Gettysburg (87 page)

Everything was hampered by the weather. The heat of the previous days had now been replaced by precipitation and wind, beginning with a light rain at around 6:00
A.M.
that grew more intense as the day wore on. A series of thunderstorms marched through in the early afternoon, accompanied by strong gusts that pushed the water into every orifice. Before long, the placid creeks and runs were flooded, forcing the relocation of several aid stations whose attendants had to frantically haul their helpless charges to higher ground. Someone in town took the measure of today’s deluge and reckoned the rainfall at 1.33 inches.

The weather wreaked havoc on the efforts of John Imboden to move the long trains of wounded through the Cashtown Gap. “Canvas was no protection against its fury,” the officer wrote, “and the wounded men lying upon the naked boards of the wagon-bodies were drenched. Horses and mules were blinded and maddened by the wind and water, and became almost unmanageable.” Not until nearly 4:00
P.M.
would the long, doleful caravan begin climbing into the pass.

Imboden was carrying Lee’s first report of the battle, addressed to Jefferson Davis. Although necessarily brief, the document nonetheless made explicit Lee’s understanding of some key points. At the end of July 1, he noted, the enemy “took up a strong position in rear of the town which he immediately began to fortify, and where his reinforcements joined him.” The next day, July 2, found the Confederates attempting “to dislodge the enemy,” but “though we gained some ground, we were unable to get possession of his position.” Finally, on July 3, the “works on the enemy’s extreme right & left were taken, but his numbers were so great and his position commanding, that our troops were compelled to relinquish their advantage and retired.” Lee closed his brief by remarking that the Union army had “suffered severely,” and appended a list of some of the prominent Confederate officers who had been killed or wounded. Since there was a real chance that this message might be intercepted, he offered no hint regarding his next move.

Reporter Whitelaw Reid caught a glimpse of Meade around midday, busily “dictating orders and receiving dispatches.” Summaries of the situation were sent off to Darius Couch in Harrisburg and the officer
commanding the Union forces at Frederick, Maryland. Circulars were distributed to the various corps headquarters on a variety of matters: status reports were requested regarding conditions and materiel; an inventory was ordered of captured Rebel flags; burial details were authorized; and a tally of on-hand ammunition supplies was demanded. In one of these memoranda, Meade stated his intention “not to make any present move, but to refit and rest for today.” Explaining further in a letter to his wife, the army commander confided that he never even considered initiating offensive operations on July 4 because he was determined not to allow the Rebels to “play their old game of shooting us from behind breastworks.”

Many of the energies expended by both sides today were directed not at taking lives but at saving them. Unlike their better armed and better trained comrades on the lines, those tending the wounded were desperately hampered by a lack of supplies and of adequate facilities, and overwhelmed by the excessive numbers in need of medical care. Just about anything large enough and with a roof overhead had been commandeered as a treatment center or operating area; there were stations in virtually every sector where men had fought.

Robert E. Lee’s decision to reset his lines along the axis of Seminary Ridge had necessitated the abandonment of a dozen such setups east of Gettysburg, perhaps another half dozen north of it, and an additional number within the town proper. This in turn had placed an even heavier burden on the already packed Confederate infirmaries located west of the town. Among the busiest of these was the station on the Samuel Lohr farm, just past the point where the Chambersburg Pike crossed Marsh Creek. A chaplain in a Mississippi regiment described the sad spectacle of the wounded laid out “under open skies, on the bare ground, or a mere pile of straw … heroically suffering or unconsciously moaning their lives away.” Surgeon LeGrand Wilson was one of those who were occupied here from morning to night “performing necessary operations, and redressing the wounds.” Farther south along Marsh Creek, at the Fairfield Road crossing, was Bream’s farm, another significant collecting point. The observer Fitzgerald Ross was especially moved by the sight there of “those fine young fellows, many of them probably crippled for life. … Many were to be left behind, too severely wounded to bear removal.”

On the Union side, the medical crisis was particularly ironic because there was an effective system in place to deal with such emergencies, but it had been badly disrupted by the exigencies of the military campaign. Dr. Jonathan Letterman, the medical director of the Army of the Potomac, had designed a process whereby the battlefield wounded could be moved swiftly through several treatment stages behind the lines, with the most seriously afflicted being sent directly to the best-equipped and best-staffed infirmaries. The essential components of this system were a well-trained staff, adequate supplies, and viable temporary hospital facilities. Letterman’s medical teams were present in good numbers at Gettysburg, but the rapid marches required to concentrate the army, combined with George Meade’s uncertainty about holding his position, meant that the all-important medical supply trains remained in the rear. While Letterman himself was clear about what he considered the priority to be—”Lost supplies can be replenished,” he declared, “but lives lost are gone forever”—Meade saw matters differently.

So as wagons filled with tenting stood immobile, parked between Union Mills and Westminster, thousands of wounded men lay outside aide stations, suffering from their wounds and exposed to the weather. The Eleventh Corps division commander Carl Schurz vividly recollected the results: “A heavy rain set in during the day. …” he wrote, “and large numbers had to remain unprotected in the open, there being no room left under roof. I saw long rows of men lying under the eaves of buildings, the water pouring down upon their bodies in streams.” Because the Twelfth Corps’ medical director had disobeyed orders by bringing his supply train forward, many of the soldiers wounded on Culp’s Hill received prompt attention. For most of the other Union casualties, however, the immediate postbattle experience was horrific beyond description. Even the sober and serious Dr. Letterman called it “a field of Blood on which the Demon of Destruction reveled.”

At age forty-four, the poet Walt Whitman was too old to soldier. Drawn to Washington to visit a younger brother reported wounded in action at Fredericksburg in 1862, Whitman had stayed on in the capital to nurse and comfort other stricken soldiers. Today he was making his way, around noon, along Pennsylvania Avenue when his attention was captured by “a big, flaring placard on the bulletin board of a newspaper office,
announcing ‘Glorious Victory for the Union Army!’” Moving along the street, Whitman encountered other displays, some reprinting George Meade’s final message of the day before (which Whitman judged “very modest”) and others presenting a proclamation by Abraham Lincoln, time-dated 10:30
A.M.,
July 4. The information received from the Army of the Potomac, Lincoln announced, “is such to cover that army with the highest honor.” The president also gave thanks to God for this joyous news, a sentiment that struck Whitman as “a sort of order of the day … quite religious.”

The poet cited the reports to cheer the wounded and sick soldiers he visited this day, supplementing the news with dollops of blackberry and cherry syrup that he mixed with ice water for them. In the background, as he ministered in his way, Whitman heard Independence Day being marked with “the usual fusillades of boys’ pistols, crackers, and guns.”

It was, after all, the birthday of the United States, but few on the battlefield were celebrating the occasion. A Rhode Island officer posted near Rose’s wheat field would recollect that at about noon, “a National Salute with shotted guns was fired from several of our Batteries and the shells passed over our heads toward the Rebel lines.” This commemoration appears to have been an isolated event, though numerous individual Federals undoubtedly reflected on the day’s symbolic meaning. “Today is Independence Day,” wrote a New Jersey soldier. “God grant it may be the restoration of the Union.” Others merely noted its passing: “4th of July, while you were celebrating, we were busy burying the dead,” a young New Yorker wrote to his mother. “Today is supposed to be a holiday,” scribbled a diarist in town, “but it is a sad day for Gettysburg.”

The significance was not lost on those along Seminary Ridge. “A heavy rain was falling,” recalled an Alabama officer in Ewell’s corps, “and just then I remembered that it was the 4th of July, and that the villains would think more than ever of their wretched Independence Day.” Some of those villains did just that. A Wisconsin soldier who had been captured on July 1 recorded in his diary, “We celebrated the Nation’s birthday by singing patriotic songs and making ourselves jolly generally.” Another group was huddled in the rain “with heavy hearts … when one of our officers, disregarding all possible consequences, gave vent to his feelings and in honor of the day began a patriotic song. We others took courage
and all joined in the chorus.” When their Confederate guards failed to intervene, one soldier found hope in their leniency. “Could it mean that they were beaten on July 3rd?” he wondered.

Everything the English observer Fremantle saw convinced him that Lee’s entire army was in denial. The soldiers he overheard “all were talking of [capturing] Washington and Baltimore with the greatest confidence.” Officers passed on rumors “that the enemy was
retiring
, and had been doing so all day long.” Yet from Fremantle’s perspective, the signs of defeat were everywhere: long trains of Confederate wagons and herds of confiscated animals moved west along the Fairfield Road throughout the rainy day, James Longstreet had relocated his headquarters some three miles closer to Fairfield, and, perhaps most unsettling, incidents of pilferage and robbery were becoming common.

When evening arrived, Fremantle and the correspondent Francis Lawley were lucky enough to find space in a covered buggy assigned to a First Corps surgeon. Waiting in the dripping gloom for the withdrawal procession to get under way, Fremantle could not help contrasting the arrogance of the Rebel army with its actual situation. “It is impossible to avoid seeing that the cause of this check to the Confederates lies in the utter contempt felt for the enemy by all ranks,” he asserted.

As he had done on the night of July 2, George Meade brought his corps commanders together this evening to share information and ideas. The changes in the cast of characters on hand were all the result of enemy action. In addition to Daniel Butterfield, present were John Newton, Henry Slocum, John Sedgwick, Oliver Howard, George Sykes, David Birney, Alfred Pleasonton, Brigadier General William Hays (replacing Hancock), and Gouverneur K. Warren.

Meade opened the discussion by reminding everyone that he was still operating under instructions to protect Washington and Baltimore. There were rumors, he noted, that reinforcements were heading toward them from the capital, but he had been unable to confirm that information. He looked to his officers for comments. There was no clear consensus of opinion, so following the model established on July 2, four questions were posed to the group.

Meade first asked if they believed the army should remain at Gettysburg on July 5. All but Slocum, Newton, and Pleasonton were in favor of holding fast. If they remained at Gettysburg, Meade asked as a follow-up, should they attack Lee? No one was ready to commit to that proposition. Meade’s final two questions concerned the nature of any pursuit they might undertake. Here there was some agreement that just the cavalry should directly pursue, while the infantry marched south and then west to cut Lee off from the Potomac. Before the meeting broke up, Meade announced his intention to push out a strong reconnaissance force at dawn under Warren’s direction.

At 10:00
P.M.,
George Meade sent his last situation report of this day to Henry Halleck. It contained nothing of particular significance, save for Meade’s declaration that he meant to press Lee’s new line on July 5, “to ascertain what the intention of the enemy is.”

Although Robert E. Lee was kept busy all day with preparations for the army’s return to virginia, he made it a point to visit all parts of his line and to be seen by his men. The Texans cheered him as he passed their camps, a salute Lee acknowledged by raising his hat. He was spotted, too, by several union POWs who were understandably interested in the mood of their enemy’s leader. One Iron Brigade man reported that he “showed no signs of worry. His countenance was placid and he appeared as cool and collected as if nothing unusual had transpired.” Another black-hatted soldier wrote in his diary that Lee “appears dignified and self-assured.”

Times of great stress demanded even greater displays of self-control. When an aide of Ewell’s pronounced his command ready for action and somewhat smugly hoped that “’the other two corps are in as good condition for work as ours is,’” Lee put him in his place. “‘What reason have you, young man, to suppose they are not?’” he asked. Object lessons aside, Lee did have enough doubt about the combat efficiency of Pickett’s Division that he assigned the shattered unit the undesirable task of guarding Federal prisoners. While this decision was understandable under the circumstances, it was a slight that George Pickett would never forgive or forget.

Lee pulled up stakes toward nightfall and joined Longstreet at his headquarters along the Fairfield Road. The pair were seen by the observer FitzGerald Ross, who recorded that they were “engaged in
earnest conversation.” (Lee would later tell Ross that he had been considering halting the movement because of the atrocious weather, but that would have required turning the supply train around, an impossible maneuver in this context.) Another who was present heard Lee admit to a personal failing: “‘I thought my men were invincible,’” he said.