by Rod Gragg
The Yankees were ready and replied with spirit and in less time than it takes to tell it our ears were deafened by the noise of the guns and exploding shells. A little to the right I saw General Longstreet and staff dismounted behind the stone fence watching the effects of our shots through their field glasses. I don’t know how long this awful cannonade lasted (probably twenty minutes), but as it began to slacken we were ordered to scale the stone fence behind which we were standing. This was quickly done, and then we were on the Emmitsburg Pike. On the other side of the pike was another stone fence to cross, and this done, there was no other important obstacle between us and the enemy.
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“Every Federal Cannon Let Fly at Us with Grape”
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The cannonade suddenly ceased, and then we would hear Hood’s small arms fighting on the right in terrible crashes and roars. Our line, formed in perfect order of battle, faced a little to the left so as to sweep the Federal batteries near the peach orchard. Just before the order, “Forward, march!” was given I saw General Kershaw and staff immediately in our rear dismounted. About halfway from our start at the pike to the Federal batteries was a little downgrade to a small depression. We went along in perfect order, the 13th South Carolina being on our right. As yet we could see no Federal infantry because it was covered by the wood in the rear of the batteries, but we saw plainly that their artillerists were loading their guns to meet our assault, while their mounted officers were dashing wildly from gun to gun, apparently to be sure that all were ready.
Just before reaching the depression already mentioned, a Confederate battery on the pike somewhat to our left opened fire, and I heard one of our men say, “That will help us out,” believing as we all did that its fire was against the Federal guns in our front. But alas! The next moment we saw that its fire was directed at a point further to the left in the peach orchard. Well, just as our left struck the depression in the ground, every Federal cannon let fly at us with grape. O, the awful deathly surging sounds of those little black balls as they flew by us, through us, between our legs, and over us! Many, of course, were struck down, including Captain Pulliam, who was instantly killed. Then the order was given to double-quick, and we were mad and fully determined to take and silence those batteries at once.
A U.S. Army veteran, Brigadier General William T. Wofford of Georgia had opposed secession, but joined the Confederate army anyway. Confederate troops fighting in the Peach Orchard and Wheatfield were inspired by his leadership—but it was not enough.
Photographic History of the Civil War
We had gotten onto the level land of the Federal guns when the next fusillade of grape met us. We were now so close to the Federal gunners that they seemed bewildered and were apparently trying to get their guns to the rear. But just then—and ah me! To think of it makes my blood curdle even now, nearly fifty years afterward—the insane order was given to “right flank.” Of course no one ever knew who gave the order or any reason why it was given. General Kershaw denied being responsible for it, but somebody must have been. Why, in a few moments the whole brigade was jumbled up in a space less than a regiment behind a rocky, heavily wooded bluff with the right flank in the air, close to that historic scarecrow, the Devil’s Den and also little Round Top, quite near, with our left flank disconnected and wholly unsupported for a mile or more. We were truly “in a box,” liable to be captured or annihilated at any moment.
It was some time until the Federals who had partly charged turned loose all their guns upon the woods over our heads. My! How the trees trembled and split under the incessant shower of shot and shell! But we were well protected from the front of the rocky bluff, and only a few men were injured by falling limbs. However, it wasn’t long till the Federal infantry in great force advanced to the rim of the buff and began to pour lead down upon us; but they soon found out that bullets could go uphill with death to their songs as well as downhill, so they dared not rush down upon us. It soon became evident, though, that they were taking steps to flank us as both ends. About that time Charley Markley, of my company, was killed, a ball piercing his forehead. Many others fell, but our “spunk” was up to white heat, and we didn’t care but made up our minds to die right there to the last man if necessary.
We fought in that position for nearly half an hour, when to our surprise the thunder and roar of the Federal cannons and musketry in our front suddenly stopped, and the next moment we heard a tremendous Rebel cheer, followed by an awful crash of small arms, coming through the woods on our left front and from the direction of the peach orchard. Then one of our officers shouted and said, “That’s help for us! Spring up the bluff, boys!” And we did so. Meanwhile, the crash of small arms and Rebel yells on the left increased. As we reached open ground over the bluff, we saw the Federal artillery we had charged deserted and almost perfect Confederate lines of battle just entering the woods, hotly engaging and driving the Federal infantry.
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“The Wheat Field and Woods Were Blue with Dead and Wounded Federals”
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“Who is that?” shouted an officer. But before we had time to think of getting an answer, an officer galloped from the right of the advancing line and ordered us to join his right and go forward. And that officer was Brig. Gen. William T. Wofford. Until that moment we didn’t know that when the division advanced from the Emmitsburg Pike, Wofford’s Brigade had been held in reserve on the pike near the peach orchard.... When Wofford ordered us to join his right and rush forward, a tremendous Rebel yell went up from our powder-choked throats. Wofford took off his hat and, waving it at us, turned back and charged along his line to the left. And here was seen how the right sort of officer can inspire his men to accomplish next to superhuman results. Always Wofford rode right along with his men during a fight, continually furnishing examples and cheering them with such words as, “Charge them, boys.”... Those who saw it said they never saw such a fine military display as Wofford’s line of battle as it advanced from the pike. He went right for those Federal cannons that were firing at us. Nor did it take him long to reach those batteries and smash them even before the gunners had time to turn their guns upon him.
Confederate troops—likely from Georgia and South Carolina—await burial near the edge of the blood-soaked Peach Orchard.
Library of Congress
Rushing over the artillery, he kept right on and tackled the Yankee infantry in the woods beyond. And his assault was so sudden and quickly executed that the Federal lines of infantry were smashed and gave way at every point in Wofford’s way; and as the remnant of Kershaw’s Brigade, combined with Wofford’s splendid body of men, rushed along through the woods, all the Federal supports met the same fate of their first line. It became a regular rout, and while the panic-stricken enemy fell by the scores and hundreds, Wofford lost only a few men.
Emerging from the woods on the other side, we drove the enemy across a wheat field and on to the western slopes of Little Round Top, up which they scampered in great disorder. While crossing the wheat field I looked along their line both ways, but saw no other troops. At that time, and while putting on a cap for another shot, a bullet from Little Round Top tore open my right shirtsleeve from wrist to elbow, but I wasn’t hurt much. At the farther edge of the wheat field we were met by shots from Federal cannon on the apex of Little Round Top, but all went high over us. Of course every one of us expected to go right on and capture that famous hill, which at that time seemed easy to do; but Wofford, seeing that night was near and that there were no supports on right or left or in the rear, ordered a halt, and after surveying the hill through his field glasses ordered us to about face and fall back across the wheat field and into the woods from which we had so recently driven the enemy. And, strange to say, when we ceased firing not another gun was heard on that part of the field during the remainder of that 2nd of July. The wheat field and woods were blue with dead and wounded Federals. At the edge of the woods we met McLaws and cheered him, an
d he seemed well pleased with the evidences of our victory lying around him.
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“All of Us Should Be in a Better Business”
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I felt sorry for the wounded enemy, but we could do little to help them. Just before dark I passed a Federal officer sitting on the ground with his back resting against a large oak tree. He called me to him, and when I went he politely asked me to give him some water. There was precious little in my canteen, but I let him empty it. His left leg was crushed just above the ankle, the foot lying on the ground sidewise. He asked me to straighten it up in a natural position and prop it with rocks, and as I did so I asked him if the movement hurt him. “There isn’t much feeling in it just now,” he replied quietly. Then before leaving him I said, “Isn’t this war awful?” “Yes, yes,” said he, “and all of us should be in a better business.” He wore long red whiskers and was large and fine-looking. I shall never forget his profuse thanks for the little service I was able to render him. Our lines were established at the west rim of the woods leading to the wheat field. There we built fires, and from haversacks of the dead enemy all about us got something to eat....3
“Tell My Wife I Am Shot, but We Fought like Hell”
Barksdale’s Mississippians Draw Blood and Shed It Too
As McLaws’s attacking Confederate lines were buffeted and staggered by Federal artillery and infantry fire, General Longstreet ordered McLaws’s fourth brigade to enter battle. It was composed entirely of soldiers from Mississippi—four regiments of combat veterans described as “almost giants in size and power”—led by Brigadier General William Barksdale. At age forty-one, Barksdale appeared older than his age due to a mane of prematurely white hair worn shoulder length. Born in Tennessee and orphaned as a child in Mississippi, he studied law and opened a practice, but put it aside for the more exciting post of newspaper editor, which enabled him to deliver scathing editorial broadsides aimed at political miscreants, Republicans, and champions of big government. Molded by the frontier mentality and honor code of prewar Mississippi, Barksdale was elected to the U.S. Congress, where his fiery rhetoric once sparked a fistfight on the floor of the House of Representatives.
During the war, he survived a court-martial for drunkenness and earned praise from Lee and others for his decisive leadership. His Mississippi troops matched his zeal for fighting, earning recognition at First Bull Run, the Seven Days, Antietam, and Fredericksburg. At Gettysburg on the second day, Barksdale impatiently awaited orders to follow the rest of McLaws’s Brigade into battle. “General, let me go,” he pleaded with McLaws. “General, let me charge.” Seeing the damage inflicted on McLaws’s other brigades by a Federal battery at the Peach Orchard, Barksdale appealed to Longstreet. “I wish you would let me go in, General,” he begged. “I will take that battery in five minutes.”
When finally given the go-ahead, he jubilantly led his troops in the assault. “Forward, men! Forward!” he shouted. His white mane flowed behind him as he rode forward on horseback, and his face—according to an observer— appeared “radiant with joy.” With ease, the screaming Mississippians knocked down the fences that flanked the Emmitsburg Road, and then swarmed the blue-uniformed troops in the Peach Orchard and to the north. It took them less than five minutes to capture two sections of Federal artillery—four guns—shooting down the gun crews before they could limber up the guns and retreat. They also captured almost a thousand Federal infantry. At one point, as Federal troops streamed toward the rear with their line evidently breached, General Sickles—still on two legs—grabbed a retreating Federal officer. “Colonel, for God’s sake, can’t you hold on?” The officer pointed back toward the piles of his dead soldiers and cried, “Where is my regiment?”
Barksdale’s attack was “the grandest charge that was ever made,” admitted a Federal officer who witnessed the event. Barksdale and his troops charged on, heading toward Cemetery Ridge—but they never reached it. Meade’s chief of artillery, Brigadier General Henry J. Hunt, had skillfully massed forty pieces of field artillery along Cemetery Ridge, and Hunt’s guns ripped into the valiant Mississippians—aided by massed fire from the infantry reinforcements that Meade had hurried into line. Now it was Barksdale’s men who fell in droves. Among those fatally wounded in the hail of Federal lead and iron was General Barksdale, who was riddled with bullets from dozens of rifles aimed at his conspicuous figure. The men from Mississippi begrudgingly fell back, yielding all that they had gained, and left behind half their numbers lying dead or wounded in the battered Peach Orchard and in the trampled fields north of it. One of those left behind was General Barksdale. A Yankee soldier sliced off a piece of gold braid from the dying Rebel general’s uniform as a souvenir; otherwise, he was treated respectfully by his Northern captors. As he was dying, he murmured: “Tell my wife I am shot, but we fought like hell.”
Captain Fitzgerald Ross, a Scot soldier of fortune and an officer in the Imperial Austrian Army, traveled with Lee’s army as a military observer. He observed Longstreet’s second day attack on the Federal left from the Confederate lines, and described the event the following year in a Scots magazine:
Brigadier General William Barksdale was known to be zealous and confrontational—as a newspaper editor, a U.S. congressman, and a Confederate commander. On the afternoon of July 2, he pleaded, “General, let me charge.”
Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscripts Library, Duke University
As Lee’s attack on July 2 unfolded against the Federal left en echelon—in successive waves—it repeatedly fell short of success due to devastating Federal artillery fire and skillful deployment of Federal infantry reinforcements.
Harper’s Weekly
It was still dusk next morning [July 2] when the sound of cannon aroused me from my sleep. “C’est le sanglant appel de Mars!” I sang out to my tent-mates. I went over to Longstreet’s quarters, a few hundred yards off, ‘fixed’ my saddle and bridle on the horse I was to ride, and then breakfasted with General Longstreet and his Staff. We had to ride some five miles before we got to the front, where we halted at the top of a hill, from which there was a full view of the enemy’s position. General Lee was there with his Staff, and we let our horses loose in an enclosed field close by, and lay about for some time looking through our glasses at the Yankees, who were near enough for us to distinguish every individual figure, gun, &c., and who were apparently engaged in the same occupation as ourselves.
As evidently a long time would elapse before Longstreet’s corps, which was to do the chief fighting that day, could be placed in position, I determined meanwhile to ride into the town of Gettysburg with the doctors. We crossed the ground which had been fought over yesterday. The Confederate wounded had been removed and their dead buried, but there were still a large number of dead Yankees lying about, and some of their wounded, especially in the cutting of a railroad where some of the fiercest fighting had taken place. I saw one man who had been entirely cut in two, his head and shoulders lying a couple of yards from the rest of his body—a horrible sight. The wounded men, too, who had lain there all night were ghastly to look at; and indeed a battle-field the day after the fight is anything but a pleasant place to come near.
Gettysburg is an insignificant little town, but contains some large buildings—county court-house, colleges, &c.—in and about the town. These have been turned into hospitals. At the end of one or two of the streets some sharp-shooting was going on at the Federal position on the Cemetery Hill behind the town, and the Yankees were returning the fire, but without doing any mischief, as far as I could see. Still we did not take the trouble to go beyond the town in that direction.
We met General Chilton, Lee’s Inspector-General, in the town. He was riding about seeking whom he could devour in the shape of a depredator or illegal annexer of private property; but I do not think he found any. Indeed, the good behaviour and discipline of the men of this army is surprising to me, considering the way in which the Northerners have devastated the country and
wreaked their wrath on women and children in the South wherever they had an opportunity.
They are as cheerful and good-natured a set of fellows as ever I saw—seem to be full of fun, and are always ready to talk, and joke, and “chaff,” but are never pushing or insolent.
We also met General Early, a gruff-looking man, but with a high reputation as a soldier.
On returning to the hill where we had left the generals in command, we found them still there. They had been joined by Generals A. P. Hill and Heth, the latter of whom was wounded in the head yesterday, and several others. General Hill sent for water, and they brought him some dirty stuff in a pail, with an apology that no good water was to be had within a mile, and an inquiry whether he would wait. “Oh no, that will do very well,” said the General, and I began to realise that we were actually campaigning.
Wherever an army is stationary for a few days, the wells and pumps are soon drunk dry; and in fact, before we left this neighbourhood, most of the wells had a guard on them, who only permitted water to be fetched for the wounded. For men in health, water brought from the nearest brook or creek is good enough, and sometimes details of men have to be sent a considerable distance for it....
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