tents, or from lazy siestas on the gra.s.s--were stricken in their rising with mortal wounds, and died, some with cigars between their teeth, some with pieces of food in their fingers, and one at least--a pale young German, from Pennsylvania--with a miniature of his sister in his hands. Horses fell, shrieking such awful cries as Cooper told of, and writhing themselves about in hopeless agony. The boards of fences, scattered by explosion, flew in splinters through the air. The earth, torn up in clouds, blinded the eyes of hurrying men; and through the branches of trees and among the gravestones of the cemetery a shower of destruction crashed ceaselessly.

As, with hundreds of others, I groped through this tempest of death for the shelter of the bluff, an old man, a private in a company belonging to the Twenty-fourth Michigan, was struck, scarcely ten feet away, by a cannon-ball, which tore through him, extorting such a low, intense cry of mortal pain as I pray G.o.d I may never again hear. The hill, which seemed alone devoted to this rain of death, was clear in nearly all its unsheltered places within five minutes after the fire began."

A correspondent from the Confederate army thus describes this artillery contest: "I have never yet heard such tremendous artillery-firing. The enemy must have had over one hundred guns, which, in addition to our one hundred and fifteen, made the air hideous with most discordant noise.

The very earth shook beneath our feet, and the hills and rocks seemed to reel like a drunken man. For one hour and a half this most terrific fire was continued, during which time the shrieking of sh.e.l.l, the crash of fallen timbers, the fragments of rocks flying through the air, shattered from the cliffs by solid shot, the heavy mutterings from the valley between the opposing armies, the splash of bursting shrapnel, and the fierce neighing of wounded artillery-horses, made a picture terribly grand and sublime, but which my pen utterly fails to describe."

Gradually the fire on our side began to slacken, and General Meade, learning that our guns were becoming hot, gave orders to cease firing and to let the guns cool, though the Rebel b.a.l.l.s were making fearful havoc among our gunners, while our infantry sought poor shelter behind every projection, anxiously awaiting the expected charge. At length the enemy, supposing that our guns were silenced, deemed that the moment for an irresistible attack had come. Accordingly, as a lion emerges from his lair, he sallied forth, when strong lines of infantry, nearly three miles in length, with double lines of skirmishers in front, and heavy reserves in rear, advanced with desperation to the final effort. They moved with steady, measured tread over the plain below, and began the ascent of the hills occupied by our forces, concentrating somewhat upon General Hanc.o.c.k, though stretching across our entire front.

Says a correspondent of the _Richmond Enquirer_: "Just as Pickett was getting well under the enemy's fire, our batteries ceased firing. This was a fearful moment for Pickett and his brave command. Why do not our guns reopen their fire? is the inquiry that rises upon every lip. Still, our batteries are silent as death!" And this undoubtedly decided the issue--was G.o.d's handwriting on the wall. The Rebel guns had been thundering so long and ceaselessly that they were now unfit for use, and ceased firing from very necessity.

"Agate," correspondent of _The Cincinnati Gazette_, gives the following graphic description of the struggle:

"The great, desperate, final charge came at four. The Rebels seemed to have gathered up all their strength and desperation for one fierce, convulsive effort, that should sweep over and wash out our obstinate resistance. They swept up as before: the flower of their army to the front, victory staked upon the issue. In some places they literally lifted up and pushed back our lines; but, that terrible position of ours!--wherever they entered it, enfilading fires from half a score of crests swept away their columns like merest chaff. Broken and hurled back, they easily fell into our hands; and, on the centre and left, the last half hour brought more prisoners than all the rest.

"So it was along the whole line; but it was on the Second Corps that the flower of the Rebel army was concentrated; it was there that the heaviest shock beat upon, and shook, and even sometimes crumbled, our lines.

"We had some shallow rifle-pits, with barricades of rails from the fences. The Rebel line, stretching away miles to the left, in magnificent array, but strongest here--Pickett's splendid division of Longstreet's corps in front, the best of A. P. Hill's veterans in support--came steadily, and as it seemed resistlessly, sweeping up. Our skirmishers retired slowly from the Emmitsburg road, holding their ground tenaciously to the last. The Rebels reserved their fire till they reached this same Emmitsburg road, then opened with a terrific crash.

From a hundred iron throats, meantime, their artillery had been thundering on our barricades.

"Hanc.o.c.k was wounded; Gibbon succeeded to the command--an approved soldier, and ready for the crisis. As the tempest of fire approached its height, he walked along the line, and renewed his orders to the men to reserve their fire. The Rebels--three lines deep--came steadily up.

They were in point-blank range.

"At last the order came! From thrice six thousand guns there came a sheet of smoky flame, a crash, a rush of leaden death. The line literally melted away; but there came the second, resistless still. It had been our supreme effort; on the moment we were not equal to another.

"Up to the rifle-pits, across them, over the barricades--the momentum of their charge, the mere machine-strength of their combined action, swept them on. Our thin line could fight, but it had not weight enough to oppose to this momentum. It was pushed behind the guns. Right on came the Rebels. They were upon our guns--were bayoneting the gunners--were waving their flags over our pieces.

"But they had penetrated to the fatal point. A storm of grape and canister tore its way from man to man, and marked its track with corpses straight down their line! They had exposed themselves to the enfilading fire of the guns on the western slope of Cemetery Hill; that exposure sealed their fate.

"The line reeled back--disjointed already--in an instant in fragments.

Our men were just behind the guns. They leaped forward upon the disordered ma.s.s; but there was little need of fighting now. A regiment threw down its arms, and, with colors at its head, rushed over and surrendered. All along the field smaller detachments did the same.

Webb's brigade brought in eight hundred: taken in as little time as it requires to write the simple sentence that tells it. Gibbon's old division took fifteen stand of colors.

"Over the fields the escaped fragments of the charging line fell back--the battle there was over. A single brigade, Harrow's (of which the Seventh Michigan is part), came out with fifty-four less officers, and seven hundred and ninety-three less men, than it took in! So the whole corps fought; so, too, they fought farther down the line.

"It was fruitless sacrifice. They gathered up their broken fragments, formed their lines, and slowly marched away. It was not a rout; it _was_ a bitter, crushing defeat. For once the Army of the Potomac had won a clean, honest, acknowledged victory."

General Pickett's division was nearly annihilated. One of his officers recounted, that, as they were charging over the gra.s.sy plain, he threw himself down before a murderous discharge of grape and canister, which mowed the gra.s.s and men all around him, as though a scythe had been swung just above his prostrate form.

During the terrific cannonade and subsequent charges, our ammunition and other trains had been parked in rear of Round Top, which gave them splendid shelter. Partly to possess this train, but mainly to secure this commanding position, General Longstreet sent two strong divisions of infantry, with heavy artillery, to turn our flank, and to drive us from this ground. Kilpatrick, with his division, which had been strengthened by Merritt's Regular brigade, was watching this point, and waiting for an opportunity to strike the foe. It came at last. Emerging from the woods in front of him came a strong battle-line followed by others.

FALL OF GENERAL FARNSWORTH.

To the young Farnsworth was committed the task of meeting infantry with cavalry in an open field. Placing the Fifth New York in support of Elder's battery, which was exposed to a galling fire, but made reply with characteristic rapidity, precision, and slaughter, Farnsworth quickly ordered the First Virginia, First Vermont, and Eighteenth Pennsylvania in line of battle, and galloped away and charged upon the flank of the advancing columns. The attack was sharp, brief, and successful, though attended with great slaughter. But the Rebels were driven upon their main lines, and the flank movement was prevented. Thus the cavalry added another dearly-earned laurel to its chaplet of honor--_dearly earned_, because many of their bravest champions fell upon that b.l.o.o.d.y field.

Kilpatrick, in his official report of this sanguinary contest, says: "In this charge fell the brave Farnsworth. Short and brilliant was his career. On the twenty-ninth of June a general; on the first of July he baptized his star in blood; and on the third, for the honor of his young brigade and the glory of his corps, he yielded up his n.o.ble life."

Thus ended the battle of Gettysburg--the b.l.o.o.d.y turning-point of the Rebellion--the b.l.o.o.d.y baptism of the redeemed Republic. Nearly twenty thousand men from the Union ranks had been killed and wounded, and a larger number of the Rebels, making the enormous aggregate of at least forty thousand, whose blood was shed to fertilize the Tree of Liberty.

In the evening twilight of that eventful day General Meade penned the following interesting despatch to the Government:

HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE POTOMAC, Near Gettysburg, July 3, 8.30 P. M.

_To Major-General Halleck, General-in-Chief_:

The enemy opened at one o'clock P. M., from about one hundred and fifty guns. They concentrated upon my left centre, continuing without intermission for about three hours, at the expiration of which time he a.s.saulted my left centre twice, being, upon both occasions, handsomely repulsed with severe loss to them, leaving in our hands nearly three thousand prisoners. Among the prisoners are Major-General Armistead, and many colonels and officers of lesser note. The enemy left many dead upon the field, and a large number of wounded in our hands. The loss upon our side has been considerable.

Major-General Hanc.o.c.k and Brigadier-General Gibbon were wounded.

After the repelling of the a.s.sault, indications leading to the belief that the enemy might be withdrawing, an armed reconnoissance was pushed forward from the left, and the enemy found to be in force. At the present hour all is quiet.

The New York cavalry have been engaged all day on both flanks of the enemy, hara.s.sing and vigorously attacking him with great success, notwithstanding they encountered superior numbers, both of cavalry and artillery. The army is in fine spirits.

GEORGE G. MEADE, _Major-General Commanding_.