The Illustrated Gettysburg Reader: An Eyewitness History of the Civil War's Greatest Battle
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CHAPTER EIGHT
“The Whole Rebel Line Was Pouring Out Thunder and Iron”
On Friday, July 3, 1863, the sun rose over the opposing battle lines at Gettysburg through a white haze of ground fog and campfire smoke. The Army of the Potomac remained assembled in line, stretching like an upside-down fishhook from Culp’s Hill and Cemetery Hill in the north and along Cemetery Ridge to Little Round Top in the south. The Army of Northern Virginia roughly paralleled the Federal line, curving through town and continuing along Seminary Ridge, across the Emmitsburg Road, and through Devil’s Den to a point roughly opposite Big Round Top. As he had decided in his war council the night before, General Meade waited for the Confederate army to make an attack, but first he had to reclaim lost ground on the right flank of his line—at Culp’s Hill.1
Confederate troops at the base of Culp’s Hill fire at the Federal line above them on the morning of July 3. Leslie’s Illustrated artist Edwin Forbes studied the fighting with binoculars, then sketched the site in person.
Library of Congress
“It Is Murder, but It Is the Order”
The Bloody Battle for Culp’s Hill Resumes on the Morning of July 3
Before dawn, troops from Major General Henry W. Slocum’s Federal Twelfth Corps returned to Culp’s Hill from the left side of the Federal line, where they had been shifted as reinforcements the day before. They came down the hill in force this time and attacked the Confederates of Ewell’s corps, Johnson’s division, who had occupied Federal entrenchments near the base of the hill the previous night. The attack came just as Ewell began to unleash a renewed attack on Culp’s Hill. It was a deadly give-and-take for hours, and losses were horrendous on both sides. “Along the slope of Culp’s Hill,” a Federal officer reported, “the trees were almost literally peeled, from the ground up some fifteen or twenty feet, so thick upon them were the scars the bullets had made. Upon a single tree, in several instances not over a foot and a half in diameter, I counted as many as two hundred and fifty bullet marks. The ground was covered by the little twigs that had been cut off by the hail-storm of lead.” By late morning Federal forces reclaimed the lost ground on the Federal far right flank around Culp’s Hill. Brigadier General George H. Steuart’s brigade of troops from Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina—which had shed much blood storming Culp’s Hill the night before—was shredded by the searing Federal fire in the morning engagement. After the fight, General Steuart was seen weeping, crying aloud, “My poor boys, my poor boys!”
Equally shocking were the losses among some units on the Federal side at Culp’s Hill that morning. At the height of the fighting, a questionable order from General Slocum resulted in the near annihilation of two regiments of Twelfth Corps troops. Slocum ordered an assault by his corps’ 1st Division on a particularly strong sector of the Confederate line that was occupied by well-armed, well-prepared troops of Johnson’s division. Worried about Slocum’s order, Brigadier General Thomas H. Ruger requested and received a modification of the order that allowed him to send out skirmishers to determine the Confederate strength before attacking. It was a verbal order, however, and by the time it reached the frontline commander, Colonel Silas Colgrove of the 3rd Brigade, it again called for an immediate assault—which Colgrove realized would be little more than a suicide mission.
Regardless, Colonel Colgrove promptly ordered the assault to be made by two infantry regiments from the 3rd Brigade—the 27th Indiana and the 2nd Massachusetts. When the order reached the 2nd Massachusetts’s commander, Lieutenant Colonel Charles R. Mudge, he promptly led his men into a cauldron of Confederate fire—after philosophically observing, “Well, it is murder, but it is the order.” It was murder: the Confederates drove back his regiment, with half its number killed or wounded—including Mudge, shot dead in the charge. The 27th Indiana incurred casualties that were almost as severe. Lieutenant Edwin E. Bryant of the 2nd Wisconsin Infantry—which supported the assault—would later record the horror on Culp’s Hill caused by that bungled order.
When we were awakened it was before the gray of dawn. We were within pistol shot of the enemy, and as soon as the dense mist should rise we should be a fair target to his volleys. So we moved a little to our right and faced north towards Culp’s Hill. To our right was the Second Massachusetts, then the Twenty-seventh Indiana. The Thirteenth New Jersey came next, facing, its left wing towards Culp’s Hill, its right towards Rock Creek. Between our front and the enemy was the little swampy swale, or meadow. Throwing out a few skirmishers a few yards to the edge of the swale, they from behind rocks opened fire. The regiments rolled stones together, piled them in little heaps, and thus constructed a slight breastwork; and from this line opened a fire on the Confederates as they showed themselves among the huge rocks upon that slope of the hill. Our position was exposed to the fire of myriads of sharpshooters from our front and our right flank across the creek. The enemy before us were well sheltered by the huge boulders that lie like hundreds of sleeping elephants along the slopes of Culp’s Hill just above Spangler’s Spring; and as the lines were less than 125 yards apart one was almost certain to be hit whose person was exposed.
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“They Advanced under a Perfect Hail of Balls”
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Thus we spent an hour or so of the early morning. The enemy had become aware as soon as daylight of the importance of this position. Fresh troops had been thrust in to strengthen Steuart,—Smith’s brigade of Early’s division, Rhodes’ brigade, and Daniels’. These, with the rest of Johnson’s division, made seven brigades of closely packed rebels to hold Culp’s Hill and push our lines inward toward the Baltimore pike. But they are in a hot place. Our artillery on Power’s Hill is dropping shell among them with fearful rapidity. . . . The musketry is sharp and incessant. A rain of bullets is concentrated on the ground they occupy.
The rebels swarm there, but they are many of them, sheltered. Every tree is riddled with bullets and their dead and wounded lie thick among the rocks. Several times they essay to advance, but reel backward with thinned lines to their fastness among the great boulders. Geary is crowding upon them. A combined movement is, after some consultation, arranged to be made to dislodge them. General Ruger received orders to try the enemy on the right of the line of breastworks to the left of the swale with two regiments, and, if practicable, to dislodge him. He sent Lieut. Snow to Col. Colgrove with an order to advance skirmishers at that point, and if the enemy was not found in too great force, to advance two regiments and drive him out. This order, as Col. Colgrove reports, was to “advance his line immediately.” He saw that it was useless to send in skirmishers. It was only possible to carry the hill by storm. His own brave regiment, the Twenty-seventh Indiana and the Second Massachusetts, were at the point on the line from which this assault must be made. They were ordered to go in. The verbal order was given to Col. Mudge. “Are you sure it is the order?” asked he, looking at the frowning rocks behind which the enemy were packed. “Yes.” “Well,” said this brave gentleman, “it is murder, but it is the order. Up, men, over the works; forward, double-quick!”
A botched order from Major General Henry Slocum, commander of the Federal Twelfth Corps, led to the near annihilation of two Federal regiments on Culp’s Hill.
National Archives
In an instant the two regiments rose and with a cheer sprang over their breastworks, ran down the declivity to the swale, and moved at double-quick across the narrow meadow. But as soon as they came in view, the gleam of thousands of gun-barrels were seen among the rocks in their front. Regiments lying in the grass across Rock Creek also rose up and fired into their right flank. They advanced under a perfect hail of balls, men and officers falling at every step, but none save sorely wounded turning back. Colonel Mudge, of the Second, a noble gentleman, fell dead in crossing that fatal meadow. Captain Tom Robeson, a gallant, chivalrous officer of the Second, also fell mortally wounded. He had but a little while before shown the lofty courage of his nature. One
of his men had been wounded on the skirmish line, and lay helpless and exposed under a broiling sun. The heroic captain boldly went out with a storm of bullets whistling about him, took the wounded man in his arms and brought him to a place of shelter.
The Twenty-seventh Indiana on the right was terribly exposed, not only from the rocks in front but from the flank, and after losing twenty-three men killed, eight officers and seventy-nine men wounded, the regiment seeing how hopeless was the effort to carry the position fell back under orders. The Second Massachusetts pressed on, but bore a little to the left to find a point to enter between the large rocks in front. As it bore to the left it came in front of the Third Wisconsin, which at the moment the other two regiments advanced, Col. Hawley had moved forward to the edge of the swale to rush in and support the charge. As the Second moved in our front, it prevented the Third regiment firing at the rebels, who were rising up from behind the rocks to rain their fire into the faces of their assailants. There the Second were, a handful of brave men within pistol shot of the enemy, who from higher ground and shelter in front and right were pouring volleys into their ranks.
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“‘The Slain Were Literally Lying in Heaps’”
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It was distressing to see and not be able to give them aid. But as they advanced up close to the wall of rocks they became a little less exposed. The rocks and trees gave them shelter, especially from a fire that came from across Rock Creek, on the right. Colonel Morse took command when Mudge fell. Holding the position, though conscious that they were doing but little to effect, he sent to Colgrove for orders and ammunition. Colgrove ordered the Second to fall back. It at once about-faced under a withering fire and passed to the left and rear of our regiment, at double-quick but in as good order as the movement through such swampy ground would permit. . . .
As soon as the Second Massachusetts had cleared the front of the Third Wisconsin, we were able to do good execution upon the Confederates who had risen and exposed themselves to fire on the assaulting regiments. The Confederates had thus had their attention drawn to their left, and changed a large part of their front to resist this danger. . . . Ruger’s division advanced simultaneously, and the combined attack finally drove the rebels from their hold on Culp’s Hill. As the enemy were driven out of the breastworks on this hill and back to Rock Creek, they were, says Hoke, “mercilessly cut down by repeated and tremendous discharges of grape and canister. Nothing during the war exceeded this engagement in carnage. The slain were lying literally in heaps” In the front of Geary’s division and of the division commanded by Ruger were more Confederates dead than the entire list of casualties in the whole Twelfth corps. “The slain were literally lying in heaps.” “Human beings, mangled and torn in every manner, from a single shot through the head or body to bodies torn to pieces by exploding shells were everywhere.”
It was 10:20 o’clock when the enemy was thus driven from the breastworks, down the slope and thus over Rock Creek. . . .2
“I Noticed a Company of Fifty Men Digging Graves”
Two Days of Fighting Yields a Grim Harvest of Dead and Wounded
The fighting on the first two days of battle at Gettysburg had produced a massive, grisly yield of dead and wounded on both sides. Most of the wounded were moved to Federal or Confederate field hospitals, although some lay unattended on the field for hours or overnight until they could be treated. On the morning of the third day of battle, countless numbers of the dead still lay where they had fallen—including many who had perished on the first day of battle. In some cases, fellow officers or friends buried the bodies of officers and of select others in individual graves scattered around the rim of the battlefield in fields, meadows, backyards, and Gettysburg’s Evergreen Cemetery.
Dismembered by an artillery shell, the body of a Federal soldier at Gettysburg awaits burial. Even while the fighting continued, overworked burial details were digging graves.
Library of Congress
The body of twenty-one-year-old Colonel Henry K. Burgwyn—the “Boy Colonel” of the 26th North Carolina—was, for instance, cared for by a friend and fellow officer, who wrapped it in a woolen blanket and had it buried in an ammunition crate beneath a roadside shade tree. Necessity required that others—common soldiers numbering in the thousands—be buried in hastily dug trenches. Numerous corpses received even less dignified attention, being stripped of their footwear by footsore, shoe-less Southern soldiers, or plundered by nighttime grave robbers in a morbid search for valuables
Colonel Charles Weygant of the 124th New York Infantry—the “Orange Blossoms” regiment that had suffered such heavy casualties on July 2—set out in the early morning darkness of July 3 to determine the condition of his regiment’s wounded. What he encountered was almost as shocking as the combat he witnessed.
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“Human Beings, Mangled and Torn in Every Manner”
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The Third Corps hospital, to which nearly all our wounded were taken, had been established in a grove about half a mile to the left and rear of where we were then lying. Just after dark I decided to walk over to it, and try and find the poor fellows and learn how they were being cared for. When about half way there I fell In with a party of stretcher-bearers with loaded stretchers. They were moving in single file along what appeared to be a beaten path, and said they belonged to the Third Corps. There were but two men to each stretcher; and they all seemed nearly worn out, and were trudging along very slowly with their heavy loads toward the hospital.
As I hurried by one after another I stooped and peered into the faces of the wounded, to see if there were any of the One hundred and twenty-fourth among them, but it was too dark for me to determine positively in that way, and so I asked each one to what regiment he belonged. The first was a member of the Third Michigan; the second was a sergeant of the Sixty-third New York; the third was a Pennsylvanian; the fourth made no answer to my inquiry, though his eyes were wide open and I was sure he was looking at me. Instinctively I placed my hand on his forehead expecting to find it hot and dry, but instead it was cold and clammy—he was dead.
The scene at the hospital was one of the most horrid imaginable. During the afternoon and evening nearly 3,000 wounded men had been brought there, and others were continually arriving. The ground of the entire grove, which was several acres in extent, seemed to be literally covered with them; and such noises filled the air as I had never heard before and trust may never reach my ears again. The wounded of our brigade had been among the first to arrive, and were lying, I had no doubt, near the center of the grove. The thick foliage caused dark shadows to fall upon these acres of mangled, bleeding human forms. Away down through the trees flickering lights could be seen, the reflections of which fell with ghastly effect upon the corps of surgeons who, with coats off and sleeves rolled up, were gathered at, or moving rapidly to and fro about, the amputating tables.
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“The Scene at the Hospital Was One of the Most Horrid Imaginable”
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After a moment’s hesitation at the edge of the woods I resolved to attempt to pick my way through towards where I hoped to find the objects of my search, but as I moved on among those, for the most part, prostrate men, their groans and piteous appeals for help appalled me. Several in a state of delirium were shouting as if upon the battlefield, and others, believing I was a surgeon, besought me to stop just a moment and bind up their wounds, from which their life-blood was ebbing. Presently a man I was about stepping over, sprang to his feet, shook in front of me a bandage he had just torn from a dreadful, gapingwound in his breast, and uttered a hideous, laughing shriek. This sent the hot blood spurting from his wound into my very face. Then he threw up his arms as if a bullet had just entered his heart, and fell heavily forward across a poor mangled fellow, whose piercing wails of anguish were heart-rending beyond description. I could endure no more, and wheeling about, hurried over the wounded and dying to the open field again.