Gettysburg (65 page)

George Greene’s call for help on Culp’s Hill also alerted the Union troops on Cemetery Hill. In a move intended to stiffen the Brickyard Lane line held by von Gilsa’s brigade, Adelbert Ames positioned the four-regiment brigade then commanded by Colonel Andrew L. Harris in such a way as to extend von Gilsa’s left flank southward. This caused that line to run awkwardly up the slope from the lane toward the crest of eastern Cemetery Hill.

Like most Eleventh Corps units, Harris’ brigade had taken serious losses the day before and lacked the manpower actually to link with von Gilsa’s. Worried about that gap, Ames made one of those judgment calls that would be forever after analyzed and evaluated: instead of ordering Harris to spread his entire command out to make the connection, he had him pull one regiment, the 17th Connecticut, out of the line to plug the hole between the two brigades. This gave Harris no option but to instruct the regiments on either side to stretch toward each other to cover the Connecticut front. As he later reported, “This left my line very thin and weak. [Every man] could get to the stone wall, used by us as a breastwork, and have all the elbow room he wanted.”

Ames took these defensive measures more out of prudence than in anticipation of an attack; he likely believed that the lateness of the hour and the Rebels’ commitment against Culp’s Hill meant that his line would go untested this day. Andrew Harris spoke for many of the officers on eastern Cemetery Hill when he recorded the “complete surprise” he felt on seeing several battle lines of enemy troops debouched from Gettysburg move “directly in front of my brigade. … We could not have been much more surprised if the moving column had raised up out of the ground amid the waving timothy grass of the meadow.”

The formations observed by Harris comprised the brigades of Harry T. Hays and Isaac E. Avery. They had been sent forward by Jubal Early, who recalled that Richard Ewell’s orders were “to advance upon Cemetery Hill … as soon as General Johnson’s division, which was on my left, should become engaged at the wooded hill on the left.” Because Early’s two brigades had set out at roughly a right angle to the section of eastern Cemetery Hill that they were to attack, a precision maneuver was needed to coordinate their swing and ensure that they would strike the enemy line as directly as possible. Avery’s Tarheels, who had the farthest to go, jumped off first, moving out from Winebrenner’s Run into the open fields before them.

The three North Carolina regiments immediately came under fire from the 5th Maine Light Artillery, posted some one thousand yards southeast of them on McKnight’s Knoll.
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The astute Yankee gunners had spent part of the day carefully registering the distances in their front, so when the battle lines came into view, they were able to hit their targets with their first salvo. One of those cocky artillerymen would recollect that “at once there was the flash and roar of our six guns, the rush of the projectiles, and along the front of the enemy’s charging line every case shot—’long range canister’—burst as if on measured ground, at the right time and in the right place above and in front of their advance.”

The impact of this accurate barrage was horrific. A Federal POW, watching from the nearby German Reformed church, was both appalled and fascinated by the spectacle. “To see grape and canister cut gaps through the ranks looks rough,” he remarked. “I could see hands, arms, and legs flying amidst the dust and smoke. … It reminded me much of a wagon load of pumpkins drawn up a hill, and the end gate coming out, and the pumpkins rolling and bounding down the hill.”

Edward Johnson’s three-brigade assault on the eastern side of Culp’s Hill began with just two, as most of George H. Steuart’s unit had been hung up getting across Rock Creek. Given the terrible field conditions, it was hardly surprising that both Jones and Williams should be having problems keeping their men under good tactical control. Jones would later admit that there had been some confusion in his ranks, resulting from “the mixing up of the files and the derangement of the general line, … [which was] perhaps, unavoidable from the lateness of the hour at which the advance was made, the darkness in the woods, and the nature of the hill.”

John Gibbon would subsequently make light of Ambrose Wright’s claim of having briefly held Cemetery Ridge, noting that by the time the Georgia soldiers reached his section, “their propulsive force was pretty well spent, and they made no sensible impression upon [my line].” When George Meade rode past, Gibbon assured him “that the fight on our front was over.”

Once the ringing in his ears had begun to subside, Gibbon became aware that the sporadic firing he had been hearing throughout the day from the right flank, on the other side of Cemetery Hill, was now growing “into the roar of a line of battle.” Gibbon was still puzzling over what it all meant when Winfield Hancock came over. He listened with Gibbon to the sounds of combat just off to their north. “‘We ought to send some help over there,’” Hancock remarked at last. “‘Send a brigade, send Carroll.’”

There was alarm among the Union troops posted along the Brickyard Lane when their skirmishers scampered in, followed closely by the Louisiana troops of Hays’ Brigade. The wide swing that Avery’s men needed to make to maintain their position in the attack formation took time, allowing the two regiments sent forward as observers to return to the Brickyard Lane and extend the right flank. As the Tarheels did their midfield marching, the Louisiana Tigers engaged the regiments that Andrew Harris had lined up along the hill slope and in the lane. Federal artillerymen tried to help, but they had to so depress their muzzles to bear on the targets that some of their munitions struck the Union lines, causing fatalities and adding to the confusion.

Even in the midst of this cacophony, there were pockets of resolute calm. A soldier in the 17th Connecticut would never forget the demeanor of two members of his regiment, George Wood Jr. and William (“Bill”) Curtis. The pair “were sitting down behind the stone wall, and you would have supposed they were shooting at a target. I saw George shoot from a dead rest, and heard him say, ‘He won’t come any farther, will he, Bill?’ Then Bill shot and said, ‘I got that fellow, George.’ And they kept it up that way perfectly oblivious to danger themselves.”

The section of Harris’ line that followed the slope was struck by two of Hays’ Louisiana regiments. “At that point, and soon along my whole line the fighting was obstinate and bloody,” Harris reported. “The bayonet, club-musket, and anything in fact that could be made available was used, both by the assailants and their assailers.” A sergeant in the 75th Ohio was confronted by a Confederate officer carrying a revolver and his regimental colors. “I had no pistol nothing but my sword,” the noncom wrote a few days later. “Just as I was getting ready to strike him one of our boys run him through the body so saved me.”

By now the three North Carolina regiments under Avery,
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having executed their right pivot, were closing on the Brickyard Lane. The Tarheel commander, one of the few in the assault on horseback, was down: around the time the wheel maneuver was completed, Isaac Avery had been felled with a mortal throat wound. In the darkness and the frenzy of combat, no one had seen him tumble to the ground. As he lay dying, Avery fumbled out a pencil and paper to write his last words for his friend, Major Samuel McDowell Tate:

On lower Culp’s Hill, George Steuart had finally managed to bring his three lagging regiments into a rough alignment with the two already battling the Federal earthworks in the woods. Unlike the other units of Johnson’s Division engaged on the hill, Steuart’s trio found the going fairly easy. Their course brought them into an area on the hill’s lesser summit that had been abandoned by Slocum and left uncovered by George Greene. After a few outposts were sent packing, and they got over their surprised relief, Steuart’s men began reorienting themselves to tackle the upper crest.

Their advance along the unmanned trenches brought them against the right flank of George Greene’s end regiment, the 137th New York. The New Yorkers had been counting on some help from the 71st Pennsylvania, sent over from the Second Corps on Cemetery Ridge, but the darkness, confusion, and enemy presence had proved to be too much for the Pennsylvania colonel, who cited orders to return to his parent command as he pulled his soldiers off Culp’s Hill. “The men and officers appeared plucky enough and much mortified at the conduct of the[ir] colonel,” noted one of Greene’s aides.

The situation for David Ireland and the 137th New York bore a number of remarkable parallels to that experienced earlier this day by Joshua Chamberlain and the 20th Maine. Each regiment held the end of the line for the Union army at Gettysburg, and each faced, with little direct assistance, a determined, resourceful, and numerically superior enemy; each commander had to make some rapid decisions under great stress. When he became aware of the Rebel infiltration into the empty entrenchments off his right, Ireland refused the threatened flank. In this case, the
maneuver was a more conventional swinging back of a single company, rather than the sidestepping spread that Chamberlain had accomplished.

It took a while for the Confederates now in control of the lesser summit to get themselves organized. There had already been several friendly-fire casualties in the darkness, and no one wanted to move without being certain that the gun flashes were coming from Yankee weapons. The few squads probing along the captured works ran into the refused flank of the 137th New York; though they recoiled, their actions helped to fix the extent of Ireland’s position. Sensing an opportunity, George Steuart sent one of his regiments, the 10th Virginia, on a flank march to get around the line blocking him.

Chaos reigned along the Brickyard Lane line held by Harris and von Gilsa. Both Hays’ Louisiana regiments and Avery’s North Carolinians were pressing all along the position. Although some postwar accounts would suggest that the Federal line collapsed completely at this point, it is more likely that while some segments did get swept away from the lane, others stood fast and fought. Like water flooding into a stream spotted with rocks, the Rebel units in some places piled up in front of the steadfast defenders and in others poured through the gaps to clamber up the hillside.

A member of the 8th Louisiana described the brief fight at the stone wall, “behind which the Yankees were, and here we had a hand to hand fight, the Yankees on one side and we on the other side of the wall— knocked each other down with clubbed guns and bayonets.” Two of Harris’ Ohio regiments were driven from the wall, while the third—the 75th Ohio—held on in the Brickyard Lane. Into the opening went increasingly disorganized portions of Hays’ Louisiana regiments, which then swarmed toward the four guns of Captain Michael Weidrich’s Battery I, 1st New York Light Artillery. Yet even as groups of Louisiana infantry raced in among their now cold tubes, Wiedrich’s cannoneers did not abandon their weapons. The First Corps’ artillery chief, Charles Wainwright, himself no friend of foreigners in union blue, had to admit that these “Germans fought splendidly, sticking to their guns.”

Loose gangs of North Carolina troops, having penetrated the porous Brickyard Lane line, combined with some Tigers to overrun sections of the battery adjacent to Wiedrich’s right—the 1st Pennsylvania Light Artillery, under Captain R. Bruce Ricketts, who would never forgive the non-American troops assigned to guard his front. His harsh condemnation of the Eleventh Corps units, liberally spiced with his xenophobia, presented a picture of utter cowardice not justified by the record. Portions of von Gilsa’s line (the 33rd Massachusetts and 41st New York, especially) were still holding as some of the enemy assailed Ricketts. The fight for these cannon was close-in and brutal, with some using rocks to smash their opponents’ heads.

The lack of any clear plan or controlling figure on the Confederate side now began to undercut the very real successes that had been achieved. The Louisiana and North Carolina soldiers had effectively silenced the Federal batteries along the eastern end of Cemetery Hill, making it possible for Rebel reinforcements to advance without running the gauntlet of their antipersonnel fire. Harry Hays was expecting help to arrive on his right from Robert Rodes’ division, but every time he glanced in that direction, there was nothing stirring. Colonel A. C. Godwin, successor to the fallen Isaac Avery, looked for John B. Gordon’s brigade, which had been moved to within supporting distance before the advance began, but Gordon had not moved. Jubal Early later reported that he had vetoed any effort on Gordon’s part for fear that it would lead to a “useless sacrifice of life.”

Robert Rodes had been under general instructions to support the attacks, which, given his central position, could have meant moving to bolster successes to his right or his left. Rodes had been very careful and cautious in marching his men out of Gettysburg and into line across from the northwestern corner of Cemetery Hill. The rolling attack coming from his right had died out before reaching his sector, so no action was automatically initiated. A belated effort by Rodes to coordinate with Pender’s Division on his right came to naught when he learned that the capable and aggressive Pender was down with an ugly thigh wound, leaving a successor who had only a vague sense of any plan.
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