Authors: Noah Andre Trudeau
Gettysburg (69 page)
Unlike Haskell, whose exhaustion at least brought him some relief in sleep, Peel spent a restless night, “broken in upon occasionally by a report from the artillery of the wakeful enemy, & at one time by a sudden tremendous rattle of musketry.” None of these noises registered on the consciousness of Lieutenant John Dooley, a proud member of the 1st Virginia in Brigadier General James Kemper’s brigade of George Pickett’s division, who had reached the western outskirts of the battlefield only a few hours earlier.
Dooley, named after his Irish father and devoted to his long-suffering Irish mother, had been born and raised in Richmond, where his family operated a successful clothing business. Young John was something of a prankster, though that roguery was offset by a love of books and a reflective turn. He had attended Georgetown College near Washington, D.C., but the call of his home state had proven to be too powerful to resist. Because he had had to wait until he was nineteen to enlist, he had not entered the Confederate service until mid-1862, when he signed on with a unit whose roots reached far back into his state’s history. In the ranks of the 1st Virginia, Dooley (unlike William Peel) had made it through Second Bull Run without injury, and had also survived Antietam, though at the latter place he had learned firsthand that discretion was the better part of valor. “Oh, how I ran!” he recollected.
John Dooley had embarked on the Gettysburg campaign with a sober sense of the soldier’s life and a refreshing ability not to take himself too seriously. Thanks to the genial nature of his personality, and, too, to the attritions of disease and military action, Dooley was now a lieutenant, “in charge of a company, although the newest and most ignorant officer in the Regt.” He tried to comprehend the basic army manual but gave that up as a lost cause, instead trusting to “luck to hear that the Col. says and understand what he means.”
Dooley and the 1st Virginia, like the rest of Pickett’s Division, had spent July 1 in Chambersburg, guarding the army’s supply train. Once word spread of the fighting at Gettysburg and the division began moving in that direction, Dooley observed a solemnity among the men, “as if some unforeseen danger was ever dropping darksome shadows over the road we unshrinkingly tread.” As the lieutenant marched, he struggled with his own fears, which he freely admitted “grew not less as we advanced in the war.” Even his duties commanding the rear guard while it passed through the Cashtown Gap did not displace the sense of apprehension that knotted his stomach.
John Dooley fell into a troubled sleep this night, with the sound of the July 2 fighting still ringing in his memory. To his veteran senses, the sounds denoted “a stubborn and bloody conflict and we are sure if we escape tonight, tomorrow we will have our full share.”
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For his actions locating Confederate snipers along his regiment’s front, Private Charles Stacey of the 55th Ohio was to receive a Medal of Honor.
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This rough lane would later become known as the Wheatfield Road.
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Hunt was not alone in recommending that the Pitzer Woods be investigated.
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Graybacks were lice, endemic in the ranks.
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Colonel J. M. Williams commanded the brigade at Gettysburg.
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The fourth regiment, the 41st New York, had been on detached duty at Emmitsburg, guarding the corps’ trains.
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Evander Law, too, had scouts probing Big Round Top. He also interrogated several Union prisoners who mentioned lightly guarded wagons parked east of the large hill.
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Although the testimony is conflicting, it is very possible that Warren briefly left Little Round Top around the time Vincent’s men came on the scene, to make a direct appeal to George Sykes.
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The guns belonged to the Brooks (South Carolina) Light Artillery, Lieutenant S. Capers Gilbert commanding.
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Although some accounts credit this shelling to Hazlett’s Battery, not yet on Little Round Top, a more likely candidate is the 1st Ohio Light Artillery, Battery L, then positioned at the northern end of the Plum Run valley.
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One gun had broken down earlier in the action and been successfully hauled away.
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George E. Randolph commanded the Third Corps’ artillery brigade. The guns in question made up Captain George B. Winslow’s Battery D, 1st New York Light Artillery.
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Warren later wrote, “I was wounded [in the throat] with a musket ball while talking with Lieutenant Hazlett on the hill, but not seriously.”
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Sergeant Munsell, carrying the national flag, was temporarily knocked unconscious but then successfully hid the flag, eluded capture, and returned the colors to his regiment, a feat that would earn him a Medal of Honor. Charles W. Herbster was killed on July 2; George Setley was taken prisoner and would die in Richmond in 1864.
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For quick thinking on his part that enabled his battery to escape from the peach orchard, Lieutenant Edward M. Knox of the 15th New York Light Artillery would receive a Medal of Honor. Also cited for this action was Private Casper R. Carlisle of Company F, Independent Pennsylvania Light Artillery, who saved one of his battery’s guns while under fire.
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Edward Cross’ brigade had pulled back a short time earlier. During the retreat of Zook’s brigade, Lieutenant James J. Purman and Sergeant James M. Pipes, both of the 140th Pennsylvania, each assisted a wounded comrade to cover and was himself seriously wounded in doing so. Both would receive Medals of Honor.
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In this retreat, Corporal Nathaniel M. Allen of the 1st Massachusetts saved the regiment’s flag from capture, for which act he would be awarded a Medal of Honor. Sergeant George W. Roosevelt of the 26th Pennsylvania would also receive the medal, for his unsuccessful attempt to capture a Rebel color-bearer. A successful effort by Sergeant Thomas Horan of the 72nd New York would win him a medal as well.
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Reed would receive a Medal of Honor for his action.
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In the course of this action, Corporal Harrison Clark took up the colors of the 125th New York after its bearer fell; the act would earn him a Medal of Honor.
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During this action, six members of the 6th Pennsylvania Reserves would collectively earn the Medal of Honor for rushing a cabin that sheltered Rebel sharpshooters and capturing the lot. The six were Sergeants John W. Hart, Wallace W. Johnson, and George W. Mears, and Corporals Chester S. Furman, J. Levin Roush, and Thaddeus S. Smith.
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The aide, Captain John B. Fassitt of the 23rd Pennsylvania, would be given a Medal of Honor for his initiative.
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Hugh Carey of the 82nd New York would receive a Medal of Honor for capturing a Rebel flag in this fight.
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In this action, Captain John Lonegran led a rush against the Codori house, where he and his company captured eighty-three prisoners. For this act, Lonegran would be awarded the Medal of Honor.
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Brigadier General Francis Nicholls had been badly wounded at Chancellorsville, leaving Colonel Jesse M. Williams in charge.
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Three of the four abandoned cannon were hauled back to Cemetery Ridge. The fourth, having been spiked, was left on the field.
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One Maryland soldier described it as being “nearly waist deep,” and another noted that the water came “up to our own waists.”
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Today known as Stevens Knoll.
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Called Hoke’s Brigade after a former commander.
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The well-liked Pender would die on July 18 from complications from this wound.
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For his “daring heroism and great tenacity in holding his position on the Little Round Top against repeated assaults, and carrying the advance position on the Big Round Top,” Joshua L. Chamberlain would be given the Medal of Honor. Also earning the medal in this action was Sergeant Andrew J. Tozier of the 20th Maine.
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Pickett’s Division contained five brigades, but one had been retained in Richmond to assist in defending the city, while a second was held back from joining its parent command until the threat to the capital had been fully assessed.
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Packed in a small coffin, the amputated leg would eventually be turned over to, and later put on display at, the Army Medical Museum, where Sickles reportedly stopped in to visit his lost appendage whenever he was in Washington. He would receive a Medal of Honor for his “most conspicuous gallantry on the field.”
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This night, musician Richard Enderlin of the 73rd Ohio crossed into enemy lines and brought back Private George Nixon, for which action he would receive a Medal of Honor. The rescued private would become the great-grandfather of President Richard M. Nixon.
July 3, 1863
(Midnight-Sunrise)
E
dward P. Alexander was exhausted. As if it were not enough that the young acting artillery chief for Longstreet’s Corps had directed his guns throughout the day’s action, almost as soon as the last shot had been fired, he had to see to the tiring clean-up work. There were wounded to be tended to, and dead to be buried; horses to be fed, put out of their misery, or replaced; ammunition to be resupplied; scattered units to be reunited; and cannoneers to be provided with some food and rest. There would be little of the last for Alexander himself, who finished his immediate tasks and then reported to Longstreet’s bivouac, where he was told “that we would renew the attack early in the morning. That Pickett’s division would arrive and would assault the enemy’s line. My impression is the exact point for it was not designated, but I was told it would be to our left of the Peach Orchard.”
This meant more work for Alexander, whose efforts to locate firing positions for his guns would keep him moving until about 1:00
A.M.
Sherfy’s now thoroughly trashed peach orchard offered scant ground cover suitable for sleeping, but the artillerist was not too particular. He found two fence rails and fashioned them into a rough bed that at least propped him up off the spoiled ground. So, “with my saddle for a pillow & with the dead men & horses of the enemy all around, I got two hours of good sound & needed sleep.”
Robert E. Lee would later report that his orders to Richard Ewell had directed him “to assail the enemy’s right [the next morning].” Ewell himself interpreted these as instructions “to renew my attack at daylight Friday morning.” To Ewell’s way of thinking, there was nothing to be gained by again attacking Cemetery Hill, which left that portion of the Federal trenches held by George Steuart’s men as the only point along the Second Corps’ front “affording hopes of doing this to advantage.”
Ewell expressed his intentions to his subordinates and was momentarily taken aback when some of them protested that such a move would be suicidal. According to a Federal POW who overheard him speaking with “one of his subordinate officers,” Ewell “replied, with an oath, that he knew it could be done, and that it should be done, and that the assault should be renewed.”
Once committed to renewing the assault against Culp’s Hill, Ewell and Edward Johnson were determined to bring as many men as possible into the effort. Johnson ordered James Walker’s Stonewall Brigade forward from where it had been guarding the flank near Brinkerhoff’s Ridge. With the exception of two companies and a portion of a third from the 2nd Virginia left behind to picket the ridge, Walker’s men made their way across the fields and forded Rock Creek to come into line behind Steuart’s Brigade. Ewell also drew two brigades from Rodes’ command—Edward O’Neal’s Alabamians and Junius Daniel’s North Carolinians—which sidled up behind the Louisiana regiments of Nicholls’ Brigade and the Virginians of Jones’ Brigade, respectively.
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Where three brigades had attacked and scored a modest but potentially exploitable success the previous evening, Ewell was putting six brigades into action, with a seventh (William Smith’s, of Early’s Division) on the way.
Few of those who had battled in the dark on July 2 were sanguine about the chances for a renewed assault. “During the night … we could hear and see the arriving of the heavy reinforcements of the enemy in our front,” remembered the officer commanding the 14th Louisiana. “We all realized what a large force we would have to contend against on the morrow.” A soldier in the 23rd Virginia wished that Stonewall Jackson might rise from the dead to resume command, “for it was always his policy never to assault strongholds or storm positions as impregnable as these.”
