Gettysburg (32 page)

Charles Wainwright arrived at the head of the corps’ artillery. Wainwright was a difficult man to please, and he had little confidence in Doubleday’s leadership skills. With John Reynolds dead, Wainwright felt that his successor “would be a weak reed to lean upon; that it would not do for me to wait for orders from him, but that I must judge and act for myself.” After making a hurried mounted survey of the area, Wainwright concluded that Seminary Ridge offered the best available positions for his artillery. He also decided that the Rebel cannon so effectively dominated McPherson’s Ridge that no Union battery posted near the Chambersburg Pike could hope to stand for very long. Despite repeated pleas from infantry officers along the rise, Wainwright would send guns forward only under peremptory orders to do so.

The two brigades constituting Brigadier General Thomas A. Rowley’s Third Division were next on the scene. They had spent the previous night a few miles west of Moritz Tavern, then marched north together until they were across Marsh Creek. Colonel Roy Stone’s all-Pennsylvania Second Brigade reached the battlefield first, having turned east after the creek crossing to connect with the well-trod Emmitsburg Road. Like Wadsworth’s men before them, Stone’s troops moved crosslots at the Codori farm to reach McPherson’s Ridge through the seminary’s grounds. In his regrouping of units following this morning’s fight, Doubleday had clustered Cutler’s regiments north of the pike, in the Wills Woods, leaving open the space formerly occupied by the 14th Brooklyn and the 95th New York. Stone’s three regiments now took up that position, which put them directly under the artillery fire coming from Herr’s Ridge.

The First Brigade of Rowley’s division, Colonel Chapman Biddle’s New York and Pennsylvania outfit, came next, but from a completely unexpected direction. After splitting off from Stone’s command at Marsh Creek, Biddle had led his men north on a series of country lanes that had eventually landed them at the Fairfield Road, near Black Horse Tavern. Although he did not realize it at the time, his approach had brought him to the right and rear of the Confederate line along Herr’s Ridge. While his scouts reported the presence of Rebel artillery ahead, Biddle himself had no clear picture of where the enemy strength lay, so he gratefully followed the guides sent out by John Buford to lead him to the battlefield. On his arrival from the west, Biddle was instructed to cover the open southern portion of McPherson’s Ridge, which he accomplished by first forming his lines in the swale between the seminary and the ridge crest.

Even as Biddle’s men were being positioned, Brigadier General John C. Robinson’s two-brigade Second Division began coming up via the Emmitsburg Road. Under orders from Abner Doubleday, Robinson was “directed … to station his division in reserve at the seminary, and to throw up some slight intrenchments, to aid me in holding that point in case I should be driven back.”

Doubleday’s recollection was that the realignment of the First Corps and the placement of the reinforcements were undertaken entirely on his initiative. The aide whom Oliver Otis Howard remembered sending to let Doubleday know that he was assuming overall command had apparently never delivered that message. “I was not aware, at this time, that Howard was on the ground, for he had given me no indication of his presence,” Doubleday declared; in testimony given not long after the battle, he avowed that “General Howard arrived at Gettysburg about the same time with the 11th corps.” What was more, he even questioned Howard’s right to take up the mantle of left wing commander, a not-so-subtle dig that further diluted any unity of purpose that might have existed between the two of them.

Henry Heth summarized the effects of the disastrous morning probes undertaken by Archer’s and Davis’ Brigades with the comment that the “enemy had now been felt, and found to be in heavy force in and around Gettysburg.” Even as Abner Doubleday reset his defense, Heth, too, reorganized. He kept Davis’ Brigade north of the pike “that it might collect its stragglers,” while south of the road, along Herr’s Ridge, he positioned Brockenbrough’s Virginians with their left on it, he placed Pettigrew’s large North Carolina brigade next running south, and deployed what remained cohesive of Archer’s Brigade (now led by Colonel Birkett D. Fry) as a screen to protect Pettigrew’s right.

Shortly after noon, Pender’s Division (6,500 strong) came in behind Heth’s men. These soldiers could have been on hand much sooner had anyone thought to ask them to hurry. But as his infantry deployed in the area where Heth’s skirmishers had earlier scrapped with Buford’s vedettes, Pender did manage to send forward Major David Mcintosh’s artillery battalion, which added some significant weight to the Confederate advantage. Together Pegram’s and McIntosh’s batteries totaled some thirty-three guns, a virtual guarantee that no Yankee cannon could survive long on most of McPherson’s Ridge.

Lost to history is any account of what transpired when A. P. Hill was briefed by Heth. The after-action reports submitted by both men skip directly from the repulse of Archer and Davis to the renewal of the offensive several hours later. The confused summary of events provided in Hill’s report suggests that his mental cloud had not lifted by the time he reached the scene. It seems quite possible that Heth may have carried
the discussion by claiming that his reconnaissance mission, though roughly handled, had been successfully completed. As Heth later wrote, “This was the first intimation that General Lee had that the enemy had moved from the point he supposed him to occupy, possibly thirty miles distant.” Equally important was that Heth had completely disengaged. Robert E. Lee was not irrevocably committed to a serious fight this day at Gettysburg.

The midday period was anything but peaceful across McPherson’s and Herr’s Ridges. The infantries may have fought each other to the point of exhaustion, but the artilleries were evidencing no such fatigue. With the advent of Mcintosh’s guns, the Confederates had in place a powerful array of field ordnance that was making life hell for the bluecoats across the way.

The high water of Davis’ Brigade had driven Hall’s six guns away from their post alongside the pike on the western spur of McPherson’s Ridge. If Abner Doubleday felt some relief with the arrival of the First Corps artillery, he had not reckoned with Charles Wainwright, who obstinately refused to send any guns up to Hall’s old position. Only on the southern end of Doubleday’s line, where Biddle’s brigade stood, was one battery able to operate. Himself frustrated with Wainwright’s refusal to cooperate, James Wadsworth even tried to shanghai John Calef’s battered unit for the job; when Calef initially refused, Wadsworth threated to arrest him.

Whether in obeisance to this show of authority or out of his own sense of duty, Calef finally ordered his guns to return to their morning position. This time, however, it was impossible to hold. Rebel skirmishers had the range, and the diligent Confederate gunners soon caught the Federals in a vicious crossfire. Calef’s men fell back to a position near the point Pergel held and remained there for the moment.

Wadsworth meanwhile had pulled rank in front of Doubleday, leaving Wainwright little choice but to move more guns into the shooting gallery. He picked the 1st New York Light Artillery, Battery L, under Captain Gilbert H. Reynolds, and personally accompanied the guns into position. It was very nearly a fatal gesture: Reynolds was soon struck on his left side and in the face by shell fragments, and another shot nearly claimed Wainwright’s left leg. Lieutenant George Breck took over the battery and pulled it back five hundred yards. The First Corps infantry spread across
McPherson’s Ridge were forced to find whatever cover they could to shield themselves from the shelling that continued without pause.

The steady bass thumping of the Confederate artillery lent credence to civilian fears that the town of Gettysburg was itself the target. “How shall I describe my feelings as the booming of cannon waked that mournful sound! ‘Tis impossible, utterly impossible!” declared one resident. Near the central square, Charles J. Tyson, a businessman and photographer, heard a Federal officer loudly “warning all women, children and non-combatants to leave the town, as General Lee intended to shell it.” Charles McCurdy’s mother was advised to evacuate her family from their home on the east-west-running Chambersburg Pike and “to go into the side streets where they would be out of line of the firing, and less subject to danger.” Mrs. McCurdy packed a few necessities, locked the house, and then hustled the rest of her clan four blocks to the more protected house of Charles’ grandmother.

At least one Gettysburg civilian was resolutely heading
into
the fray, toward McPherson’s Ridge. John Burns, soon to be enshrined in folk, official, and commercial legend, was nearly seventy years old. A former Gettysburg constable and self-proclaimed veteran of the War of 1812, he had been a background figure throughout the troubled days of June. By all indications he was a stubborn patriot, a man not unused to combat, and, on the morning of July 1, one mad enough to fight.

He was spotted on his way to McPherson’s by several staff officers who would happily expand their memories of the incident in later years. Burns presented himself to one of the regimental commanders of Stone’s brigade, located in the McPherson farm sector, and requested permission to fight with the men. The colonel commanding suggested that he would be better off under the cover of the nearby Herbst Woods, in the company of the Iron Brigade. The old man obligingly trundled over there and soon hooked up with the 7th Wisconsin. Its commander tried to disuade the senior volunteer, but once he saw how determined Burns was, he reluctantly allowed him to stick around. A cleric with the regiment recalled that Burns wore “a bell-crowned hat, a swallow tail coat with rolling collar and brass buttons and a buff vest.” After standing and talking with the boys in the main position for a while, John Burns went out to the Iron Brigade skirmish line, where he was soon potting away at any Rebel target that presented itself.

While Henry Heth is usually credited with initiating the Battle of Gettysburg, the distinction more properly belongs to Richard S. Ewell. Heth’s assignment had been to probe aggressively into Gettysburg, determine the enemy’s strength, and back out if a significantly larger action loomed. He had accomplished his mission and then pulled back, so that by midday on July 1 he was only in skirmishing contact with the enemy, well shielded by the corps’ artillery and under no practical imperative to restart serious fighting. Had Heth held his position until nightfall to cover the near passage of Ewell’s two divisions, and then fallen back to a more fully consolidated Confederate army near Cashtown, his actions early that first day might well have been totted up as a costly reconnaissance rather than the prelude to a great battle.

The decision of whether or not to escalate the combat at Gettysburg this day was made not by Henry Heth or even by Robert E. Lee. Instead, it rested on the shoulders of Richard Ewell, who around midday was with Robert Rodes under the cover of the woods on Oak Hill, looking southward across the fields where Joseph Davis had fumbled. His gaze carried past the bloody railroad cut to the Chambersburg Pike, which marked what his eyes told him was the exposed right flank of the Union line. As Ewell was making this survey, Rodes was completing the deployment of his five brigades.

Rodes’ resolve to follow Oak Hill’s ridge had placed him in a somewhat awkward position. Prudence and the need to cover the impending arrival of Jubal Early’s division had forced him to spread across a wide front. His advance on the ridge was led by Iverson’s Brigade. To prevent the enemy from turning him to the east via either the Carlisle or the Heidlersburg Road, Brigadier General George Doles’ all-Georgia brigade had been assigned to cover the plain north of Gettysburg, screened by a skirmish line of Alabama troops under Major Eugene Blackford. Doles’ eastward orientation disconnected him from Rodes’ main body on Oak Hill, the closest link being Colonel Edward A. O’Neal’s Alabama brigade.

On examining the situation from Oak Hill, Rodes had realized that the only route to the enemy flank that was so enticingly visible near the McPherson farm was directly across the fields in his front. He determined that he would have to assemble his attack force in the woods behind a western spur of Oak Ridge. Iverson’s Brigade would become his first wave, backed up by other all-North Carolina brigades commanded by Brigadier Generals Junius Daniel and Stephen Dodson Ramseur.