The Illustrated Gettysburg Reader: An Eyewitness History of the Civil War's Greatest Battle

by Rod Gragg

  Colonel Alger held his ground until his men had exhausted their ammunition, when he was compelled to fall back on the main body. The beginning of this movement was the signal for the enemy to charge, which they did with two regiments, mounted and dismounted. I at once ordered the Seventh Michigan cavalry, Colonel Mann, to charge the advancing column of the enemy. The ground over which we had to pass was very unfavorable for the manoeuvering of cavalry, but despite all obstacles this regiment advanced boldly to the assault, which was executed in splendid style, the enemy being driven from field to field until our advance reached a high and unbroken fence, behind which the enemy were strongly posted.

  Nothing daunted, Colonel Mann, followed by the main body of his regiment, bravely rode up to the fence and discharged their revolvers in the very face of the foe. No troops could have maintained this position; the Seventh was, therefore, compelled to retire, followed by twice the number of the enemy. By this time, Colonel Alger, of the Fifth Michigan cavalry, had succeeded in mounting a considerable portion of his regiment, and gallantly advanced to the assistance of the Seventh, whose further pursuit by the enemy he checked. At the same time an entire brigade of the enemy’s cavalry, consisting of four regiments, appeared just over the crest in our front. They were formed in column of regiments.

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  “The Charge Was Ordered, and with a Yell”

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  To meet this overwhelming force I had but Library of Congress one available regiment, the First Michigan cavalry, and the fire of Battery M, Second regular artillery. I at once ordered the First to charge, but learned at the same moment that similar orders had been given by Brigadier-General Gregg. As before stated, the First was formed in column of battalions. Upon receiving the order to charge, Colonel Town, placing himself at the head of his command, ordered the “trot” and sabres to be drawn. In this manner this gallant body of men advanced to the attack of a force outnumbering them five to one. In addition to this numerical superiority, the enemy had the advantage of position, and were exultant over the repulse of the Seventh Michigan cavalry.

  Brigadier General Wade Hampton III of South Carolina—the son and grandson of American cavalrymen—commanded a brigade of Stuart’s cavalry. His favorite prewar pastime was hunting black bear with a knife.

  Library of Congress

  Freckle-faced Brigadier General George Armstrong Custer, age twenty-three, favored long, curly locks and red neckerchiefs. At Gettysburg, he boldly led his Michigan troops in a charge, shouting, “Come on, you Wolverines!”

  National Archives

  All these facts considered, would seem to render success on the part of the First impossible. No so, however. Arriving within a few yards of the enemy’s column, the charge was ordered, and with a yell that spread terror before them, the First Michigan cavalry, led by Colonel Town, rode upon the front rank of the enemy, sabring all who came within reach. For a moment, but only a moment, that long, heavy column stood its ground, then unable to withstand the impetuosity of our attack, it gave way into a disorderly rout, leaving cast numbers of dead and wounded in our possession, while the First, being masters of the field, had the proud satisfaction of seeing the much vaunted “chivalry,” led by their favorite commander, seek safety in headlong flight.

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  “We Moved Forward at a Trot”

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  I cannot find language to express my high appreciation of the gallantry and daring displayed by the officers and men of the First Michigan cavalry. They advanced to the charge of a vastly superior force with as much order and precision as if going upon parade; and I challenge the annals of warfare to produce a more brilliant or successful charge of cavalry than the one just recounted. . . .

  Respectfully submitted,

  G. A. Custer,

  Brigadier-General

  Commanding Second Brigade.

  Federal cavalry make a charge at Gettysburg. Although the battle between Stuart’s and Gregg’s cavalry was a tactical draw; it was a strategic loss for Lee’s army because it accomplished nothing but “the glory of fighting.”

  Battles and Leaders of the Civil War

  An account of the July 3 cavalry battle from the Southern perspective was recorded by Lieutenant G. W. Beale of the 9th Virginia Cavalry, which belonged to Chambliss’s brigade. According to Beale, the Southern horse soldiers held their own in the fight, and fought so fiercely that they broke off their saber blades.

  We moved forward at a trot, passed Rummel’s barn, and engaged the mounted men at close range across a fence. Some of our troops, dismounting, threw down the fence and we entered the field. A short hand to hand fight ensued, but the enemy speedily broke and fled. Whilst pursuing them I observed another body of the enemy approaching rapidly from the right to strike us in the flank and rear. I bore off in company with a portion of our men to meet and check this force.

  We soon found ourselves overpowered, and fell back closely pressed on two lines which converged at the barn. I was by General Stuart’s side as we approached the barn. My horse fell at this point, placing me in danger of being made a prisoner. At this moment General Hampton dashed up at the head of his brigade. He was holding the colors in his hand, and passed them into the hands of a soldier at his side just as he swept by me. The charge of his brigade, as far as I could judge, was successful in driving the enemy back from that part of the field.

  Our brigade reformed on the edge of the woods in which it stood before the charge was made, and this position was held until we were quietly withdrawn at night. Our position commanded an easy view of the barn and of the line our skirmishers assumed at the beginning of the battle. We were so near to the barn that I rode back to where my horse had fallen, to secure if possible the effects strapped on my saddle. Later in the evening I sent two of my men to the same spot to search for the body of Private B. B. Ashton, of my company, who was supposed to have been left dead on the field. These facts warrant me in the conviction that we were not driven from the field, as has been contended.

  Among the incidents of this engagement I remember to have seen young Richardson, of company B, 9th Virginia Cavalry, the brother of our sergeant-major, fall on the fence as he was leaping into the field, mortally wounded by a piece of a shell. Corporal Caroll and Private Jett, of company C, after the hand to hand fight in the field, showed me their sabres cut off close to the hilt. . . .5

  “Let the Batteries Open”

  Lee’s Artillery Prepares for a Massive Bombardment

  At midday on July 3, Colonel Edward Porter Alexander, age twenty-eight, looked at his pocket-watch, calculating when he would give the signal to launch General Lee’s grand assault on the center of the Federal line. The tall, slim, dark-haired Georgian, a West Point graduate, was the acting commander of Longstreet’s First Corps artillery. Longstreet’s official chief of artillery was Colonel James B. Walton, but Longstreet looked to Alexander—bright, competent, and dependable—for artillery support. He had proven himself repeatedly in the past, especially at Fredericksburg, where the position he selected for Longstreet’s artillery—atop Marye’s Heights—doomed the Federal attack. He had risen in rank from captain to major to colonel in short order, and earned praise from Longstreet as an officer of “unusual promptness, sagacity and intelligence.”

  Lee had placed Longstreet in command of his attack on the Federal center, and Longstreet had placed young Alexander in command of a massive Confederate artillery bombardment which would precede the attack. Alexander had been up since three a.m., arranging guns and preparing for the bombardment. More than 170 pieces of Confederate field artillery from Lee’s army had been assembled in a line east of Seminary Ridge for the purpose of crippling the Federal artillery and demoralizing the enemy infantry in advance of Lee’s grand third day assault. Alexander would oversee the gigantic cannonade—the largest Confederate field artillery barrage of the war.

  As planned, Major General George E. Pickett’s division of Longstreet’s corps would make the
assault on the Confederate right. Pickett’s division comprised three brigades: Brigadier General Richard B. Garnett’s brigade, Brigadier General James L. Kemper’s brigade, and Brigadier General Lewis A. Armistead’s brigade, all consisting entirely of Virginia troops. Pickett’s division would be supported on its right by two brigades—Florida troops under Colonel David Lang and Alabamians under Brigadier General Cadmus M. Wilcox.

  Leading the assault on the Confederate left was General Heth’s division of A. P. Hill’s corps. General Heth had been wounded on the battle’s first day, and his division was now commanded by Brigadier General James J. Pettigrew, who had been promoted from brigade command. Pettigrew’s division was composed of four brigades—all of which had suffered heavy losses in the first day’s fighting: General Archer’s brigade, now commanded by Colonel Birkett D. Fry; Pettigrew’s former brigade, now commanded by Colonel James K. Marshall; General Joseph R. Davis’s brigade, still commanded by Davis; and Colonel John M. Brockenbrough’s brigade, now commanded by Colonel Robert M. Mayo. To support Pettigrew’s division, Major General Isaac Trimble had been placed in command of two brigades from the wounded General Pender’s division—exclusively North Carolinians—led by Brigadier General James H. Lane and by Colonel William Lee J. Lowrance. While Pickett’s division was composed entirely of Virginians, Pettigrew’s division contained troops from Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and Virginia along with its North Carolinians.

  As Confederate artillery bombards Federal positions on Cemetery Ridge, Southern infantry troops await orders to make the Pickett-Pettigrew Charge.

  Battles and Leaders of the Civil War

  Approximately 13,000 troops assembled for the Pickett-Pettigrew Charge, which would become commonly known as “Pickett’s Charge” because Longstreet had designated Pickett’s division to lead off when the assault began. Colonel Edward Porter Alexander—to his surprise—would decide when the assault would begin. A dispatch from General Longstreet advised Porter of his critical role while he readied his guns for the bombardment. In it, Longstreet ordered the young officer to “let Gen. Pickett know when the moment offers.” In other words, Alexander was to call off the assault if he deemed the bombardment ineffective, or he was to order Pickett to go forward when he judged that the time was right. At first, Alexander resisted being placed in the decision-making position, but eventually, obedient to orders, he relented: “When our fire is at its best,” he wrote Longstreet, “I will advise General Pickett to advance.”

  An eerie silence pervaded the field of battle at midday. It was “as silent as a churchyard,” in Alexander’s words. Finally, at almost one o’clock in the afternoon, Longstreet determined that Pickett’s and Pettigrew’s troops were in place and that Alexander was ready to open fire. He dispatched a mounted courier to a battery of the Washington Artillery, which would fire a signal gun to begin the bombardment: “Let the batteries open,” he ordered. At 1:07 p.m., a signal gun opened fire, followed by a series of shots as signal guns along the line fired in succession—then the mile-long line of Confederate artillery opened an explosive, massive, and sustained fire, which the Federal artillery promptly answered. “The enemy were not slow in coming back at us,” Alexander would recall, “and the grand roar of nearly the whole artillery of both armies burst in on the silence, almost as suddenly as the full notes of an organ would fill a church.”

  In 1907, more than forty years after the event, Edward Porter Alexander would publish his memoirs—modestly entitled Military Memoirs of a Confederate —recalling the tense moments preceding the mammoth artillery bombardment he unleashed upon the Federal troops on Cemetery Ridge.

  A clump of trees in the enemy’s line was pointed out to me as the proposed point of our attack, which I was incorrectly told was the cemetery of the town, and about 9 A.M. I began to revise our line and post it for the cannonade. The enemy very strangely interfered with only an occasional cannon-shot, to none of which did we now reply, for it was easily in their power to drive us to cover or to exhaust our ammunition before our infantry column could be formed. I can only account for their allowing our visible preparations to be completed by supposing that they appreciated in what a trap we would find ourselves. Of Longstreet’s 83 guns, 8 were left on our extreme right to cover our flank, and the remaining 75 were posted in an irregular line about 1300 yards long, beginning in the Peach Orchard and ending near the northeast corner of the Spangler wood.

  While so engaged, Gen. Pendleton offered me the use of nine 12-Pr. howitzers of Hill’s corps, saying that that corps could not use guns of such short range. I gladly accepted and went to receive the guns under command of Maj. Richardson. I placed them under cover close in rear of the forming column with orders to remain until sent for, intending to take them with the column when it advanced.

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  “The Trouble Is to Stay There after You Get There”

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  A few hundred yards to left and rear of my line began the artillery of the 3d corps under Col. Walker. It comprised 60 guns, extending on Seminary Ridge as far as the Hagerstown road, and two Whitworth rifles located nearly a mile farther north on the same ridge. In this interval were located 20 rifle guns of the 2d corps under Col. Carter. Four more rifles of the same corps under Capt. Graham were located about one and a half miles northeast of Cemetery Hill. These 24 guns of the 2d corps were ordered to fire only solid shot as their fuses were unreliable.

  There remained unemployed of the 2d corps 25 rifles and 16 Napoleons, and of the 3d corps, fifteen 12-Pr. howitzers. It is notable that of the 84 guns of the 2d and 3d corps to be engaged, 80 were in the same line parallel to the position of the enemy and 56 guns stood idle. It was a phenomenal oversight not to place these guns, and many beside, in and near the town to enfilade the “shank of the fish-hook” and cross fire with the guns from the west.

  The Federal guns in position on their lines at the commencement of the cannonade were 166, and during it 10 batteries were brought up from their reserves, raising the number engaged to 220 against 172 used upon our side during the same time.

  The formation of our infantry lines consumed a long time, and the formation used was not one suited for such a heavy task. Six brigades, say 10,000 men, were in the first line. Three brigades only were in the second line—very much shorter on the left. It followed about 200 yards in rear of the first. The remaining brigade, Wilcox’s, posted in rear of the right of the column, was not put in motion with the column, and being ordered forward 20 minutes or more later, was much too late to be of any assistance whatever. Both flanks of the assaulting column were in the air and the left without any support in the rear. It was sure to crumble away rapidly under fire. . . .

  A little before noon there sprung up upon our left a violent cannonade which was prolonged for fully a half-hour, and has often been supposed to be a part of that ordered to precede Pickett’s charge. It began between skirmishers in front of Hill’s corps over the occupation of a house. Hill’s artillery first took part in it, it was said, by his order. It was most unwise, as it consumed uselessly a large amount of his ammunition, the lack of which was much felt in the subsequent fighting. Not a single gun of our corps fired a shot, nor did the enemy in our front.

  When the firing died out, entire quiet settled upon the field, extending even to the skirmishers in front, and also to the enemy’s rear; whence behind their lines opposing us we had heard all the morning the noise of Johnson’s combats.

  My 75 guns had all been carefully located and made ready for an hour, while the infantry brigades were still not yet in their proper positions, and I was waiting for the signal to come from Longstreet, when it occurred to me to send for the nine howitzers under Richardson, that they might lead in the advance for a few hundred yards before coming into action. Only after the cannonade had opened did I learn that the guns had been removed and could not be found. It afterward appeared that Pendleton had withdrawn four of the guns, and that Richardson with the other five, finding himself i
n the line of the Federal fire during Hill’s cannonade, had moved off to find cover. I made no complaint, believing that had these guns gone forward with the infantry they must have been left upon the field and perhaps have attracted a counter-stroke after the repulse of Pickett’s charge.

  Colonel Edward Porter Alexander, age twenty-eight, directed the massive artillery bombardment that preceded the Pickett-Pettigrew Charge. He had attended West Point while Robert E. Lee was superintendent. Now Lee’s greatest assault would depend on Alexander’s artillery.

  Photographic History of the Civil War

  Meanwhile, some half-hour or more before the cannonade began, I was startled by the receipt of a note from Longstreet as follows:—“Colonel: If the artillery fire does not have the effect to drive off the enemy or greatly demoralize him, so as to make our effort pretty certain, I would prefer that you should not advise Pickett to make the charge. I shall rely a great deal upon your judgment to determine the matter and shall expect you to let Gen. Pickett know when the moment offers.”