Gettysburg (29 page)

Although later writers would make a habit of excoriating James Archer for stumbling blindly into the Battle of Gettysburg, there was nothing foolhardy in his decision to halt his line of battle once he reached the stream. A glance behind him showed the empty slope of Herr’s Ridge, devoid of supports, while the topography of the bank and hillside opposite effectively obscured what might lie ahead. Archer sensibly resolved to hold there until some backup arrived or the situation in his front became more comprehensible.

Henry Heth could not understand why Archer had stopped. He believed that his best chance to knock the enemy back on his heels was slipping away, and that now was the time to take risks. Davis was already engaging north of the pike, so the sooner Archer closed with the enemy, the better. According to Captain Jacob B. Turney of the 1st Tennessee, Heth rode up to his brigade commander and ordered him to resume his movement. Archer, recalled Turney, “suggested that his brigade was light to risk so far in advance of support.” Heth reiterated his orders for Archer to advance and determine the “strength and line of battle of the enemy.” Stifling any residual protest, Archer made sure his entire command was aligned before he ordered it forward.

In the open field north of the Chambersburg Pike, Davis’ three regiments exchanged fire with Cutler’s. The 56th Pennsylvania and 76th New York had been belatedly joined off to their left by the 147th New York, which now held the undivided attention of the 42nd Mississippi. The Southern unit was itself attracting artillery and rifle fire, causing Captain Leander Woollard to station himself behind his men with his sword drawn, his intention obvious. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Woollard later recounted that “not a man showed a willingness to go back but rather an anxiety to go ahead.” The 2nd Mississippi advanced to support the 55th North Carolina. When the 76th New York reformed into battle line, it had to refuse one flank to confront the gunfire coming from the west (the 2nd Mississippi) and northwest (the 55th North Carolina).

“After we got into the musketry the men fell like sheep on all sides of me,” a sergeant in the 76th New York remembered. Among the fallen was Andrew Grover, who had let his waiting men feast on cherries. Another in the regiment believed that “no body of men ever withstood a more terrible shower of lead.” It was just as hellish, however, on the other side. Colonel John K. Connally of the 55th North Carolina, wanting to wheel his regiment to the right to achieve a solid enfilade on the two Yankee units in the field, took position in front of his men, holding the regimental flag. Almost immediately he was hit twice. When his second in command asked if he was badly wounded, Connally gasped, “‘Yes, but do not pay any attention to me; take the colors and keep ahead of the Mississippians.’”

Oliver Howard had his Eleventh Corps tramping toward Gettysburg on parallel routes: Barlow’s division was using the well-traveled Emmitsburg Road, while the divisions led by Schurz and von Steinwehr were marching a few miles farther east, intending to hook onto the less congested Taneytown Road. Riding well ahead of Barlow’s columns, Howard and his staff had reached a point that an aide recalled as being not far from Marsh Creek when “heavy firing began to be heard in the direction of Gettysburg.” It was likely here that Howard encountered the first orderly sent by John Reynolds, who urged him to hurry. Since his troops were already in motion, though, Howard took no special action.

The party continued as far as the Sherfy peach orchard, where Howard met the staff officer dispatched by Reynolds from the seminary. The new
message modified Howard’s original orders to bring his men near the town: “‘Come quite up to Gettysburg,’” the messenger said. Glancing to his left front, the Eleventh Corps commander saw the tail end of one of Wadsworth’s brigades (most likely the Iron Brigade), which he remembered as “moving along northwesterly across the open fields toward the seminary.”

When Howard asked where Reynolds wanted the Eleventh Corps placed, the officer indicated Sherfy’s peach orchard, possibly because it lay at the intersection of the Emmitsburg and Millerstown Roads and thus offered a ready jumping-off place from which to support Reynolds’ left if necessary. Howard sent some of his aides back along the road to speed up the pace of both columns, and at the same time ordered Captain Daniel Hall forward “to find Reynolds and bring me word that I might go to him.”

Oliver Otis Howard now undertook a curious odyssey. Believing that it was more important for him to familiarize himself with the area than to make personal contact with John Reynolds, the one-armed general rode with his party “from place to place, first visiting the high portion of a cross ridge to my left, near the Emmitsburg Road.” Anxious to find a good view, Howard moved on “to the highest point of the Cemetery Ridge.” Although he was not the first superior officer on the scene to appreciate the strategic importance of the height,
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Howard does seem to have been the first to fix it in his mind as too critical to risk losing.

Turning to his adjutant general, Theodore A. Meysenburg, Howard declared, “This seems to be a
good position
, colonel.”

Meysenburg replied without skipping a beat. “‘It is the
only
position, general,’” he said.

As he held station not far from Charles Pergel’s two cannon, John Reynolds was still being visited by aides sent forward by his corps commanders. Daniel Hall, in a letter written afterward to Oliver Otis Howard, noted that he had found Reynolds “nearly at the extreme advance of our troops, where the skirmishers and some regiments were already hotly engaged.” Reynolds, the officer continued, “told me to inform you … to bring your Corps forward as rapidly as possible.” To an
officer reporting the Third Corps’ arrival at Emmitsburg, Reynolds said, “‘Tell General Sickles I think he had better come up.’”

Yet another staff rider brought word that Abner Doubleday was on the field seeking orders. “I … received instructions to hurry forward the other two divisions of the [First] corps as fast as possible,” the division commander recollected. As Doubleday’s messenger rode from the Chambersburg Pike toward the Fairfield Road, Reynolds called after him, “‘Tell Doubleday I will hold on to this road, and he must hold on to that one.’” Reynolds also directed his personal aides to ride to the various regiments that were just reaching the field and advise them “to charge as fast as they arrived.”

In the advance east from Willoughby Run, the alignment of Archer’s Brigade was quickly broken. The left regiment, the 7th Tennessee, was slowed by a small quarry, then stung to a halt by disciplined volleys from the 14th Brooklyn and the 95th New York, underscored by Hall’s cannon. The next in Archer’s line, the 14th Tennessee, kept pushing steadily through the Herbst Woods, well screened from Cutler’s men. Archer’s two right regiments, the 1st Tennessee and 13th Alabama,
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further dispersed the formation: the 1st went to ground to avoid the canister blasts coming from Charles Pergel’s guns, while the 13th eased south to take the guns from their unprotected side. James Archer, who had begun the advance dismounted, now found himself between these latter units.

Any hope the brigadier might have had of powering through the enemy with his entire command was lost to the terrain and the effective enemy defenses. The sheer force of Archer’s advance, however, was having its own effect. As the 13th Alabama sidled over to threaten the two Yankee cannon, John Calef decided it was time to go. His gunners frantically limbered their hot tubes and pulled back, leaving Cutler’s battle line wide open to a crushing flank attack.

The Iron Brigade was approaching at a run. The Western soldiers had followed the same course as Cutler’s men but were making better time as the way was cleared. When the black-hatted columns began snaking across the seminary grounds, the 2nd Wisconsin, in the lead, was met by Lieutenant Colonel John Kress, who yelled for the men to fix bayonets and get into combat formation. “You have not a second to lose,” Kress shouted. “The enemy are upon you!” To Colonel Lucius Fairchild, commanding the 2nd, Kress gave a more specific order to “form his regiment forward into line, double-quick,” adding that Fairchild could expect to encounter the enemy “in his immediate front as soon as he could form.”

On getting clear of the seminary buildings, each regiment in Meredith’s Iron Brigade had to slow down to transform from column into
line, a procedure that forced the units to enter into action one by one instead of all together. “We were immediately thrown forward into line and at a double quick advanced upon [the enemy] loading our guns as we went,” wrote a 2nd Wisconsin sergeant. “We ascended a slight elevation, entered a piece of woods and when on the top received a full volley from the Rebel infantry which at the same time was advancing towards us.”

Entering the Herbst Woods, the 2nd Wisconsin ran straight into the 14th Tennessee, which won the race with enough time left over to get set, aim carefully, and fire a killing volley. A Wisconsin captain in the eye of the bloody storm later claimed that this initial blast “cut down 30 per cent of the rank and file.” Lucius Fairchild reported that “officers and men fell killed or wounded with terrible rapidity.” An untested regiment would have been shattered, but the proud veterans in black hats kept their formation. “We held our fire until within 10 yards of Archer’s line, and then gave them a volley that counted,” recollected Robert Beecham. For minutes that seemed like hours, the two regiments gouged slashes from each other’s ranks. Fairchild fell in one of the first exchanges, with a wounded arm that would require amputation. His next in command, Lieutenant Colonel George Stevens, was killed.

John Reynolds was sitting on his horse just east of the Herbst Woods when the 2nd Wisconsin surged past on its way into the inferno. “‘Forward men, forward, for God’s sake, and drive those fellows out of the woods,’” he called out. As he watched, the woods exploded with gunfire. Knowing that this one regiment could not sustain itself without help, he turned his mount to look for the next unit coming forward, the 7th Wisconsin. Both sides were firing furiously, and the air buzzed with bullets. Reynolds’ orderly Charles Veil was eyeing his commander when, as he wrote less than a year later, “a Minnie ball struck him in the back of the neck, and he fell from his horse dead. He never spoke a word, or moved a muscle after he was struck. I have seen many man killed in action but never saw a ball do its work so
instantly
as did the ball which struck General Reynolds.”

The man whose determination and decisions had brought a battle to Gettysburg was dead, with the day’s outcome very much in doubt.
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T
he dissection of Archer’s Brigade proceeded with a slow precision that seemed almost stage-managed. It was a meeting in combat of two veteran units, each instinctively seeking the weak point of the other, but in this deadly game of musical chairs it would be the last standing that would win.

Archer’s left regiment, the 7th Tennessee, was nullified by the difficult terrain and the steady fire from the Yankee troops (Cutler’s) stationed by the McPherson farm. Next in line, the 14th Tennessee was locked in a deadly embrace, first with the 2nd Wisconsin alone and then with the 2nd joined by the 7th Wisconsin. The 1st Tennessee, which should have supported the 14th, was hung up along Willoughby Run, initially by canister blasts from Pergel’s two cannon, then by volleys from the 7th Wisconsin. That left the 13th Alabama.

After giving up its quest for Calef’s guns, this unit pivoted north to take advantage of the open flank of the 7th Wisconsin. In doing so, however, it exposed its own flank to the just-arriving 19th Indiana, which promptly slammed lead into it. By the time the 24th Michigan moved up, there were only Rebel skirmishers ahead, who were easily scattered, allowing this last Yankee regiment to drive down to Willoughby Run and cross it. Now Henry Heth’s failure to bring his next brigades close enough to render aid was paying a bitter dividend.

The better-coordinated Iron Brigade broke up Archer’s three right regiments, then herded the increasingly disorganized mass down the western slope of McPherson’s Ridge and into the Willoughby Run lowlands. A private in the 13th Alabama swore that “there were 20,000 Yanks down in among us hallowing surrender.” When a bewildered Jacob B. Turney of the 1st Tennessee ducked briefly under the gunpowder fog that enveloped his regiment, he saw “the feet and legs of the enemy moving to our left.” James Archer dismissed Turney’s observations, but matters were worse than he imagined: under a steady pressure from the 2nd
and 7th Wisconsin, the 14th Tennessee was slipping back toward the north, opening a fatal gap in Archer’s line.