The Real Custer (14 page)

Meanwhile, Union Colonel John B. McIntosh moved forward with dismounted troops of the 1st New Jersey and 3rd Pennsylvania, intending to relieve Custer's 5th and 6th Michigan. As they were exchanging positions they heard the opening of the great barrage in support of Pickett's Charge. James H. Kidd wrote, “The tremendous volume of
sound volleyed and rolled across the intervening hills like reverberating thunder in a storm.”
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At about the same time, Stuart began his attack in earnest, pushing up skirmishers as artillery rained on Custer's men. Pennington's battery gave covering fire, “the most accurate that I have ever seen,” Gregg said.

Custer ordered a battalion in under Major Noah Ferry of the 5th Michigan to support McIntosh, but they rushed into an ambush laid by the 34th Virginia Battalion. “Rally boys!” cried Major Ferry as his men began to break. “Rally for the fence!” An instant later he was felled with a bullet to the head.

The battle around the Rummel Farm grew more intense. McIntosh committed the rest of his brigade, and Stuart more than matched him. Gregg directed an artillery barrage that blunted the rebel assault, and they fell back. But before the Union defenders could reform, Stuart's famed 1st Virginia Cavalry regiment, of Fitz Lee's brigade, charged without warning toward the Union right-center. “The impetuosity of those gallant fellows, after two weeks of hard marching and hard fighting on short rations, was not only extraordinary, but irresistible,” Stuart wrote. “The enemy's masses vanished before them like grain before the scythe, and that regiment elicited the admiration of every beholder, and eclipsed the many laurels already won by its gallant veterans.” McIntosh's men scattered to the protection of nearby woods.

Had Stuart moved immediately to support the 1st Virginia, the contest might have been decided. But before he could bring more force to bear, Custer's 7th Michigan Cavalry moved forward. The 7th was a small, inexperienced but eager regiment. Gregg ordered them to counterattack. This was Custer's moment. He rode to the front of the 7th, tucked his small hat into his pocket, drew his saber, and gave the order to charge.

“Come on you Wolverines!” he shouted and spurred his horse ahead. Custer rode bareheaded into battle, his golden locks streaming in the
wind as the Michiganders raced after him across the field. The dismounted 9th and 13th Virginia regiments opened up on the Michiganders, half of whom veered into a fence. Major Luther S. Trowbridge of the 5th Michigan saw squadron piled upon squadron, “breaking upon the struggling mass in front, like the waves of the sea upon a rocky shore, until all were mixed in one confused and tangled mess.”
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Troops from the 1st Virginia jumped from their horses and attacked from the other side of the fence. Lieutenant George R. Briggs of the 7th Michigan recalled that “bullets were flying mighty thick at this time, and the air was filled with the shouts of men—the bursting of shells—the cries of the wounded—and the commands of the officers on both sides.”
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“Custer's men had now warmed up to the work,” observed Colonel William A. Morgan of the 1st Virginia Cavalry. “The fighting here was fierce, and terrible, they demanded our surrender, we telling them to go to that speculative country, generally supposed to be even hotter than the plains of Gettysburg were at that time.”
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Some officers of the 7th pulled down the fence, and the Virginians broke with the Federals in pursuit. “My men did not have time to reload their carbines,” Colonel Morgan recalled, “but were clubbing them to ward off and return the sabre cuts, and thrusts of the maddened enemy.”
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Custer had continued across the field with the rest of the regiment but lost contact with the enemy and was turning to pull back. As he did so, Colonel Laurence Baker of the 1st North Carolina Cavalry saw an opportunity and attacked. The startled men of the 7th Michigan stampeded back toward their lines, and another frenzied fight ensued as remnants of the 5th Michigan and McIntosh's men pitched in. “For God's sake men,” McIntosh implored, “if you are ever going to stand, stand now, for you are on your free soil!”
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With the battlefield in chaos, Confederate Generals Wade Hampton and Fitzhugh Lee appeared from behind Cress Ridge leading their two battle-hardened brigades. “In superb form, with sabers glistening, they
advanced,” James Kidd wrote, “It was an inspiring and imposing spectacle that brought a thrill to the hearts of the spectators on the opposite slope.”
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Captain Miller said, “A grander spectacle than their advance has rarely been beheld! They marched with well-aligned fronts and steady reigns; Their polished saber-blades dazzling in the piercing rays of a bright summer's sun. . . . All eyes turned upon them and it seemed like folly to resist them.”
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Gregg watched with growing concern as the rebel horsemen began thundering across the field. The only fresh unit he had left was the 1st Michigan regiment, which was heavily outnumbered. Nevertheless, he ordered them in. Custer, who had returned from the field, rode to Colonel Charles Town, commander of the 1st, to relay the order. “Colonel Town, I shall have to ask you to charge,” he said, “and I want to go on in with you.”
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Custer repeated his rallying cry, “Come on, you Wolverines!” and they rushed forward, Custer four lengths ahead.
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“In addition to this numerical superiority,” Custer wrote, “the enemy had the advantage of position and were exultant over the repulse of the 7th Michigan Cavalry. All these facts considered, would seem to render success on the part of the 1st impossible. Not so, however.”

Custer's horse, Roanoke, fell, but George leapt onto another mount and rode into the clash. “Then it was steel to steel,” Kidd wrote. “The fighting became hand to hand, blow for blow, cut for cut and oath for oath,” recalled Colonel Morgan of the 1st Virginia Cavalry. With the sounds of cannonade and musket fire in the background from Pickett's assault, “it seemed as if the very furies from the infernal regions were turned loose on each other.”
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“The First Michigan boys striking the rebs in the left flank, crowded them up in a heap,” Captain Harris recalled, “so much so that the rebs could hardly do anything but try to defend themselves.”
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Captain William E. Miller of Company H, 3rd Pennsylvania Cavalry, said the sound of the collision of the two forces was “a crash like the falling of timber.”
There followed “the clashing of sabers, the firing of pistols, the demands for surrender and cries of the combatants now filled the air.”
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Horses fell and crushed their riders; other unhorsed cavalrymen fought on foot. Miller, who had direct orders to hold his ground, disregarded them and struck the Confederate left. Miller was wounded, but his disobedience helped repulse the Confederates, and in 1897 he was awarded a Medal of Honor for his action.

“For minutes,” Kidd recalled, “and for minutes that seemed like years—the gray column stood and staggered before the blow; then yielded, and fled.”
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“For a moment,” Custer wrote, “but only a moment, that long, heavy column stood its ground; then, unable to withstand the impetuosity of our attack, it gave way into a disorderly rout, leaving vast numbers of their dead and wounded in our possession, while the 1st, being masters of the field, had the proud satisfaction of seeing the much-vaunted ‘chivalry,' led by their favorite commander, seek safety in headlong flight.” Major Luther S. Trowbridge of the 5th Michigan thought the retreating rebels looked like “a flock of frightened sheep,” and remarked that “the picture of that stubble field, with a thousand men scampering over it for dear life, our men in hot pursuit, while Pennington's battery sent its shrieking shells over our heads will ever remain most vividly photographed in my memory.”
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Stuart's attack was broken. The outnumbered and disorganized Union troops had mounted a fierce enough resistance to frustrate the Confederate plan and bar the way to the Union rear. The Confederate cavalry withdrew, and Custer returned to Gregg, his face spattered with blood.

Things had not gone as well on the southern end of the field. Kilpatrick was ordered to harry the Confederate right flank, but rather than
swing wide and deep, as Stuart was trying to do, he struck directly into the rebel flank, anchored in the rough ground near Round Top and Devil's Den. He first sent in Merritt's brigade, attacking dismounted on relatively open ground against Brigadier General George “Tige” Anderson's brigade of Georgia infantry, who handily checked the assault. Kilpatrick then ordered Elon Farnsworth and his brigade to attack on horseback to Merritt's right, across much rougher terrain and against Confederate infantry emplaced behind trees, fences, and walls.

After futile efforts by the 1st West Virginia and 5th New York regiments, Kilpatrick ordered in the 1st Vermont. Farnsworth protested, as Henry C. Parsons recalled, saying the members of his command were “‘too good men to kill.' Kilpatrick turned, greatly excited and said: ‘Do you refuse to obey my orders? If you are afraid to lead the charge, I will lead it.' Farnsworth rose in his stirrups and leaned forward, with his sabre half-drawn; he looked magnificent in his passion and cried: ‘Take that back!' Kilpatrick rose defiantly, but repentingly said: ‘I did not mean it; forget it.' For a moment, nothing was said. [Then] Farnsworth spoke: ‘General, if you order the charge I will lead it, but you must take the awful responsibility.'”
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The result was a slaughter, a “mad charge by a mad leader,” one rebel defender said. Farnsworth's brigade suffered a total of 183 casualties, and Farnsworth himself was struck down by five bullets. It was one of the episodes in his career that earned General Kilpatrick the nickname “Kil-cavalry.”

Custer's brigade suffered even greater losses. Of the 254 Union casualties in the fight near Rummel Farm, 219 had been in Custer's command.
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However, these men were not wasted, as Farnsworth and his command had been. Kilpatrick's assault was ill planned and poorly executed, and had Custer been on hand for the attack, it would have made no difference. But had Custer not been on the field with Gregg, Stuart would have had the edge, and rebel cavalry would have rampaged
in the Union rear during the critical moments of Pickett's Charge. Whether it would have been enough to change the outcome of that assault is debatable, but Custer's critical role in the victory on east cavalry field is not.

General Meade, in his official report of the Battle of Gettysburg, summed up the cavalry fight against Stuart in one sentence: “General Gregg was engaged with the enemy on our extreme right, having passed across the Baltimore pike and Bonaughtown road and boldly attacked the enemy's left and rear.” Stuart claimed victory, saying, “The enemy were driven from the field,” and that “had the enemy's main body been dislodged, as was confidently hoped and expected, I was in precisely the right position to discover it and improve the opportunity.”
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Wade Hampton praised his men for keeping the Union cavalry in check. Edward Porter Alexander, Longstreet's artillery commander, gave his opinion that “the result [of the cavalry engagement] was a draw, each side claiming what it held at the close as a victory.”
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Whatever the Confederates might believe, the Union cavalrymen knew they had achieved something significant. They had kept the Baltimore Pike open, held the Union right, and prevented Stuart from savaging the rear of Meade's army. John D. Follmer of the 16th Pennsylvania Cavalry said that “Custer was in his glory that day, if ever, and the Michigan Brigade proved itself to be the equal of any brigade in the service.”
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Custer later rather immodestly wrote in his report, “I challenge the annals of warfare to produce a more brilliant or successful charge of cavalry.”
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CHAPTER EIGHT

THE “DARING, TERRIBLE DEMON” OF BATTLE