Gettysburg (34 page)

Iverson’s four regiments were ready to go; the one thing missing was the brigade commander. Alfred Iverson had some queries about the battle plan, and he had also learned at the last moment that he was expected to coordinate the movements of Daniel’s Brigade. Possibly to clarify these matters, he left his men for the rear, where he was given the false intelligence that O’Neal’s Brigade was in action. Iverson sent orders for his own brigade to advance, then went to find Junius Daniel to confirm that he could rely on his support.

As Iverson’s line of battle (without Iverson) moved out to the open
fields south of the Mummasburg Road, the men rapidly realized that O’Neal’s troops were nowhere in sight to their left. The North Carolina regiments veered eastward in a vain attempt to locate O’Neal’s right. In doing so, they separated themselves from Daniel’s supporting regiments and came more directly against the Oak Ridge crest line, with no support on either flank.

Bad luck (on the Confederate side) and solid initiative (on the Union) combined to spell disaster for Iverson’s men. What Rodes had assumed to be only a small group of Federals on Oak Ridge near the Mummasburg Road was actually closer to a full brigade in size. Most of Baxter’s Second Brigade was there, soon to be joined by portions of Brigadier General Gabriel R. Paul’s First Brigade (both from the Second Division of the First Corps), sent along by Abner Doubleday from their reserve position near the Lutheran seminary. A providential stone wall that ran along the ridge perpendicular to the road furnished sufficient cover that five regiments were able to ease into firing positions unseen by most of Iverson’s men. In a final error of judgment that would soon cost many lives, Iverson had not deployed any skirmishers, so his men marched in an orderly fashion across an open field, guided only by what little they could see.

The Federals showed deadly patience. The steady Tarheels reached a point between eighty and a hundred yards from the concealed Yankee line before the Union officers yelled for their men to “up and fire.” A survivor from the 23rd North Carolina later recollected that “when we were in point blank range the dense line of the enemy rose from its protected lair and poured into us a withering fire.” Another member of the 23rd, who was marching in the second rank at that instant, would later tell his brother that he had been “sprayed by the brains of the first rank.” The once-neat lines shuddered as if struck by lightning; the advance “staggered, halted, and was swept back as by an irresistible current,” declared a Federal officer. Those Confederates who had the presence of mind to do so dropped to the ground and tried to find enough cover from behind which to shoot back; others attempted to return the musketry from an erect position, as they had been trained. “I believe every man who stood up was either killed or wounded,” noted an officer in the 20th North Carolina.

The slaughter continued for some minutes. Finally, several groups of Federals charged out to capture dazed bunches of Rebels, allowing other Confederates to fall back under a covering fire from different parts of
Rodes’ Division.
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Alfred Iverson suffered something approaching a nervous breakdown, swore that his brigade had endeavored to surrender en masse, “and became unfit for further command.”

Not long after his conversation with Richard Anderson, Robert E. Lee rode toward Gettysburg in search of A. P. Hill. The steady drumming of artillery fire from ahead was unsettling evidence that his army was in a fight of some considerable size. When Lee reached the hamlet of Seven Stars, the site of Pettigrew’s morning encampment, he was met by Richard Ewell’s aide Campbell Brown. “Troops came up while I was talking with Gen’l Lee and passed by toward Gettysburg,” the young officer later recalled. After informing Lee of Ewell’s decision to alter his course and move for Gettysburg instead of Cashtown, Brown was surprised to be asked by the general if his commander had heard anything from Jeb Stuart. When he answered in the negative, Lee appeared to grow both anxious and angry. “This from a man of Lee’s habitual reserve surprised me at the time,” Brown remembered. Lee issued instructions for Ewell to make every effort “to open communications with Gen’l Stuart,” then dismissed the aide to return to his corps.

From Seven Stars, Lee rode on over Knoxlyn Ridge (the site of the morning’s skirmishing) and continued until he reached a slight rise just west of Herr’s Ridge and north of the Chambersburg Pike. There he met A. P. Hill, who still could provide no more than a sketchy situation report. It was around the time when Iverson’s Brigade was being shredded near Oak Hill that Henry Heth located the two generals. Protocol called for Heth to deliver his report to Hill, but something—the look in Lee’s eyes, perhaps, or the pallor of Hill’s skin—prompted him instead to speak directly to the army commander.

“‘Rodes is very heavily engaged, had I not better attack?’” Heth asked.

“‘No,’” Lee replied, “‘I am not prepared to bring on a general engagement today—Longstreet is not up.’”

Robert Rodes’ first attack, though a bloody debacle for Iverson’s Brigade, nonetheless marked the beginning of an increasing desperation
on the part of the Union First Corps and its commander, Abner Double-day. To meet the threat posed by Ewell’s arrival on Oak Hill, Doubleday committed virtually his entire reserve, Robinson’s two-brigade division, to succor his northern flank. The tentative initial shelling by the Rebel cannon on Oak Hill was quickly augmented by Pegram’s and Mcintosh’s gunners, all of whom lavished special attention on the McPherson farm area, where Roy Stone’s three Pennsylvania regiments held the ground. The barrage of hissing and exploding shells became severe enough that Stone turned one regiment, the 149th Pennsylvania, to front north and pulled most of the other two back a bit to gain some cover from the farm buildings.

In facing north, however, the 149th presented its left flank to the gunners on Herr’s Ridge, who promptly took advantage of the situation. After seeing several of his men get pulped into a fleshy mash by this enfilading fire, the regiment’s commander decided to break a few rules. Normally a regiment’s flags were its most prized possession, ever to be kept in a well-guarded position. But in this instance, realizing that those standards were providing handy targeting poles for the Rebel gunners, Lieutenant Colonel Walton Dwight ordered the flags and color guard to a point about fifty yards north of where the main body of the regiment lay. The men assigned to this detail made their way forward and located a small fence-rail breastwork that they used for cover while the Confederate cannoneers dutifully shifted their fire to the new target.

it was from their position along the Chambersburg Pike that a number of Stone’s men engaged in some long-distance sniping at Iverson’s struggling command. But Iverson’s men were not entirely alone; moving to support them off to the west was Daniel’s Brigade. Daniel had detached three regiments to help provide covering fire for Iverson’s withdrawal, while keeping the remaining two focused on his principal objective: attaining the Chambersburg Pike. Those latter regiments, the 2nd North Carolina Battalion and the 45th North Carolina (about 810 men in all), had reached the area previously occupied by Cutler’s 147th New York when Stone’s line erupted with disciplined volleys. The musketry, aided by supporting cannon fire from Seminary Ridge, pummeled the Rebel battle lines until a countercharge ordered by Stone sent the Tarheels scrambling back.

Abner Doubleday understood that it was only the failure of the Confederate commanders to coordinate their efforts that allowed him to maintain his position on McPherson’s Ridge. “It would of course have
been impossible to hold the line if Hill attacked on the west and Ewell assailed me at the same time on the north,” he later reflected.

Units of the Third Division of the Eleventh Corps continued to reach the open fields north of town and just east of Oak Ridge. Even as Dilger’s gunners were beating up the Rebel batteries near Oak Hill, the rest of the First Brigade and all of the Second came panting onto the scene. Their passage through Gettysburg was swift but rewarding. “We were wet as cats, hungry as wolves,” wrote a Wisconsin sergeant. “Our thirst was satisfied by the good citizens when we run in full gallop through the town.” Colonel Wlodzimierz Krzyzanowski commanded the Second Brigade. The Polish-born officer, called Kriz by his men, nurtured a fierce determination. “The fate of the nation was at stake,” he later declared. “I felt it, the leaders felt it, the army felt it, and we fought like lions.” Krzyzanowski’s men were now massed in support of Dilger’s artillery—a bad strategic choice, for the sight of the nearly 1,300 men clustered in a compact formation drew Rebel cannon fire that killed and wounded several soldiers.

Ahead of them, on Oak Hill, Rodes’ efforts to salvage his attack were meeting with no success. Long after it could have done some good, O’Neal’s Brigade tried again to move toward the Mummasburg Road. Pounded by Dilger’s cannon, pecked at by the Eleventh Corps skirmishers, and facing portions of two First Corps brigades, the Alabama boys faltered. The action did, however, beckon acting corps commander Carl Schurz toward his front, causing him to miss the arrival of the First Division, Brigadier General Francis C. Barlow commanding, accompanied by Oliver Otis Howard.

Howard himself came in the wake of a scouting report he had forwarded to Schurz warning of the imminent approach of a large Confederate force on the Heidlersburg Road. The new left-wing commander likely also shared this intelligence with Barlow, who was operating under Schurz’s instructions to use the First Division to extend the right flank of the Third. Leaving Barlow to deploy his men, Howard undertook what would prove to be his one and only survey of the Federal positions north and west of Gettysburg.

In slanting in behind the skirmishers confronting Oak Hill and then moving up onto Oak Ridge, Howard somehow managed to pass by Carl Schurz, who would thus remain in the dark regarding his plans. Next,
Howard (by his own account) rode among the First Corps units that had savaged Iverson, “had a few words with Wadsworth, and stopped a short time with Doubleday farther to the west.” Doubleday remembered Howard’s examining the position on McPherson’s Ridge, after which he “gave orders, in case I was forced to retreat, to fall back to Cemetery Hill. I think this was the first and only order I received from him during the day.” For his part, Howard returned to Cemetery Hill “feeling exceedingly anxious about the left flank.”

The passage of the Eleventh Corps through Gettysburg rekindled hope among its citizens that they would be saved. Albertus McCreary and some of his pals perched on a rail fence to cheer on the infantrymen. McCreary assured his companions that “there are enough soldiers here to whip all the Rebs in the south.” Teenager Henry Jacobs marveled at the fortitude shown by these troops: “They kept the pace without breaking ranks,” he recollected, “but they flowed through and out into the battlefield beyond, a human tide, at millrace speed.” Many residents offered the men water, though sometimes their officers waved off the Good Samaritans, insisting, as Catherine Foster remembered it, that “there was no time to drink.”

Even as spirits were raised, the hard hand of war revealed itself in the growing number of wounded soldiers being cared for in the town. Mary McAllister was one of many of Gettysburg’s noncombatants who now had to confront an aspect of war not depicted by Currier and Ives. “I didn’t know what in the world to do,” she admitted. But she and others were nevertheless determined to do everything in their power to help these brave young men who had come from such a distance to protect them.

Richard Ewell was beginning to wonder if his decision to pitch into the union army had been the right one. His sole offensive effort thus far had been repulsed, and the pressure on George Doles’ isolated brigade was increasing as more and more Yankee soldiers poured through the town. Robert E. Lee had not wanted a battle, but Ewell had forced one anyway, thinking he could deliver a quick victory. Instead, he now faced the real possibility of having to withdraw.

Campbell Brown returned and reviewed his conversation with Robert E. Lee, reporting that there were no new orders save those concerning
Jeb Stuart. Not five minutes after he passed his information to Ewell, Brown later remembered, “Maj. Venable of Jeb Stuart’s staff with one courier, rode up to let us know where Jeb was. … Gen’l E. sent him on to report to Gen’l Lee, advising him to send the courier back to hurry up the Cavalry. … Gen’l E. gave me but a few minutes rest, sending me to look for [Jubal] Early & hurry him up & tell him to attack at once.” As Brown left, he could hear a crescendo of popping, a signal that more of Rodes’ infantry was going into action.

The sounds Brown heard issued from Junius Daniel’s second drive on the Chambersburg Pike. He had failed the first time using two regiments, so now he hit the area defended by Roy Stone’s brigade with four, leaving one to watch his rear. After repulsing Daniel’s previous effort, the 149th Pennsylvania’s colonel had posted a portion of his regiment in an advanced position in the railroad cut. The cut itself provided a great advantage against an enemy force charging straight on, but it would be a terrible place to be if any enemy cannon got into the unfinished road bed.

At first things worked out according to the Federal script, with the leading waves of charging Tarheels obligingly falling to the Pennsylvania volleys. Then one of Pegram’s alert gunners on Herr’s Ridge saw what was happening, pushed his battery forward into the cut, and began shot-gunning canister along the pathway. The 149th’s commander shouted orders for the detachment to retreat, but for many it was already too late. An officer with them recalled that “some were shot while climbing the steep side [of the cut]; others losing their hold slid back; some ran to the right to get out; and numbers on the left never got out except as prisoners, for the foe was upon them before they could clear it.”

The railroad cut proved to be a double-edged sword for both sides, however, for it slowed the momentum of Daniel’s men, providing enough time for Stone to shift most of two of his regiments and part of a third to face the pike. After that it became a brawl pure and simple, as clusters of soldiers fought one another for self-defense or momentary advantage. In short order Stone’s brigade was no longer Stone’s, as the colonel went down with bullet hits to his arm and hip; command devolved to Colonel Langhorne Wister, who was soon exercising it with orders spat out in blood from a mouth wound. Not until the Pennsylvanians launched a near-suicidal charge was the railroad cut again cleared of the enemy. The
Union position had been held, but at high cost.
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This would have been the time for fresh troops to replace the three Pennsylvania regiments, but no reserves were on hand. As Langhorne Wister staggered off to an aid station in the rear, Colonel Edmund C. Dana took over what was left.