Gettysburg (76 page)

A gunner in Crenshaw’s Richmond (Virginia) Battery would remember that “shell, [canister] and solid shot were hurled as thick as hail over our battalion.” Seconding him was John L. Marye, whose Fredericksburg Artillery had fired that first shot at John Buford’s troopers on July 1. Now, wrote Marye, “the uproar was terrific. Round shot whistled by and plowed the ground. The air was alive with screaming, bursting shells and flying fragments. … Cannoneers with jackets off and perspiration streaming down their faces, blackened with powder, kept the guns cool by plunging the spongeheads in buckets of water, and as fast as a man fell another took his place; guns were dismounted, limbers and caissons blown up and horses ripped open and disemboweled.”

Located in a particularly exposed position in the open fields just north of the Rogers farm, Major James Dearing felt the need to inspire his men with exceptional bravado. One of his battery commanders described the spectacle Dearing presented when, “followed by his staff and his courier, waving the battalion flag, [he] rode from right to left of the battalion, backward and forward, decidedly the most conspicuous figures upon that field.” John Booley, too, remarked the young officer “out in front with his flag waving defiance at the Yankees.” Finally, the horse ridden by Bearing’s courier was killed, putting an end to the exhibition— much to the relief of the toiling artillerymen, who were convinced that it had accounted for the “special attention … they were then receiving from the enemy’s guns.”

For the second time in as many days, Edward P. Alexander began to suspect that his rosy assessment of the tactical situation might have been too optimistic. He had expected that a quarter hour of concentrated shelling would suffice to suppress most of the Yankee batteries, but once the scope of the enemy’s position became evident, he realized “that I must wait longer than my proposed 15 minutes.” And not only would it take more time to blast the enemy guns off Cemetery Ridge; it would also eat into the limited stock of ready ammunition. It was Lee’s intention—an important part of his plan—that the batteries should advance with the infantry in order to lash the enemy’s lines at close range. For the first time since he had blueprinted the action, Alexander worried that his gunners might run out of powder before they could do that.

The combination of the bad fuses common to the Confederate arsenal and the tendency of Civil War cannon to angle high with repeating firings soon had a lot of Rebel ordnance overshooting its targets. Along northern Cemetery Ridge, that brought much of the Rebel iron down onto the reverse (or eastern) slope and the Taneytown Road, placing many of the correspondents at ground zero. Whitelaw Reid and Sam Wilkeson were just discussing whether a stray bullet that had whizzed by them merited the phrase “muffled howl” when a shell arced over the ridge, passed within two feet of the Leister house, and buried itself in the road not four yards away. One of the newsmen present remarked that “those fellows on the left have the range of headquarters exactly.” That shell, Wilkeson later wrote, was “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.”

“The atmosphere was thick with shot and shell,” scribbled the
New York World’s
man on the scene. “Horses fell, shrieking such awful cries …, and writhing themselves about in hopeless agony. The boards of fences, scattered by the explosions, flew in splinters through the air.” Even as he was diving for cover, Sam Wilkeson made note of those unfortunate soldiers who were caught in the open and “torn to pieces … and died with the peculiar yells that blend the extorted cry of pain with horror and despair.” Whitelaw Reid wasted little time in mounting his horse and beating a hasty retreat down the Taneytown Road, accompanied by “cries that ran the diapason of terror and despair.”

Smack in the midst of the impact zone were a number of Federal field hospitals, whose suffering wounded now had to endure new torments. A surgeon at the medical post located on the Peter Frey farm could only watch helplessly as the “outbuildings, fences and fruit trees were completely torn to pieces.” The bombardment caught a badly wounded soldier from the 125th New York in post-op, unable to be moved following an amputation. Someone later remembered how the man, after regaining consciousness “from the effects of the chloroform, and with a smile on his lips, remained uncomplainingly there all the terrible afternoon.”

George Meade and his staff at first tried to tough it out. Then, when the cannonade showed no signs of ending and the number of near-fatal hits around the Leister house continued to increase, Meade decided to shift his flag to a more sheltered location. After initially moving to a nearby barn that provided no more protection than its predecessor, Meade went over to Henry Slocum’s headquarters on Powers Hill. Other officers were less lucky: Daniel Butterfield, Abner Doubleday, James Barnes, and Thomas A. Smyth were all wounded in the shelling.

Conditions varied along the Federal line that wriggled across the forward slope of Cemetery Ridge. In Alexander Hays’ sector, the artillerymen and infantry posted in Ziegler’s Grove had to deal with falling branches, wood splinters, and oddly ricocheting cannon balls. The fiery, combative Hays was in his element, prowling his lines and offering his men inspiration and advice; time and again he instructed his soldiers to gather all the loose rifles they could see lying about them, so that many soon had two or more primed weapons at the ready. Along other segments of the Cemetery Ridge line, the troops succumbed to a stress-induced exhaustion, leading one officer to pronounce the sight of his men falling asleep under fire “the most astonishing thing I ever witnessed in any battle.”

The visibility of the batteries on this part of the line invited especially heavy fire, which inflicted serious damage on all of them. In Arnold’s battery, along the stone wall between Hays and Webb, a gunner complained of the “pitiless storm of shot and shell which burst and tore up the ground in all direction.” Next to the south were Cushing’s six guns. “The shot and shell,” wrote one of the crew, “seemed to be tearing and plowing the hill to its very foundation around us.” Brown’s 1st Rhode Island (now commanded by Lieutenant Walter Perrin) completed the set; so many of its men were down that nearby infantry were drafted to keep the cannon firing. A Rebel shell struck the muzzle of one gun and exploded, killing some of the artillerymen. When the survivors tried to keep the tube in action, they discovered that the blow had dented it in such a way that the shot jammed, forcing them to withdraw it.

Whereas many of the Confederate overshoots fell on rear areas that were relatively free of massed troops, the Federal long rounds came down in the fields where Rebel troops were staged for the pending attack. In the 14th Virginia, a private named Erasmus Williams had endured the good-natured taunts of a lieutenant who mocked him for having dug a small foxhole, chiding, “‘Why Williams, you are a coward.’” Hardly had the Federal retaliation begun when Williams, in his hole, “was covered with the dirt from the shot and shell striking near me. Presently, indeed almost instantly, the defiant Lieutenant was swept away by a shot or shell, and his blood sprinkled all over me.”

In John Dooley’s 1st Virginia, “ever and anon some companion would raise his head disfigured and unrecognizable, streaming with blood, or would stretch his full length, his limbs quivering in the pangs of death.” It was no different along the line taken by Heth’s Division. Remembered William Peel:

South of Gettysburg, less than a mile below where Hood’s Division had launched its July 2 assault, Wesley Merritt’s United States cavalry brigade continued to press northward, though the going was getting tougher. There were more and more Rebel infantry to contend with, and in addition to the shelling from the two-gun battery in front of them, the mostly dismounted troopers were drawing fire from two more batteries just east of the road. It was not a fight from fixed positions but rather an awkward give-and-take that swung back and forth with seemingly little purpose. In one rush, a section of mounted Federals threatened to overrun the two-gun battery, only to be dispersed by a Georgia regiment that arrived just in time to save the cannon.

Merritt’s men pushed to the limit of their strength, finally drawing to them enough Rebel infantry to more than match their numbers. Then, in the face of a line of battle that, according to one report, “had that confident look of being there to stay,” the Yankees ceased their forward motion. Once he was certain that there would be no more serious trouble from this sector, Confederate General Evander Law, by John Black’s account, “took his Regiments and went back [toward the Round Tops,] saying he hoped I could hold the ground.”
^*

The unexpected duration of the cannonade had completely upset Edward Alexander’s calculations with regard to ammunition. After more than an hour of the slow but steady exchange, he was becoming quite anxious about having enough on hand for adequate close support of the infantry advance. He knew that even after he signaled that his guns had done their job—which condition had not yet been met—it would take George Pickett time to get moving, and “every minute now seemed an hour. … But instead of simply giving the single order ‘charge,’ I thought it due to Longstreet and to Pickett to let the exact situation be understood.” So at about 2:20
P.M.,
^†
Alexander sent a message to Pickett and a copy to
J.
Johnston Pettigrew.

No sooner had Alexander dispatched this note than he noted a dramatic and amazing change in the rate of fire coming from Cemetery Ridge. He turned his glass in that direction to observe some of the battered Yankee guns being hauled off. He watched those positions carefully to see if the cannon were being replaced, but as far as he could tell, they were not. “Then I began to believe that we stood a good chance for the day,” Alexander later reminisced. It was about 2:40
P.M.
when the young gunner sent a follow-up note to George Pickett.

A sharp battle of wills was being waged along Cemetery Ridge between Winfield Hancock and Henry Hunt. The artillery chief did not want his gunners wasting precious ammunition on counterbattery fire, but Hancock was equally adamant that the need to maintain the morale of his foot soldiers required that the Yankee guns match the Confederate cannon shot for shot. This was one thing for the batteries under Captain John G. Hazard—which not only were clearly subject to Second Corps authority but also had come under a direct challenge that demanded a response—and something else entirely for guns that, so far as Henry Hunt was concerned, Hancock had no business commanding.

Anxious to keep up the pressure, Hancock had ridden south along Cemetery Ridge and soon begun encountering the batteries of McGilvery’s hitherto undetected line. After McGilvery declined to implement Hancock’s orders, the determined infantry officer rode among the cannon positions, instructing each crew to open fire. Captain Patrick Hart refused to do so absent a written order. The next officer Hancock addressed, Captain Charles Phillips, reluctantly agreed and had his guns open, but he ceased just as quickly when Freeman McGilvery arrived on Hancock’s heels to countermand his command. Hancock also coerced Captain James Thompson to begin firing, an action that drew a Confederate response to McGilvery’s line and brought on his only casualties stemming from the cannonade.

Not long after this playlet ran to its curtain, Henry Hunt had realized that if he could shut down all the Federal batteries, it might convince the Rebels that they had succeeded in suppressing the Yankee guns and induce them to bring their infantry into the open. Hunt conveyed the order to Thomas Osborn on Cemetery Hill, and Osborn started implementing it. As Hunt passed along the guns, moving south, he met a staff officer carrying orders to the same effect from George Meade. While he could not silence all the Federal guns, Hunt obtained enough cease that the volume of firing coming from Cemetery Ridge began noticeably to decrease.

The courier bearing Alexander’s 2:20
P.M.
note found George Pickett with his staff. After letting his aides know that action was imminent, Pickett rode to Longstreet and shared the message with him. “I have never seen him so grave and troubled,” Pickett reflected later. He asked, “‘General, shall I advance?’” Longstreet froze, unwilling to speak lest he betray his feelings. “I bowed affirmation,” Longstreet afterward wrote, “and turned to mount my horse.” Behind him, Pickett called out, “‘I shall lead my division forward, sir.’”