Gettysburg at 150: The Accounting in Lives and Difficult Moral Questions

“Why do men fight who were born to be brothers?”James Longstreet

“It is well that war is so terrible. We should grow too fond of it.” Robert E Lee

As the sun set on the evening of July 3rd 1863 the battered Army of Northern Virginia and the battered but victorious Army of the Potomac tended their wounds, buried their dead and prepared for what might happen next.

Following the disastrous attack aimed at the Union center, what is commonly called “Pickett’s Charge” Lee and his surviving commanders prepared for an expected Union counter attack. However, George Meade, the commander of the Army of the Potomac who had correctly anticipated Lee’s assault decided not to gamble on a counter attack, though it was tempting. He knew too well the tenacity and skill of the Confederate commanders and soldiers on the defense and did not want to risk a setback that might give Lee another chance.

The dead and wounded littered the battlefield. Field hospitals, little more than butcher shops where arms and legs were amputated by overworked surgeons and attendants while those with abdominal wounds that could not be easily repaired were made as comfortable as possible. Triage was simple. If a casualty was thought to have a reasonable chance at survival he was treated, if not they were set aside in little groups and allowed to die as peacefully as possible. Chaplains made their way around, Protestant’s ensuring that their soldiers “knew Jesus” and Catholics administering the Last Rites.

One Confederate soldier describe the scene west of the town on July 4th:

“The sights and smells that assailed us were simply indescribable-corpses swollen to twice their size, asunder with the pressure of gases and vapors…The odors were nauseating, and so deadly that in a short time we all sickened and were lying with our mouths close to the ground, most of us vomiting profusely.” 

Among the killed and wounded were the great and the small. John Reynolds who died on day one, Winfield Scott Hancock, the valiant commander of the Union II Corps wounded during Pickett’s Charge, Mad Dan Sickles, who had nearly brought disaster on the Federal lines by advancing to the Peach Orchard on July 2nd had a leg amputated.

The Confederates suffered grievous losses. Divisional commanders like Dorsey Pender were mortally wounded. John Bell Hood was severely wounded, Isaac Trimble was wounded and captured while Harry Heth was wounded. Numerous Generals were killed or wounded and among regimental commanders the toll was fearful. In Picket’s division alone all three brigade commanders, Kemper, Armistead and Garnett were killed or wounded while 26 of 40 Field Grade officers were casualties. 46% (78 of 171) of the regiments of the Army of Northern Virginia suffered casualties at the command level. The Confederate casualties, especially among the best leaders were irreplaceable and Lee’s Army never recovered from the loss of seasoned leaders who were already in short supply.

One witness, Frank Haskell looked in at a field hospital in the Union II Corps area and wrote:

“The Surgeons with coats off and sleeves rolled up…are about thier work,… “and their faces and clothes are spattered with blood; and though they look weary and tired, their work goes systematically and steadily on- how much and how long they have worked, the piles of legs, arms, feet, hands, fingers…partially tell.” (Gettysburg by Stephen W Sears, Mariner Books, Houghton Mifflin Company Boston, New York 2004 p.466)

All told between 46,000 and 51,000 Americans were killed or wounded during the three days of Gettysburg. Busey and Martin’s Regimental Strengths and Losses at Gettysburg lists the following casualty figures, other accounts list higher numbers. One also has to remember that many of the missing were killed but simply never found or if their bodies were found identified:

killed           wounded         missing         total

Union                    3,155          14,531             5,369           23,055

Confederate         4,708          12,693             5,830            23,231

Total                     7,863           27,224            11,199          46,286

To provide a reference in 8 years of war in Iraq the United States suffered fewer casualties than during the three days of Gettysburg. It was the bloodiest single battle in American history.

At the end of the war, Joshua Chamberlain, the hero of Little Round Top who was well acquainted with the carnage of war asked the most difficult questions:

“…men made in the image of God, marred by the hand of man, and must we say in the name of God? And where is the reckoning for such things? And who is answerable? One might almost shrink from the sound of his own voice, which had launched into the palpitating air words of order–do we call t?–fraught with such ruin. Was it God’s command that we heard, or His forgiveness that we must forever implore?”

May we pray for peace that such an event never take place again.

Peace

Padre Steve+