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

by Rod Gragg

  Hd. Qrs. 33d Rgt. N.C.S.

  Bunker Hill 18th July /63

  Dear Sir,

  I delayed until this time in writing you with the fond hope that I could write you certainly with regard to the fate of your gallant son in the late fight at Gettysburg.

  My Regiment was engaged in the fight on the 1st July and although greatly exposed suffered very little on the 2d. We were under shelling all day. On the 3d day we were ordered forward to storm the heights.

  We advanced to within forty yards of the Enemys work and it was here that my little friend Jonny fell. I saw him but a few moments before we were ordered to fall back discharging his whole duty. You cannot imagine my feelings after reforming my Rgt to find him absent and upon being told that he was seen to fall forward on his face. As soon as we fell back the Enemy occupied the ground and hence it is I am forced to write so unsatisfactorily to a fond and doting father.

  I have used every exertion to obtain all the information I could in regard to Jonny and Candor compels me to say that there is very little hope but that he was killed or mortally wounded.

  The loss of my little friend is to me one of the most distressing incidents of the war. His noble nature in a short time had won from my bosom the warmest affection. He had made in the Rgt many friends and his death is regretted by officers and men.

  To console a Father for an only son is a difficult task. You may have the satisfaction to know that he fell where we would all wish to fall (if it be God’s will) with his face to the enemy.

  He was in Command of his Company but by this he was not more exposed than he would otherwise have been. The other Sgt. of his Company fell about the same time and is supposed to have been killed.

  A wounded Lt who was near Jonny (but was able to walk off the field) thinks he was shot in the breast. I will write you again in few days more especially if I can find any information on which to predicate a hope that Jonny is alive.

  Accept for yourself and Mrs. Caldwell my warmest sympathy in account of this distressing casualty.

  Very truly yours

  C. M. Avery8

  “Only the Flag of the Union Greets the Sky”

  Gettysburg Veterans End the Civil War with a Mutual Salute

  For almost two years after Gettysburg, the war would continue to grind out its bloody numbers until more than 620,000 Americans in blue and gray would lie in the grave. By spring of 1865, however, Federal forces had effectively divided and conquered most of the South and had captured its last operational seaport, shutting down imported weapons of war. Despite a masterful defense against the Army of the Potomac—by then under the command of Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant—Lee’s army had been forced into trench warfare to defend Richmond. At Petersburg, Lee’s thin defensive line finally broke. Richmond fell. The Army of Northern Virginia was trapped, and Lee surrendered at Appomattox, Virginia, on April 9, 1865. After Lee surrendered, the other Southern armies, one by one, did likewise, and the war ended in a Union victory.

  In many ways, it was a victory that began at Gettysburg. The three-day battle, the largest battle ever fought in North America, would prove to be the turning point of the American Civil War. In ages to come, some would argue with good reason that the turning point was the capture of Vicksburg—which occurred the day after Lee’s defeat at Gettysburg—placing the Mississippi River under Federal control. Others would cite the Battle of Antietam or the fall of Atlanta as the turning point. It was General Robert E. Lee, however, who had kept the Confederacy alive with his brilliant victories in the East, while Federal forces steadily prevailed in the war’s Western Theater and slowly strangled the South with a naval blockade. After Gettysburg, Lee continuously remained on the defensive. Meade’s army would quickly replace the losses it had suffered at Gettysburg, but it was not so with the Army of Northern Virginia. The depleted ranks of Southern manhood would be slow to fill the great gaps in Lee’s army. By wearing down the Northern people’s will to fight, it was perhaps still possible for the South to win the war after Gettysburg—but the attempt was made to no avail. Gettysburg proved to be the decisive battle of the Civil War.

  At Appomattox, Lee’s depleted army, whittled down to less than 25,000 troops, was largely manned by Gettysburg veterans. Just as some of his troops had urged him to allow them to assault Cemetery Ridge one more time, many of his soldiers mobbed him as he left the McLean House at Appomattox, where he signed surrender terms. “I saw the old ragged veterans crying,” one Gettysburg survivor recalled, “as if their hearts would break.” The next day, when Lee issued his farewell address to the Army of Northern Virginia, did he have the bloody fields of Gettysburg on his mind? “You will take with you the satisfaction that proceeds from the consciousness of duty faithfully performed,” he told his troops, “and I earnestly pray that a merciful God will extend to you his blessing and protection.”

  Four days later on April 12, 1865, the Army of the Potomac received the official surrender of Lee’s troops. The Federal ranks at Appomattox, also filled with veterans of Gettysburg, lined a road leading into the village of Appomattox. Lee’s defeated army would march between the rows of men in blue to the surrender site. There, they would stack arms and furl their flags. Given the honor of presiding over the Confederate surrender was Brigadier General Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, the former commander of the 20th Maine Infantry, credited by many with saving the Battle of Gettysburg—and the Union—through his desperate defense of the Federal far left flank on Little Round Top. Chamberlain’s actions at Little Round Top would later earn him the Congressional Medal of Honor, but following Gettysburg, he had been repeatedly passed over for promotion even while holding brigade command. After successfully overseeing the Confederate defeat in the Western Theater, General Grant had been promoted to General in Chief of the U.S. Army. While he retained General Meade as official army commander, Grant had taken personal command of the Army of the Potomac. It was he—at a bloody price—who had successfully driven Lee to surrender at Appomattox.

  At an ending that began in many ways at Gettysburg, General Robert E. Lee surrendered his depleted Army of Northern Virginia to Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant in the McLean house at Appomattox, Virginia, on April 9, 1865.

  Library of Congress

  Three days after Lee signed the surrender terms, his troops stacked their arms and furled their flags before the victorious Army of the Potomac. In the ranks of both armies were countless veterans of Gettysburg.

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  Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain had missed much of the bloody fighting between Grant and Lee due to court-martial duty, but at the siege of Petersburg, he suffered a grievous wound leading his brigade in an assault. Army surgeons deemed his wound mortal, and Chamberlain scribbled a farewell to his wife. His corps commander, Major General Gouverneur Warren—who had first rushed Federal troops to Little Round Top at Gettysburg—recommended that Grant honor Chamberlain’s heroic actions by promoting him to brigadier general on his deathbed. Grant did so—then Chamberlain surprised everyone by not dying. He recovered, and his brigade was instrumental in the actions that drove Lee to Appomattox. Grant decided that Chamberlain—eventually viewed as one of Gettysburg’s preeminent heroes—was the appropriate choice to oversee the surrender of Lee’s army.

  As Lee’s ragged ranks marched smartly to the surrender point on April 12, Chamberlain forbade the Federal troops from any demonstrations that would offend the surrendering Southerners—no jeers, no cheers, no drums, no bugles. Grant had done the same when announcing Lee’s surrender to the Federal troops, and had shown an attitude of respect and reconciliation by offering generous surrender terms to Lee and issuing rations to Lee’s army. Instead of lording over the defeated Southerners as fallen foes, Grant and Chamberlain intended to treat them as former enemies now welcomed back into the national fold. Their actions reflected the heart of reconciliation that President Lincoln had called for in the words of his second inaugural address—“with malice toward no
ne”—and which General Lee demonstrated when he refused to let his army devolve into a guerilla force.

  A devout Christian, Chamberlain displayed that same spirit of reconciliation at the formal surrender ceremony. His Federal troops lined the road entering Appomattox. When the leading ranks of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia appeared alongside, the Federal troops—as Chamberlain had ordered—shifted from the position of “order arms” to “carry arms”—a salute of respect: “honor answering honor.” At the head of the Confederate column rode another Gettysburg veteran, Major General John Brown Gordon, whose troops had helped send the Federal army fleeing through town on Gettysburg’s first day. When Gordon saw the Federal troops snap to their salute, he immediately raised his sword in respect and ordered the Southern ranks to salute the Federal army in response. And so, Gettysburg veterans Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and John Brown Gordon oversaw what amounted to the end of the war—a war that claimed 620,000 Northern and Southern lives—by leading the former foes in an extraordinary display of mutual respect and reconciliation—as Americans all.

  In the early twentieth century, an elderly Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain would record the remarkable moment in his memoir The Passing of the Armies.

  It was now the morning of the 12th of April. I had been ordered to have my lines formed for the ceremony at sunrise. It was a chill gray morning, depressing to the senses. But our hearts made warmth. Great memories uprose; great thoughts went forward. We formed along the principal street, from the bluff bank of the stream to near the Court House on the left,—to face the last line of battle, and receive the last remnant of the arms and colors of that great army which ours had been created to confront for all that death can do for life. We were remnants also: Massachusetts, Maine, Michigan, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York; veterans, and replaced veterans; cut to pieces, cut down, consolidated, divisions into brigades, regiments into one, gathered by State origin; this little line, quintessence or metempsychosis of Porter’s old corps of Gaines’ Mill and Malvern Hill; men of near blood born, made nearer by blood shed. Those facing us—now, thank God! the same.

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  “On Our Part, Not a Sound of Trumpet More, nor Roll of Drum”

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  As for me, I was once more with my old command. But this was not all I needed. I had taken leave of my little First Brigade so endeared to me, and the end of the fighting had released the Second from all orders from me. But these deserved to share with me now as they had so faithfully done in the sterner passages of the campaign. I got permission from General Griffin to have them also in the parade. I placed the First Brigade in line a little to our rear, and the Second on the opposite side of the street facing us and leaving ample space for the movements of the coming ceremony. Thus the whole division was out, and under my direction for the occasion, although I was not the division commander. I thought this troubled General Bartlett a little, but he was a manly and soldierly man and made no comment. He contented himself by mounting his whole staff and with the division flag riding around our lines and conversing as he found opportunity with the Confederate officers. This in no manner disturbed me; my place and part were definite and clear.

  Our earnest eyes scan the busy groups on the opposite slopes, breaking camp for the last time, taking down their little shelter-tents and folding them carefully as precious things, then slowly forming ranks as for unwelcome duty. And now they move. The dusky swarms forge forward into gray columns of march. On they come, with the old swinging route step and swaying battle-flags. In the van, the proud Confederate ensign—the great field of white with canton of star-strewn cross of blue on a field of red, the regimental battle-flags with the same escutcheon following on, crowded so thick, by thinning out of men, that the whole column seemed

  crowned with red. At the right of our line our little group mounted beneath our flags, the red Maltese cross on a field of white, erewhile so bravely borne through many a field more crimson than itself, its mystic meaning now ruling all.

  The momentous meaning of this occasion impressed me deeply. I resolved to mark it by some token of recognition, which could be no other than a salute of arms. Well aware of the responsibility assumed, and of the criticisms that would follow, as the sequel proved, nothing of that kind could move me in the least. The act could be defended, if needful, by the suggestion that such a salute was not to the cause for which the flag of the Confederacy stood, but to its going down before the flag of the Union. My main reason, however, was one for which I sought no authority nor asked forgiveness. Before us in proud humiliation stood the embodiment of manhood: men whom neither toils and sufferings, nor the fact of death, nor disaster, nor hopelessness could bend from their resolve; standing before us now, thin, worn, and famished, but erect, and with eyes looking level into ours, waking memories that bound us together as no other bond;—was not such manhood to be welcomed back into a Union so tested and assured?

  Instructions had been given; and when the head of each division column comes opposite our group, our bugle sounds the signal and instantly our whole line from right to left, regiment by regiment in succession, gives the soldiers salutation, from the “order arms” to the old “carry”—the marching salute. Gordon at the head of the column, riding with heavy spirit and downcast face, catches the sound of shifting arms, looks up, and, taking the meaning, wheels superbly, making with himself and his horse one uplifted figure, with profound salutation as he drops the point of his sword to the boot toe; then facing to his own command, gives word for his successive brigades to pass us with the same position of the manual,—honor answering honor. On our part not a sound of trumpet more, nor roll of drum; not a cheer, nor word nor whisper of vain-glorying, nor motion of man standing again at the order, but an awed stillness rather, and breath-holding, as if it were the passing of the dead!

  Presiding over the surrender was Brigadier General Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, who—as colonel of the 20th Maine—had successfully defended the extreme left flank of the Federal army at Gettysburg. On Chamberlain’s orders at Appomattox—in an act of reconciliation—the Northern army saluted its former foes—and received a salute of honor in return.

  Library of Congress

  As each successive division masks our own, it halts, the men face inward towards us across the road, twelve feet away; then carefully “dress” their line, each captain taking pains for the good appearance of his company, worn and half starved as they were. The field and staff take their positions in the intervals of regiments; generals in rear of their commands. They fix bayonets, stack arms; then, hesitatingly, remove cartridge-boxes and lay them down. Lastly,—reluctantly, with agony of expression,—they tenderly fold their flags, battle-worn and torn, blood-stained, heart-holding colors, and lay them down; some frenziedly rushing from the ranks, kneeling over them, clinging to them, pressing them to their lips with burning tears. And only the Flag of the Union greets the sky!9

  Americans all, old soldiers of the Blue and the Gray pose beneath their battleflags at Gettysburg on the fiftieth anniversary of battle.

  Library of Congress

  APPENDIX 1

  Official After-Action Report of Major General George Meade

  HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE POTOMAC,

  October 1, 1863.

  GENERAL: I have the honor to submit herewith a report of the operations of this army during the month of July last, including the details of the battle of Gettysburg, delayed by the failure to receive until now the reports of several corps and division commanders, who were severely wounded in the battle.

  On June 28, I received the orders of the President of the United States placing me in command of the Army of the Potomac. The situation of affairs at that time was briefly as follows:

  The Confederate army, commanded by General R. E. Lee, estimated at over 100,000 strong, of all arms, had crossed the Potomac River and advanced up the Cumberland Valley. Reliable intelligence placed his advance (Ewell’s corps) on the Susquehanna, at Harrisbur
g and Columbia; Longstreet’s corps at Chambersburg, and Hill’s corps between that place and Cashtown. My own army, of which the most recent return showed an aggregate of a little over 100,000, was situated in and around Frederick, Md., extending from Harper’s Ferry to the mouth of the Monocacy, and from Middletown to Frederick.

  June 28 was spent in ascertaining the position and strength of the different corps of the army, but principally in bringing up the cavalry, which had been covering the rear of the army in its passage over the Potomac, and to which a large increase had just been made from the forces previously attached to the Defenses of Washington. Orders were given on that day to Major-General French, commanding at Harper’s Ferry, to move with 7,000 men of his command to occupy Frederick and the line of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and, with the balance of his force, estimated at 4,000, to remove and escort, the public property to Washington.

  On the 29th, the army was put in motion, and on the evening of that day was in position, the left at Emmitsburg and the right at New Windsor. Buford’s division of cavalry was on the left flank, with the advance at Gettysburg. Kilpatrick’s division was in the front at Hanover, where he encountered this day General Stuart’s Confederate cavalry, which had crossed the Potomac at Seneca Creek, and, passing our right flank, was making its way toward Carlisle, having escaped Gregg’s division, delayed in taking position on the right flank by the occupation of the roads by columns of infantry.

  On the 30th, the right flank of the army was moved up to Manchester, the left still being at Emmitsburg, in the vicinity of which place three corps (the First, Eleventh, and Third) were collected, under the orders of Major-General Reynolds. General Buford having reported from Gettysburg the appearance of the enemy on the Cashtown road in some force, General Reynolds was directed to occupy Gettysburg.