by Rod Gragg
During the quiet hours which preceded this decisive and final struggle, my thoughts very naturally reverted to wounded comrades, and about noon I decided to mount Col. Cummins’s “Old Bay,” ride hurriedly over to the hospital, and make another attempt to see them.
As I dismounted and tied my horse to a shrub at the edge of the grove, I noticed a short distance beyond me a company of about fifty men digging graves, and was informed by one of them that they had been busy since daybreak burying men who had died of their wounds during the night and morning. On penetrating the woods I passed by several who were even then in the agonies of death, and saw two groups of men moving out with dead bodies; but the chaos of the previous evening had disappeared, and comparative order reigned. Nearly all [of the wounded] had received attention, but the majority of the surgeons had not yet quit their posts to seek the rest their pale, haggard faces told that they were much in need of....3
“An Overwhelming Confidence Possessed Us All”
Lee Decides to Attack the Center of the Federal Line
The battle on the Federal right flank at Culp’s Hill on the morning of July 3 did not go as General Ewell had hoped—nor as General Lee had intended. Neither did Lee’s plans for a renewed attack by Longstreet’s corps against the Federal left flank. Either Lee did not make his battle plan clear or Longstreet had plans of his own. Again, for numerous reasons, including some that would never be clarified, Longstreet’s troops were not in place for the attack Lee had planned for the early morning of July 3. Soon after sunrise, Lee rode up to check on the progress of Longstreet’s preparations for the attack and discovered that Longstreet’s troops were not ready. Realizing that his plans for coordinated early morning assaults on the Federal flanks had to be discarded, he immediately made plans to attack the center of the Federal line.
From atop Little Round Top, the open fields that lay south of Gettysburg can been seen in the distance. To assault Cemetery Ridge, Lee’s troops would have to cross almost three-quarters of a mile of open ground in some places.
Library of Congress
Standing in an open field, binoculars in hand, Lee gestured to a clump of trees towering above the center of the Federal line and outlined his new plan of attack. Major George George E. Pickett’s division of Virginia troops, newly arrived and fresh, would attack on the Confederate right, and Major General A. P. Hill’s corps, which had not been engaged since the first day, would attack on the left. Lee estimated the combined force would give the assault about 15,000 troops, which he believed would be enough to break the enemy line and win a decisive victory. To organize and execute the grand attack, he again turned to General Longstreet. Longstreet, however, objected. He still favored his own plan to march the army around the enemy line and attack the Federal rear, and he argued with his commander, stating flatly that he did not believe that Lee’s attack on the Federal center would work. “. . . I think I can safely say,” he reportedly told Lee, “that there was never a body of fifteen thousand men who could make that attack successfully.” Lee did not appear offended by Longstreet’s forceful remarks, but neither did he change his mind: the Army of Northern Virginia would attack the center of the Federal line.
Colonel Walter H. Taylor, Lee’s chief aide-de-camp, would later describe the issues surrounding Lee’s July 3 battle plan, including Longstreet’s postwar assertion that Lee’s attack was a mistake.
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“General Longstreet’s Dispositions Were Not Completed as Early as Was Expected”
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Since the date of this correspondence, several communications have appeared in the public prints, from the pen of General Longstreet, in reference to the battle of Gettysburg. He claims that General Lee gave battle there in spite of his remonstrance. Had such been the fact, it would work no discredit to General Lee, though at variance to his usual propensity to defer to such objections on the part of his lieutenants; but I never heard of it before, neither is it consistent with General Longstreet’s assertion . . . that at the time in question “the Army of Northern Virginia was in condition to undertake anything.” In this opinion, he but expressed the opinion of the whole army; an overwhelming confidence possessed us all. Now, in a retrospective view of the results attained, it is easy to conclude that it would have been well not to have attacked the third day. But did we accomplish all that could have been reasonably expected? And if we failed to attain results reasonably to be expected of an army in condition to undertake anything, how did it happen?
General Lee determined to renew the attack upon the enemy’s position on the 3d day of July. In his report of the campaign, in speaking of the operations of the second day, he says:
“The result of this day’s operations induced the belief that, with proper concert of action, and with the increased support that the positions gained on the right would enable the artillery to render the assaulting columns, we should ultimately succeed; and it was accordingly determined to continue the attack.
The general plan was unchanged. Longstreet, reenforced [sic] by Pickett’s three brigades, which arrived near the battle-field during the afternoon of the 2d, was ordered to attack the next morning; and General Ewell was directed to assail the enemy’s right at the same time.”
Lee’s troops had beaten the Army of the Potomac before and expected to do it again, according to Colonel Walter H. Taylor, who was Lee’s chief aide. “An overwhelming confidence possessed us all,” Taylor said.
Wikimedia Commons
General Longstreet’s dispositions were not completed as early as was expected; it appears that he was delayed by apprehensions that his troops would be taken in reverse as they advanced. General Ewell, who had orders to cooperate with General Longstreet, and who was, of course, not aware of any impediment to the main attack arranged to be made on the enemy’s left, having reenforced General Johnson, whose division was upon our extreme left during the night of the 2d, ordered him forward early the next morning.
In obedience to these instructions, General Johnson became hotly engaged before General Ewell could be informed of the halt which had been called on our right.
After a gallant and prolonged struggle, in which the enemy was forced to abandon part of his intrenchments, General Johnson found himself unable to carry the strongly-fortified crest of the hill. The projected attack on the enemy’s left not having been made, he was enabled to hold his right with a force largely superior to that of General Johnson, and finally to threaten his flank and rear, rendering it necessary for him to retire to his original position....
General Lee then had a conference with General Longstreet, and the mode of attack and the troops to make it were thoroughly debated. I was present, and understood the arrangement to be that General Longstreet should endeavor to force the enemy’s lines in his front. That front was held by the divisions of Hood and McLaws. To strengthen him for the undertaking, it was decided to reenforce him by such troops as could be drawn from the centre.
Pickett’s division, of Longstreet’s corps, was then up, fresh and available. Heth’s division, of Hill’s corps, was also mentioned as available, having in great measure recuperated since its active engagement of the first day; so also were the brigades of Lane and Scales, of Pender’s division, Hill’s corps; and as our extreme right was comparatively safe, being well posted, and not at all threatened, one of the divisions of Hood and McLaws, and the greater portion of the other, could be moved out of the lines and be made to take part in the attack. Indeed, it was designed originally that the two divisions last named, reenforced by Pickett, should make the attack; and it was only because of the apprehensions of General Longstreet that his corps was not strong enough for the movement, that General Hill was called on to reinforce him.
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“Lee Determined to Renew the Attack”
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Orders were sent to General Hill to place Heth’s division and two brigades of Pender’s at General Longstreet’s disposal, and to be prepared to give h
im further assistance if requested.
The assault was to have been made with a column of not less than two divisions, and the remaining divisions were to have been moved forward in support of those in advance. This was the result of the conference alluded to as understood by me.
Lieutenant-General A. P. Hill appears to have had the same impression, for he says in his report of the operations of his corps at this time: “I was directed to hold my line with Anderson’s division and the half of Pender’s, now commanded by General Lane, and to order Heth’s division, commanded by Pettigrew, and Lane’s and Scales’s brigades, of Pender’s division, to report to Lieutenant-General Longstreet as a support to his corps, in the assault on the enemy’s lines.”
General Longstreet proceeded at once to make the dispositions for attack, and General Lee rode along the portion of the line held by A. P. Hill’s corps, and finally took position about the Confederate centre, on an elevated point, from which he could survey the field and watch the result of the movement. . . .4
“I Challenge the Annals of Warfare to Produce a More Brilliant Charge”
Confederate and Federal Cavalry Fight a Bloody Battle behind the Federal Lines
Major General J. E. B. Stuart had returned, eager to do battle—and Lee had a mission for him. As Lee put his army into position to attack the center of the Federal line on Cemetery Ridge, he ordered Stuart and his cavalry to loop around the Federal right and attack the enemy’s rear. If Lee’s army successfully broke the Federal line and sent Meade’s troops flooding to the rear in retreat—as it had done on the first day of battle—Stuart would be in a position to strike the fleeing Federals with his cavalry, increasing the panic and creating chaos that would ensure complete defeat of the Army of the Potomac. At the very least, Stuart’s attack would be a useful diversion that would tie up the Federal cavalry and keep them from doing anything to undermine Lee’s battle plan.
Stuart took four brigades of cavalry with him—Brigadier General Wade Hampton’s brigade, Brigadier General Fitzhugh Lee’s brigade, Colonel John R. Chambliss’s brigade, and Brigadier General Albert G. Jenkins’s brigade. Stuart’s brilliance for reconnaissance—the critically important skill that Lee so desperately missed during Stuart’s absence—quickly showed itself: Stuart located the Federal cavalry and determined the best way to get behind the Federal army. Almost immediately, however, things went wrong for the Confederate cavalry. Stuart hoped to keep his movements secret from the enemy, but Federal Signal Corps officers, who were posted on high ground on Culp’s Hill, Cemetery Hill, and Power’s Hill, spotted his column of cavalry. Stuart himself alerted Federal forces to his location by ordering his horse artillery to fire a series of rounds, which were apparently intended to let Lee know that his cavalry was in place.
Federal cavalry under Brigadier General David Gregg—including troops under Brigadier George Armstrong Custer, Colonel John B. McIntosh and Colonel J. Irvin Gregg—engaged Stuart’s cavalry corps in a bloody, tumultuous series of clashes several miles east of Gettysburg at a site that would become known as the East Cavalry Field. Charges and counter-charges unhorsed soldiers from both sides and exhibited the bold courage typical of both Federal and Confederate cavalrymen. Much of the fighting occurred on a farm owned by John and Sarah Rummel, which became the site of vicious, hand-to-hand combat. Facing a battle line of dismounted Confederate cavalry, General Custer—age twenty-three—dramatically drew his saber and ordered his brigade of Michigan troops to charge, shouting, “Come on you Wolverines!” With his shoulder-length blond locks flowing behind him, Custer led the way toward the enemy battle line. The cavalry battle was a tactical draw—although officers from both sides would later claim victory—but it proved to be a strategic defeat for Stuart and Lee because it prevented the Confederate cavalry from weakening the Federal defenses. As one Southern officer put it, it achieved nothing but “the glory of the fighting.”
Back from the controversial raid that denied Lee much-needed reconnaissance, Major General J. E. B. Stuart was eager for action at Gettysburg. On July 3, he got plenty.
David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Duke University
One officer engaged in the battle would later describe it as “a joust or tournament, where the knights, advancing from their respective sides, charge full tilt upon each other in the middle of the field.” To farmer John Rummel, whose farmhouse was battered by gunfire and whose fields were left littered with dead men and horses, the battle was anything but romantic. He later reported finding two dead cavalrymen, “one a Virginian, the other a 3rd Pennsylvania man—who fought on horseback with their sabers until they finally clinched and their horses ran from under them. Their heads and shoulders were severely cut, and when found, their fingers, though stiffened in death, were so firmly imbedded in each other’s flesh that they could not be removed without the aid of force.”
Brigadier General George Armstrong Custer filed an official report of his brigade’s actions in the July 3 cavalry battle, but it was somehow omitted from the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies—the Federal government’s voluminous official publication of wartime documents. In 1876, Frederick Whitaker, an early Custer biographer, printed the report in part, and it is excerpted below.
Sitting well in the saddle, a Federal cavalryman blows a bugle call. Federal cavalry under Brigadier General David Gregg fought a tumultuous battle with General J. E. B. Stuart’s Confederate cavalry east of Gettysburg.
Library of Congress
At an early hour on the morning of the 3d, I received an order, through a staff-officer of the Brigadier-General commanding the division, to move, at once, my command, and follow the First brigade on the road leading from Two Taverns to Gettysburg. Agreeably to the above instructions, my column was formed and moved out on the road designated, when a staff officer of Brigadier-General Gregg, commanding Second division, ordered me to take my command and place it in position on the pike leading from York to Gettysburg, which position formed the extreme right of our battle on that day. Upon arriving at the point designated, I immediately placed my command in position, facing toward Gettysburg. At the same time I caused reconnoissances to be made on my front, right and rear, but failed to discover any considerable force of the enemy.
Everything remained quiet till ten A. M., when the enemy appeared on my right flank, and opened upon me with a battery of six guns. Leaving two guns and a regiment to hold my first position, and cover the road leading to Gettysburg, I shifted the remaining portion of my command, forming a new line of battle at right angles to my former line. The enemy had obtained correct range of my new position, and were pouring solid shot and shell into my command with great accuracy. Placing two sections of Battery M, Second (regular) Artillery, in position, I ordered them to silence the enemy’s battery, which order, notwithstanding the superiority of the enemy’s position, was successfully accomplished in a very short space of time. My line, as it then existed, was shaped like the letter L, the shorter branch, formed of the section of battery M, supported by four squadrons of the Sixth Michigan cavalry, faced towards Gettysburg, covering the Gettysburg pike; the long branch, composed of the remaining two sections of battery M, Second artillery, supported by a portion of the Sixth Michigan cavalry, on the right, while the Seventh Michigan cavalry, still further to the right and in advance, was held in readiness to repel any attack the enemy might make coming on the Oxford road. The Fifth Michigan cavalry was dismounted, and ordered to take position in front of my centre and left. The First Michigan cavalry was held in column of squadrons to observe the movements of the enemy.
I ordered fifty men to be sent one mile and a half on the Oxford road, while a detachment of equal size was sent one mile and a half on the road leading from Gettysburg to York, both detachments being under the command of the gallant Major Webber, who from time to time kept me so well informed of the movements of the enemy that I was enabled to make my dispositions with complete success.
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“This Gallant Body of Men Advanced to the Attack”
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At twelve o’clock, an order was transmitted to me from the Brigadier-General commanding the division, by one of his aides, directing me, upon being relieved by a brigade of the Second Division, to move with my command and form a junction with the First brigade, on the extreme left. On the arrival of the brigade of the Second division, commanded by Colonel McIntosh, I prepared to execute the order. Before I had left my position, Brigadier-General Gregg, commanding the Second division, arrived with his entire command. Learning the true condition of affairs on my front, and rightly conjecturing that the enemy was making his dispositions for attacking our position, Brigadier-General Gregg ordered me to remain in the position I then occupied.
The enemy was soon after reported to be advancing on my front. The detachment of fifty men sent on the Oxford road were driven in, and at the same time the enemy’s line of skirmishers, consisting of dismounted cavalry, appeared on the crest of the ridge of hills on my front. The line extended beyond my left. To repel their advance, I ordered the Fifth cavalry to a more advanced position, with instructions to maintain their ground at all hazards. Colonel Alger, commanding the Fifth, assisted by Majors Trowbridge and Ferry, of the same regiment, made such admirable disposition of their men behind fences and other defences, as enabled them to successfully repel the repeated advances of a greatly superior force. I attributed their success in great measure to the fact that this regiment is armed with the Spencer repeating rifle, which, in the hands of brave, determined men, like those composing the Fifth Michigan cavalry, is, in my estimation, the most effective fire-arm that our cavalry can adopt.
