Gettysburg (51 page)

“General Lee rode with me a mile or more,” James Longstreet later wrote of this afternoon’s march toward the Federal left flank. In a different account he added, “I left General Lee only after the line had stretched out on the march.” Certainly Lee was not present for the countermarch, when Longstreet’s column folded back on itself before resuming a course to its destination. The division commanded by Lafayette McLaws was finally nearing Warfield Ridge, west of the Emmitsburg Road, when Longstreet intercepted his subordinate.

“How are you going in?” he asked. McLaws answered, “That will be determined when I can see what is in my front.” “There is nothing in your front,” Longstreet told him. “You will be entirely on the flank of the enemy.” McLaws asserted that if such was the case, he would move his
command forward in column until he was perpendicular to the enemy’s position, then face left and attack. “That suits me,” Longstreet said, and rode off.

On the opposite Confederate flank, Richard S. Ewell was playing wait-and-see. Anticipating that Albert Jenkins’ brigade would relieve his units, as Lee had indicated, he allowed Jubal Early to march John B. Gordon’s brigade from its position on the York Road to a point just in the rear of the two brigades he had waiting to attack Cemetery Hill. Ewell himself headed into town and there found a church with a tall steeple that would make a good observation post. He remained inside for a while, most likely taking advantage of the relative lull to catch some sleep.

After leaving James Longstreet, Robert E. Lee returned to his morning observation position. Watching him was the British observer Arthur Fremantle, once again up in his tree after prowling around Gettysburg. Another flare-up of skirmishing near the Bliss farm provided a sonic backdrop as Lee joined A. P. Hill, whose major task this day was to make certain that each of his division commanders knew his part in the scheme of things, since together they represented the critical junction between Longstreet and Ewell.

A wayward officer around whom many questions would soon swirl made his very belated appearance about this time: Jeb Stuart had finally completed his mission. His meeting with Lee on Seminary Ridge went unrecorded by anyone present and seems to have been remarkably anticlimactic. Perhaps the impending battle kept Lee from investing much personal capital in the moment. In any case, Stuart left as quickly as he had arrived. In his official report, he noted only that his new orders were to take position “on the left wing of the Army of Northern Virginia.”

Stuart’s visit was so short and uneventful, in fact, that the anxiously perceptive Fremantle missed seeing him entirely; he would not meet the cavalry chief until several days later. Fremantle’s only recollection was that Lee stayed in one spot “nearly all the time; looking through his fieldglass—sometimes talking to Hill and sometimes to Colonel Long of his Staff. But generally he sat quite alone on the stump of a tree.”

Even as large forces were moving into place for what would become a mighty contest, small groups of soldiers were setting their minds to the practical problems of killing one another. Hiding indoors at her family home on Baltimore Street, near the edge of the Rebel-controlled area, Anna Garlach watched with innocent fascination as a deadly game was played out across the street. “The [Weinbrenner] building along the alley was brick and the men there had thrown up a kind of barricade on the pavement,” she later noted. From a protected position, some of the Rebels “put a hat on a stick over the barricade [to] … draw the fire of the Union sharpshooters.” Whenever a Yankee rifleman on nearby Cemetery Hill took the bait, other Confederates hiding nearby would “jump up and fire out the street.”

Slightly more than a mile to the south, Union officers along Cemetery Ridge looked on as some Massachusetts sharpshooters plied their trade. The two sides were in another intermission between acts of the continuing drama around the Bliss farm, this time with the Confederates controlling the buildings. Several Rebel snipers had taken station in the second story of the brick barn, not only “using rifles that had sufficient range, but also [using them] with remarkable precision,” according to a New Jersey soldier.

At first the Yankee sharpshooters had enjoyed considerable success by shooting in pairs, the first shot causing the enemy snipers to duck, and the second, coming right after the first, catching them as they bobbed back up to retaliate. But when the Rebels adapted by faking a quick return, a new plan was needed. The Union riflemen were now operating in teams of three, with the third man delaying his shot long enough to let the enemy believe he had managed to dodge the whole series. The methodical nature of the Yankees’ planning afforded the New Jersey soldier time for reflection. “Alas!” he later exclaimed. “How little we thought human life was the stake for which this game was being played.”

Lafayette McLaws was experienced enough to handle the usual run of unforeseen situations arising from the uncertainties of a battlefield. What Longstreet’s division commander encountered when he reached the departure point for his positioning march across the Union flank, however, was far beyond the bounds of the merely unexpected. He was supposed to be clear of the enemy flank, with room enough to pass a column across the Emmitsburg Road, but as he later wrote, “the view presented astonished me, as the enemy was massed in my front, and extended to my right and left as far as I could see.” Daniel Sickles’ unsanctioned act in advancing Birney’s division had filled Sherfy’s peach orchard with infantry and cannon. McLaws turned much of his anger on his commander: “General Longstreet is to blame for not reconnoitering the ground,” he complained afterward, “and for persisting in ordering the assault when his errors were discovered.”

There was nothing McLaws could do now but prepare to give battle along Warfield Ridge. Ironically, he was deploying his men as Longstreet had first envisaged, instead of as Lee had dictated. McLaws stacked his division in two lines of battle, two brigades to each line. The first had Brigadier General Joseph B. Kershaw’s South Carolinians on the right, with Brigadier General William Barksdale’s four Mississippi regiments to their left. Backing up Kershaw were the four Georgia regiments under Brigadier General Paul J. Semmes, while another all-Georgia outfit, Brigadier General William T. Wofford’s brigade, was posted to Barksdale’s rear. McLaws also called forward his artillery. With Yankee infantry and artillery in the peach orchard, there was work to be done.

The discovery of Federals in strength where they were not expected also meant that a new plan must be improvised for Hood’s Division, originally slated to support McLaws’ flank attack. It made no sense now for Hood to stage behind McLaws, so instead he directed his units to extend the line southward. Any pretense of concealing the movement was abandoned as Hood’s troops swung off their covered line of approach in order to take station as quickly as possible. “This movement was accomplished by throwing out an advanced force to tear down fences and clear the way,” Hood later reported. Anxious to forestall any more surprises, the Kentucky-born officer also “sent forward some of my picked Texas scouts to ascertain the position of the enemy’s extreme left flank.”

Shortly before 3:00
P.M.,
George Meade finished drafting a situation report for Henry Halleck, who would not receive it for another nineteen hours. “The army is fatigued,” Meade stated, adding that he was presently maintaining “a strong position for [the] defensive,” having suspended any decision to attack the enemy until Lee’s “position is more developed” and all of his own troops (most notably the Sixth Corps) were on hand. If there was any pattern to Lee’s troop placements this day, it was not evident to Meade. “He has been moving on both my flanks apparently, but it is difficult to tell exactly his movements,” the Union commander admitted. If he was not attacked this day, he continued, he would make every effort to go on the offensive tomorrow. Meade also allowed for the possibility that Lee might bypass him, in which case the Army of the Potomac would fall back to Westminster. “I feel fully the responsibility resting on me,” he concluded, “but will endeavor to act with caution.”

Immediately after he sent this note on its way by courier to the nearest telegraphic connection, Meade began summoning his corps commanders to the Leister house, intent on bringing everyone up to date. Noticeable by his absence was Daniel Sickles, who declined several “invitations” before Meade finally issued a peremptory order for him to report. It was near the end of these briefings that Meade’s chief engineer appeared. Gouverneur
K.
Warren looked apprehensive: an officer he had dispatched to investigate the left flank, he told Meade, was reporting that the Cemetery Ridge position assigned to the Third Corps “was not occupied.” The shield of confidence that had been building for the army commander throughout the morning and early afternoon began to disintegrate.

Daniel Sickles now arrived with some aides and orderlies. William Paine of army headquarters staff would later recollect that he had “never [seen] General Meade so angry. … He ordered General Sickles to retire to the position he had been instructed to take. This was done in a few sharp words.” It was Sickles’ memory that Longstreet’s batteries had just begun firing on the Third Corps as he was approaching the Leister place: “General Meade met me just outside of his headquarters and excused me from dismounting. … He said that I should return at once and that he would follow me very soon.”

As Sickles departed, Meade and Warren checked some maps to confirm that the Third Corps “could hardly be said to be in position.” From the regular tracking reports he had been receiving throughout the day, Meade understood that the Sixth Corps was close at hand, so without
knowing precisely where Sickles’ men were, Meade ordered the Fifth Corps, then representing his only reserve, to begin moving into the area that should have contained the Third Corps. Then he and his staff set off on their ride to the left flank. Cresting Cemetery Ridge, they could clearly see the empty spaces to their left and the advance posting taken by Sickles’ troops. “‘Here is where our line should be,’” Gouverneur Warren said, indicating the unoccupied ridge. Meade replied grimly, “‘It is too late now.’”

While Meade focused all his attention on the problem caused by Daniel Sickles, Warren took in a larger view of the Union position. He had a bad feeling about “the condition of affairs” at the end of the Cemetery Ridge line. Such was Meade’s trust in his opinion that it required only the merest hint to release him. “‘I wish you would ride over and if anything serious is going on, attend to it,’” Meade said, indicating the high ground to the south. Quickly gesturing for some aides to accompany him, Gouverneur K. Warren galloped off toward Little Round Top.

The firing Sickles had heard from Meade’s headquarters was likely not Longstreet’s opening guns but rather his own artillery in the peach orchard, reacting to the sighting of McLaws’ Division in their front and Hood’s moving to their left. This challenge did not go long unanswered, as Colonel Henry G. Cabell’s eighteen-gun battalion soon began returning the compliment.

It was taking some time for a clear picture of the situation to pass up the Confederate chain of command. Lafayette McLaws discovered this when an officer on Longstreet’s staff arrived to inquire why he had not marched his column forward as called for in the original plan. An increasingly exasperated McLaws told the emissary “that the enemy was so strong in my front that it required careful preparation for the assault.” The aide made a hurried round trip, returning with the same message, though this time implying (or so McLaws thought) that Robert E. Lee had seconded Longstreet’s directive. McLaws asked for five minutes and began to prepare for what every instinct told him would be a bloody disaster. A reprieve was quick in coming, however, as a courier galloped up with new orders: McLaws was to hold his position until Hood was ready, and then act in concert with him.