by Rod Gragg
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“The Carnage Was Great along Our Whole Line”
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Among the regiments pouring fire into Iverson’s Brigade was the 97th New York Infantry. Captain Isaac Hall of Company A never forgot how Iverson’s men “kept bravely on” in the face of devastating fire—until finally crushed by it. Two decades later, Hall’s emotionally raw memories would yet remain.
The 97th New York, following the 12th Massachusetts, halted in rear or east of this wall and fronted left, and a regiment, or part of another regiment, to the left of the 97th, fronted the same way, thus covering the front of the balance of the brigade. This wall afforded no protection, but the land, for a short distance to the front, rose gradually and then fell off to a gradual slope on the other side, so that our regiments in rear of the wall and a little back from it were hid, even while standing, from the observation of any force that might approach over the narrow meadow in their front....
Iverson’s brigade, by some means unobserved, appeared suddenly in our front. From the left of Baxter’s line they came sweeping up, with a yell, obliquely upon Baxter’s left. They were met by a withering fire, but they kept bravely on, and seemed about to engulf his left flank, when their flank was struck by the fire of our regiment and by the regiment on our immediate left. The determined spirit of these regiments, wrought up to the highest pitch, smarting as they were under the fire of a concealed foe, was with difficulty held in check till the opportune moment should arrive. But, when it did arrive, a flame of fire in which every shot seemed to take a toll burst upon the flank of the Confederate line.
Iverson’s Brigade of North Carolina troops was almost annihilated in the first day’s fighting at Gettysburg, and two of its regiments had their battle flags captured by Federal forces.
Harper’s Weekly
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“They Kept Bravely On”
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It staggered, halted, and was swept back as by an irresistible current into a gully running diagonally to our front and perhaps 300 yards from our line. Under cover of this natural entrenchment these troops first began to open fire upon us, but some displayed white flags, and Lieutenant Colonel Spofford, of our regiment a gallant and intrepid officer, who remained mounted on the left, taking in the situation and the high spirit of the regiment without waiting for orders, said: “Boys of the 97th, let us go for them and capture them.” The first intimation I had of his intent was a cheer from the left, and looking in that direction I found the colors already over the wall and the color company following with ringing cheers.
I hastened my company forward, and on a bound between the lines we were upon them. We took about 400 prisoners officers and men and two regimental flags of North Carolina troops. One flag (the 20th North Carolina) was captured by Sergeant Sylvester Riley of company C ... Some of the Confederates escaped, but most of them surrendered without leaving the ditch .... On that day the 97th New York had ten officers killed and wounded out of twenty-tour, and the rank and file suffered in about the same proportion. My only lieutenant, Wm. J. Morrin, was killed during that charge, and my sword-scabbard, which I had taken from my belt and held in my right hand, by stopping a bullet, saved my thigh and perhaps my life. The color-bearer, James Brown, fell shot through the head, but a corporal of the color-guard, James B. McClerran, picked up the colors and brought them off the field ....2
“His Guns Are Fired with Precision and Effect”
A Youthful Federal Officer Makes a Daring, Fatal Stand
While the Federal infantry fought stubbornly to turn back Ewell’s attacking Confederates on the north side of Gettysburg, they were supported by Federal artillery—including Battery G of the 4th U.S. Artillery. One of five artillery batteries attached to the Eleventh Corps, the battery was commanded by a nineteen-year-old junior officer, Lieutenant Bayard Wilkeson, who had left a prominent upstate New York family to enter the army at age sixteen. Ironically, Bayard’s father, Samuel Wilkeson, was a New York Times war correspondent attached to the Federal army at Gettysburg.
Nineteen-year-old Lieutenant Bayard Wilkeson here directs the fire of a battery of Federal artillery, which temporarily slowed the Confederate attack on Gettysburg’s north side. Shot from the saddle and seriously wounded, Wilkeson amputated his own leg with a pocketknife.
Battles and Leaders of the Civil War
As the fighting intensified on the ridges north of Gettysburg, Wilkeson’s artillery battery was deployed in a dangerously exposed position. Mounted on horseback beside his guns—and exhibiting what one admirer called a “fearless demeanor”—Wilkeson directed a ferocious fire against the advancing Southerners. To stop him, more than half a dozen Confederate gun crews trained their fire on his battery. He and sixteen of his gun crewmen quickly went down. Shot out of his saddle, Wilkeson found himself with a leg that he knew was mangled beyond repair. He used his officer’s sash as a tourniquet to stop the bleeding, then calmly amputated his own leg with a pocketknife.
His valiant efforts were not enough to save his life, however, and he died a few hours later. Before death occurred, he was carried to a makeshift hospital in Gettysburg’s nearby poorhouse—known as the Almshouse. There he encountered a senior Federal officer, who knew at a glance the young lieutenant’s wound was fatal. “I met Wilkeson being carried to the rear by his men on a stretcher,” the officer would later recall. “One leg had been cut off at the knee by a cannon shot. He spoke to me and was cheerful and hopeful.”
Another journalist, Charles Carleton Coffin of the Boston Journal, a competitor with Wilkeson’s father, would later record young Wilkeson’s story in an account of the battle.
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“A Rifled Cannon-Shot Strikes His Right Leg”
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The only battery which could be spared on the Union side for the right of the line was G, Fourth United States, commanded by Lieutenant Wilkeson, who had placed four of his light 12-pounders on a knoll overlooking a wide reach of fields on both sides of Rock Creek, and two pieces nearer the town, by the Almshouse, under Lieutenant Merkle. The Seventeenth Connecticut, and Twenty-fifth, Seventy-fifth, and One Hundred and Seventh Ohio, constituted the brigade of General Ames, assigned to hold this important position, with no reserve that could be called upon in the hour of need. Von Gilsa, along Rock Creek, must hold the flank. The artillery duel began, between Wilkeson, with four pieces, and twelve guns on the part of the Confederates. Wilkeson was supported by the Seventeenth Connecticut regiment.
It was a trying situation for the cannoneers of the Union battery. Their commander, to encourage them, to inspire them with his own lofty spirit, sat upon his horse, a conspicuous figure, calmly directing the fire of the pieces. He rode from piece to piece, his horse upon the walk. Shells were bursting amid the guns; shot from rifled cannon cut the air or ploughed the ground, from cannon not half a mile away, upon a hill much higher than that which he occupied. This young lieutenant bore an honored name—Bayard Wilkeson—a family name, given him in part, also, by his parents out of their admiration for the great Chevalier of France, the knight of other days, whose character was without a stain, whose life was above reproach.
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“With His Own Hand and Knife [He] Severs the Cords and Tendons”
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This self-possessed lieutenant from New York, animated by an unquenchable patriotism, became a soldier at sixteen, received his commission when he was but seventeen, and was not then nineteen years of age. His first battle was Fredericksburg. For six months he had been commander—his captain engaged elsewhere. So admirable the discipline and efficient the battery under the instruction of this boy-lieutenant that it had been accorded the post of honor—the right of the line. It is a brave spirit that can look out composedly upon the scene in a contest so unequal, but his guns are fired with precision and effect.
A rifled cannon-shot strikes his right leg, crushing the bones and mangling the flesh. His soldiers lay him upon the ground. With comp
osure he ties his handkerchief around it, twists it into a tourniquet to stop the flow of blood, then with his own hand and knife severs the cords and tendons, and, sitting there, tells his cannoneers to go on with their fire—a bravery unsurpassed even by that of the Chevalier of France.... Faint and thirsty, he sends a soldier with his canteen to fill it at the Almshouse well. When the man returns, a wounded infantryman whose life is ebbing away, beholding the canteen, exclaims, “Oh, that I could have but a swallow !” ... “Drink, comrade, your necessities are greater than mine,” so Bayard Wilkeson, with like unselfishness, courtesy, and benevolence, replies, “Drink, comrade; I can wait.” In the consuming thirst and fever of approaching death the infantryman drains the canteen of its contents.
When it was seen that the line must retire, Wilkeson allowed himself to be carried to the Almshouse hospital, which, a few minutes later, was within the advancing lines of the Confederates, and where, during the night, for want of attention, he died. Dead—but his heroism, sense of duty, responsibility to obligation, devotion, and loyalty remain....
Wilkeson’s journalist father located his son’s body in the Gettysburg poorhouse, and brought it home to New York for burial. He closed his New York Times report on the battle of Gettysburg with a lament that surely reflected the hearts of countless grieving American families, Northern and Southern, during the war.
I rise from a grave whose wet clay I have passionately kissed, and I look up and see Christ spanning this battle-field with his feet and reaching fraternal and lovingly up to heaven. His right hand opens the gates of Paradise—with his left he sweetly beckons to these mutilated, bloody, swollen forms.3
“Everybody Was Then Running for the Rear”
Federal Troops Break and Run on Gettysburg’s First Day
When the troops of the Federal Eleventh Corps entered battle on the north side of Gettysburg, they carried a unique burden—a reputation for cowardice. Two months earlier at the Battle of Chancellorsville, the troops of the Eleventh Corps had been leisurely cooking supper in camp when “Stonewall” Jackson’s screaming Confederates burst out of the woods in a surprise assault—panicking the shocked Federals and stampeding them into retreat. More than half of the regiments in the Eleventh Corps were composed of German immigrants, and, while other Federal troops broke and ran as well, many in the army blamed “the Germans” for the humiliating defeat at Chancellorsville. When the Eleventh Corps deployed on the Federal right flank against Ewell’s Confederates, they did so with a tarnished reputation.
Commanding the Eleventh Corps troops at Gettysburg was Major General Carl Schurz, who had been elevated to corps command when General Howard assumed overall command of Federal forces pending General Meade’s arrival. Schurz, also a German immigrant, was a “political general,” who had limited military experience and colossal political clout. In the 1860 presidential election, he had recruited hundreds of thousands of German-American voters for Lincoln, and had been rewarded with a diplomatic post in Spain, followed by a general’s commission in the army. Now he was leading the Eleventh Corps at Gettysburg.
The open fields and rolling ridges north of Gettysburg became the scene of desperate, bloody fighting on the afternoon of July 1.
Library of Congress
On the afternoon of July 1, Ewell’s Confederates poured out of the woods north of Gettysburg in two divisions. General Rodes’s division, attacking from the Confederate right, was initially stalled by the effective Federal fire—especially against Iverson’s Brigade. Rodes’s attack was followed on the Confederate left with an assault by General Jubal Early’s division—which had greater success. Early’s troops reached the field at about four o’clock and piled into the Federal right flank, manned by Schurz’s Eleventh Corps. The fighting was close-up and bloody. “The combatants approached each other until they were scarcely more than seventy-five yards apart,” a Federal officer later recalled.
The Eleventh Corps troops fought fiercely at first, but then they broke and fled. Almost 40 percent of the corps was killed, wounded, or captured. The retreat occurred due to sheer “overwhelming force,” concluded the Federal chief of artillery, Brigadier General Henry J. Hunt. Less charitable was Brigadier General Francis C. Barlow, a battle-hardened twenty-eight-year-old Eleventh Corps division commander, who dismissed the German-American troops as “miserable creatures” and accused them of panicking, as they had done at Chancellorsville. Barlow himself, however, earned a significant share of the blame for the collapse of the Federal line on Gettysburg’s north side and the resulting retreat of the Eleventh. For reasons that apparently seemed prudent to him at the time, Barlow moved his brigade to Blocher’s Knoll—later renamed Barlow’s Knoll—a position that lay in advance of the Federal line. The movement left his brigade isolated and exposed, allowing it to be flanked, and the Federal line broke. According to Barlow, his troops could have repelled the enemy. Instead, he claimed, they panicked and fled, precipitating the collapse of the Eleventh Corps line. “Everybody,” he reported, “was then running to the rear.”
Federal artillery forces, such as Captain Hubert Dilger’s Battery I of the 1st Ohio Light Artillery, attempted to stall the Confederate advance and cover the Federal retreat, but nothing stopped the flood of men in blue from surging back toward town. Captain Alfred Lee was a company commander in the 82nd Ohio Infantry, which was attached to the Eleventh Corp’s 3rd Division under Brigadier General Alexander Schimmelfennig. Captain Lee survived Gettysburg, and penned a personal memoir of the Eleventh Corp’s determined defense—as well as its collapse.
Filing from the road into the open fields beyond the town, our troops immediately went into position. The regiments being formed into solid squares by “doubling on the centre,” ours was placed in support of Dilger’s battery, which had already commenced firing. The return fire of the rebel guns was lively, and their shot and shell ricochetted [sic] splendidly over the open fields. While the regiment was taking its position, a corporal of my company was struck by one of these missiles and thrown prostrate. Directly another soldier was struck, and the regiment, being unable to return fire, slightly shifted its position. Then the rolls were called, and the men quietly responded to their names amid the boom of cannon and the screech of exploding shells.
A prominent German-American political leader, Major General Carl Schurz’s support for President Lincoln had earned him an ambassadorship and an officer’s commission in the army. At Gettysburg, he was put in command of the Federal Eleventh Corps, which held huge numbers of German immigrants—and a stigma of failure.
Reminiscences by Carl Schurz
The enemy’s masses were seen conspicuously ranging themselves along the slopes of Seminary Ridge, while the columns of the First Corps appeared on our left front, moving up firmly to the attack. As the combatants neared each other, random shots cracked spitefully, and were quickly followed by crashing volleys. In a few minutes the rebels, who had yielded at the first onset, were seen scampering to the rear like frightened sheep. A loud cheer followed this success, and officers who had watched the movement through their glasses declared that we were “getting along splendidly.” But the enemy had strong reserves, and soon rallied. In fact, it began to be suspected that we were being cunningly dallied with by a greatly superior force, with the design of decoying our left wing beyond supporting distance, while our right might, in the mean time, be circumvented and overwhelmed. Such a scheme, if successful, would not only effect the overthrow of our little army, but would completely separate it from its slender reserves on Cemetery Hill.
The impression that such a design was being attempted was soon confirmed by a report from the skirmish-line that the enemy, in heavy masses, was endeavoring to turn our right flank. The nature of the ground favored this attempt, since the woods and ravines on that flank afforded a mask to the movement. It was evident that our brigade commander realized this new and dangerous situation of affairs. His face grew pale and distressed. To every mind, indeed, it was apparent that
a great crisis had come,—that the enemy must be met, and met at once,—and it was rashly resolved that we should go and meet him half-way in the open plain
Accordingly, the troops changed front, and a general advance of the line through the open fields began. Fences that might have served in the construction of a breastwork were thrown down in a twinkling, and absolutely nothing remained to screen our line from the crossfire that now poured upon it from flank and front. The enemy’s batteries swept the plain completely from two or three different directions, and their shells plunged through our solid squares, making terrible havoc. Yet the line swept steadily on, in almost perfect order. Gaps made in the living mass by the cannon-shot were closed again as quickly and quietly almost as though nothing particular had happened, and the men were really less nervous under the ordeal of this fire than they had been during their inactive support of the artillery.
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“The Men Were Ordered to ‘Let Them Have It’”
