The Boys of '61 Part 35

"You must be green, or you wouldn't have gone down there," said a Pennsylvanian, who had been in a dozen battles. The blood of the Vermont boys was up, and they had not calculated the consequences of such a movement.

So closed the day on the left. But just as the contest was coming to an end around Weed's Hill, it suddenly commenced on the north side of the cemetery. Hayes's brigade of Louisiana Tigers, and Hoke's North Carolinians, belonging to Early's division of Ewell's corps, had been creeping across Spangler's farm, up the northern slope of the cemetery hill. Suddenly, with a shout they sprang upon Barlow's division, commanded by Amos. It was a short, fierce, but decisive contest. The attack was sudden, but the men of Ames's command were fully prepared. There was a struggle over the guns of two Pennsylvania batteries. The Fifth Maine battery was in an exceedingly favorable position, at an angle of the earthworks, east of the hill, and cut down the Rebels with a destructive enfilading fire. The struggle lasted scarcely five minutes,-the Rebels retreating in confusion to the town.

When Sloc.u.m went with Williams to the left there were no indications of an attack on Culp's Hill, but unexpectedly Ewell made his appearance in the woods along Rock Creek. General Green, who had been left in command, extended his line east and made a gallant fight, but not having men enough to occupy all the ground, Ewell was able to take possession of the hollow along the Creek. When Williams returned, he found his entrenchments in possession of the enemy. The men of the Twelfth threw themselves on the ground in the fields on both sides of the Baltimore pike, for rest till daybreak.

"We are doing well," was Longstreet's report to Lee at seven o'clock in the evening, from the left.[49] Ewell himself rode down through the town, to report his success on the right.

At a later hour Longstreet reported that he had carried everything before him for some time, capturing several batteries, and driving the Yankees; but when Hill's Florida brigade and some other troops gave way, he was forced to abandon a small portion of the ground he had won, together with all the captured guns except three.

It was late in the evening when I threw myself upon a pile of straw in an old farm-house, near the Baltimore pike, for a few hours' rest, expecting that with the early morning there would be a renewal of the battle.

There was the constant rumble of artillery moving into position, of ammunition and supply wagons going up to the troops. Lights were gleaming in the hollows, beneath the shade of oaks and pines, where the surgeons were at work, and where, through the dreary hours wailings and moanings rent the air; yet though within musket-shot of the enemy, and surrounded with dying and dead, I found refres.h.i.+ng sleep.

THIRD DAY.

Friday, July 3.

Boom! boom! Two guns, deep and heavy, at four o'clock. It was a sultry morning. The clouds hung low upon the hills. Two more! and then more rapidly than the tick of a pendulum came the concussions. There were flashes from all the hills,-flashes in the woods along Rock Creek. The cemetery was aflame. The door which had been opened against Sloc.u.m was to be closed, and this was the beginning of the effort.

The cannonade broke the stillness of the morning, and drowned all other sounds. Riding up the turnpike to the batteries, I had a good view of the battle-ground. General Sickles was being carried to the rear on a stretcher. He had suffered amputation. Following him was a large number of prisoners, taken in the fight upon the left. Some were haggard and care-worn,-others indifferent, or sulky, and some very jolly. "I have got into the Union after hard fighting," said one, "and I intend to stay there."

There were a few musket-shots in the woods upon the hill, from the pickets in advance. Sloc.u.m was preparing to regain what had been lost. It was seven o'clock before he was ready to move. The men moved slowly, but determinedly. The Rebels were in the rifle-pits, and opened a furious fire. A thin veil of smoke rose above the trees, and floated away before the morning breeze. Rapid the fire of musketry,-terrific the cannonade. Ewell was determined not to be driven back. He held on with dogged pertinacity. He had sworn profanely to hold the position, but in vain his effort. The rifle-pits were regained, and he was driven, inch by inch, up Rock Creek.

It took four hours to do it, however. Ewell, well knowing the importance of holding the position, brought in all of his available force. Johnson's, Rhodes's, and Early's divisions, all were engaged. To meet these General Shaler's brigade of the Sixth Corps was brought up to Culp's Hill, while Neil's brigade of the same corps was thrown in upon Early's flank east of Rock Creek, and the work was accomplished. The men fought from behind trees and rocks, with great tenacity. It was the last attempt of Lee upon Meade's right.

Gregg's and Kilpatrick's divisions of cavalry were east of Rock Creek. An orderly came das.h.i.+ng down the Hanover road.

"Stuart is coming round on our right!" said he. "General Pleasanton sends his compliments to General Gregg, desiring him to go out immediately and hold Stuart in check. His compliments also to General Kilpatrick, desiring him to go down beyond Round-top, and pitch in with all his might on Longstreet's left."

I was conversing with the two officers at the time.

"Good! come on, boys!" shouted Kilpatrick, rubbing his hands with pleasure. The notes of the bugle rang loud and clear above the rumble of the pa.s.sing army wagons, and Kilpatrick's column swept down the hill, crossed the creek, and disappeared beyond Round-top. A half-hour later I saw the smoke of his artillery, and heard the wild shout of his men as they dashed recklessly upon the Rebel lines. It was the charge in which General Farnsworth and a score of gallant officers gave up their lives.

General Gregg's division formed in the fields east of Wolf Hill. Stuart had already extended his line along the Bonnoughtown road. There was a brisk cannonade between the light batteries, and Stuart retired, without attempting to cut out the ammunition trains parked along the pike.

Through the forenoon it was evident that Lee was preparing for another attack. He had reconnoitred the ground with Longstreet in the morning, and decided to a.s.sault Meade's line between the cemetery and Weed's Hill with a strong force. He could form the attacking column out of sight, in the woods west of Codori's house. In advancing the troops would be sheltered till they reached the Emmettsburg road. Howard's guns in the cemetery would trouble them most by enfilading the lines. Howard must be silenced by a concentrated artillery fire. The cemetery could be seen from every part of the line occupied by the Rebels, and all the available batteries were brought into position to play upon it, and upon the position occupied by the Second Corps.

The arrangements were intrusted to Longstreet. He selected Pickett's, Pender's, Heth's, and Anderson's divisions. Pickett's were fresh troops. Heth had been wounded, and Pettigrew was in command of the division. Wilc.o.x's and Perry's brigades of Anderson's division had the right of the first Rebel line. Pickett's division occupied the centre of the first line, followed by Pender's. Heth's division, followed by Wright's brigade of Anderson's, had the left of the line.

Wilc.o.x and Perry's line of advance was past Klingel's house. Pickett's right swept across the Emmettsburg road by the house of Peter Rogers; his left reached to Codori's, where it joined Pettigrew's. Rhodes's division of Ewell's corps was brought down from the woods by Smucker's house, and put in position south of the town, to support Pettigrew's left. The attacking column numbered from twenty to twenty-five thousand men, but the force in support gave nearly thirty-five thousand men which Longstreet had in hand.

The movements of the Rebels, as seen from the Union lines, indicated an attack upon our extreme left. The Fifth, Third, and Sixth Corps therefore were placed well down toward Round-top.

Commencing at the Taneytown road and walking south, we have the following disposition of the troops resisting this attack. Robinson's division of the First Corps, reaching from the road along an oak grove, past a small house occupied by a colored man. Hays's division lay behind a stone wall, and a small grove of shrub-oaks. Gibbon had no protection except a few rails gathered from the fences. There are three oak-trees which mark the spot occupied by Hall's brigade. Harrow's was just beyond it, south. In front of Harrow's, six or eight rods, were three regiments of Stannard's Vermont brigade,-the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Sixteenth,-lying in a shallow trench. Caldwell's division extended from Gibbon's to the narrow road leading past Trostle's house. The ridge in rear of the troops bristled with artillery. The infantry line was thin, but the artillery was compact and powerful.

Longstreet having made his disposition for the attack, and the Rebel artillery not being ready, threw himself on the ground and went to sleep.[50]

Lee reconnoitred the position from the cupola of the college, over which the Confederate hospital-flag was flying,-thus violating what has been deemed even by half-civilized races a principle of honor.

Visiting General Meade's head-quarters in the house of Mrs. Leister, in the forenoon, I saw the Commander-in-chief seated at a table with a map of Gettysburg spread out before him. General Warren, chief engineer, was by his side. General Williams, his Adjutant-General, who knew the strength of every regiment, was sitting on the bed, ready to answer any question. General Hunt, chief of artillery, was lying on the gra.s.s beneath a peach-tree in the yard. General Pleasanton, chief of the cavalry, neat and trim in dress and person, with a riding-whip tucked into his cavalry boots, was walking uneasily about. Aids were coming and going; a signal-officer in the yard was waving his flags in response to one on Round-top.

"Signal-officer on Round-top reports Rebels moving towards our left," said the officer to General Meade.

It was five minutes past one when the signal-gun for the opening of the battle was given by the Rebels on Seminary Hill. Instantly the whole line of Rebel batteries, an hundred and fifty guns, joined in the cannonade. All of the guns northeast, north, and northwest of the town concentrated their fire upon the cemetery. Those west and southwest opened on Hanc.o.c.k's position. Solid shot and sh.e.l.ls poured incessantly upon the cemetery and along the ridge. The intention of Lee was soon understood,-to silence Howard's batteries because they enfiladed the attacking force ready to move over the fields toward the centre, our weakest point. If they could give to the living who held the burial-place a quiet as profound as that of the sleepers beneath the ground, then they might hope to break through the thin line of men composing the Second Corps.

But Howard was not a man to be kept quiet at such a time without especial cause. His horses were knocked to pieces, the tombstones s.h.i.+vered, iron railings torn, shrubs and trees cut down, here and there men killed, but his batteries were not silenced.

Mr. Wilkenson of the New York Tribune, who was at General Meade's head-quarters when the fire was severest, thus describes the scene:-

"In the shadow cast by the tiny farm-house, sixteen by twenty, which General Meade had made his head-quarters, lay wearied staff officers and tired correspondents. There was not wanting to the peacefulness of the scene the singing of a bird, which had a nest in a peach-tree within the tiny yard of the whitewashed cottage. In the midst of its warbling a sh.e.l.l screamed over the house, instantly followed by another, and another, and in a moment the air was full of the most complete artillery-prelude to an infantry battle that was ever exhibited. Every size and form of sh.e.l.l known to British and to American gunnery shrieked, whirled, moaned, and whistled, and wrathfully fluttered over our ground. As many as six in a second, constantly two in a second, bursting and screaming over and around the head-quarters, made a very h.e.l.l of fire that amazed the oldest officers. They burst in the yard,-burst next to the fence on both sides, garnished as usual with the hitched horses of aides and orderlies. The fastened animals reared and plunged with terror. Then one fell, then another,-sixteen lay dead and mangled before the fire ceased, still fastened by their halters, which gave the expression of being wickedly tied up to die painfully. These brute victims of a cruel war touched all hearts. Through the midst of the storm of screaming and exploding sh.e.l.ls an ambulance, driven by its frenzied conductor at full speed, presented to all of us the marvellous spectacle of a horse going rapidly on three legs. A hinder one had been shot off at the hock. A sh.e.l.l tore up the little step at the head-quarters cottage, and ripped bags of oats as with a knife. Another soon carried off one of its two pillars. Soon a spherical case burst opposite the open door,-another ripped through the low garret. The remaining pillar went almost immediately to the howl of a fixed shot that Whitworth must have made. During this fire, the horses at twenty and thirty feet distant were receiving their death, and soldiers in Federal blue were torn to pieces in the road, and died with the peculiar yells that blend the extorted cry of pain with horror and despair. Not an orderly, not an ambulance, not a straggler was to be seen upon the plain swept by this tempest of orchestral death, thirty minutes after it commenced. Were not one hundred and twenty pieces of artillery trying to cut from the field every battery we had in position to resist their purposed infantry attack, and to sweep away the slight defences behind which our infantry were waiting? Forty minutes,-fifty minutes,-counted watches that ran, O so languidly! Sh.e.l.ls through the two lower rooms. A sh.e.l.l into the chimney, that daringly did not explode. Sh.e.l.ls in the yard. The air thicker, and fuller, and more deafening with the howling and whirring of these infernal missiles. The Chief of Staff struck,-Seth Williams,-loved and respected through the army, separated from instant death by two inches of s.p.a.ce vertically measured. An aide bored with a fragment of iron through the bone of the arm. And the time measured on the sluggish watches was one hour and forty minutes."

A soldier was lying on the ground a few rods distant from where I was sitting. There was a shriek, such as I hope never again to hear, and his body was whirling in the air, a mangled ma.s.s of flesh, blood, and bones!

A sh.e.l.l exploding in the cemetery, killed and wounded twenty-seven men in one regiment![51] and yet the troops, lying under the fences,-stimulated and encouraged by General Howard, who walked coolly along the line,-kept their places and awaited the attack.

It was half past two o'clock.

"We will let them think that they have silenced us," said General Howard to Major Osborne. The artillerists threw themselves upon the ground beside their pieces.

Suddenly there was a shout,-"Here they come!"

Every man was on the alert. The cannoneers sprang to their feet. The long lines emerged from the woods, and moved rapidly but steadily over the fields, towards the Emmettsburg road.

Howard's batteries burst into flame, throwing sh.e.l.ls with the utmost rapidity. There are gaps in the Rebel ranks, but onward still they come. They reach the Emmettsburg road. Pickett's division appears by Klingel's house. All of Howard's guns are at work now. Pickett turns to the right, moving north, driven in part by the fire rolling in upon his flank from Weed's Hill, and from the Third, Fifth, and Sixth Corps batteries. Suddenly he faces east, descends the gentle slope from the road behind Codori's, crosses the meadow, comes in reach of the muskets of the Vermonters. The three regiments rise from their shallow trench. The men beneath the oak-trees leap from their low breastwork of rails. There is a ripple, a roll, a deafening roar. Yet the momentum of the Rebel column carries it on. It is becoming thinner and weaker, but they still advance.

The Second Corps is like a thin blue ribbon. Will it withstand the shock? "Give them canister! Pour it into them!" shouts Major Charles Howard, running from battery to battery. The Rebel line is almost up to the grove in front of Robinson's. It has reached the clump of shrub-oaks. It has drifted past the Vermont boys. Onward still. "Break their third line! Smash their supports!" cries General Howard, and Osborne and Wainwright send the fire of fifty guns into the column, each piece fired three times a minute! The cemetery is lost to view,-covered with sulphurous clouds, flaming and smoking and thundering like Sinai on the great day of the Lord! The front line of Rebels is melting away,-the second is advancing to take its place; but beyond the first and second is the third, which reels, breaks, and flies to the woods from whence it came, unable to withstand the storm.

Hanc.o.c.k is wounded, and Gibbon is in command of the Second Corps. "Hold your fire, boys; they are not near enough yet," says Gibbon, as Pickett comes on. The first volley staggers, but does not stop them. They move upon the run,-up to the breastwork of rails,-bearing Hanc.o.c.k's line to the top of the ridge,-so powerful their momentum.

Men fire into each other's faces, not five feet apart. There are bayonet-thrusts, sabre-strokes, pistol-shots; cool, deliberate movements on the part of some,-hot, pa.s.sionate, desperate efforts with others; hand-to-hand contests; recklessness of life; tenacity of purpose; fiery determination; oaths, yells, curses, hurrahs, shoutings; men going down on their hands and knees, spinning round like tops, throwing out their arms, gulping up blood, falling; legless, armless, headless. There are ghastly heaps of dead men. Seconds are centuries; minutes, ages; but the thin line does not break!

The Rebels have swept past the Vermont regiments. "Take them in flank," says General Stannard.

The Thirteenth and Sixteenth swing out from the trench, turn a right angle to the main line, and face the north. They move forward a few steps, pour a deadly volley into the backs of Kemper's troops. With a hurrah they rush on, to drive home the bayonet. The Fifteenth, Nineteenth, Twentieth Ma.s.sachusetts, and Seventh Michigan, Twentieth New York, Nineteenth Maine, One Hundred Fifty-First Pennsylvania, and other regiments catch the enthusiasm of the moment, and close upon the foe.

The Rebel column has lost its power. The lines waver. The soldiers of the front rank look round for their supports. They are gone,-fleeing over the field, broken, shattered, thrown into confusion by the remorseless fire from the cemetery and from the cannon on the ridge. The lines have disappeared like a straw in a candle's flame. The ground is thick with dead, and the wounded are like the withered leaves of autumn. Thousands of Rebels throw down their arms and give themselves up as prisoners.

How inspiring the moment! How thrilling the hour! It is the high-water mark of the Rebellion,-a turning-point of history and of human destiny!

Treason had wielded its mightiest blow. From that time the Rebellion began to wane. An account of the battle, written on the following day, and published on the 6th of July in the Boston Journal, contains the following pa.s.sage:-

"The invasion of the North was over,-the power of the Southern Confederacy broken. There at that sunset hour I could discern the future; no longer an overcast sky, but the clear, unclouded starlight,-a country redeemed, saved, baptized, consecrated anew to the coming ages.

"All honor to the heroic living, all glory to the gallant dead! They have not fought in vain, they have not died for naught. No man liveth to himself alone. Not for themselves, but for their children; for those who may never hear of them in their nameless graves, how they yielded life; for the future; for all that is good, pure, holy, just, true; for humanity, righteousness, peace; for Paradise on earth; for Christ and for G.o.d, they have given themselves a willing sacrifice. Blessed be their memory forevermore!"

"With a hurrah they rush on!"

I rode along the lines, and beheld the field by the light of the gleaming stars. The dead were everywhere thickly strown. How changed the cemetery! Three days before, its gravelled walks were smooth and clean; flowers were in bloom; birds carolled their songs amid the trees; the monuments were undefaced; the marble slabs pure and white. Now there were broken wheels and splintered caissons; dead horses, shot in the neck, in the head, through the body, disembowelled by exploding sh.e.l.ls, legs broken, flesh mangled and torn; pools of blood, scarlet stains on the headstones, green gra.s.s changed to crimson; marble slabs s.h.i.+vered; the ground ploughed by solid shot, holes blown out by bursting sh.e.l.ls; dead men lying where they had fallen, wounded men creeping to the rear; cries and groans all around me! Fifty sh.e.l.ls a minute had fallen upon that small enclosure. Not for a moment was there thought of abandoning the position. How those batteries of Osborne and Wainwright, of the Eleventh and First Corps, had lightened and thundered! There were scores of dead by the small house where the left of the Rebel line advanced, lying just as they were smitten down, as if a thunderbolt had fallen upon the once living ma.s.s!