From above, Sid and I can see the fierce battle at Brandy Station, Virginia, which is an antecedent to Gettysburg itself. The fighting is often hand-to-hand, soldiers from both sides wielding rifles, pistols and sabers. Horses are cut down in mid-gallop by cannon fire; their riders are pitched to the ground, open and vulnerable, the thick white smoke of the exploded ordinance their only cover. The drums of war beat as the men cheer marching comrades on to the charge. Caissons are aimed, loaded and discharged, and the reverberation of exploding shells thunders through the nearby valleys.
As General Lee’s infantry secretly marches toward the Shenandoah Valley, the Union Army of the Potomac, commanded by Major General Joseph Hooker, is still encamped in positions taken after the Battle of Chancellorsville. Not until late June did they break camp and set off in pursuit of Lee’s army.
In addition to General Hooker’s army, we see the veteran Iron Brigade break camp in the west and begin their march towards Gettysburg to rendezvous not only with General Hooker’s troops, but also to engage the Confederate army. The weather is inhospitable, the heat and humidity oppressive. It is nearly two o’clock in the afternoon when the brigade finally stops for rest and food. Some of the soldiers strip naked and bathe in an inviting stream, while others sleep in a grove of leafy oak trees. Interrupting their short respite, the bugler summons them to assemble into formation.
It has been determined that a cowardly soldier who has deserted for the fourth time is to be shot, and the men are obliged to watch the execution. The brigade is formed into a hollow, three-sided square. A coffin arrives upon a horse-drawn hearse and is placed on the ground as the prisoner is led to the execution site in the company of the chaplain. Together they kneel to pray.
Taciturn and stoic, Brigadier General Wadsworth rides on horseback into the assembly. He reads the order of execution to the selected twelve riflemen who stand ready to carry out the sentence. One rifle, they know, is loaded with a blank cartridge.
Then the provost rips open the condemned soldier’s shirt to expose his chest. He binds the prisoner’s arms and ankles then fixes a blindfold over his eyes. General Wadsworth calls “Attention!” and the firing squad aims their rifles. A hat is raised then quickly lowered, and the shots ring out. The condemned man slumps lifeless onto the ground. Later, the entire division is marched past the body as the gravediggers shovel earth over the corpse. The message is unmistakable: deserting one’s comrades is not an option.
My stomach is in knots. I feel like I might vomit. Sweat covers my brow. My mouth is as dry as the parched landscape. Oxygen has gone out of my lungs and my throat refuses to allow inhalation. “I’ve never seen a man gunned down like that,” I choke.
“I fear you shall soon see much worse,” Sid says with reverence and deep regret.
Meanwhile, General Lee’s Confederate columns march over the mountains and into the verdant Shenandoah Valley. Not nearly ready to confront a brigade of nearly two thousand Confederate cavalrymen, Colonel Andrew McReynolds commands his wagon train of supplies to evacuate the area under guard of the 1st New York Cavalry.
And as the Confederates chase the Yankees out of the garrisoned towns of Winchester, Martinsburg and Berryville, they receive a warm welcome, as well as gifts of food and drink and clothing, from supportive civilians.
Finally out of Virginia and passing through central Maryland, members of both armies seem stunned by the prosperous agrarian region. Sid and I focus on one particular soldier who is writing a letter as his company enjoys a rest stop.
“The troops are in a section wholly unacquainted with great bodies of armed men,” he writes. “Thickly peopled, highly cultivated, alternating between wood, meadow and field, it rolls in easy undulations, and from its gently rising knolls one scene of rich grandeur appears as the other fades from view. The grasses have been garnered; vast fields of golden grain are ripening; oats and corn are advancing. Over the succulent meadows and on the green sloping hillsides flocks and herds revel in fattening pasturage. Poultry is plentiful, milk, butter and eggs abundant. The miller has grist to grind, the blacksmith his horses to shoe, the wheelwright his wagons to build. Peace, plenty, thrift, prosperity everywhere abound. Men, maidens, matrons and children gaze in wonderment as the columns hurry through their villages.”
Yet, not all the proud and prosperous Maryland farmers are supportive of the rallying troops, Federal or Confederate, as their crops of corn and barley and oats are raided to feed cavalry horses and mules, hay is confiscated, without payment, for bedding, and fence posts are torn down and burned as firewood.
Near the town of York, Pennsylvania, troops forage for supplies and appropriate horses and mules. Mostly, such appropriations are outright thievery, but even when the rebel raiders pay for what they take, they compensate the farmers and shop owners in Confederate money.
We watch from on high as tens of thousands of Confederate troops march across Pennsylvania with the Federal Army of the Potomac in hot pursuit. We watch as the 12th New Hampshire crosses the river into Maryland under copious moonlight. We watch in astonishment as General Jubal A. Early’s division routes a hastily aggregated band of Union protectors and occupies the town of Gettysburg, and as Brigadier General John Buford’s division of Union cavalry soldiers arrives shortly after Confederate General J. J. Pettigrew’s detail has withdrawn from the town and established camp on a western hillside.
As the sky darkens on the evening of June 30, 1863, Ewell’s Confederate Second Corps is camped north and northeast of Gettysburg, while Hill’s Third Corps has claimed a position along the pike to Chambersburg. Nearing the city is Longstreet’s First Corps, with General Lee close behind.
On the Union side, Buford’s cavalry soldiers are stretched in a crescent from west to northeast. A Federal infantry corps is within a day’s march of the battlefield. Several cavalry units support the foot soldiers.
The clear night sky is filled with stars, one for each soldier. Which stars shine brightly, and which glow dimmer, portend the future. The sleep of the older, well-seasoned veterans is fitful, while the younger soldiers rest like babies in the arms of their mothers. Messengers ride on horseback behind the lines between friendly encampments to gather intelligence and convey support positions. Commanders sleep not at all as they formulate strategies for the upcoming battle. Will providence be kind to the boy from Georgia? Or will it extinguish his light in a defining moment of passion? Will the soldier from Illinois be decorated as a hero, or will he lose his arm to a well-placed cannon shot? Which cause will fate call noble, and which one will it deny? These soldiers have all seen combat, and all witnessed death. They know one side will prevail, and the other will taste bitter defeat. Some will live; others will die. Each life hangs in the balance tonight. A single shooting star arcs above tomorrow’s battlefield, dusting those underneath its path with courage and resolve. Their duty be done, for country and family and friends.
As the dawn breaks on the morning of July 1, 1863, the various commanders fully understand the enormity of the situation. Such a convergence of forces has not occurred before, and it will no doubt have a defining effect on the outcome of the war.
“Every available man is to join the ranks,” General Buford instructs Captain Frank Donaldson. “I don’t care who he is—cook, wheelwright, blacksmith—all non-combatants are to be forced into the brigade ranks, issued rifles and made to fight. Assemble a detail to bring up the rear, and if any man dares not to fall in step, he is to be shot on the spot. Those are your orders, Captain. Do you understand and accept them?”
“Yes, sir!” Donaldson replies with a salute.
“Then carry them out,” says Buford as he turns his back on mercy.
As the troops march to their assigned posts on McPherson’s Ridge—not one man daring to step out of alignment—Confederate General Harry Heth’s forces stage an attack. Just after eleven o’clock the rebel sharpshooters occupy the Harmon farm. Susan Castle and her fourteen-year-old niece Amelia occupy the house.
As the ‘Johnnies’ crash through the door, the woman and child hide themselves in the cupola. For several hours rebel snipers pick off infantrymen from Colonel Chapman Biddle’s brigade and Cooper’s artillery battery, both entrenched atop McPherson’s Ridge. The woman and girl watch the action from their position of relative safety. Finally, division commander James Wadsworth orders the 80th New York to flush out the Rebels. Captain Ambrose Baldwin draws the duty, and with thirty men manages to retake the farm. Relieved, Susan and Amelia descend from the cupola, but Baldwin knows that even though his troops have retaken the farm, their dominance might well be short lived, so he instructs the women to hide in the cellar. His suspicion proves correct: General Heth soon arrives with two Confederate brigades.
From a cellar window, Susan and Amelia watch as the superior Confederate force advances toward the farm. Having held the position for only an hour, Baldwin orders his soldiers to abandon their position. The women watch in horror as their barn goes up in flames, and moments later they hear the sound of footsteps overhead as the ‘Johnnies’ first occupy then begin ransacking the house. Rather than be trapped in the cellar, the two women climb the stairs to beg for mercy from the Rebel soldiers. In the parlor they see Confederate soldiers piling their belongings—rugs, furniture, linens, bedding—onto a conflagration of newspapers. “Take whatever you want, but spare this fine house,” they beg. Their plea is ignored, so the woman and the girl flee the house and go running through open pastures teeming with enemy combatants. Caught in the crossfire, bullets whiz over their heads as ordinance explodes all around them. Chaos reins as mortal fear powers their legs. Mercifully, a Confederate colonel offers them sanctuary.
It is now past noon, and for the Union army the fighting is not going well. They are out manned and out maneuvered. Reinforcements are coming from the south but General Meade cannot easily locate the forces they are to relieve.
Meanwhile, fierce fighting is underway in the forests and fields near McPherson’s Ridge. A young sergeant helps a wounded comrade off the field of battle as Confederate lead flies all about them. A corporal, who takes the wounded man’s other arm, quickly assists him but they do not get very far as both are shot dead within seconds of one another. A Minié ball severs the wounded man’s foot, and his life’s blood pours from the smoking, gaping wound onto the ground where he lay.
“I don’t know how much more of this I can watch,” I tell Sid. “This is horrendous!”
“Courage, Fizzy Oceans,” he bolsters. “Watch and learn…”
Confederate forces are now in hot pursuit of retreating Union troops from the western front on their way to a rallying point on Cemetery Hill. As they enter Gettysburg, bullets fly in every direction, penetrating houses, shops and barns. One of the errant bullets finds an unfortunate civilian as he sits inside his outhouse, and he is killed while relieving himself of his fear. Within minutes streets and sidewalks are strewn with the dead and the wounded from both sides. A once serene and scenic village has become the scene of a hideous nightmare.
Darkness has fallen after the first day of battle and the weary soldiers retreat into the shadows. Relief patrols search for the living among the dead and retrieve the wounded to receive treatment behind the lines. One group of Confederate boys eats dinner from a bagful of candy that was stolen from a Gettysburg store. Sweetness is much appreciated wherever it can be had. The only gunshots heard are from the rifles of soldiers killing badly injured horses.
The Confederates have occupied Gettysburg. Cautious civilians dare not come out of their houses for fear of what the Rebels might do to them. Well aware of the day’s battle outcome, the Union High Command debates in earnest whether to go on with the fight or retreat to a safe position. It is determined that they will remain and fight.
Culp’s Hill; Little Roundtop; Devil’s Den; Plum Run; Houck’s Ridge; Cemetery Hill; Stony Hill; Rose Wheatfield: these are the now famous places in which the battle rages. But my shattered attention is focused, for the moment, on Sherfy’s peach orchard. The fighting there is particularly intense and brutal, often hand-to-hand. Hundreds of men are killed or wounded in less time than it takes to eat a meal. I hear the roar of artillery, caissons standing side-by-side for a quarter mile along a low stone buttress, firing in rapid succession. Soldiers try to take cover behind overturned wagons, or even behind their fallen mounts, but hiding is not possible as the shells explode, one after another, throughout the orchard. Often one shell will take out ten to twenty men at a time, severed limbs flying through the air and rich red blood gushing out of bodies like water pouring from an abundant fountain. One astonished cavalryman sits astride his horse as the animal is cut in two by a cannonball. Moments later, the rider, too, is dead from a gunshot through his neck.
All the while drummers drum and buglers blow the call to charge. Men rush to duty and death not one-by-one, but in the hundreds. Smoke from the exploded ordinance is as thick as a burning barn filled with hay. Screams of the wounded cut through the battlefield cacophony as swords rip open tender flesh, and as bayonets savagely pierce hardened sinew and wishful dreams for a lavish future. “For Virginia!” calls a Confederate soldier carrying his regiment’s colors, but even as the echo from his noble words has not yet faded away upon the wind, the flagstaff is cut in half by a Mimié ball, and the banner falls to the ground where it is stained by earth and by blood. As the color-bearer bends down to retrieve the silken image, his legs are blown out from under him and he falls upon the treasured emblem, dead.
Sid now directs my attention to a skirmish between two soldiers, one Federal and the other Confederate, at Little Roundtop. “A situation that is particularly tragic,” he laments. “Two brothers on opposite sides of the conflict meet in battle. Which loyalty shall prevail?”
Jonathan McCormick is ten years older than his brother Matthew. Both were born and raised on their father’s fruitful plantation in central Mississippi. At age nineteen, Jonathan went away to attend a prestigious medical school in the North. Upon graduation he became a prominent doctor in Baltimore. When the war broke out, his sympathies were with the North, and particularly with President Lincoln. He enlisted in the 37th Maryland, but instead of an assignment to the medical corps, he chose infantry service.
His younger brother Matthew, now just nineteen, had never left home prior to the war. On the plantation he enjoyed a comfortable lifestyle, attending parties and courting young women. His sympathies were unquestionably with the Old South, and he enlisted to do his duty for the Confederacy and for Jefferson Davis.
Today, at Gettysburg, they encounter one another for the first time in ten years—at the point of a bayonet! “This is for Mr. Lincoln!” screams Matthew as he plunges the blade into his brother’s chest. Jonathan’s look is incredulous as he recognizes his brother. “Tell mother I am fine,” he says breathlessly as he falls at his brother’s feet. Matthew is dumbstruck. He has killed his own brother. What cause demands such sin and sacrifice? No redemption is possible for such an act. Removing the bayonet from his brother’s body, he turns his gun upon himself. “No!” I scream. But my words are lost in cyber-garble. Matthew pulls the trigger and follows his brother into oblivion.
It is difficult to imagine that the third day of fighting could be as horrific as the first two, but it proves to be even worse. It is only five in the morning, and from high above Cemetery Hill, Sid and I watch as Union artillery is discharged upon Confederate camps. Each volley is like a tremendous crack of thunder that wakes one from the peace of early morning slumber, but unlike simple thunder, these volleys rain down death. The rebels respond with indifference, and soon the shelling abates. Then I see a vehement cloud of smoke curling up from the dark woods on the right, and suddenly the muskets crackle.
Union signal officers are in constant communication with General Howard on Cemetery Hill. Shortly, the batteries open once more. Those on Slocum Hill and near Baltimore Pike follow the signal, and soon every little crest between Slocum’s Hill and Cemetery Ridge i
s belching smoke and thunder.
Still, there is no artillery response from the Confederates. “Are they short of ammunition?” I ask Sid. “Have they failed to bring up all their guns? Have they massed their artillery elsewhere, and only keeping up this furious crash of rifle fire on the right as a blind?” A serious student of this battle, Sid tells me to bide my time and just watch what happens. Opposed as I am to war and violence, I feel like a cadet in the Military Academy.
To the front, Confederate skirmishers and sharpshooters are still at work picking off Union officers who dare expose themselves. On the right, the Union artillery continues to boom, doubled and redoubled again. Suddenly, amidst the rumble and roar, a cheer is heard, and Confederate troops come charging through the trees. Union gunners measure their response solely by the sound of the spirited voices, then discharge. The line is broken for only a moment or two, and then it is reformed and the charge resumes. The carnage unfolding before us is both sickening and at the same time amazing. “Ride over to General Meade,” General Howard instructs one of his aids, “and tell him the fighting on the right seems more terrific than ever and appears to be swinging somewhat toward the center, but that we know little or nothing of how the battle goes, and ask him if he has any orders.” A few moments later, the aid returns. “The troops are to stand to arms, and watch the front.”
A concentration of Confederate artillery fire meant to silence Union batteries and eliminate resistance from the slope is unleashed, but the Union troops are not unprepared, and a tornado of death sweeps over the fields. After two hours of fierce fighting, the Union defenders still maintain their positions; so the Confederates stand down for the present to reserve both energy and ammunition for the greater battle yet to come.
The Virtual Life of Fizzy Oceans Page 29
