by Rod Gragg
Named for local farmer John Herbst, Herbst Woods extended from Willoughby Run up the slope of McPherson’s Ridge to its crest. Its leafy hardwoods created a pleasant, shady grove—an unlikely looking site for a bloodbath.
Library of Congress
The fighting on McPherson’s Ridge was a bloodbath. Entire regiments on both sides were shredded in face-to-face combat. The timber-shaded slopes of Herbst Woods and the fields on both sides were left carpeted with the bodies of young men from North Carolina, Michigan, Virginia, Indiana, and Wisconsin. The greatest glory—and the greatest gore—occurred at the center of the battle lines, where troops of the 26th North Carolina battled the Iron Brigade’s 24th Michigan and 19th Indiana. By some accounts, no fewer than fourteen color-bearers were shot down in the 26th North Carolina, and nine in the 24th Michigan. Of the 800 officers and troops in the 26th North Carolina who had ascended McPherson’s Ridge, only 212 survived unharmed—a 73-percent casualty rate. By battle’s end, the 26th North Carolina would incur a greater casualty rate than any regiment at Gettysburg—85 percent—and the casualty rate of the 24th Michigan would not be much less. As the opposing forces whittled each other down to nearly nothing, the Black Hats of both the 24th Michigan and the 19th Indiana were finally forced to concede ground along with the rest of the Iron Brigade. They did so begrudgingly, continuing their disciplined fire even as they were driven back through the woods and into the fields to their rear. Analyzing the battle from a distance, Brigadier General James J. Pettigrew observed the Iron Brigade’s line breaking and dispatched Captain Westwood W. McCreery to the commander of the 26th North Carolina: “Tell him,” Pettigrew said, “his regiment has covered itself with glory today.”
Commanding the 26th North Carolina was twenty-one-year-old Colonel Henry “Harry” K. Burgwyn, who was mortally wounded after retrieving the regiment’s fallen battle flag. After Burgwyn was shot down, command of the 26th North Carolina fell to Lieutenant Colonel John R. Lane, a tall, stocky North Carolina farmer-turned-soldier with a chest-length black beard. Raising the regiment’s bloody battle flag above him, Lane led the regiment’s battered survivors forward as they forced the retreat of the Iron Brigade. Then, he too, was shot down by a well-aimed round to the back of the head, which dropped him—in the words of a bystander—“as limber as a rag.” Remarkably, Lane survived, and would eventually rejoin the regiment. Decades later, as a prosperous North Carolina horse-trader and real estate broker, he would return to Gettysburg on the battle’s fortieth anniversary and deliver a speech that eloquently recalled the horrors and the heroism on McPherson’s Ridge that afternoon in 1863.
Forty years ago—who can realize it?—forty years ago, on the 1st of July at 10 o’clock a. m., our regiment lay over there facing McPherson’s hill, in line of battle. How the heart of the old soldier, especially the old officer, returns with affection and pride to his old regiment. What a magnificent body of men it was! I see them now. In the center with the first glow of youth on his cheek was the gallant Col. Henry King Burgwyn. His eye was aflame with the ardor for battle. Near him was his lieutenant colonel, commanding the right, and Maj. John T. Jones commanding the left. These officers had put their souls into the training of the soldiers and were now waiting the issue of battle with full confidence in their courage and proficiency....
As its ranks were shredded in Herbst Woods, the 26th North Carolina Infantry fell under the command of a former Tarheel farmer—Lieutenant Colonel John R. Lane. Courageously, Lane led the regiment’s survivors in a renewed charged—until knocked flat by a bullet to the head.
Courtesy of J. R. Gorrell
May I mention some of the things that went to make them good soldiers? In the first place the soldiers came of good blood. I do not mean that their parents were aristocratic—far from it; many of them never owned a slave. They were the great middle class that owned small farms in central and western North Carolina; who earned their living with honest sweat and owed not any man. They were good honest American stock, their blood untainted with crime, their eyes not dimmed by vice. These boys had grown up on the farm and were of magnificent physique. Their life between the plow handles, and wielding the axe had made them strong. They had chased the fox and the deer over hill and valley and had gained great power of endurance that scorned winter’s cold—or the parching heat of a July sun. Again these men, many of them without much schooling, were intelligent, and their life on the farm, and in the woods had taught them to be observant and self-reliant. They were quick to see, quick to understand, quick to act.
Again, every one of them had been trained from boyhood to shoot a rifle with precision. Gen. Pettigrew, observing the deadly execution of the muskets on this field, remarked that the Twenty-sixth shot as if shooting squirrels. Again these men were patriots; they loved their country, they loved liberty. Their forefathers had fought the British at King’s Mountain and Guilford Court House. They had grown up to love and cherish their noble deeds. Now every man of them was convinced that the cause for which he was fighting was just; he believed that he owed allegiance first to his home and his State. He was standing to combat an unjust invader. Finally, these men had native courage—not the loud mouthed courage of the braggart—but the quiet, unfaltering courage that caused them to advance in the face of a murderous fire. . . .
All this time the enemy were moving with great rapidity. Directly in our front across the wheat field was a wooded hill (McPherson’s Woods). On this hill the enemy placed what we were afterwards informed was their famous “Iron Brigade.” They wore tall, bell-crowned black hats, which made them conspicuous in the line. The sun was now high in the heavens.... Suddenly, about 2 p.m. there came down the line the long-awaited command “Attention.” The time for this command could not have been more inopportune. Our line had inspected the enemy and we knew the desperateness of the charge we were to make. But with the greatest quickness the regiment obeyed. All the men were up at once and ready, every officer at his post. Col. Burgwyn in the centre, Lieut. Col. Lane on the right; Major Jones on the left. Our gallant standard bearer, J. H. Mansfield, at once stepped to his position—four paces to the front, and the eight color guards to their proper places.
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“The Flag Was down, the Line Was Halting”
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At the command “Forward March” all to a man stepped off apparently as willingly and as proudly as if they were on review. The enemy at once opened fire, killing and wounding some, but their aim was rather too high to be effective. All kept the step and made as pretty and perfect a line as regiment ever made, every man endeavoring to keep dressed on the colors. We opened fire on the enemy. On and on we went, our men yet in perfect line, until we reached the branch (Willoughby’s Run) in the ravine. Here the briers, reeds and underbrush made it difficult to pass. There was some crowding in the center, but the right and left crossed the stream where they struck it. The enemy’s artillery (Cooper’s Battery) on our right got an enfilade fire. Our loss was frightful. But our men crossed in grand order and immediately were in proper position again and up the hill we went firing now with better execution.
On the afternoon of July 2, Confederate troops from General A. P. Hill’s corps swarmed through the fields and timber that covered McPherson’s Ridge, driving Federal troops from the ridge and back through Gettysburg.
Battles and Leaders of the Civil War
The engagement was becoming desperate. It seemed as if the bullets were as thick as hailstones in a storm. At his post on the right of the regiment and ignorant as to what was taking place on the left, Lieut. Col. Lane hurries to the center. He is met by Col. Burgwyn, who informs him “it is all right in the center and on the left: we have broken the first line of the enemy.” The reply comes, “We are in line on the right, Colonel.” At this time the colors have been cut down ten times, the color guard all killed or wounded. We have now struck the second line of the enemy where the fighting is the fiercest and the killing the deadliest. Suddenly Captain
W. W. McCreery, assistant inspector general of the brigade, rushes forward and speaks to Col. Burgwyn. He bears him a message. “Tell him,” says General Pettigrew, “his regiment has covered itself with glory today.”
Delivering these encouraging words, Capt. McCreery, who has always contended that the 26th would fight better than any other regiment in the brigade, seizes the fallen flag, waves it aloft and advancing to the front, is shot through the heart and falls, bathing the flag in his life’s blood. Lieut. George Wilcox of Co. “H.” now rushes forward and pulling the flag from under the dead hero, advances with it. In a few steps he also falls with two wounds in his body. The line hesitates; the crisis is reached; the colors must advance. The gallant Burgwyn leaps forwards, takes them up and again the line moves forward. He, turning again from the right Lieut. Col. Lane sees Col. Burgwyn advancing with the colors. At this juncture, a brave private, Franklin Honeycutt of Union county, takes the colors and Burgwyn turns. Lane again reports all well on the right. Burgwyn delivers Pettigrew’s message. At that instant he falls with a bullet through both lungs, and at the same moment brave Honeycutt falls dead only a few steps in advance.
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“Our Loss Was Frightful”
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Then indeed was our situation desperate. The flag was down, the line is halting, the enemy are strengthening their line and firing upon our men with murderous effect, and more than all the youthful commander has fallen, and all the responsibility falls upon the youthful shoulders of his successor. Bowing by the side of the fallen youth, Lieut. Col. Lane stops for a moment to ask: “My dear colonel, are you severely hurt?” A bowed head and a motion to the left side and a pressure of the hand is the only response; but “he looked as pleasantly as if victory were on his brow.” Reluctantly leaving his dying commander to go where duty calls him Lieut. Col Lane hastens to the right, meets Capt. McLauchlin, of Company K, tells him of Gen. Pettigrew’s words of praise, but not of his colonel’s fall. He gives the order: “Close your men quickly to the left. I am going to give them the bayonet.” Gallant Capt. McLauchlin! In a few minutes he is so seriously wounded that his services to the Confederacy are lost.
Colonel Samuel J. Williams and the 19th Indiana Infantry defended a portion of Herbst Woods on the afternoon of July 1. “Boys,” Williams shouted to his men, “we must hold our colors on the line, or lie here under them.”
U.S. Army Military History Institute
Col. Lane hurries to the left and gives similar orders and returns to the center. During this time the battle has been raging fiercely. Our captains have been coolly giving their orders. “Shoot low, men,” and the men have been busy, but they have suffered dreadfully. After the battle Gen. Heth saw the line of those who fell at this time and remarked that the fallen were in line as if on dress parade. When Col. Lane returns he finds the colors still down. Col. Burgwyn and the brave Franklin Honeycutt lying by them. Now or never the regiment must advance.
He raises the flag. Lieut. Blair of Company I, rushes out, saying: “No man can take those colors and live.” Lane replies, “It is my time to take them now,” and shouting at the top of his voice while advancing with the flag, says: “Twenty-sixth, follow me.” The men answer with a yell and press forward. Several lines of the enemy have given away, but a formidable line yet remains, which seems determined to hold its position. Volleys of musketry are fast thinning out those left; only a skeleton line now remains. To add to the horrors of the scene the battle smoke has settled down over the combatants making it almost as dark as night. But these men are undaunted. They never tire; their muscles are made of iron. With a cheer they greet every order to advance. They rush on and upward; now they reach the summit of the hill; the last line of the enemy gives way and suddenly retires.
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“The Red Field Is Won”
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Just as the last shots are firing, a sergeant—in the Twenty-fourth Michigan... lingers to take a farewell shot, with his last cartridge, and resting his musket on a tree he awaits his opportunity. When about thirty steps distant, as Col. Lane turns to cheer his regiment, a ball fired by his brave and resolute adversary strikes him in the back of the neck, just below the brain, crashes through his jaw and mouth, and for the fourteenth and last time the colors are down. They are taken from the hand of the fallen Lane by S. W. Brewer, the gallant captain of Company E, and the remnants of the regiment under command of Maj. J. T. Jones presses on to the Seminary, where the few survivors are relieved by Pender’s Division. The red field is won....
Long after Gettysburg, when Colonel Lane was an aging Confederate veteran, he was introduced to a Chicago pharmaceutical executive named Charles H. McConnell, who turned out to be the sergeant in the 24th Michigan who had shot him in the final moments of the 26th”s assault on McPherson’s Ridge. “I thank God I did not kill you,” McConnell told Lane. For the rest of their lives they remained friends.6
“He Was the Youngest Colonel I Ever Saw”
The “Boy Colonel of the Confederacy” Falls on McPherson’s Ridge
The commander of the 26th North Carolina, Colonel Henry K. “Harry” Burgwyn, issued his first orders to the troops of that regiment as a young man of nineteen. It was the summer of 1861, and Burgwyn was a teenage major and drillmaster at Camp Carolina on the outskirts of Raleigh, North Carolina. The son of a prominent North Carolina planter and state official, Burgwyn was exceptionally bright and mature for one so young. He was an honors graduate from the University of North Carolina, which he had entered at age sixteen, and was also a distinguished alumnus of VMI. None other than General “Stonewall” Jackson, his former VMI instructor, had endorsed him as “a high-toned Southern gentleman” known for “the highly practical as well as scientific character of his mind.” When North Carolina joined the Confederacy and began raising troops, Burgwyn was made drillmaster at the capital city’s sprawling camp of instruction—all of this by age nineteen.
As a drillmaster, he marched and drilled the boisterous young recruits incessantly, determined to instill discipline and obedience in the ranks. His zeal for perfection led many of the independent-minded recruits to despise him, and when he became lieutenant colonel and second in command of the 26th North Carolina, some soldiers swore they would just as soon shoot Burgwyn as they would the Yankees. That attitude changed, however, when the regiment saw its first combat at the Battle of New Bern. There, the troops of the 26th were almost trapped and captured by victorious Federal forces, and narrowly escaped only through the discipline instilled in them by their demanding young drillmaster. Afterward Burgwyn was revered by his troops, and, in 1862, he was promoted to colonel and commander of the regiment—at age twenty. When he led the regiment into battle at Gettysburg, Burgwyn was only twenty-one, and would become known as the “Boy Colonel of the Confederacy.”
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“Then Colonel Burgwyn Took the Colors”
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At Gettysburg, the 26th North Carolina marched into battle as if on parade, advancing unflinchingly through killing fire up the wooded slopes of McPherson’s Ridge and into the guns of the 19th Indiana and 24th Michigan. As the hard-fighting Black Hats of the Iron Brigade tore huge gaps in the 26th’s battle lines, the North Carolinians demonstrated why the 26th was renowned as the best-drilled regiment in the Confederate army: they halted under fire, closed the gaps, dressed their ranks, and resumed their assault. At the peak of the battle, as his depleted regiment drove the Iron Brigade’s line to the breaking point, Colonel Burgwyn was shot down with a mortal wound. As the regiment pressed on under Lieutenant Colonel Lane, some of the regiment’s men moved Burgwyn to the rear, where he died. One of the soldiers who assisted Burgwyn, Private William M. Cheek, would later preserve a record of the last moments in the life of the “Boy Colonel.”
It was in the first day’s fight at Gettysburg. Our regiment had been formed in line of battle and advanced a considerable distance towards the Federal lines. Our colors were very prominent in the c
enter. Time after time they were shot down by the hot fire of infantry and artillery, and in all they fell fifteen times, sometimes the staff being broken and sometimes a color-bearer being shot down. The color-sergeant was killed quite early in the advance and then a private of F company took the flag. He was shot once, but rose and went on, saying, “Come on, boys!” and as the words left his lips was again shot down, when the flag was taken by Captain McCreery, who was killed a moment or two later.
Then Colonel Burgwyn himself took the colors and as we were advancing over the brow of a little hill and he was a few feet in advance of the center of the regiment, he was shot as he partly turned to give an order, a bullet passing through his abdomen. He fell backwards, the regiment continuing its advance, Lieutenant-Colonel John R. Lane taking command and at the same time taking the flag from Colonel Burgwyn. In a moment, it seemed, he was shot, and then Captain W. S. Brewer, of my company, took the flag and carried it through the remainder of the advance, Major John Jones having then assumed command of the regiment.
Our regiment was recalled and retired. I was knocked down by the explosion of a shell, which injured my eyesight somewhat, but soon rose and as myself and some comrades went back, I saw Colonel Burgwyn being carried off the field by two soldiers, named Ellington and Staton, who were using one of their blankets for that purpose. Colonel Burgwyn asked me, whom he recognized as being a member of his command, to help carry him off the field, and I at once gave my aid.
