Category Archives: Gettysburg

October 28, 2015 · 07:00

Abner Doubleday’s Finest Day: July 1st at Gettysburg

Friends of Padre Steve’s World

I am getting ready to take another group of students from the Staff College up to Gettysburg this weekend, so for the next few days I will be putting out excepts of a chapter that I have been working on dealing with the fight conducted by Abner Doubleday and First Corps following the death of John Reynolds.

I hope you enjoy,

Peace

Padre Steve+

Major General Abner Doubleday

As the initial Confederate attacks were driven back by the actions of Reynolds, Doubleday and their subordinate commanders, Harry Heth’s battered brigades fell back and regrouped to prepare for another assault. As Heth reorganized his division he was bolstered by the arrival Major General Dorsey Pender’s Division powerful division.

With John Reynolds dead and Oliver Howard moving his Eleventh Corps into position on Cemetery Hill and to the north of Gettysburg, Major General Abner Doubleday had assumed command of First Corps on McPherson and Seminary Ridge and successfully parried Heth’s initial attacks, in the process shattering the brigades of James Archer and Joseph Davis.

Doubleday was an experienced soldier but did not enjoy a stellar reputation in the Army of the Potomac, despite the fact that he was the senior division commander in First Corps. Doubleday came from a prominent New York family; his grandfather had fought in the American Revolution and had fought at Bunker Hill. His father served four years in Congress. By the time he was admitted to West Point Doubleday had worked for two years as a civil engineer. Doubleday graduated 24^th in a class of 52 in the West Point Class of 1842 along with future Gettysburg commanders “Longstreet, McLaws, Richard Anderson and John Newton.” [1] After his graduation he served a rather uneventful career as an artillery officer, including service in Mexico and on the frontier. Shortly before the war he was transferred to South Carolina where he was second in command at Fort Sumter when the Confederates opened fire on the fort and began the Civil War.

Doubleday was definitely an unusual character by the standards of the ante-bellum army officer corps. The “mustachioed, barrel-chested Doubleday considered himself a thoroughly modern man, unencumbered by the cheap affections of honor and chivalry with which so many officers bedecked themselves.” [2] He had few real friends in the army. He was a rather vocal abolitionist “which endeared him to few of the army’s socially conservative generals” [3] and he allowed his political opinions to infringe on his relationships with other officers. In the days before the war at Fort Sumter “he relished being hissed in the streets as a “Black Republican” when his official duties took him over the water to downtown Charleston.” [4]

Doubleday fired the first shot on the Union side at Fort Sumter, and with the expansion of the army to meet the rebellion he “expected that his anti-slavery credentials would guarantee a rise to the top of Lincoln’s army.” [5] However, he was to be disappointed. While promotion came to him it was not to the top of the army. Doubleday had the “reputation of being a cautious, deliberate plodder,” [6] and the artillery commander of First Corps, the somewhat curmudgeonly but honest, Colonel Charles Wainwright noted “Doubleday knows enough, but he is entirely impractical, and so slow at getting an idea through his head.” [7] Likewise, the new army commander George Meade had formed an unfavorable opinion of Doubleday’s leadership ability, when both served as division commanders in First Corps. Meade considered Doubleday “slow and pedantic.” [8]

Doubleday was somewhat portly and his physical appearance did little to inspire his soldiers or officers, and some of his troops nicknamed him “Old Forty-Eight Hours” for his deliberate, even slothful style.” [9] His promotion in the wartime army was rather typical for a career officer. He was “promoted to Brigadier General in February 1862 and commanded a brigade at Second Bull Run and a division at South Mountain and in later battles.” [10] As a brigade commander his best work was at Brawner’s Farm on the eve of Second Manassas, where Doubleday on his own initiative threw “two of his regiments into line to bolster Brig. Gen. John Gibbon’s brigade against a larger Confederate force…together the fought a superior force to a standstill.” [11] He was promoted to Major General in November 1862 and received command of the First Division Third Division of First Corps. At Antietam Doubleday led the division “into the carnage of the Cornfield and West Woods, and one colonel described him as a “gallant officer…remarkable cool and at the very front of battle.” [12] He led the division again at Fredericksburg, but the division saw little action. After the reorganization of the army following Fredericksburg he was given command of Third Division of First Corps at Chancellorsville, but again saw no action.

At Gettysburg Doubleday went into battle “stiff and pompous, still wearing his laurels as an “old Sumter hero” [13] and complaining about the Henry Slocum to command Twelfth Corps, even though he was senior to Slocum. That being said, Doubleday’s actions in the wake of Reynolds’s death demonstrated that he was capable of quick thinking and leadership from the front and in the next few hours Doubleday “had his best command hours of the war.” [14]

A Brief Lull

After the initial repulse of the Heth’s division, Doubleday continued to organize his defenses. He could see Heth’s division reforming its lines on Herr’s Ridge and Pender’s division as it arrived and deployed to Heth’s left. Doubleday had no directions from Reynolds as to that General’s defensive plan but be believed was that the ridges could be a redoubt and his instinct was “to hold on to the position until ordered to leave it,” an officer of the 149^th Pennsylvania heard Doubleday say that “all he could do was fight until he got sufficient information to form his own plan.” [15] Doubleday wrote in his after action report, “to fall back without orders from the commanding general might have inflicted lasting disgrace upon the corps, and as general Reynolds, who was high in the confidence of General Meade, had formed his lines to resist the entrance of the enemy into Gettysburg, I naturally supposed that it was the intention to defend the place.” [16] Wadsworth’s division, bloodied but unbeaten remained in place in McPherson’s woods and across the Cashtown Road where Cutler’s brigade had fought the Confederates to a standstill at the Railroad Cut. During the lull these brigades had their ammunition replenished by his recently arrived ammunition trains.

To counter the Confederate move to his right he deployed his own small Third Division under the acting command of Brigadier General Thomas Rowley. He placed Rowley’s brigade to the left of the Iron Brigade to extend the line to the south and the brigade of Colonel Roy Stone to occupy the area around the McPherson House and Barn which had been left open when Cutler’s brigade advanced to the railroad cut.

When the Second Division under the command of Brigadier General John Cleveland Robinson arrived Doubleday placed it in reserve around the Lutheran Seminary where they and some of John Buford’s dismounted troopers began to set up a hasty “barricade of fence rails and fieldstone on the seminary’s west side.” [17] Doubleday and Wadsworth deployed every artillery piece of that the Corps had available to support their infantry, sometimes over the objections of the Corps artillery commander Colonel Charles Wainwright. Wainwright “had no confidence in Doubleday, and felt that he would be a weak reed to lean upon,” [18] and on his own initiative deployed most of his batteries on Seminary Ridge where he believed that they could affect the battle but not be torn to pieces by Confederate artillery or shredded by close range musket fire. Despite the “pleas from infantry officers along the rise, Wainwright would send guns forward only under peremptory orders to do so.” ^{^[19]} Wainwright was hesitant to risk his guns in exposed positions along McPherson’s Ridge and deployed most of his available artillery near the seminary in good defensive positions and stationed his limbers not far off so in the event of a retreat that he might have the opportunity to save his guns.

About Two o’clock Major General Oliver Howard, commander of the Eleventh Corps who was now the senior officer on the field made his way to seminary ridge where he met with Doubleday. Howard had already been working to support First Corps by ordering Schurz, who was now in acting command of Eleventh Corps to move north of the town to connect with Doubleday’s flank and securing Cemetery Hill as a natural redoubt and fallback position. While little is known what was said between the two commanders it is certain that Howard notified Doubleday of the locations of his corps headquarters and that of his divisions. Howard asked Doubleday “to continue his work of protecting the left of the Union position, while he would take care of the right…..Before leaving, Howard, repeated the instructions he had given Wadsworth, to hold the position as long as he could and then retire.” [20] Doubleday asked Howard for reinforcements, but there were none available, the best that either man could hope was that Henry Slocum’s Twelfth Corps, now about five miles distant could arrive soon. “If Slocum could make Gettysburg in the next hour and a half, Howard could post the 12^th Corps on the right flank of his own corps and firm up the defensive arc that now stretched north and west of Gettysburg.” [21] However, despite the repeated requests of Howard, Slocum never came and did not advance toward Gettysburg until about three-thirty in the afternoon. Howard’s aid Captain Daniel Hall who delivered the messages and briefed Slocum on the situation at Gettysburg later stated that Slocum’s “conduct on that occasion was anything but honorable, soldierly, or patriotic.” [22]

With his troops under heavy artillery fire and Heth and Pender’s divisions advancing, a new threat emerged from the north. Messengers from Gamble’s cavalry scouts of Buford’s division to the north of town reported the arrival of Ewell’s Second Corps. To meet the threat Doubleday was obliged to send Robinson’s division north to occupy the extension of Seminary Ridge known as Oak Ridge. His lead brigade under the command of Brigadier General Henry Baxter advanced to the end of the ridge near the Mummasburg Road and were joined by Brigadier General Gabriel Paul’s brigade.

Unlike the relatively small brigades of Third Division whose command structures were disrupted by Reynold’s death and Doubleday’s acting command of the corps, these brigades were comparatively large and powerful units and very well led. Their commander, Robinson “an old regular whose flowing beard lent him the look of a biblical prophet, had seen considerable fighting but was yet to be tested as a division commander.” [23] During this battle he more than met the test of an effective division commander. As the advance regiments of the division moved into position on Oak Ridge and the Mummasburg road they were greeted by a few of Gamble’s cavalrymen who told them “You stand alone between the Rebel army and your homes. Fight like hell!” [24] Upon their arrival Robinson refused the line in order to connect to the advance elements of Eleventh Corps which were arriving to the north of Gettysburg.

Notes

[1] Pfanz Harry W. Gettysburg: The First Day University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill and London 2001 p.121

[2] Goodheart, Adam 1861: The Civil War Awakening Vintage Books a division of Random House, New York 2011 p.5

[3] Wert, Jeffry D. The Sword of Lincoln: The Army of the Potomac Simon and Schuster, New York and London 2005 p.276

[4] Ibid. Goodheart 1861 p.5

[5] Guelzo, Allen C. Gettysburg: The Last Invasion Vintage Books, a Division of Random House, New York 2013 p.30

[6] Sears, Stephen W. Gettysburg. Houghton Mifflin Co. Boston and New York 2003 p.181

[7] Wainwright, Charles S. A Diary of Battle: The Personal Journal of Colonel Charles S. Wainwright 1861-1865 edited by Allan Nevins, Da Capo Press, New York 1998 p.172

[8] Cleaves, Freeman Meade of Gettysburg University of Oklahoma Press, Norman and London 1960 p.143

[9] Tagg, Larry The Generals of Gettysburg: The Leaders of America’s Greatest Battle Da Capo Press Cambridge MA 1998 Amazon Kindle Edition p.25

[10] Ibid. Pfanz Harry Gettysburg: The First Day p.122

[11] Ibid. Tagg The Generals of Gettysburg p.26

[12] Ibid. Tagg The Generals of Gettysburg p.26

[13] Catton, Bruce The Army of the Potomac: Glory Road Doubleday and Company, Garden City New York, 1952 p.273

[14] Ibid. Sears Gettysburg p.181

[15] Ibid. Guelzo Gettysburg: The Last Invasion p.161

[16] Trudeau, Noah Andre. Gettysburg: A Testing of Courage, Harper Collins Publishers, New York 2002 p.206

[17] Ibid. Guelzo Gettysburg: The Last Invasion p.162

[18] Ibid. Wainwright A Diary of Battle p.233

[19] Ibid. Trudeau Gettysburg: A Testing of Courage p.200

[20] Coddington, Edwin B. The Gettysburg Campaign: A Study in Command, A Touchstone Book, Simon and Schuster New York, 1968 p.282

[21] Ibid. Guelzo Gettysburg: The Last Invasion p.162

[22] Melton, Brian C. Sherman’s Forgotten General: Henry W. Slocum University of Missouri Press, Columbia and London 2007 p.121

[23] Ibid. Sears Gettysburg p.34

[24] Ibid. Trudeau Gettysburg: A Testing of Courage p.206

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Filed under civil war, Gettysburg, History, leadership, Military

Tagged as abner doubleday, battle of gettysburg, charles wainwright, dorsey pender, harry heth, james wadsworth, john c robinson, john reynolds, mcpherson's ridge, oliver o howard, seminary ridge

September 14, 2015 · 07:00

A Christian & an Enthusiast: General Oliver O. Howard

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

A change of pace as I get ready for a new class and a section of my Gettysburg Text about Major General Oliver O. Howard. Howard is interesting because alone of senior Union generals his Christian Faith guided his actions and he was maligned by some for that faith.

This section is only biographic sketch before his Eleventh Corps went into action at Gettysburg. Likewise it does not discuss his very successful command of a corps and army in the West under William Tecumseh Sherman, nor his post war service. I think that he makes an interesting character study; after all, the one constant in history is humanity. We learn from men like Howard and that is important.

Peace

Padre Steve+

Major General Oliver O. Howard, U.S. Army

With John Reynolds dead and Abner Doubleday directing First Corps in its defense west of Gettysburg Major General Oliver O. Howard, commander of Eleventh Corps assumed command of the Federal forces around Gettysburg. Howard was one of the more unusual characters in the senior leadership of the Army of the Potomac, and later when he served under William Tecumseh Sherman’s command in the west, mostly because of his strong Evangelical Christian religious convictions and the fact that he did not drink. Sherman remarked to a group of generals who were mocking Howard’s temperance, “Let Howard alone! I want one officer who don’t drink!” [1]

“A Christian and an Enthusiast”

The thirty-three year old Howard was from Maine, his father had died when he was ten and in 1846 at the age of sixteen he entered Bowdoin College. He graduated from Bowdoin in 1850 near the top of his small class, and education, far from being something simply to prepare himself for a career was important of itself, and he told his mother, “Education is my first aim…. I seek not money, but a cultivated and enlightened mind, becoming & corresponding with the age in which we live.” [2] During his time at Bowdoin Howard was introspective and frequently mused on his own shortcomings and failures. He also showed little interest in world or national events, including the war with Mexico, but in his first year at Bowdoin he did take an interest in the cousin of a classmate, Elizabeth Ann Waite, or Lizzie who eventually became his wife.

While he was finishing his time at Bowdoin he was still uncertain of what he would do. It was then that his uncle, Congressman John Otis who had help to raise him following the death of his father secured for him an appointment to West Point. He did very well academically but at times struggled with some of his fellow students, some of who considered him “priggish, self-righteous, and opinionated.” [3] This was most likely due to a number of reasons, first his moderate abolitionist views, which were unpopular with many cadets, his active participation in the Bible class, which some classmates ridiculed, and his high academic standing, which provoked the jealousy of others. Howard was also resented by some for his friendship with Sergeant Warren Lothrop, a Mexican War veteran, a childhood friend who was “the son of a close friend of his own father” [4] as well as maintaining a friendship with a cadet “who had been “cut” – shunned – by the corps.” [5] While he stood by the cadet, he was forbidden to maintain the friendship by the Commandant of Cadets due to rules on fraternization, but in the eyes of some classmates, the damage had been done. One cadet who never accepted Howard was Custis Lee, an academic rival and the son of Robert E. Lee.

Despite a rough start Howard became friends with many cadets, including some who had shunned him early in his West Point experience. However, one friend who stood by Howard throughout was a cadet from Virginia named J.E.B. Stuart, who he knew from the Bible class. Howard wrote of that friendship, “I can never forget the manliness of J.E.B. Stuart…. He spoke to me, he visited me, and we became warm friends, often, on Saturday afternoons, visiting the young ladies of the post together.” [6] Howard’s friends included cadets from north and south, and never appeared to let political or ideological differences influence his choice of friends.

He graduated fourth in the class of 1854 and commissioned as a Brevet Second Lieutenant in the highly technical Ordinance Corps. He married Lizzie the following year and held a number of assignments in his corps before being assigned to Florida at the tail end of the Seminole Wars where as an Ordinance officer he saw no action. However, during his time in Florida he experienced his conversion to Evangelical Christianity, following his attendance of a number of Methodist revival meetings and his future life would bear evidence of the influence of the founder of Methodism, John Wesley. His faith became a facet of his life that he would never waver from incurring the praise as well as the criticism of various contemporaries. He wrote Lizzie:

“I then bore hat the text above in mind, & said in my heart oh! My Saviour, I know that thou canst save me! I made an effort to fully believe that my sins were washed in the blood of the Lamb, that my dear Saviour had actually saved me at that moment, i.e. had pardoned all my transgressions of the laws of God, & all the wickedness of a corrupt heart – The fullness of the glow of happiness came into my heart, the tugging & burning left me – the choking sensation was gone…my mind is as clear as when making out an Ordinance Return…” [7]

Following his conversion he led prayers and Bible studies, had enlisted me to his quarters for morning devotions and even considered leaving the army for the ministry. It was fortunate for Howard that his commander, an elderly Colonel, Gustavus Loomis, was a devout Christian who had first taken him to the Methodist revival meetings, for many other senior officers would have not approved of such overtly evangelical behavior.

Howard was transferred back to West Point in September of 1857 where now as a First Lieutenant he was assigned as an instructor in Mathematics, and was able to again be with Lizzie and their children. At West Point he continued his religious activities, leading Bible studies and became the superintendent of a Sunday school for the children of enlisted men and briefly explored the possibility of entering the ministry with a local Episcopal priest and even studied Hebrew for a time.

During his time as an instructor at West Point the young officer, like many devout converts to any religion, wrestled with his faith. Always introspective Howard became even more so, do much soul-searching and with two issues that he recognized in himself, vanity and pride. He wrote: “the pride & haughtiness of my heart is more than pen can tell, but I believe God will so school me, by failures when I act without Christ, by disappointments & afflictions, as to bring my miserably foolish soul into full subjection to himself…. I fear if God would give me success with my heart as it is now, that I would be puffed up with pride & thus lose the countenance of my blessed Saviour.” [8] That struggle to harmonize the tension between his desire to excel in the army and life, with his concerns for his soul should he become consumed by ambition and vanity would become more pronounced within a few very short years.

As he had for most of his life Howard took little interest in political questions and the growing movement toward secession. This was not surprising because Howard, whose religious commitment was continuing to grow was planning to take a leave of absence from the army to attend Bangor Theological Seminary, where his brother, Charles was already a student. However, when Fort Sumter was fired on Howard “abandoned the plan to enter the ministry and determined to stay as a regular or volunteer until the war was over.” [9]

As the officers who made their choice to remain loyal to the Union were now confronted with the decision to remain in the Regular Army or join the new volunteer regiments being formed by Northern states. For many, loyalty and the desire to fight to protect the Union was mixed with a certain amount of pragmatic ambition. Remaining in the relatively small Regular Army might leave them in the position of assisting the training of new volunteer units, or involved with the administration or organizing and equipping them, possibly with limited promotion opportunity while taking a volunteer commission could lead to rapid promotion, command of a regiment or even a brigade.

But initially “the was “a prevalent opposition to regular officers accepting commissions in the volunteers,” [10] but soon the reality that the Regular army was insufficient to bring the rebellious states back into the Union caused the army to allow officers to serve with the volunteers. Howard’s fellow Mathematics instructor, Lieutenant Gouverneur Warren was one of the first young officers at West Point to accept a volunteer commission in the Fifth New York Infantry, the Duryea Zouaves. Howard wrote to Maine’s governor, Israel Washburne offering his services to the State, and after an initial rebuff was offered command of the Third Maine Volunteer Infantry. When he received the offer from Maine Howard took it to Lieutenant Colonel John Reynolds, the Commandant of Cadets and told Reynolds of the offer and asked, “I’ve had the tender, or what amounts to it, of a Maine Regiment. What answer would you give, colonel?’ Reynolds replied, “You’ll accept, of course, Howard,” [11] and then preceded to give the young officer a lesson on what colonels needed to know.

One thing Howard had settled in his mind was the legitimacy of war. As a cadet at West Point he had studied the works of Henry Wager Halleck, who wrote one of the first comprehensive books on strategy by an American and who included in his work a synopsis of the traditional Just War Theory. Halleck, like Howard, was a devout Christian and in his book he wrote “The prevention and punishment of crime causes much human suffering; nevertheless the good of the community requires that crime should be prevented and punished. So, as a nation, we employ military officers to man our ships and forts, to protect our property and our persons, and to repel and punish those who seek to rob us of our life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness…” [12] When Fort Sumter was attacked and other Federal installations in the South being overrun Howard believed that “it was a citizen’s duty to defend his country just as a father would defend his wife and children from an assassin.” [13] When the regiment arrived in New York on its way to Washington it was presented a flag by patriotic Maine citizens living there. Upon receiving it, Howard thanked them and his words reflected his thoughts about war and duty, as well as his religious faith: “I was born in the East, but I was educated by my country. I know no section; I know no party; I never did. I know only my country to love it, and my God who is over my country. We go forth to battle in defense of righteousness and liberty, civil and religious. We go strong in muscle, strong in heart, strong in soul, because we are right…” [14]

Howard’s faith would be a source of personal strength throughout the war and while some like Joseph Hooker ridiculed his faith saying “He was always taken up with Sunday Schools and the temperance cause. Those things are all very good, you know, but have little to do with commanding an army corps. He would command a prayer meeting with a good deal more ability than he would an army.” [15] Likewise his “reputation as a Christian “hampered his acceptance by both fellow officers and enlisted men.” [16] Despite this, many soldiers and officers in every unit Howard commanded came to admire him

Despite this Howard did eventually succeed and became the only officer of his West Point class of 1854 to become a Major General in the Regular Army of the United States. It was not always an easy road, but Howard displayed a resiliency in the face difficulty and even defeat, a resiliency that enabled him to grow as an officer and commander as the war went on.

Shortly after the Third Maine joined the army at Washington Howard was made a brigade commander. His brigade was involved in the final attack at Bull Run were it was caught up in the disaster that overtook the army of Irvin McDowell. He was promoted to brigadier general and commanded a brigade during McClellan’s inept Peninsular Campaign and “at Fair Oaks on June 1, he was hit twice in the right arm while leading a charge; a second bullet shattered the bone near the elbow, and the arm had to be amputated.” [17] Howard’s bravery in the face of the enemy was noted, especially after having received the first wound he continued to lead his men despite having three horses shot from under him. One of his regimental commanders wrote, “The General was the only Brigadier that I saw on the field who led his men into battle & handled them there – He acted with a bravery bordering on rashness & nobly sustained his reputation as a brave and efficient officer.” [18]

Within two months Howard was back with the army, his former officers writing McClellan to recommend that Howard be given command of a division. He did not immediately get that, but was given command of a brigade of Pennsylvania Reserves, the Philadelphia Brigade in John Sedgwick’s division. He took command of that division when Sedgwick was wounded at Antietam. He commanded the division when it was thrown into General Ambrose Burnside’s ill-advised and doomed assault of Marye’s Heights at the Battle of Fredericksburg. Though his division could not break the Confederate line he was commended by Major General Charles Sumner and Major General Darius Couch for his actions. Sumner noted Howard’s “judicious disposition” in driving the Confederates from Fredericksburg” while “Couch, in speak of the corps losses, stated: “Howard, coming up late, lost 700 men, besides 150 on the 11^th. He did well in the part assigned to him.” [19]

During the winter following Burnside’s relief and the appointment of Major General Joseph Hooker to command the Army of the Potomac, Howard remained in command of his division. The vanity that he wrestled with in his spiritual life got the better of him when Daniel Sickles, a political general with no formal military training was appointed to command the Third Corps. Howard, who was senior to Sickles protested to Hooker and was promised the newly arrived Eleventh Corps. The corps, which had just become part of Hooker’s army was never “accepted as a true part of the Army of the Potomac,” where it was viewed as a “foreign contingent,” [20] “and was looked upon by the older units with some distain, despite its having seen considerable action.” [21] The previous Corps commander, Major General Fritz Sigel had just left the army after a disagreement regarding not receiving a larger command during the reorganization of the army. When he left many of the corps’ soldiers remained very loyal to their old commander, and “thought Howard was being advanced at Sigel’s expense.” [22]

But Hooker had created a problem for himself. Eleventh Corps was the only large unit in the Federal Army with a high concentration of Germans. Many of the soldiers had enlisted to serve under men that they knew and trusted, Fritz Sigel and Carl Schurz. When Sigel left command Hooker could have appointed Carl Schurz to command the corps, but “Hooker had little use for Schurz’s generalship,” [23] and bluntly told Secretary of War Stanton that he would not appoint Schurz to corps command. For Howard, this was not good, for “in his anxiety to receive a command commensurate with his rank he had failed to consider all the consequences.” [24]

Howard took command of Eleventh Corps barely a month before Hooker launched his offensive against Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, which culminated in the Battle of Chancellorsville. Howard struggled to gain the acceptance of the German soldiers of his new command, many of whom were resentful of having to serve under a non-German officer who did not understand them. Howard’s overtly Evangelical Christian approach to command and stress on temperance, which included the distribution of religious tracts did not endear him to the Germans, many of who were Catholics, free-thinkers and beer drinkers. While Howard’s piety was appreciated many soldiers of English and Scottish descent with Protestant roots, the “Germans of the Eleventh Corps, many of whom were freethinkers, the activities of “Old Prayer Book” were not welcome…. The Eleventh Corps would go on campaign under a general it neither liked nor trusted, and Howard was marching quite out of step with his command.” [25] Some understood this, Colonel Charles Wainwright, commander of the First Corps artillery wrote, “Howard, who succeeds Sigel in the Eleventh is brave enough, and a most perfect gentleman. He is a Christian and an enthusiast, as well as a man of ability, but there is some doubt as to his having snap enough to manage the Germans, who require to be ruled with a rod of iron.” [26]

In the ensuing battle Howard’s Eleventh Corps was taken in the flank by Stonewall Jackson’s troops which outnumbered his badly situated corps by nearly three-to-one, his only reserve brigade having been taken by Hooker to support Sickle’s Third Corps. The ensuing action was a disaster as regiment after regiment was rolled up by the rapidly advancing Confederate phalanx.

Blame could be assigned to both Hooker and Howard, Hooker for leaving Eleventh Corps unsupported and isolated on the flank without a reserve, and Howard for not taking better precautions to secure his right flank from a surprise attack. Neither Howard, nor his senior division commander Brigadier general Charles Devens “personally investigated any of the reports of Rebel activity on their front, and Howard compounded his negligence by leaving his command for two critical hours.” [27] Only Carl Schurz took any action to protect the corps flank and rear by quietly facing three of his regiments west. When the night was over Howard admitted “I wanted to die…. That night I did all in my power to remedy the mistake, and I sought death everywhere I could find an excuse to go to the field.” [28] However, Jackson’s victory was more tactical than strategic and as one historian noted “the corps had generally acquitted itself well in a nearly hopeless situation and delayed Confederate progress until dark,” [29]at which time the Confederates experienced the loss of Stonewall Jackson who was mortally wounded in the darkness by his own troops as he tried to push his corps forward.

However, the morale of the Eleventh Corps was crushed and it would not get a chance to redeem itself during the rest of the Chancellorsville campaign. When Hooker lost his nerve, refused to counter-attack, and then decided to withdraw he was opposed by Howard, George Meade, Darius Couch and John Reynolds who advocated a renewal of the offensive against Lee who they knew to have taken heavy casualties and had to be outnumbered by the Army of the Potomac.

The ever insightful Charles Wainwright wrote, “Some of the papers are very severe on Hooker, and insist upon that he was drunk, which I do not believe. Others go quite as far the other way, and try to screen him from all blame, seeking to throw it on one or the other of his subordinates. The attacks on General Howard are outrageous. He had been in command of the Eleventh Corps but a month before the fight, and was previously unknown to its officers and men…. He is the only religious man of high rank I know in this army, and, in the little intercourse I have had with him, shewed himself the most polished gentleman I have met. I know that he was very anxious to attack Lee on Monday, and together with Couch, Reynolds, and Meade was decidedly opposed to our withdraw on Wednesday night…” [30]

But the damage to the Eleventh Corps had been done. In the search for blame the old line prejudice and sentiment of the “Know nothings” against the immigrant Germans was once again unleashed. Inside and outside the Army of the Potomac, the Eleventh Corps was given the derisive nickname of “the flying Dutchmen” despite the fact that approximately half of its soldiers were of old line Yankee stock. The Eleventh Corps was not without good soldiers or good leaders, the real issue came from “the prejudice of Americans and the defensive attitude of the Germans…” [31] The soldiers of the corps had to endure the mocking of soldiers of other units and the scorn of the press, which “spoke of the “unexampled conduct” of the Eleventh Corps and how “the whole failure of the Army of the Potomac was owing to [its] scandalous poltroonery.” [32] In defense of the Corps Brigadier General Alexander Schimmelpfennig wrote “It would seem a nest of vipers had but waited for an auspicious moment to spit out their poisonous slanders upon this heretofore honored corps…. I have been proud to command the brave men in this brigade; but I am sure that unless these infamous falsehoods be retracted and reparations made, their good will and soldierly spirit will be broken…” [33]

Like his army commander, Fighting Joe Hooker, Howard never “conceded that he was in any way negligent, but he once hinted that at Chancellorsville he was inexperienced and that he had learned a lesson. “When I was a lad, a larger boy gave me a drubbing, but I grew in size and strength till he could do it no longer. The war experience of some of us was like that.” [34] To his credit, Howard did learn from his mistakes and never was surprised again as Eleventh Corps commander or the Commander of the Army of Tennessee under the command of William Tecumseh Sherman. However, Hooker, not only refused to take any blame, but proceeded to blame “squarely upon three of the army’s eight corps commanders…” [35] Howard, John Sedgwick and cavalry corps commander George Stoneman.

The troops were discouraged and resentful of their treatment; one officer wrote of the corps’ withdraw from Chancellorsville “I recrossed with a heavy heart, and… I felt tears rolling down my cheeks. I was ashamed of the battle, and deplored the sad experience of the Eleventh Corps…” while Howard noted, “there was no gloomier period during the great war than the month which followed the disasters at Chancellorsville.” [36] Carl Schurz wrote “The spirit of this corps is broken, and something must be done to revive it.” [37] It was in this depressed environment, commanding a corps that was defeated and demoralized that Oliver Howard advanced into Gettysburg on July 1^st 1863.

Notes

[1] Hebert, Walter H. Fighting Joe Hooker University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln and London 1999. Originally published by Bobbs-Merrill, New York 1944 p.178

[2] Carpenter, John A. Sword and Olive Branch: Oliver Otis Howard Fordham University Press, New York 1999 p.3

[3] Thomas, Emory M. Bold Dragoon: The Life of J.E.B. Stuart University of Oklahoma Press, Norman OK 1986 and 1999 p.24

[4] Ibid. Carpenter Sword and Olive Branch p.8

[5] Ibid. Thomas Bold Dragoon p.24

[6] Ibid. Thomas Bold Dragoon p.25

[7] Ibid. Carpenter Sword and Olive Branch p.17

[8] Ibid. Carpenter Sword and Olive Branch p.20

[9] Ibid. Carpenter Sword and Olive Branch p.21

[10] Jordan, David M. Happiness is Not My Companion: The Life of G.K. Warren Indiana University Press, Bloomington Indiana 2001 p.34

[11] Howard, Oliver O. Autobiography of Oliver Otis Howard, Major General, U.S. Army Volume 1 The Baker and Taylor Company, New York 1907 Made available by the Internet Achieve through Amazon Kindle location1627 of 9221

[12] Halleck, Henry Wager. Elements of Military Art and Science Or, Course Instruction In Strategy, Fortification Tactics of Battles, &c. Embracing the Duties of Staff, Infantry, Cavalry, Artillery, and Engineers, Adapted for the Use of Volunteers and Militia Third Edition D. Appleton & Company, New York and London 1862 Amazon Kindle edition location 149 of 6332

[13] Ibid. Carpenter Sword and Olive Branch p.21

[14] Ibid. Howard Autobiography of Oliver Otis Howard location 1983 of 9221

[15] Girardi, Robert I. The Civil War Generals: Comrades, Peers, Rivals in Their Own Words Zenith Press, MBI Publishing, Minneapolis MN 2013 p.92

[16] Ibid. Carpenter Sword and Olive Branch p.25

[17] Tagg, Larry The Generals of Gettysburg: The Leaders of America’s Greatest Battle Da Capo Press Cambridge MA 1998 Amazon Kindle Edition p. 121

[18] Ibid. Girardi The Civil War Generals: Comrades, Peers, Rivals in Their Own Words p.91

[19] Ibid. Carpenter Sword and Olive Branch p.41

[20] Ibid. Hebert Fighting Joe Hooker p.178

[21] Ibid. Carpenter Sword and Olive Branch p.43

[22] Ibid. Hebert Fighting Joe Hooker p.178

[23] Sears, Stephen W. Chancellorsville Houghton Mifflin Co. Boston and New York 1996 p.64

[24] Ibid. Carpenter Sword and Olive Branch p.43

[25] Ibid. Sears Chancellorsville p.65

[26] Wainwright, Charles S. A Diary of Battle: The Personal Journal of Colonel Charles S. Wainwright 1861-1865 edited by Allan Nevins, Da Capo Press, New York 1998 p.183

[27] Ibid. Sears Chancellorsville p.270

[28] Ibid. Sears Chancellorsville p.286

[29] Greene, A. Wilson. From Chancellorsville to Gettysburg: O. O. Howard and Eleventh Corps Leadership in The First Day at Gettysburg edited by Gallagher, Gary W. Kent State University Press, Kent Ohio 1992 p.57

[30] Ibid. Wainwright A Diary of Battle p.210

[31] Coddington, Edwin B. The Gettysburg Campaign: A Study in Command, A Touchstone Book, Simon and Schuster New York, 1968 p.306

[32] Ibid. Green From Chancellorsville to Gettysburg: O. O. Howard and Eleventh Corps Leadership p.58

[33] Ibid. Green From Chancellorsville to Gettysburg: O. O. Howard and Eleventh Corps Leadership p.58

[34] Ibid. Carpenter Sword and Olive Branch p.49

[35] Sears, Stephen W Gettysburg Houghton Mifflin Company, New York 2003 pp.193-194 and Coddington p.20

[36] Ibid. Green From Chancellorsville to Gettysburg: O. O. Howard and Eleventh Corps Leadership p.57

[37] Ibid. Sears Gettysburg p.37

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Tagged as abner doubleday, alexander schimmelpfennig, ambrose burnside, battle of chancellorsville, battle of gettysburg, bull run, carl schurz, flying dutchmen, francis barlow, fritz sigel, general george gordon meade, General William Tecumseh Sherman, gouverneur warren, j.e.b. stuart, john reynolds, john wesley, joseph hooker, major general dan sickles, oliver howard, second great awakening, seven pines, west point, xi corps

August 27, 2015 · 15:44

“They Fell like Grain Before the Reaper” Pickett’s Charge

Friends of Padre Steve’s World

As promised I am continuing the work on my Gettysburg text and again attempting to stress the tragedy of war and the immense suffering as well as courage that takes place in it. War and battles are about people, and all too often the people are neglected in favor of painting the big picture of winners and losers and the tactics involved. Yes, those have to be addressed, and I do address them, but as a veteran of Iraq, I have seen the carnage and destruction of war. I have seen the effects on the bodies, minds and spirits of those who have fought in war, as well as the innocent victims of it. Thus when I present a topic like this it becomes intensely personal, especially those times that I lead my students to Gettysburg as I did two almost three weeks ago.

Anyway, this is another look at Pickett’s Charge, the final climactic moment of the Battle of Gettysburg which is often described as the “high water mark of the Confederacy.” So anyway, the text here is probably a 80-90% solution of what I will finally publish, re-reading it I know I have some more work to do, not as much as on other sections but nonetheless more work.

Have a nice night,

Peace

Padre Steve+

The great German theoretician of war Carl von Clausewitz had an exceptionally keen understanding of the human element in war and its importance in setting policy, deciding on operations, and especially in what men face on the battlefield. Clausewitz wrote, “Danger is part of the friction of war. Without an accurate conception of danger we cannot understand war. That is why I have dealt with it here.” ^[1] This is an important understanding because it brings the human element to the fore, thus, when commanders send their troops into battle to execute the plans of their staff, they cannot forget, as Clausewitz so succinctly that War is the province of danger and, “In the dreadful presence of suffering and danger, emotion can easily overwhelm intellectual conviction, and in the psychological fog it is so hard to form clear and complete insights that changes in view become more understandable and excusable….No degree of calm can provide enough protection: new impressions are too powerful, too vivid, and always assault the emotions as well as the intellect.” ^[2] The memories of the men who fight in such conditions are vivid and seldom forgotten.

However, in the more modern wars of today, many soldiers of developed nations with modern high-tech militaries are not exposed to the same type of danger. Thus it is important to examine the issue in light of history and understand that no-matter how much technology advances that the human element remains the same. Understanding the element of danger is important, for leaders, as General Martin Dempsey noted, “Understanding equips decision makers at all levels with the insight and foresight to make effective decisions, to manage the associated risks, and to consider second and subsequent order effects.” ^{^[3]} The fact is that many current and recent wars fought by the United States and its NATO and coalition allies have shielded many military professionals from this aspect of war. But the realm of danger it is still present and should not be ignored. As noted in the 2006 edition of the Armed Forces Officer:

“The same technology that yields unparalleled success on the battlefield can also detach the warrior from the traditional ethos of the profession by insulating him or her from many of the human realities of war.” ^{^[4]}

However, “The nature of the warrior leader is driven by the requirements of combat” ^{^[5]} and courage, both “courage in the face of the danger, and the courage to accept responsibility” ^{^[6]} are of paramount importance. That is why the study of history is never a waste, and in fact should be given more importance in general education, but even more so in the education of those who are to lead men and women in combat.

Both Pickett’s Charge and the life of George Pickett provide excellent case studies in courage and responsibility. We live in a time where the numbers of soldiers that actually experience combat or served in true combat conditions where the element of danger is present is shrinking. As such the Battle of Gettysburg and the climactic event of Pickett’s Charge on July 3^rd is a good place to reimagine the element of danger from the point of view of the soldiers, but also the commanders involved in the action.

Gettysburg is also a place that we can look to find the end of dreams, the shattering of legacies, the emergence of myth as history, and the terrible effects ill-conceived of plans gone awry.

Major General George Pickett’s men’s opinions varied as they anticipate the approaching battle. Some in Richard Garnett’s brigade were “in splendid spirits and confident of sweeping everything before them;…never was there anything like the same enthusiasm entering battle.” [7] Others were not so confident. In Armistead’s brigade, Lieutenant James F. Crocker of the 9^th Virginia ,who had been wounded at Malvern Hill surveyed the ridge before them and told a number of officers that the attack “was going to be another Malvern Hill, another costly day to Virginia and Virginians,” [8] while a Colonel in Pickett’s division noted that when the men were told of the attack that they went “being unusually merry and hilarious that they on a sudden had become as still and thoughtful as Quakers at a love feast.” [9] Their commander, George Pickett received the plan of attack from James Longstreet who later noted that Pickett “seemed to appreciate the severity of the contest he was about to enter…but was quite hopeful of success.” [10]

A member of Pickett’s staff noted years later that “It is said, that the condemned, in going to execution, the moments fly….To the good soldier, about to go into action, I am sure the moments linger. Let us not dare say, that with him, either individually, or collectively, is that ‘mythical love of fighting,’ poetical but fabulous; but rather, that it is the nervous anxiety to solve the great issue as speedily as possible, without stopping to count the cost.” [11]

Porter Alexander’s artillery began its bombardment at 1:07 p.m. As it did, the Union artillery commenced a deliberate counter-fire, in which the Confederate infantry behind Seminary Ridge began to take a beating. Unlike the Confederate barrage which had mainly sailed over the Union troops on Cemetery Ridge causing few causalities, “a large proportion” of the Union “long shots landed squarely in the ranks of the gray soldiers drawn up to await the order to advance.” ^{^[12]} Estimates vary, but the waiting Confederates lost 300 to 500 men killed and wounded during the Union counter-barrage. The most affected was Kemper’s brigade of Pickett’s division which lost about 250 men or fifteen percent of its strength. ^{^[13]} Other units lost significant numbers, with those inflicted on Pettigrew’s brigades further depleting their already sparse numbers.

Major General George Pickett C.S.A.

The Union counter fire had an effect on many of the Confederates including Pickett. As the artillery duel continued Porter Alexander “found Pickett in a very positive and excited frame of mind.” [14] There are conflicting opinions of Pickett’s state of mind; supporters tending to believe the best about him and his conduct on the battlefield, while detractors, both his contemporaries and current historians allege that he was afraid and quite possibly minimizing his exposure to enemy fire due to his obsession with his young fiancée La Salle “Sallie” Corbell. Edwin Longacre wrote: “While not himself under fire, Pickett appears not to have taken the barrage too calmly. Aware that Longstreet had asked Alexander recommend “the most opportune time for our attack” based on the enemy’s response to his cannonade, Pickett at least twice sent couriers to as the colonel if they should go in.” [15]

Like in any historical account, the truth probably lies in the middle of the extreme viewpoints and while we think that we know much about the greatest charge in the history of the United States, we are hindered by the lack of written accounts by most of the senior Confederate officers who took part in Pickett’s Charge. This complicates the task of attempting to separate the true from the false and the truth from a judgment or verdict rendered by a less than impartial judge. Lee, Hill and Longstreet “treated the charge as just one episode in long campaign reports, and modern readers, like some of the participants, can wonder how much of any of the three generals really saw once the firing started.” [16]

Since no reports of the Confederate division commanders are available, Pickett’s was suppressed because of how critical it was toward other commanders. Pettigrew and Pender were dead, Trimble was wounded and in a Federal prison and Harry Heth, Pickett’s cousin limited his report to the action of July 1^st 1863. Likewise, only two of the nine brigade commanders filed reports and none of them were from Pickett’s division, so it is hard to get a complete and accurate view from official sources. Longstreet discussed Pickett’s report and said that it “was not so strong against the attack as mine before the attack was made but his was made in writing and of official record.” ^{^[17]} Pickett was reportedly furious at being forced to destroy his report and refused to submit an edited report. So what we are left with on the Confederate side are the reports of two corps commanders and an army commander who were far away from the scene of the action, after action reports of regiments, many of which had lost their commander’s and most of their senior officers, and the recollections from men with axes to grind and or reputations to defend; some Longstreet, some Pickett, some Pettigrew.

The assault force was composed of Pickett’s fresh division from First Corps, Harry Heth’s battered division now under Johnston Pettigrew which had already taken close to 40% casualties and two brigades of Pender’s division now commanded by Isaac Trimble. Of these two brigades, only Lane’s was fresh while Scales brigade, now under command of Colonel William Lowrence had suffered greatly on July 1^st; its “casualty rate was 63% and it had lost its commander and no fewer than fifty-five field and company grade officers.” ^{^[18]} And now, these battered units began to take casualties from well directed Federal fire. George Stewart wrote: “In most armies, such a battered unit would have been sent to the rear for reorganization, but here it was being selected for a climactic attack!” ^{^[19]}

“The Confederate losses mounted at an alarming rate. The psychological impact of artillery casualties was great, for the big guns not only killed but mangled bodies, tore them apart, or disintegrated them.” ^{^[20]} A survivor wrote his wife days later: “If the crash of worlds and all things combustible had been coming in collision with each other, it could not have surpassed it seemingly. To me it was like the “Magazine of Vengeance” blown up.” ^{^[21]} A soldier of Kemper’s brigade recalled that “The atmosphere was rent and broken by the rust and crash of projectiles…The sun, but a few minutes before so brilliant, was now darkened. Through this smoky darkness came the missiles of death…the scene beggars description…Many a fellow thought his time had come…Great big, stout hearted men prayed, loudly too….” ^{^[22]} Colonel Joseph Mayo of the 3^rd Virginia regiment was heavily hit. One of its survivors wrote: “when the line rose up to charge…it appeared that as many were left dead and wounded as got up.” ^{^[23]}

Major General George Gordon Meade U.S. Army

On the opposite ridge, Union forces were experiencing the same kind of intense artillery fire. But these effects were minimized due to the prevalent overshooting of the Confederate artillery as well as the poor quality of ammunition. This resulted in few infantry casualties with the worst damage being taken by a few batteries of artillery at “the Angle.” Soldiers behind the lines took the worst beating, but “the routing of these non-combatants was of no military significance,” ^{^[24]} This did create some problems for the Federals as Meade was forced to abandon their headquarters and the Artillery Reserve was forced to relocate “a little over a half mile to the rear.” ^{^[25]} The effects of this on operations were minimal as Brigadier General Robert Tyler commanding the Artillery Reserve “posted couriers at the abandoned position, should Hunt want to get in touch with him.” ^{^[26]}

Despite the fusillade Meade maintained his humor and as some members of his staff tried to find cover on the far side of the little farmhouse quipped:

“Gentlemen, are you trying to find a safe place?…You remind me of the man who drove the oxen team which took ammunition for the heavy guns to the field at Palo Alto. Finding himself in range, he tipped up his cart and hid behind it. Just then General Taylor came along and shouted “You damned fool, don’t you know you are no safer there than anywhere else?” The driver responded, “I don’t suppose I am general, but it kind of feels so.” ^{^[27]}

A bombardment of this magnitude had never been seen on the American continent, but despite its apparent awesome power, the Confederate artillery barrage had little actual effect on the charge. The Prussian observer traveling with Lee’s headquarters “dismissed the barrage as a “Pulververschwindung,”…a waste of powder. ^{^[28]} The Federal infantry remained in place behind the stone wall on Cemetery Ridge ready to meet the assault. Henry Hunt replaced his damaged artillery batteries on Cemetery Ridge. But even more importantly Lieutenant Colonel Freeman McGilvery’s massive battery was lying undetected where it could deliver devastating enfilade fire as the Confederate infantry neared their objective. Likewise, Rittenhouse’s batteries on Little Round Top and Osborne’s on Cemetery Hill were unaffected by the Confederate bombardment were poised to wreak destruction on the men of the three Confederate divisions.

Unlike the Federal Army which had a large pool of artillery battalions in the Artillery Reserve with which to replace batteries that had taken casualties or were running low on ammunition, Porter Alexander had no fresh artillery batteries and suffered a want of ammunition. The manifestation of the effect of this was not long in coming: “soon the drivers of the caissons found that the heavy fire had exhausted their supply of shot and shell, and they had to go even farther to get it from the reserve train. As a result some of the guns remained mute and their gunners stood helpless during the cannonade and charge, for Alexander had no batteries in reserve to replace them.” ^{^[29]}

There were two reasons for this. First was that Lee had reorganized the artillery before Chancellorsville. He eliminated the artillery reserve and assigned all artillery battalions and batteries directly to the three infantry corps. This meant that Alexander could only draw upon the battalions assigned to First Corps and had no operational control over the batteries of Ewell’s Second Corps or Hill’s Third Corps.

The second was due to the meddling of Brigadier General William Pendleton, Lee’s senior artilleryman who as a staff officer had no command authority over any of the guns in the army. Pendleton relocated the artillery trains of First Corps further to the rear without informing Alexander or Longstreet. Likewise, Pendleton also ordered the eight guns of the Richardson’s artillery away without notifying anyone. These were guns that Alexander was counting on to provide direct support to the attack by advancing them to provide close support to the infantry.

At about 2:20 p.m. Alexander, knowing that he was running short of ammunition sent a note to Picket and Pettigrew advising them:

“General: If you are to advance at all, you must come at once or we will not be able to support you as we ought. But the enemy’s fire has not slackened and there are still 18 guns firing from the cemetery.” ^{^[30]}

About twenty minutes later Alexander saw some of the Federal guns along Cemetery Ridge begin to limber up and depart. He also noticed a considerable drop off in Federal fire. He interpreted this to mean that his guns had broken the Federal resistance, and at 2:40 Alexander sent word to Pickett “For God’s sake come quick or my ammunition will not let me support you.” ^{^[31]}

However, what Alexander did not realize was that what was happening on Cemetery Ridge had little to do with his bombardment but instead was directed by Henry Hunt. Hunt ordered batteries low on ammunition or that had sustained damage to withdraw and was replacing them with fresh batteries that Alexander could not see, Although he assumed that such might be the case, he noted that the withdraw of batteries was new, for “the Federals had never done anything of that sort before, & I did not believe that they were doing it now.” [32] He had also decided to conserve ammunition by ordering an “immediate cessation and preparation for the assault to follow.” ^{^[33]}

Alexander’s message reached Pickett and Pickett immediately rode off to confer with Longstreet. Pickett gave the message to Longstreet who read it and said nothing. Pickett said, “General, shall I advance!” Longstreet, knowing it had to be, but unwilling to give the word, turned his face away. Pickett saluted and said “I am going to move forward, sir” galloped off to his division and immediately put it in motion.” ^{^[34]} Sadly, Pickett “had no inkling that his corps commander was immovably opposed to the charge” [35] and Pickett, caught up in the moment with the excitement of leading his Division into battle did not notice his friend’s mood.

A few minutes later Longstreet rode to find Alexander. Meeting him at 2:45 Alexander informed him of the shortage of ammunition. The news was surprising to Longstreet as neither “he nor Lee had checked on the supply of ammunition during the morning.” [36] The news took him aback enough that he “seemed momentarily stunned” ^{^[37]} by it. Longstreet told Alexander: “Stop Pickett immediately and replenish your ammunition.” ^{^[38]} But Alexander now had to give Longstreet even worse news telling him “I explained that it would take too long, and the enemy would recover from the effect of our fire was then having, and too that we had, moreover, very little to replenish it with.” ^{^[39]} Longstreet continued to ride with Alexander and again eyed the Federal positions on Cemetery Ridge with his binoculars. As he looked at the Federal position he slowly spoke and said “I don’t want to make this attack,” pausing between sentences as if thinking aloud. “I believe it will fail- I do not know how it can succeed- I would not make it even now, but Gen. Lee has ordered it and expects it.” ^{^[40]} Alexander, who as a battalion commander now in charge of First Corps artillery was very uncomfortable, he later wrote:

“I had the feeling that he was on the verge of stopping the charge, & that with even slight encouragement he would do it. But that very feeling kept me from saying a word, or either assent I would not willingly take any responsibility in so grave a matter & I had almost a morbid fear of causing any loss of time. So I stood by, & looked on, in silence almost embarrassing.” ^{^[41]}

While Longstreet was still speaking Pickett’s division swept out of the woods to begin the assault. Alexander wrote that “the battle was lost if we stopped. Ammunition was too low to try anything else, for we had been fighting for three days. There was a chance, and it was not my part to interfere.” ^{^[42]}

Despite this Pickett and many of his soldiers were confident of success, and: “no officer reflected the men’s confidence better than George Pickett. There was no fatalism in him. Believing that his hour of destiny had come and expecting to take fortune at its flood, he rode down the slope like a knight in a tournament.” [43] Pickett was “an unforgettable man at first sight” ^{^[44]} Pickett wore a “dark mustache drooping and curled at the ends, a thin goatee, and hair worn long and curled in ringlets. His hair was brown, and in the morning sunlight it reflected auburn hints. George Pickett stood slender and graceful at the middle height, and carried himself with an air. Dandified in dress, he was the most romantic looking of all Confederates, the physical image of that gallantry implicit in the South’s self concept. [45]

George Pickett was “born to wealth and privilege in a Neo-feudal society” [46] and came from an old and distinguished Virginia family with a long military heritage dating to the Revolution and the War of 1812. He attended the Richmond Academy until he was sixteen and had to withdraw due to the financial losses his parents had suffered during the panic of 1837.

This led to the young Pickett being sent to live with and study law under his mother’s older brother, the future President, Andrew Johnston in Quincy Illinois. The family’s continued financial distress led them to get George to consider the free education provided by West Point. His mother asked Johnston to assist and Johnston set about obtaining an appointment for his nephew. “As befit an up-and-coming politician, his quest was short and successful. His Springfield acquaintances included a United States Congressman who happened to be a fellow Southerner and brother Whig, Kentucky native John T. Stuart.” [47] There is a long running myth that connects Pickett’s appointment to West Point to Abraham Lincoln, but it is fiction, fabricated by Pickett’s widow Sallie long after her husband and Lincoln’s death. [48]

Pickett entered West Point in 1842 where he was described by a fellow cadet thought “a jolly good fellow with fine natural gifts sadly neglected” [49] through his tendency to “demonstrate in word and deed that henhouse neither to authority nor submit to what’re considered the Academy’s narrow, arbitrary, unrealistic, harshly punitive, and inconsistently applied code of conduct” [50] became a loyal patron of Benny Havens tavern where he “was stealing away regularly now to life his glass in good fellowship…” [51]

Pickett’s academic performance, as well as his record of disciplinary infractions at West Point was exceptionally undistinguished. He racked up vast amounts of demerits for everything from being late to class, chapel and drill, uniform violations and pranks on the drill field where he mocked those who observed proper drill and ceremonies. Pickett graduated last in the class of 1846, something that his vast amount of demerits contributed.

His widow Sallie wrote after his death that he accumulated them “so long as he could afford the black marks and punishments they entailed. He curbed his harmful behavior, however, when he found himself approaching the magic number of 200 demerits per year that constituted grounds for dismissal.” [52] Pickett finally graduated “only five behavioral demerits short of expulsion.” [53] The graduating class included George McClellan, A.P. Hill, Thomas, later “Stonewall” Jackson as well as a number of other cadets, most of whom who went on to distinguished military and other careers. At West Point Pickett was considered to be the class clown by many of his classmates was “the most popular and prominent young man in the class.” [54] Among the many friends that he made was an upperclassman named Ulysses S. Grant and “their friendship would span decades and would survive the fire of a war that placed them at sword’s point.” [55]

Pickett was commissioned into the infantry and served alongside James Longstreet in the Mexican War where they “fought valiantly in a number of battles, including Contreras, Churubusco, El Molino Del Rey.” ^{^[56]} Pickett distinguished himself at Chapultepec where “he had been the first American to scale the ramparts of Chapultepec, where he planted the flag before the admiring gaze of his friend Longstreet.” [57] During that assault Longstreet was wounded and “Pickett had snatched the colors and planted them on the castle heights for all to see and cheer.” [58] For his actions he received a brevet promotion to First Lieutenant.

Following the war Pickett married but was widowed less than two years later when his wife Sally Minge Pickett died during childbirth along with their infant son in 1852. The loss was devastating to the young officer. He went into a deep depression caused by grief and considered leaving the army. He was persuaded by friends, peers and understanding commanding officers to remain.

While on leave following Sally’s death, he was at Fort Monroe, laying under an umbrella at Point Comfort when a child approached him and took pity on him. The child was the nine year old La Salle “Sallie” Corbell and she broke through his emotional defenses by persistently, as only a child can do asking what the source of his grief was. Pickett told the child that “his heart had been broken by a sorrow almost too great to bear.” When the child asked how one’s heart could break, “he replied that ‘God broke it when he took from him his loved ones and left him so lonely.” [59] While Pickett may not have thought much of the meeting, he did give the little girl a ring and a golden heart bearing his wife’s name. He likely expected never to see her again but though she was a child she “was a willful and determined one. She knew her own mind and heart, both told her that one day she would marry George Pickett.” [60]

Pickett returned to Texas to serve with the 8^th Infantry and was promoted to Captain and ordered to take command of the newly raised Company “D” 9^th Infantry at Fort Monroe. Transferred to the Pacific Northwest he married. Widowed after that war he served in the Pacific Northwest where he took a Native American wife who bore him a son, however she did not survive childbirth and when she died in early 1858 Pickett was again widowed. In 1859 Captain Pickett faced down British troops from the Hudson Bay Company in an incident now known at the “Pig War” which at its heart was a dispute about whether the British or the Americans own San Juan Island. The dispute, which brought the two nations to the brink of war, was settled without bloodshed, save for the unfortunate pig, and Pickett became a minor celebrity in the United States and anathema to the British.

When Virginia seceded from the Union, Pickett like many other southern officers was conflicted in his feelings and loyalties and “hoped to the last that he would have to take up arms against neither state nor country.” [61] Pickett resigned his commission on June 25^th 1861. He wrote to Sallie with who he now maintained a frequent correspondence about his decision and decidedly mixed feelings as he:

“Always strenuously opposed disunion…” But “While I love my neighbor, i.e., my country, I love my household, i.e., my state, more, and I could not be an infidel and lift my sword against my own kith and kin, even though I do believe…that the measure of American greatness can be achieved only under one flag.” [62]

Pickett returned to Virginia by a circuitous route where he was commissioned as a Captain in the new Confederate army on September 14^th and two weeks later was promoted to Colonel and assigned to command forces along the Rappahannock. Though he had as yet seen no combat serving in the Confederate army, Pickett was promoted to brigadier General and assigned to command a Virginia brigade belonging to Longstreet’s division.

Pickett led his brigade well on the peninsula and at Williamsburg was instrumental in routing an advancing Federal force, and at Seven Pines had helped repel a dire threat to the Confederate position. At Gaines Mill Pickett was wounded in the shoulder during the assault put out of action and placed on convalescent leave to recover from his wounds. During his convalescence he fell in love with an old acquaintance; “La Salle Corbell,” who as a young girl had cheered him after the loss of his wife “now a beautiful young woman nursed him back to health and started a chain reaction that would nearly engulf the Confederate officer.” [63]

Pickett was promoted to Major General in October 1862 and was assigned command of the division formerly commanded by David R. Jones, which was assigned to Longstreet’s First Corps. The division was sent to peripheral areas and took no part in the battles of late 1862 or Chancellorsville serving instead in the Tidewater with Longstreet’s corps. The corps took part in a series of operations against Union forces in the Hampton Roads area and Pickett’s division bested a Federal force at Suffolk on April 24^th 1863, though it was hardly a true test of his ability to command the division in combat. During this time Pickett spent much time visiting La Salle, much to the concern of some of his officers and Longstreet’s staff, and by the time the corps left the area the two were engaged to be married.

When the Division returned to the Army of Northern Virginia after Chancellorsville, it was among the forces considered by Jefferson Davis to be sent west for the relief of Vicksburg. Since that operation never materialized, the division was assigned to accompany First Corps with the army during the upcoming Pennsylvania campaign. However, much to the consternation of Lee, Longstreet and Pickett, two of its brigades were detached by the order of Jefferson Davis to protect Richmond from any Federal incursion.

During the advance into Pennsylvania the division, now composed of the brigades of James Kemper, Lewis Armistead and Richard Garnett was the trail division in Longstreet’s corps and often, in the absence of cavalry assigned to guard the corps and army trains. Due to its late release from these duties at Chambersburg, Pickett’s Division did not arrive at Gettysburg until late afternoon on July 2^nd. Lee decided that they would not be needed that day and Longstreet placed that the division in bivouac at Marsh Creek for the night, sending word by messenger to “tell Pickett I will have work for him tomorrow.” [64]

Pickett spent the night with his soldiers and woke them about 3 a.m. After a quick breakfast Pickett moved the division to Seminary Ridge marshaling his troops in Spangler’s Woods where there was a modicum of protection from Federal fires and observation. However, despite these advantages it placed his division about 1000 yards from the extreme right of Pettigrew’s division with which he would have to coordinate his attack that fateful day.

Pickett scribbled a final note to Sallie as his troops prepared to attack. “Oh, may God in his mercy help me as He never has helped me before…remember always that I love you with all my heart and soul… That now and forever I am yours.” [65]

When Pickett’s division as well as those of Pettigrew and Trimble swept out of the wood to begin the attack, the last chance for anyone to stop it ended. Robert E. Lee’s final die was cast and nearly thirteen-thousand men began to advance into what Longstreet called “a cul de sac of death.”

As Pickett’s brigades moved out, Pickett galloped up, as debonair as if he had been riding through the streets of the Richmond under the eye of his affianced” [66] and “every soldier within hearing was stirred by Pickett’s appeal” [67] as he shouted “Remember Old Virginia!” or to Garnett’s men “Up, men, and to your posts! Don’t forget today that you are from Old Virginia!” ^{^[68]} But when Garnett asked if there were any final instructions Pickett was told “I advise you to make the best kind of time in crossing the valley; it’s a hell of an ugly looking place over yonder.” ^{^[69]}

Armistead called out to his soldiers, “Men, remember who you are fighting for! Your homes, your firesides, and your sweethearts! Follow Me!” ^{^[70]}Armistead’s example had a major impact on his brigade. His men were inspired, as one later wrote “They saw his determination, and they were resolved to follow their heroic leader until the enemy’s bullets stopped them.” ^{^[71]} About 500 yards to Pickett’s left Pettigrew exhorted his men “for the honor of the good old North State, forward.” ^{^[72]}

Pickett’s division “showed the full length of its long gray ranks and shining bayonets, as grand as a sight as ever a man looked on.” ^{^[73]} The sight was impressive on both sides of the line, a Confederate Captain recalling the “glittering forest of bayonets” the two half mile wide formations bearing down “in superb alignment.” ^{^[74]} The sight of the amassed Confederates moving forward even impressed the Federals. Colonel Philippe Regis de Trobriand, a veteran of many battles in Europe and the United States recalled “it was a splendid sight,” ^{^[75]} and another recalled that the Confederate line ‘gave their line an appearance of being irresistible.” ^{^[76]}

But the Federals were confident. Having withstood the Confederates for two days and having survived the artillery bombardment the Union men on Cemetery Ridge eagerly awaited the advancing Confederates. Directly facing the Confederate advance in the center of the Union line was the division of Pickett’s West Point Classmate and North Carolina native who remained with the Union, John Gibbon. The cry went out “Here they come! Here they come! Here comes the infantry!” ^{^[77]} To the left of Gibbon Alexander Hays called to his men “Now boys look out…now you will see some fun!” ^{^[78]}

The Confederates faced difficulties as they advanced, and not just from the Union artillery which now was already taking a terrible toll on the advancing Confederates. Stuck by the massed enfilade fire coming from Cemetery Hill and Little Round Top, they continued their steady grim advance. Carl Schurz from his vantage point on Cemetery Hill recalled:

“Through our field-glasses we could distinctly see the gaps torn in their ranks, the grass dotted with dark spots- their dead and wounded….But the brave rebels promptly filled the gaps from behind or by closing up on their colors, and unasked and unhesitatingly they continued with their onward march.” ^{^[79]}

Pettigrew’s division was met by fire which enveloped them obliquely from Osborne’s thirty-nine guns emplaced on Cemetery Hill. On their left flank a small Federal regiment, the 8^th Ohio lay in wait unnoticed by the advancing Confederates. Seeing an opportunity the regiment’s commander Lieutenant Colonel Franklin Sawyer deployed his 160 men in a single line, took aim at Brockenbrough’s Virginia brigade some two hundred yards ahead of the Emmitsburg Road, and opened a devastating fire. “Above the boiling clouds the Union men could see a ghastly debris of guns, knapsacks, blanket rolls, severed human heads, and arms and legs and parts of bodies tossed into the air by the impact of the shot.” [80] So sudden and unexpected was this that the Confederates panicked and “fled in confusion…” to the rear where they created more chaos in Trimble’s advancing lines as one observed they “Came tearing through our ranks, which caused many men to break.” ^{^[81]} The effect on Confederate morale was very important, for “the Army of Northern Virginia was not used to seeing a brigade, even a small one, go streaming off to the rear, with all its flags….Even Pickett’s men sensed that something disastrous had happened on the left….” [82]

In one fell swoop Pettigrew was minus four regiments. Brockenbrough was singularly ineffective in leading his men, he “was a nonentity who did not know how to control his recalcitrant rank and file; nor did he have the presence to impress his subordinate officers and encourage them to do his bidding.” [83] The disaster that had overtaken Brockenbrough’s brigade now threatened another important component of Lee’s plan- protecting the left flank of the assaulting force. As Brockenbrough’s brigade collapsed, the vital protection of the left flank collapsed with it.

Pettigrew’s division continued its advance after Brockenbrough’s brigade collapsed, but the Confederate left was already beginning to crumble. “Sawyer changed front, putting his men behind a fence, and the regiment began firing into the Confederate flank.” [84] Now Davis’s brigade was taking the full brunt of the storm of artillery shells from Osborne’s guns. This brigade had suffered terribly at the railroad cut on July 1^st. The brigade, especially in terms of field and company grade officers was virtually leaderless, and “the inexperienced Joe Davis was helpless to control them.” [85] To escape the devastating fire Davis ordered his brigade to advance at the double quick which brought them across the Emmitsburg Road ahead of the rest of the division, where they were confronted by enfilade canister fire from Woodruff’s battery to its left, as well as several regiments of Federal infantry and from the 12^th New Jersey directly in their front. A New Jersey soldier recalled “We opened on them and they fell like grain before the reaper, which nearly annihilated them.” [86] Davis noted that the enemy’s fire “commanded our front and left with fatal effect.” [87] Davis saw that further continuing was hopeless and ordered his decimated brigade “to retire to the position originally held.” [88]

Pettigrew’s remain two brigades continued grimly on to the Emmitsburg Road, now completely devoid of support on their left flank. Under converging fire from Hay’s Federal troops the remaining troops of Pettigrew’s command were slaughtered. Hay’s recalled “As soon as the enemy got within range we poured into them and the cannon opened with grape and canister [, and] we mowed them down in heaps.” [89] The combination of shot, shell, canister and massed musket fire “simply erased the North Carolinian’s ranks.” [90] Pettigrew was wounded, Colonel Charles Marshall was killed fifty yards from the stone wall and “only remnants of companies and regiments remained unscathed.” Soon the assault of Pettigrew’s division was broken:

“Suddenly Pettigrew’s men passed the limit of human endurance and the lines broke apart and the hillside covered with men running for cover, and the Federal gunners burned the ground with shell and canister. On the field, among the dead and wounded, prostrate men could be seen holding up handkerchiefs in sign of surrender.” [91]

Trimble’s two brigades fared no better. Scales brigade, now under the command of Colonel W. Lee Lowrence “never crossed the Emmitsburg Road but instead took position along it to fire at the enemy on the hill. The soldiers from North Carolina who two days before had marched without flinching into the maw of Wainwright’s cannon on Seminary Ridge could not repeat the performance.” [92] Trimble was severely wounded in the leg and sent a message to Lane to take command of the division. The order written in the third person added a compliment to his troops: “He also directs me to say that if the troops he had the honor to command today for the first time couldn’t take that position, all hell can’t take it.” [93] Lane attempted to rally the troops for one last charge when one of his regimental commanders exploded telling him “My God, General, do you intend rushing your men into such a place unsupported, when the troops on the right are falling back?” [94] Lane looked at the broken remains of Pettigrew’s division retiring from the field and ordered a retreat. Seeing the broken remnants of the command retreating, an aide asked Trimble if the troops should be rallied. Trimble nearly faint from loss of blood replied: “No Charley the best these brave fellows can do is to get out of this,” so “let them get out of this, it’s all over.” [95] The great charge was now over on the Confederate left.

The concentrated Federal fire was just as effective and deadly on the Confederate right. Kemper’s brigade, on the right of Pickett’s advance was mauled by the artillery of Rittenhouse on Little Round Top, which “tracked their victims with cruel precision of marksmen in a monstrous shooting gallery” and the overs “landed their shots on Garnett’s ranks “with fearful effect.” ^{^[96]}

As the Confederates advanced Pickett was forced to attempt to shift his division to the left to cover the gap between his and Pettigrew’s division. The move involved a forty-five degree oblique and the fences, which had been discounted by Lee as an obstacle which along the Emmitsburg Road “virtually stopped all forward movement as men climbed over them or crowed through the few openings.” ^{^[97]} Pickett’s division’s oblique movements to join with Pettigrew’s had presented the flank of his division to McGilvery’s massed battery. The movement itself had been masterful, the execution of it under heavy fire impressive; however it meant the slaughter of his men who were without support on their right flank.

Pickett himself was doing his best to direct the movements of his Division. Placing himself just behind his Division he “kept his staff busy carrying messages to various generals and performing other duties on the field. At different times he sent his aides back to Confederate lines to inform Longstreet of his need for reinforcements, or to direct Wilcox when to advance his troops, or to ask Major James Dearing for artillery support.” [98] While some of Pickett’s detractors attempt to accuse him of cowardice, including inventing fables about him drinking behind the lines, the facts do not substantiate the accusations. Likewise, Pickett’s position about one hundred yards behind his advancing troops was optimal for command and control purposes.

Though he did not have operational control of Pettigrew’s division, “when he saw it beginning to falter, he ordered Captains E.R. Baird and W. Stuart Symington to help rally them. Then Pickett himself galloped to the left in an effort to steady the men.” [99]

As Pickett’s division advanced into the Plum Run Valley they were met by the artillery of Freeman McGilvery, who wrote that the “execution of the fire must have been terrible, as it was over a level plain, and the effect was plain to be seen. In a few minutes, instead of a well-ordered line of battle, there were broken and confused masses, and fugitives fleeing in every direction.” ^{^[100]}

Kemper’s brigade which had the furthest to go and the most complicated maneuvering to do under the massed artillery fire suffered more damage. The swale created by Plum Run was a “natural bowling alley for the projectiles fired by Rittenhouse and McGilvery” ^{^[101]} was now flanked by Federal infantry as it passed the Condori farm. The Federal troops were those of the Vermont brigade commanded by Brigadier General George Stannard. These troops were nine month volunteers recruited in the fall of 1862 and due to muster our in a few days. They were new to combat, but one of the largest brigades in the army and 13^th Vermont “had performed with veteran like precision the day before” [102] leading Hancock to use them to assault the Confederate right. The Vermonters were positioned to pour fire into the Confederate flank, adding to the carnage created by the artillery, and the 13^th and 16^th Vermont “pivoted ninety degrees to the right and fired a succession of volleys at pistol range on the right of Pickett’s flank.” [103]

Kemper had not expected this, assuming that the Brigades of Wilcox and Perry would be providing support on the flank. As he asked a wounded officer of Garnett’s brigade if his wound was serious, the officer replied that he soon expected to be a prisoner and asked Kemper “Don’t you see those flanking columns the enemy are throwing on our right to sweep the field?” [104] Kemper was stunned but ordered his troops to rush the federal guns, however “they were torn to pieces first by the artillery and then by the successive musketry of three and a half brigades of Yankee infantry.” [105] Kemper was fearfully wounded in the groin and no longer capable of command. His brigade was decimated and parts of two regiments had to refuse their line to protect the flank, and those that continued to advance had hardly any strength left with which to succeed, meaning that the Confederate left and right were for all intents and purposes out of the fight.

This left Armistead and Garnett’s grimly advancing brigades to carry on the fight as they crossed the Emmitsburg Road and approached the stone wall. The brigades where now bunched together and at the point of attack and for a few minutes outnumbered the Federal defenders at the stone wall and the Angle, as one regiment of Webb’s Philadelphia Brigade, the 71^st Pennsylvania had bolted to the rear.

This left the decimated remains of Lieutenant Alonzo Cushing’s battery of artillery alone to face the advancing Confederates. Cushing who had already received multiple wounds in his shoulder and groin was desperately wounded. A number of his guns had been disabled and his battery had taken significant numbers of casualties during the Confederate bombardment. Cushing was another of the young West Point graduates who directed batteries at key points during the battle who was not only a skilled artilleryman, but a gifted leader and a warrior who won the respect of his men. One corporal said that Cushing “was the best fighting man I ever saw” while another recollected “He was so cool and calm as I ever saw him, talking to the boys between shots with the glass constantly to his eyes, watching the effect of our shots.” [106]

He received permission from the commander of the Philadelphia Brigade, Alexander Webb, among whose regiments his battery was sited to advance his guns to the wall. Though wounded Cushing remained with his gunners and when a subordinate suggested that he go to the rear he replied “I will stay right here and fight it out or die in the attempt.” [107]

Lieutenant Alonzo Cushing

When Webb came to his battery and told Cushing that he believed that the Confederate infantry was about to assault their position Cushing replied “I had better run my guns right up to the stone fence and bring all my canister alongside each piece.” [108] From the stone fence the young officer directed the fire of his remaining guns. His gunners “rammed in more loads of double canister when the Confederates were less than seventy yards away.” [109] When the Garnett and Armistead’s survivors were just a hundred yards away from the wall, “Cushing ordered triple canister. He was hit a third time, this time in his mouth killing him instantly.” [110] The surviving gunners, now commanded by a sergeant fought hand to hand against the Confederates as they were overrun.

The survivors of Garnett’s brigade, led by their courageous but injured commander, who rode fully exposed to Federal fire on his horse, crossed the Emmitsburg Road and pushed forward, overwhelming the few Federals remaining at the wall. They reached the outer area of the Angle “which had been abandoned by the 71^st Pennsylvania” and some of his men “stood on the stones yelling triumphantly at their foes.” [111]

Dick Garnett, was still leading his troops mounted upon his horse, miraculously un-hit until he was almost to the wall. There, Garnett, “muffled in his dark overcoat, cheered his troops, waving a black hat with a silver cord” ^{^[112]} and still seeking redemption from the scurrilous accusations of Stonewall Jackson was shot down, in a blast of musket fire and canister. His now rider less and frightened horse, now alone, ran off the battlefield, a symbol of the disaster which had befallen Pickett’s division.

Armistead and his decimated brigade continued their grim advance into the fiery cauldron of death, their commander, sword raised with his hat still on it, climbed over the wall shouting to his men “Come on boys! Give them the cold steel”…and holding his saber high, still with the black hat balanced on its tip for a guidon, he stepped over the wall yelling as he did so: “Follow me!” [113] It would be a moment that those that survived would remember for the rest of their lives.

Now, Armistead and his remaining soldiers, maybe about one hundred in total of the approximately 1570 who had advanced out of the woods on Seminary Ridge just twenty minutes before when the order was given to advance. [114] The survivors waded into the wreckage of Cushing’s battery and some began to attempt to turn the guns on the Federals. “For a few moments there was a sense of supreme exultation as the rebels swarmed over the fence, forced back two Federal companies, and swallowed up a third. Armistead was the first to reach Cushing’s two guns, placing a hand on one of them and yelling, “The day is ours men, come turn this artillery upon them.” [115]

However, the triumph of Armistead and his band was short lived; the 72^nd Pennsylvania was rushed into the gap by the brigade commander Brigadier General Alexander Webb. The climax of the battle was now at hand and “the next few minutes would tell the story, and what that story would be would all depend on whether these blue-coated soldiers really meant it…. Right here there were more Confederates than Federals, and every man was firing in a wild, feverish haste, with smoke settling down thicker and thicker.” [116] The 69^th Pennsylvania, an Irish regiment under Colonel Dennis O’Kane stood fast and their fire slaughtered many Confederates. Other Federal regiments poured into the fight, famous veteran regiments like the 19^th and 20^th Massachusetts, the 7^th Michigan and the valiant remnants of the 1^st Minnesota who had helped stop the final Confederate assault on July 2^nd at such fearful cost. Major Rice of the 19^th Massachusetts wrote:

“The grove was fairly jammed with Pickett’s men. In all positions, lying and kneeling. Back from the edge were many standing and firing over those in front….Every foot of ground was occupied by men engaged in mortal combat, who were in every possible position which can be taken while under arms, or lying wounded or dead.” [117]

As his troops battled the Federals hand to hand, using muskets as clubs, and the bayonet Armistead, standing by one of Cushing’s cannon was he was hit by several bullets and collapsed, mortally wounded. “Armistead had been the driving force behind the last effort, there was no one else on hand to take the initiative. Almost as quickly as it had come crashing in, the Rebel tide inside the outer angle ebbed back to the wall.” ^{^[118]}

For a time the Confederate survivors engaged Webb’s men in a battle at the wall itself in a stubborn contest with men battling “in some places within rifle-length of each other and other places hopelessly mingled.” [119] A Federal regimental commander wrote “The opposing lines were standing as if rooted, dealing death into each other.” [120] The Federals launched a local counterattack and many Confederates elected to surrender rather than face the prospect of retiring across the battlefield that was still swept by Federal fire.

Webb had performed brilliantly in repulsing the final Confederate charge and “gained for himself an undying reputation. Faced with defeat, he accepted the challenge and held his men together through great personal exertion and a willingness to risk his life.” [121] For his efforts he was belatedly awarded the Medal of Honor.

Webb, like John Buford on July 1^st, Strong Vincent, Freeman McGilvery and George Sears Greene on July 2^nd, was instrumental in the Union victory. Hancock said of Webb:

“In every battle and on every important field there is one spot to which every army [officer] would wish to be assigned- the spot upon which centers the fortunes of the field. There was but one such spot at Gettysburg and it fell to the lot of Gen’l Webb to have it and to hold it and for holding it he must receive the credit due him.” [122]

The surviving Confederates of Pickett’s division who had not surrendered at the Angle “retreated without order” [123] and as they drew nearer to the safety of their own lines “the survivors of Pickett’s division soon turned into a sullen mob intent on getting as far as possible from the bloody battlefield.” [124] Some commanders attempted to restore order but their efforts were in vain as Pickett’s defeated and shell shocked men realized the enormity of their defeat and the terrible cost.

As the survivors of Pickett, Pettigrew and Trimble’s shattered divisions retreated from the killing field Robert E. Lee did not yet understand that his great assault had been defeated. However, the sullen James Longstreet, who was in a position to observe the horror, did. Longstreet was approached by Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Fremantle, a British observer from the Coldstream Guards. Fremantle did not realize that the attack had been repulsed, having just seen one of Longstreet’s regiments “advancing through the woods in good order” and unwisely bubbled “I would not have missed this for anything.” [125] Longstreet replied with a sarcastic laugh “The devil you wouldn’t” barked Longstreet. “I would have liked to have missed this very much; we’ve attacked and been repulsed. Look there.” [126]

Fremantle looked out and “for the first time I then had a view of the open space between the two positions, and saw it covered with Confederates slowly and sulkily returning towards us in small broken parties, under a heavy fire of artillery.” [127] Henry Owen of the 18^th Virginia wrote that the retreating men “without distinction of rank, officers and privates side by side, pushed, poured and rushed in a continuous stream, throwing away guns, blankets, and haversacks as they hurried on in confusion to the rear.” [128]

It was a vision of utter defeat. Pickett, who had seen his division destroyed and had been unable to get it additional support was distraught. An aide noted that Pickett was “greatly affected and to some extent unnerved” [129] by the defeat. “He found Longstreet and poured out his heart in “terrible agony”: “General, I am ruined; my division is gone- it is destroyed.” [130] Lee had come up by now and attempted to comfort Pickett grasping his hand and telling him: “General, your men have done all that they could do, the fault is entirely my own” and instructed him that he “should place his division in the rear of this hill, and be ready to repel the advance of the enemy should they follow up their advantage.” [131] The anguished Pickett replied, “General Lee, I have no division now. Armistead is down, Garnett is down and Kemper is mortally wounded.” [132] Lee “missed the point of Pickett’s anguish completely” and attempted to console Pickett again and told the distraught General, “General Pickett…you and your men have covered themselves in glory.” [133]

Pickett, the romantic true believer in the cause refused to be consoled and told Lee “not all the glory in the world, General Lee, can atone for the widows and orphans this day has made.” [134] Pickett’s bitterness toward Lee over the loss of his division would redound through the remainder of his life. While Longstreet and Lee maintained their composure, Pickett “felt an overpowering sense of helplessness as he observed the high tide from Emmitsburg Road and the subsequent retreat of his shattered division. It was too much for the mercurial romantic to absorb.” [135] But Pickett was not alone. Cadmus Wilcox told Lee as he returned from the assault that he “came into Pennsylvania with one of the finest brigades in the Army of Northern Virginia and now all my people are gone.” [136]

When others attempted to stop the flight of his men, Pickett countermanded them and ordered his survivors to return to the site where they had bivouacked the previous night. A soldier from the 18^th Virginia who saw the retreat noted that at Willoughby Run:

“The fugitives, without distinction of rank, officers and privates side by side pushed, poured and rushed in a continuous stream, throwing away guns, blankets, and haversacks as they hurried in confusion toward the rear.” Before long there was another attempt to restore order, but again Pickett intervened. “Don’t stop any of my men!” he cried. “Tell them to come to the camp we occupied last night.” As he said this he was “weeping bitterly,” and then he rode on alone toward the rear.” [137]

When the survivors finally assembled the next morning, they numbered less than 1000 out of the approximately 5000 troops Pickett led into the attack. “Four out of every five of Pickett’s men had been either killed, wounded, or captured. Two of his three brigadiers were gone, probably dead, the third perhaps mortally wounded. Every one of his regimental commanders had been killed, wounded or captured.” [138]

During the retreat Pickett and his remaining soldiers would be assigned to the task of being the Provost Guard for the army, escorting Federal prisoners back during the long retreat back to Virginia. For them, it was a humiliating experience.

Pickett was never the same after the charge of July 3^rd 1863. Pickett’s after action report which complained about the lack of support his division received was suppressed and destroyed by Lee who wrote Pickett “You and your men have crowned yourselves in glory… “But we have an enemy to fight, and must carefully, at this critical moment, guard against dissections which the reflections in your report will create.” [139]

Pickett married La Salle “Sallie” Corbell in September of 1863, and the marriage would last until his death in 1875. Sallie, impoverished by the death of “her soldier” took up writing as well as speaking tours in both the South and the North. Sallie was a stalwart defender of her husband, who she said “had the keenest sense of justice, most sensitive consciousness of right, and the highest moral courage” but also “opposing “hatred, sectionalism and strife.” [140] Though much of her work was panned by historians and shunned by established magazines and periodicals; her writing were published by newer popular magazines. Her book The Heart of a Soldier, as Revealed in the Intimate Letters of General George Pickett, C.S.A. was for the most part fabrications authored by her, but she found a niche in newer popular magazines and journals, including Cosmopolitan for which she authored a ten part serial of the Pickett family story on the fiftieth anniversary of the battle. Sallie Pickett’s:

“idealized portrait of her husband made him a Confederate hero. He never reached the status of Robert E. Lee or “Stonewall” Jackson, but his association with the famed but futile charge at Gettysburg helped. Virginia veterans and newspapers began romanticizing Pickett’s all-Virginia division’s role soon after the battle; it was almost by association that George too would share in this idolization…” [141]

Pickett retained command of his division which was reconstituted after Gettysburg and shipped off to North Carolina where he and it performed adequately but without marked distinction. Pickett had one moment of glory when reacting to a Federal Army under Benjamin Butler advancing on Petersburg he threw a scratch force together which preserved Petersburg and its vital rail line in early May 1864. This allowed General P.T.G. Beauregard to bring up more troops to hold the city.

The division performed adequately in the defensive battles around Richmond and Petersburg, though it suffered terribly from the lack of “rations, medicines, clothing and equipment…aggravated by the rigors of life in the trenches.” [142] Morale and desertion was a terrible problem in Pickett’s division and Lee was concerned enough to bring enough to bring the matter to Longstreet. Lee used terms like “unsoldierly and unmilitary…, lax in discipline…, loose in military instruction” [143] to describe the division. Though he was fully cognizant of the conditions of the trenches Lee identified the source of the problem as Pickett and his officers who were not “sufficiently attentive to the men,…not informed as to their condition” and he told Longstreet: “I desire you to correct the evils in Pickett’s division…by every means in your power… I beg that you will insist upon these points.” [144]

During the Richmond and Petersburg campaign, Pickett was often sick, and “at several intervals he was unable to exercise command,” and the “poor state of his general health, aggravated by the unusually stressful conditions of the past year, age him beyond his years.” [145]

The end came at the battle at Five Forks where Pickett’s division was deployed on the far right of the Confederate line, was overwhelmed by a massive assault by Sheridan’s cavalry and the Fifth Corps which destroyed it as a fighting formation. Pickett, for unknown reasons did not put much effort into the defense of Five Forks. He successfully repulsed an attack by Sheridan on March 31^st but evidently did not expect an attack the following day. On the afternoon of April 1^st Pickett was away from his division at a Shad bake with Fitzhugh Lee and Thomas Rosser when the attack came and destroyed his division as a fighting unit. “No cowardice was involved; Pickett simply misjudged the situation by assuming that no attack was imminent, yet it left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth.” [146] That being said “Pickett’s lackadaisical effort in holding Five Forks is indefensible. So to is his incredible derelict behavior late on the morning of April 1^st when he slipped away from his command” to the shad bake not even informing the next senior officer, Rooney Lee that he was gone. [147]

Whether cowardice was involved or not, Pickett’s decision to be away from his division with a very aggressive Federal army at his front was ill-advised and demonstrated to Lee that Pickett was unfit for command. Two days later Pickett and two other generals, including Richard Anderson were relieved of their duties and dismissed by Lee. However Pickett remained with his division until the end and at Appomattox Lee was heard to remark in what some believed was a disparaging manner “Is that man still with this army?” [148]

George Pickett attempted to rebuild his life after the war and the task was not easy, for though he applied for amnesty, his case was complicated by an incident where he had ordered the execution of twenty-two former North Carolina militiamen who had defected to the Union and been re-captured by the Confederates. Pickett’s action was no different than many Confederate commanders who followed the Richmond government’s decision to take ruthless measures to suppress Unionist sentiments and secession of areas of the Confederacy where Union sympathies ran high. The area of Pickett’s operation was “a haven for “Tories” who openly supported U.S. troops. What was worse, hundreds of local Unionists engaged in the most violent guerrilla activities, shooting and burning out their secessionist neighbors, waylaying Confederate supply trains, attacking outposts.” ^{^[149]}

In a sense Pickett was now engaged in counter-insurgency operations, and like many commanders involved in such operations descend into the same type of barbaric actions of those they are fighting. By early 186 the war was turning into a grim, hate-filled struggle that knew few rules and niceties, and Pickett was changing to the pattern.” ^{^[150]} When Pickett captured the former militiamen he refused to treat them as prisoners of war and instead “he court-martialed them and hanged them all.” ^{^[151]} He established a military court composed of Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia officers, hauled the deserters-in-arms before it, and approved the death sentences.” ^{^[152]} When the prisoners went to the gallows Pickett reportedly told each of them “God damn you, I reckon you will ever hardly go back there again, you damned rascals; I’ll have you shot, and all the other damned rascals who desert.” ^{^[153]}

Federal authorities thought about charging him with war crimes which resulted in Pickett fleeing to Canada. It took the intervention of Pickett’s faithful friend Ulysses S. Grant to have the charges dismissed and for Pickett to be granted amnesty by President Johnson in 1868. Grant admitted that the punishment was harsh, however, Grant’s judgment was steeped in the fact that many Northern commanders had resorted to similar actions in combating insurgents and deserters. Grant wrote in his friend’s defense:

“But it was in time of war and when the enemy no doubt it necessary to retain, by some power, the services of every man within their reach. Gen. Pickett I know personally to be an honorable man but in this case his judgement [sic] prompted him to do what can not well be sustained though I do not see how good, either to the friends of the deceased or by fixing an example for the future, can be secured by his trial now.” [154]

Even so, Pickett’s life was difficult. Health difficulties plagued him and employment was scarce, even for a man of Pickett’s stature in Virginia. He refused employment which would take him away from Sallie and his children and finally took a job as an insurance agent in Richmond. It was a job which he felt demeaning, requiring that he attempt to sell insurance policies to destitute and out of work Confederate veterans and their families. Sallie wrote that he “could not come to terms with a profession that made its profits through what one colleague called “gall, gall, old man, gall and grub.” [155] Distinctly unhappy the dejected old soldier told her “I’d sooner face a canon,…than to take out a policy with me.” [156]

In 1870 he was convinced by John Singleton Mosby to visit Lee when the latter was visiting Richmond as Lee was making a final tour of battlefields and other sites. For Pickett the visit only reinforced his resentment that he felt for Lee, who he felt blamed him for the defeat at Five Forks and had ostracized him. The meeting occurred in “Lee’s room at the Ballard Hotel was icy and lasted only two or three minutes.” [157]

Mosby realized quickly that the meeting was not going well and “Sensing the unpleasantness of the meeting, Mosby got up in a few moments and Pickett followed him. Once outside the room, Pickett broke out bitterly against “that old man” who, he said, “had my division massacred at Gettysburg.” [158] Mosby attempted to assuage his friend’s feelings but Pickett “was not mollified by Mosby’s rejoinder that “it made you immortal.” [159]

George Pickett was a romantic as well as a true believer in the cause of the Confederacy. Pickett was vain, often self-serving and even irresponsible. He certainly as Porter Alexander noted was a better brigade commander than division commander, a position that he desired but at which never excelled. He was a poor administrator, and in the campaigns of 1864 and 1865 demonstrated exceptionally poor leadership.

His temperament, especially his seeming inability to function in a hierarchical structure, and the rebellious streak that he had as a cadet at West Point was never exercised: “He resented authority and chafed at deferring to any man as his superior…Pickett never understood his place in the hierarchy. He considered himself part of the cream of the Army of Northern Virginia, but without being willing to shoulder all the responsibilities and sacrifices that entailed.” [160]

All that being said, in the matter of Pickett’s conduct during the charge that bears his name; the charges of cowardice or incompetence that some leveled at him are certainly not true. The fact that Pickett retained command after the battle indicates that Lee did not believe that he had acted with cowardice, or that Lee questioned the manner in which Pickett led the assault. Lee had many concerns about Pickett and reservations about his leadership but those stand apart from Pickett’s conduct on July 3^rd 1863.

In the matter of Pickett not going far enough forward, it is unlikely that such any such action on Pickett’s part to charge further into the maelstrom would have done little more than add yet another name to the list of Confederate general officers killed or wounded at Gettysburg. The question of “how Pickett survived without a scratch, when his three brigadiers and all of his field officers but one went down. This could be done by the brief explanation that his escape was “miraculous.” [161] Edwin Coddington wrote that “it would have been better for his reputation if had been called to give his life or if the attack had been known for what it was, Longstreet’s Second Assault.” [162]

Bitter and discouraged at the end of his life he uttered his last words to Sallie’s uncle who had also served in the Army of Northern Virginia “Well, Colonel, the enemy is too strong for me again…my ammunition is all out” … He closed his eyes, and settled back as if at peace for the first time in his life. Sallie never left his side; two hours after his death they gently pried her hands from his.” [163]

Pickett’s charge was over, except for the blame, the stories and the legends, especially in the South. The failure of this disastrous tactical assault that bears Pickett’s name placed the final nail in Lee’s operational plan to take the war to the North and defeat the Federal army on its own territory. “Lee’s plan was almost Burnside-like in its simplicity, and it produced a Fredericksburg with the roles reversed.” ^{^[164]} James McPherson made the very succinct observation that Pickett’s charge represented the Confederate war effort in microcosm: matchless valor, apparent initial success, and ultimate disaster.” [165]

That tactical and operational failure had strategic implications for the Confederacy; it ensured the loss of Vicksburg and forced Lee to assume the defensive in the east. “Lee and his men would go on to further laurels. But they never again possessed the power and reputation that they carried into Pennsylvania those palmy midsummer days of 1863.” [166] The repulse ended the campaign that Lee had hoped would secure the independence of the Confederacy. The Battle of Gettysburg was and it was much more than a military defeat, but a political one as well, for with it went the slightest hope remaining of foreign intervention. As J.F.C. Fuller wrote “It began as a political move and it had ended in a political fiasco.” [167]

Notes

^{^[1]} Clausewitz, Carl von. On War Indexed edition, edited and translated by Michael Howard and Peter Paret, Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ 1976 p.114

^{^[2]} Ibid. Clausewitz On War p.108

^{^[3]} Dempsey, Martin Mission Command White Paper 3 April 2012 p.5 retrieved ( July 2014 from http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/concepts/white_papers/cjcs_wp_missioncommand.pdf

^{^[4]} ___________. The Armed forces Officer U.S. Department of Defense Publication, Washington DC. January 2006 p.18

^{^[5]} Ibid. The Armed Forces Officer p.18

^{^[6]} Ibid. Clausewitz On War p.101

[7] Stewart, George R. Pickett’s Charge: A Micro-History of the Final Attack at Gettysburg, July 3^rd 1863 Houghton Mifflin Company Boston 1959 p.94

[8] Hess, Earl J. Pickett’s Charge: The Last Attack at Gettysburg University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill and London 2001 p. 55

[9] Ibid. Stewart Pickett’s Charge: A Micro-History p.94

[10] Wert, Jeffery D. Gettysburg Day Three A Touchstone Book, New York 2001 p.110

[11] Foote, Shelby, The Civil War, A Narrative. Volume Two Fredericksburg to Meridian Random House, New York 1963 p.548

^{^[12]} Ibid. Foote The Civil War, A Narrative. Volume Two p.548

^{^[13]} Gottfried, Bradley The Artillery of Gettysburg Cumberland House Publishing, Nashville TN 2008 p.206

[14] Ibid. Gottfried The Artillery of Gettysburg p.193

[15] Longacre, Edward G. Pickett: Leader of the Charge White Mane Publishing Company, Shippensburg PA 1995 p.121

[16] Reardon, Carol The Convergence of History and Myth in the Southern Past: Pickett’s Charge in The Third Day at Gettysburg and Beyond edited by Gallagher, Gary W. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill and London 1994 p.83

[17] Ibid. Wert Gettysburg Day Three p.297

^{^[18]} Sears, Stephen W. Gettysburg. Houghton Mifflin Co. Boston and New York 2003 p.387

^{^[19]} Ibid. Stewart Pickett’s Charge: A Micro-History p.39

^{^[20]} Ibid. Hess Pickett’s Charge p.153

^{^[21]} Ibid. Wert Gettysburg Day Three p.181

^{^[22]} Dowdy, Clifford. Lee and His Men at Gettysburg: The Death of a Nation Skyhorse Publishing, New York 1986, originally published as Death of a Nation Knopf, New York 1958 p.294

^{^[23]} Ibid. Wert Gettysburg Day Three p.179

^{^[24]} Ibid. Stewart Pickett’s Charge p.132

^{^[25]} Coddington, Edwin B. The Gettysburg Campaign: A Study in Command, A Touchstone Book, Simon and Schuster New York, 1968 p.496

^{^[26]} Ibid. Coddington The Gettysburg Campaign p.496

^{^[27]} Huntington, Tom Searching for George Gordon Meade: The Forgotten Victor of Gettysburg Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg PA 2013 p.171

^{^[28]} Ibid. Hess Pickett’s Charge p.163

^{^[29]} Ibid. Coddington The Gettysburg Campaign p.499

^{^[30]} Trudeau, Noah Andre. Gettysburg: A Testing of Courage, Harper Collins Publishers, New York 2002 p.459

^{^[31]} Ibid. Coddington The Gettysburg Campaign p.500

[32] Alexander, Edward Porter Fighting for the Confederacy: The Personal Recollections of General Edward Porter Alexander edited by Gallagher, Gary The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill and London 1989 p.258

^{^[33]} Hunt, Henry The Third Day at Gettysburg in Battles and Leaders of the Civil War edited by Bradford, Neil Meridian Press, New York 1989 p.374

^{^[34]} Alexander, Edwin Porter. The Great Charge and the Artillery Fighting at Gettysburg, in Battles and Leaders of the Civil War edited by Bradford, Neil Meridian Press, New York 1989 p.364

[35] Ibid. Dowdy Lee and His Men at Gettysburg p.297

[36] Wert, Jeffry D. General James Longstreet: The Confederacy’s Most Controversial Soldier A Touchstone Book, Simon and Schuster, New York and London 1993 p.291

^{^[37]} Ibid. Coddington The Gettysburg Campaign p.501

^{^[38]} Ibid. Alexander The Great Charge and the Artillery Fighting at Gettysburg p.365

^{^[39]} Ibid. Alexander The Great Charge and the Artillery Fighting at Gettysburg p.365

^{^[40]} Ibid. Trudeau. Gettysburg: A Testing of Courage pp.474-475

^{^[41]} Ibid. Alexander The Great Charge and the Artillery Fighting at Gettysburg p.365

^{^[42]} Ibid. Alexander Fighting for the Confederacy p.261

[43] Ibid. Dowdy Lee and His Men at Gettysburg p.313

^{^[44]} Ibid. Wert Gettysburg Day Three p.109

[45] Ibid. Dowdy, Lee and His Men at Gettysburg p.264

[46] Ibid. Longacre Pickett p.4

[47] Ibid. Longacre Pickett p.6

[48] See Longacre Pickett pp.6-7. The myth was quite successful and it endures in some accounts of Pickett’s life and in a number of military histories including Larry Tagg’s The Generals of Gettysburg

[49] Waugh, John C. The Class of 1846 from West Point to Appomattox: Stonewall Jackson, George McClellan and their Brothers A Ballantine Book, New York 1994 pp.38-39

[50] Ibid. Longacre Pickett p.7

[51] Ibid. Waugh The Class of 1846 from West Point to Appomattox p.39

[52] Ibid. Longacre Pickett p.12

[53] Guelzo, Allen C. Gettysburg: The Last Invasion Vintage Books a Division of Random House, New York 2013 p.378

[54] Ibid. Guelzo Gettysburg: The Last Invasion p.378

[55] Ibid. Longacre Pickett p.20

^{^[56]} Ibid. Hess Pickett’s Charge p.37

[57] Ibid. Dowdy Lee and His Men at Gettysburg p.264

[58] Ibid. Waugh The Class of 1846 p.457

[59] Ibid. Longacre Pickett p.32

[60] Ibid. Longacre Pickett p.33

[61] Ibid. Longacre Pickett pp.50-51

[62] Ibid. Longacre Pickett p.51

[63] Ibid. Hess Pickett’s Charge p.38

[64] Ibid. Hess Pickett’s Charge p.47

[65] Ibid. Dowdy Lee and his Men at Gettysburg p.296

[66] Freeman, Douglas Southall, Lee an abridgment by Richard Harwell, Touchstone Books, New York 1997 p.338

[67] Freeman, Douglas Southall Lee’s Lieutenants: A Study in Command abridged in one volume by Stephen Sears, Scribner Books, Simon and Schuster, New York 1998 p.594

^{^[68]} Ibid. Guelzo, Gettysburg: The Last Invasion p.408

^{^[69]} Ibid. Hess Pickett’s Charge p.166

^{^[70]} Ibid. Hess Pickett’s Charge p.167

^{^[71]} Ibid. Hess Pickett’s Charge p.167

^{^[72]} Ibid. Trudeau. Gettysburg: A Testing of Courage p.483

^{^[73]} Ibid. Alexander The Great Charge and the Artillery Fighting at Gettysburg p.365

^{^[74]} Ibid. Foote The Civil War, A Narrative. Volume Two p.553

^{^[75]} Ibid. Guelzo Gettysburg: The Last Invasion p.407

^{^[76]} Ibid. Hess Pickett’s Charge p.193

^{^[77]} Ibid. Hess Pickett’s Charge p.193

^{^[78]} Ibid. Guelzo Gettysburg: The Last Invasion p.411

^{^[79]} Ibid. Sears Gettysburg p.422

[80] Catton, Bruce The Army of the Potomac: Glory Road Doubleday and Company, Garden City New York, 1952 p.318

^{^[81]} Ibid. Sears Gettysburg p.423

[82] Ibid. Stewart Pickett’s Charge: A Micro-History of the Final Attack at Gettysburg pp.193-194

[83] Ibid. Hess Pickett’s Charge p.187

[84] Ibid. Stewart Pickett’s Charge: A Micro-History of the Final Attack at Gettysburg p.193

[85] Ibid. Dowdy Lee and His Men at Gettysburg p.311

[86] Ibid. Trudeau. Gettysburg: A Testing of Courage p.494

[87] Ibid. Sears Gettysburg p.425

[88] Ibid. Trudeau. Gettysburg: A Testing of Courage p.494

[89] Ibid. Trudeau. Gettysburg: A Testing of Courage p.502

[90] Ibid. Wert Gettysburg Day Three p.216

[91] Ibid. Catton The Army of the Potomac: Glory Road p.318

[92] Ibid. Trudeau. Gettysburg: A Testing of Courage p.504

[93] Ibid. Stewart Pickett’s Charge: A Micro-History of the Final Attack at Gettysburg pp.238-239

[94] Ibid. Trudeau. Gettysburg: A Testing of Courage p.504

[95] Ibid. Guelzo Gettysburg: The Last Invasion p.425

^{^[96]} Ibid. Foote The Civil War, A Narrative. Volume Two p.555

^{^[97]} Ibid. Coddington The Gettysburg Campaign p.503

[98] Ibid. Coddington The Gettysburg Campaign p.505

[99] Ibid. Coddington The Gettysburg Campaign p.505

^{^[100]} Ibid. Gottfried The Artillery of Gettysburg p.217

^{^[101]} Ibid. Hess Pickett’s Charge p.220

[102] Ibid. Coddington The Gettysburg Campaign p.515

[103] Ibid. Coddington The Gettysburg Campaign p.515

[104] Ibid. Trudeau. Gettysburg: A Testing of Courage p.502

[105] Ibid. Sears Gettysburg p.448

[106] Ibid. Gottfried The Artillery of Gettysburg p.200

[107] Ibid. Gottfried The Artillery of Gettysburg p.221

[108] Ibid. Gottfried The Artillery of Gettysburg p.208

[109] Ibid. Wert Gettysburg Day Three p.211

[110] Ibid. Gottfried The Artillery of Gettysburg p.221

[111] Ibid. Trudeau. Gettysburg: A Testing of Courage p.505

[112] Ibid. Dowdy Lee and His Men at Gettysburg p.317

[113] Ibid. Foote The Civil War, A Narrative. Volume Two p.562

[114] Ibid. Stewart Pickett’s Charge: A Micro-History of the Final Attack at Gettysburg p.172

[115] Ibid. Hess Pickett’s Charge p.262

[116] Ibid. Catton The Army of the Potomac: Glory Road p.319

[117] Ibid. Stewart Pickett’s Charge: A Micro-History of the Final Attack at Gettysburg pp.235-236

[118] Ibid. Trudeau Gettysburg p.508

[119] Ibid. Stewart Pickett’s Charge: A Micro-History of the Final Attack at Gettysburg p.236

[120] Ibid. Sears Gettysburg p.451

[121] Ibid. Coddington The Gettysburg Campaign p.528

[122] Ibid. Coddington The Gettysburg Campaign p.528

[123] Ibid. Stewart Pickett’s Charge: A Micro-History of the Final Attack at Gettysburg p.248

[124] Ibid. Hess Pickett’s Charge p.309

[125] Fremantle, Arthur Three Months in the Southern States, April- June 1863 William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh and London 1863 Amazon Kindle edition p.285

[126] Ibid. Wert General James Longstreet The Confederacy’s Most Controversial Soldier p.292

[127] Ibid. Fremantle Three Months in the Southern States p.287

[128] Ibid. Sears Gettysburg p.456

[129] Ibid. Hess Pickett’s Charge p.326

[130] Ibid. Guelzo Gettysburg: The Last Invasion p.428

[131] Ibid. Guelzo Gettysburg: The Last Invasion p.428

[132] Ibid. Hess Pickett’s Charge p.326

[133] Ibid Guelzo Gettysburg: The Last Invasion p.428

[134] ibid. Guelzo Gettysburg: The Last Invasion pp.428-429

[135] Ibid. Hess Pickett’s Charge p.325

[136] Ibid. Guelzo Gettysburg: The Last Invasion p.429

[137] Ibid. Sears Gettysburg p.456

[138] Ibid. Waugh The Class of 1846 p.489

[139] Ibid. Hess Pickett’s Charge p.354

[140] Ibid. Reardon The Convergence of History and Myth in the Southern Past: Pickett’s Charge p.76

[141] Gordon, Lesley J. “Let the People See the Old Life as it Was” La Salle Corbell Pickett and the Myth of the Lost Cause in The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History edited by Gallagher, Gary W. and Nolan, Alan T. Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis 2000 p.170

[142] Ibid. Longacre Pickett p.160

[143] Selcer, Richard F. Lee vs. Pickett: Two Divided by War Thomas Publications, Gettysburg PA 1998 p.66

[144] Ibid. Selcer Lee vs. Pickett p.66

[145] Ibid. Longacre Pickett pp.160-161

[146] Ibid. Hess Pickett’s Charge p.375

[147] Ibid. Longacre Pickett pp.166-167

[148] Ibid. Hess Pickett’s Charge p.375

[149] Ibid. Longacre Pickett p.137

[150] Ibid. Longacre Pickett p.141

[151] Guelzo Allen C. Fateful Lightening: A New History of the Civil War Era and Reconstruction Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York 2012 p.368

[152] Ibid. Longacre Pickett p.140

[153] Ibid. Guelzo Fateful Lightening p.368

[154] Ibid. Longacre Pickett p.175

[155] Ibid. Longacre Pickett p.178

[156] Ibid. Longacre Pickett p.178

[157] Ibid. Hess Pickett’s Charge p.377

[158] Ibid. Freeman Lee p.569

[159] Ibid. Waugh The Class of 1846 p.529

[160] Ibid. Selcer Lee vs. Pickett p.101

[161] Ibid. Stewart Pickett’s Charge: A Micro-History p.287

[162] Ibid. Coddington The Gettysburg Campaign p.528

[163] Ibid. Longacre Pickett p.180

[164] Millet, Allan R. and Maslowski, Peter, For the Common Defense: A Military History of the United States The Free Press a Division of Macmillan Inc. New York, 1984 p.206

[165] McPherson, James The Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York 1988 p.662

[166] Ibid. McPherson The Battle Cry of Freedom p.665

[167] Fuller, J.F.C. Grant and Lee: A Study in Personality and Generalship, Indiana University Press, Bloomington IN 1957 pp.200-201

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Tagged as alexander webb, alonzo cushing, american civil war, battle of gettysburg, freeman mcgilvery, general dick garnett csa, general george gordon meade, george pickett, henry hunt, isaac trimble, james kemper, james longstreet, johnston pettigrew, la salle corbell pickett, lewis armistead, pickett's charge, robert e lee, winfield scott hancock

August 26, 2015 · 16:11

A Magnificent Display: The Artillery at Pickett’s Charge

Friends of Padre Steve’s World

I am continuing to edit, update and revise my Gettysburg text and today I am putting out an article dealing with the artillery at Pickett’s Charge. The artillery engagement was the largest ever conducted on the American continent. I am in the process of combining two chapters into one to make the text flow better. While not a final effort, I will be adding to this as I work my way through the text, I wanted to present it now as I will be published a section on what soldiers went through while waiting to go into action yesterday and will be putting out the section on Pickett’s Charge tomorrow.

Like all of my writings I do my best to convey the human element and the suffering involved in battle as in our day too few people, even military personnel see it first hand, and I will be doing more to revise this chapter in the coming weeks and months.

I hope that you enjoy.

Peace

Padre Steve+

Confederate Guns on Seminary Ridge

Indescribably Grand… a Mere Waste of Ammunition: The Confederate Artillery at Pickett’s Charge

Many times battles are won or lost due to organizational failures as much as they are by tactical decisions. One of the issues that plagued Robert E Lee at Gettysburg was the effects of the army reorganization prior to and after Chancellorsville. While much attention is given to the reorganization of the Second Corps following the death of Stonewall Jackson and its division between A.P. Hill and Richard Ewell, less attention is given to the reorganization of the artillery.

Following Chancellorsville Lee abolished his artillery reserve and split all artillery between the three corps of his army. Each corps now had its own artillery reserve while divisions maintained control of their own organic batteries. Each corps had its own artillery reserve commander. The reorganization had been delegated by Pendleton to Porter Alexander and Jackson’s Corps Artillery Chief Colonel Stapleton Crutchfield. ^{^[1]} The initial reorganization approved by Lee on April 16th 1863 retained a 36 gun general reserve was retained, but after Chancellorsville the battalions assigned to it were distributed to the corps. ^{^[2]} While the reorganization did give the corps commanders more firepower it took away the ability of the army commander to have a ready reserve of firepower that could be used at when he needed.

At Gettysburg the artillery of the Army of Northern Virginia was assigned to each of the three army corps. First Corps under James Longstreet was assigned 5 battalions with 21 total batteries of 84 guns. Longstreet’s artillery chief was Colonel James B Walton, though during the battle Longstreet would come to rely on Lieutenant Colonel Edward Porter Alexander as his de facto artillery chief. Richard Ewell’s Second Corps also had five battalions of artillery, again with 21 assigned batteries totaling 84 guns. The chief of Second Corps artillery was Colonel J. Thomson Brown. Lastly A. P. Hill’s Third Corps had five battalions composed of 20 batteries with 80 guns under direction of Colonel Lindsey Walker. ^{^[3]}

It was an idea the Union army had experimented with but Henry Hunt had the wisdom to retain the reserve. ^{^[4]} The actions of the union artillery reserve on the second day were in large measure responsible for breaking the back of Confederate assaults on both flanks of July 2nd. The fact Meade and his artillery Chief Henry Hunt had this reserve available and not split up among the various army corps gave them a flexibility in employing massed firepower at critical points throughout the battle.

Brigadier General William Pendleton

The head of the Army of Northern Virginia’s artillery Brigadier General William Pendleton, given the inflated title of “General in Chief Artillery” had his actual role “deflated to purely advisory.” ^{^[5]} However as Lee’s adviser he was still the senior artilleryman in the army and Lee issued orders regarding the employment of the artillery through him. Pendleton was an 1830 graduate of West Point but had left the army to enter the Episcopal Priesthood. A “well meaning bumbler” ^{^[6]} he owed his appointment to his “friendship with both Lee and Davis.” ^{^[7]} He had no combat experience prior to the war, had missed the war with Mexico, shared in the responsibility for the disaster at Malvern Hill and he “lacked any instinct for the battlefield.” ^{^[8]}

At Gettysburg Pendleton was especially ineffectual and his role on July 3rd was to sow confusion in Confederate artillery units as he “sought to supervise the whole artillery operation.” ^{^[9]} Though his administrative skills should have made him effective in the advisory role he contributed to the failure of the attack.

Since the Confederates were more than 200 miles from their nearest artillery depot the amount of ammunition for the operation was always an issue. This became critical after the first two days of battle because Pendleton did not keep track of his ammunition expenditure and failed to let Lee know of ammunition shortages, information that might have made Lee reconsider the ill-fated attack of July 3rd.

During the day of July 3rd without a real job of his own to do Pendleton moved batteries on his own authority without coordination with the commanders to which they belonged. Even more importantly he placed the artillery ammunition supply trains too far to the rear to resupply the guns. This was discovered by Alexander during the great artillery barrage when his ammunition ran low and he had to tell Longstreet and Pickett at a critical point that he could not maintain his fire much longer. Pendleton should have ensured that the ammunition was located where it needed to be instead “lurked about the artillery corps commanders and gave them the impression that he was exercising the supervisory control implied by his title.” ^{^[10]} As a result “some of the guns remained mute and their gunners stood helpless during the cannonade and charge.” ^{^[11]}

With Longstreet’s First Corps given the assignment of breaking the center of the Federal line priority of fires was given to him. Lee had high expectations of the artillery. Alexander recorded that Lee’s intent was “First, to give the enemy the most effective cannonade possible. It was not meant simply to make a noise, but to try to cripple him-to tear him limbless, as it were, if possible….” ^{^[12]} Lee wanted the artillery from all of his corps to concentrate on the Federal position. In theory the exterior lines that his army occupied which were such a disadvantage to him in the attack should have allowed Ewell’s and some of Hill’s batteries to enfilade the Federal position, in a sense creating a cross fire.

This should have been the job of Pendleton as the General in Chief of Artillery, but as noted he was not effective in coordinating anything. It was the biggest artillery operation ever attempted by the Army of Northern Virginia and it required a great deal of coordination, “assigning or approving the best firing positions, specifying targets, ordering and coordinating the fire of a dozen artillery battalions of three army corps” ^{^[13]} and a host of other important details, which Pendleton, though he claimed to have given “earnest attention” to all of these matters fell short. Alexander noted “our line was so extended that all of it was not well studied, and the officers of the different corps had no opportunity to examine each other’s ground for chances to cooperate.” ^{^[14]}

Instead the real responsibility for the artillery battle fell upon the shoulders of three corps artillery commanders, each unaware of what the other was doing. “Alexander did not know what Lindsey Walker was doing with Hill’s artillery and Walker was apparently not even sure of what he was doing himself.” ^{^[15]} While Porter Alexander attempted to provide what Lee and Longstreet required Ewell’s artillery took almost no part in the battle and Hill’s artillery under Walker was largely ineffectual in large part because it had spent much of its ammunition supporting a meaningless skirmish prior to Pickett’s attack. Likewise, Second Corps artillery badly needed supervision as Crutchfield was now wounded and out of action. ^{^[16]}

As a result “two thirds of Lee’s guns were idle or improperly employed.” Instead of shattering Meade’s lines as Lee intended “the guns achieved little beyond adding to the terrifying noise, and overshooting, scaring the men in Meade’s noncombatant services…” ^{^[17]} In all at least 58 guns assigned to support the attack never fired a shot.

When the bombardment began at 1:07 P.M. Henry Hunt described the sight as “indescribably grand.” but he noted that “most of the enemy’s projectiles passed overhead, the effect being to sweep all the open ground in our rear, which was of little benefit to the Confederates – a mere waste of ammunition.” ^{^[18]} Their target, a thin infantry and gun line was hard to hit and complicating matters was the smoke which obscured their view and “the inferior quality of their fuzes.” ^{^[19]}

Command, control, logistics and organization helped make the largest artillery attack on American soil fall far short of what Robert E. Lee expected. As Lee stood by Alexander watching the battered remnants of Pickett’s division return from the assault Alexander noted that “at this moment he must have foreseen Appomattox.” ^{^[20]}

“The Artillery…Must Concur as a Unit” Henry Hunt and the Union Artillery at Pickett’s Charge

Major General Henry Hunt

Major General Henry Hunt the Chief of Union artillery was the admitted expert of all the artillerymen present at Gettysburg. Prior to the war he had taught artillery theory and tactics at West Point and written the Army’s artillery doctrine. However, he was no mere theoretician. He was an excellent battlefield leader who had a keen eye to assess the tactical situation and effectively employ his batteries. Hunt also understood the change in warfare brought about by small arms, particularly the rifled musket and that artillery had become a support weapon instead of an assault weapon, something that Lee had not yet fully appreciated as we have seen from his use of artillery.

The employment of fires is an important part of military art and to be effective it must be understood and used in concert with maneuver. As George Patton wrote in “War as I Knew It” Battles are won by fire and by movement. The purpose of the movement is to get the fire in a more advantageous place to play on the enemy.” In contrast to Lee and his employment of artillery at Gettysburg which was ineffective in large part because he declined to use maneuver to his advantage, Meade, Hancock, Hunt and the various Union Corps commanders used their artillery to maximum effect taking advantage of their interior lines.

After Hooker’s disastrous experiment at Chancellorsville to decentralize the command and organization of the artillery Hunt was give a free hand to reorganize the artillery of the Army of the Potomac. The changes were sweeping. Batteries were removed from divisions and consolidated into brigades for each corps. Additionally Hunt created an Artillery Reserve of five Brigades totaling 21 batteries which could be employed to support the army at any given point and provided both him and the army commander a flexible and powerful source of firepower. “Hunt put his best veteran artillerymen in charge of these brigades, and their deployment was in the hands of Hunt and the corps commanders.” ^{^[21]} At Gettysburg the changes would be of decisive importance.

Hunt had been very active on July 2^nd in working with Meade, Hancock and vital in ensuring that Sickles beleaguered command received batteries from the artillery reserve. He was not present at the council of war held that night but was informed of the decision to remain upon his return from his last inspection of his lines and supervision of artillery at Culp’s Hill. In his inspection of the Federal artillery positions he took charge and moved units as needed and coordinated his work with the brigade commanders of each corps ensuring that they understood their part in the next day’s action.

Unlike his Confederate counterpart William Pendleton, Hunt went into battle on July 3^rd with very definite ideas of how he was going to employ his artillery and developed a detailed plan of fire support. Hunt’s artillery regulations dictated that “in the attack…the artillery is employed to silence the batteries that protect the [enemy] position. In the defense it is better to direct its fire on the advancing troops.” ^{^[22]}

One of his most critical decisions was in relation to the Artillery Reserve to address Meade’s concerns about an attack on the Union center. About 11 A.M. Hunt went to Cemetery Hill where he was able to gain a good view of Confederate preparations. He wrote that “Here a magnificent display greeted my eyes. Our whole front for two miles was covered by batteries in line or going into position…. Never before had such a sight been witnessed on this continent, and rarely if ever abroad…” ^{^[23]}Hunt placed twenty batteries of his artillery reserve along Cemetery Ridge and “laid out a deadly latticework of crossfire lanes designed to scourge the fields in front of every living thing.” ^{^[24]} Hunt was aided in his efforts by the commander of the Artillery Reserve Brigadier General Robert O. Tyler who was able to increase the number of guns available “through repairs and reconditioning.” ^{^[25]}

As Hunt examined the situation before him he had to discern what the Confederate intentions were. He thought there was the possibility that Lee might use them to cover a move of infantry to support Ewell but he dismissed that as he did the possibility of Lee withdrawing his army. Despite the fact that he could not see the deployment of the Confederate infantry massing for the assault Hunt was convinced that the attack would hit the center. In light of his understanding of the how artillery should be employed in the defense he “grasped the essence of the situation-that the duty of the artillery was not to combat the opposing ones, but to reserve themselves to smash the infantry assault.” ^{^[26]}

As such his guns, both of the artillery reserve as well as II Corps deployed on Cemetery Ridge was confronted with an artilleryman’s dream. “He was posted on the high ground…with clear fields of fire. He had 119 guns of high quality massed in battery, with plentiful reserves and sufficient ammunition. He was positioned to catch an infantry attack in a deadly crossfire. His brigade commanders were chosen by him and trained by him….” ^{^[27]} This total included the guns on Cemetery Hill as well as Cemetery Ridge.

Notes

[1] Golay, Michael To Gettysburg and Beyond: The Parallel lives of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and Edward Porter Alexander Crown Publishers Inc. New York 1994 p.155

[2] Coco, Gregory A. A Concise Guide to the Artillery at Gettysburg Colcraft Industries Ortanna PA 1998 p.43

[3] Ibid.

[4] Dowdey, Clifford Lee and His Men at Gettysburg: The Death of a Nation, Skyhorse Publishing New York 1958 p.284

[5] Sears Stephen W Gettysburg Houghton Mifflin Company Boston and New York 2004 p.377

[6] Ibid Dowdey, p.284

[7] Ibid. Sears p.377

[8] Ibid.

[9] Ibid. Dowdey p.285

[10] Ibid. p.286

[11] Coddington, Edwin The Gettysburg Campaign, a Study in Command A Touchstone Book, Simon and Schuster New York 1968 p.499

[12] Trudeau, Noah Andre Gettysburg A Testing of Courage Harper Collins New York 2002 pp.444-445

[13] Ibid. Sears p.379

[14] Alexander, Edward Porter The Great Charge and the Artillery Fighting at Gettysburg in Battles and Leaders of the Civil War edited by Bradford, Neil Meridian Press New York 1989 p.395

[15] Ibid. Dowdey p.286

[16] Ibid.

[17] Ibid

[18] Hunt, Henry The Third Day at Gettysburg in Battles and Leaders of the Civil War edited by Bradford, Neil Meridian Press, New York 1989 p.386

[19] Ibid. Sears p.381

[20] Ibid. Alexander p.397

^{^[21]} Sears, Stephen W. Gettysburg. Houghton Mifflin Co. Boston and New York 2003 p.32

^{^[22]} Foote, Shelby, The Civil War, A Narrative. Volume Two Fredericksburg to Meridian Random House, New York 1963 p.545

^{^[23]} Hunt, Henry The Third Day at Gettysburg in Battles and Leaders of the Civil War edited by Bradford, Neil Meridian Press, New York 1989 p.385

^{^[24]} Trudeau, Noah Andre. Gettysburg: A Testing of Courage, Harper Collins Publishers, New York 2002 p.486

^{^[25]} Ibid. Sears p.375

^{^[26]} Stewart, George R. Pickett’s Charge: A Micro-History of the Final Attack at Gettysburg, July 3^rd 1863 Houghton Mifflin Company Boston 1959 p.131

^{^[27]} Ibid. Sears p.376

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Filed under civil war, Gettysburg, History, leadership, Military

Tagged as artillery at gettysburg, battle of gettysburg, henry hunt, porter alexander, william pendleton

August 25, 2015 · 15:00

Almost Unbearable: Waiting for Pickett’s Charge

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

A couple of weeks ago I led a group of my students from the Staff College to Gettysburg. One thing that an observant person will do when they go to such a location is to imagine what was going through the minds of the people who were there. At Gettysburg this is very possible because the battlefield is in such good shape, thus when you stand in the wood line on Seminary Ridge looking out at the federal positions as did the Confederates on July 3rd 1863, or on Cemetery Ridge looking to the west as the Union troops did you can get a sense of what these men were face. The Confederates were to advance across an open field in the face of concentrated artillery, much of which they could not even see before they came into range. I think that when we look at events like this that there is always a current application simply because people are people and no-matter how much technology changes, it is the actions of people that are important, be it in a military setting or not. To go to a place such as Gettysburg and to take in the sites while reading and imagining what those men were thinking, both those in command as well as those being ordered to their deaths.

Anyway, this a a part of my Gettysburg text and I do hope that it helps you understand the plight of those invested with command as well as those whose only real option based on their society and culture is to obey their orders.

Peace

Padre Steve+

Major General George Pickett C.S.A.

While James Longstreet was depressed and doubted whether any assault could break the Federal line, as were many other Confederate commanders who had seen the great cost in lives of attacking the entrenched Federal army on July 2^nd, Robert E. Lee held on to the hope that one more assault would carry the day. It had to Lee had staked everything on a decisive battle, “the importance with which his whole strategy had invested in this battle and the stubbornness which had driven him on at Gaines’s Mill, Malvern Hill, and Antietam, impelled Lee to still try another major attack on July 3.” ^[1]

However, Robert E. Lee was encouraged by the partial success of his forces on July 2^nd and he was now confident “that with the proper coordination and support of artillery, it was still possible to assault and break through Meade’s front.” ^{^[2]} Convinced that his men could conquer the Federal position, and encouraged by the small successes of the second day, “the general plan of attack was unchanged.” ^{^[3]}

Lee’s tactical problem remained the same as it had on July 2^nd, when the power of the rifled musket and massed artillery of the Federal defenders had cut his assaulting troops to ribbons. True his troops inflicted heavy casualties on the Federal army, especially on Sickles’ badly exposed III Corps in the Wheat Field and the Peach Orchard, but the Federal position was unbroken. His problem was how to break the enemy’s line and then exploit the breakthrough in order to gain not only a victory, but destroy the Army of the Potomac as a fighting force in the process. Some of his troops had pierced the Federal line on July 2^nd but unsupported with Federal reinforcements flowing in were forced to withdraw. Thus Lee’s real problem was not breaking through the Federal line, but “how to stay there and exploit the advantage once the enemy’s line was pierced.” ^{^[4]} Lee’s solution was a grand frontal attack on the center of the Federal position, something that he had absolute faith that his troops could accomplish.

As we have already discussed, the new battlefield of the Civil War was one where the killing power of entrenched troops on the defense had grown exponentially as compared to the Napoleonic era or even the Mexican War, of which Lee and so many commanders were veterans. Troops on the offense assaulting an entrenched enemy had few advantages. As Russell Weigley noted that by the time an attacking force was able to breach a prepared defensive position, “almost invariably, by that time the attacker had lost so heavily, and his reserves were so distant, that he could not hold on against a counterattack by the defending army’s nearby reserves.” ^{^[5]} Like Lee’s costly assaults at Gaines’s Mill, Malvern Hill and those at Gettysburg on July 2nd, the assault of July 3rd by the divisions of Pickett, Pettigrew and Trimble were facing a similar bloody repulse; only Lee refused to accept it.

Colonel Porter Alexander, commanding Longstreet’s corps artillery noted that “even if the attack was “entirely successful, it can be only be at a very bloody cost” ^{^[6]} while Brigadier General A.R. Wright, whose brigade had actually reached Cemetery Ridge on the afternoon of July 2^nd told Alexander “The trouble is not going in there…the problem is to stay there after you get there.” ^{^[7]}

With a fresh army, or perhaps a number of fresh divisions, Lee’s plan might have had a chance to success. But Lee had already lost heavily on July 1^st and July 2^nd and in the process shattered the divisions of Heth, Pender, Rodes, Johnson, Hood and McLaws and suffered serious casualties to the divisions of Early and Anderson. As far as infantry he had very little left, only Pickett’s shorthanded division which was missing two of its five brigades, with which to mount a frontal assault. An assault, that even if it was successful in driving Meade from his position on Cemetery Ridge would further decimate his army, deplete its ammunition, encumber it with wounded and render it incapable of further offensive operations.

But Robert E. Lee was not deterred, as over the past year of action, involving many large battles “Lee had developed extremely high expectations of his enlisted men.” ^{^[8]} He had seen them overcome adversity as well as defeat far larger forces. Unlike his doubting Lieutenant Longstreet, Lee was never in awe “of the formidable character of the Union position…and he felt sure his incomparable infantry if properly handled could take any height.” ^{^[9]}But this time the terrain with all of its advantages to the defense, the superiority of the Federal artillery, the excellent position that Meade’s army occupied and his own lack of fresh troops and scarcity of artillery ammunition, combined with poor staff work and bad organization ensured that this assault would be more than his superb troops could handle.

Porter Alexander, like most in the Army, held Lee in such esteem that regardless of the situation that he implicitly trusted Lee’s judgment. As the preparations were made in the morning initially “believed that it would come out right, because General Lee had planned it.” ^{^[10]} But as he weighed the matter more fully Alexander began to have his doubts and told Longstreet “if there is any alternative to this attack, it should be carefully considered before opening our fire, for it will take all the artillery ammunition we have left to test this one thoroughly, and if the result is unfavorable, we will have none left for another effort.” ^{^[11]}

While Lee was certainly determined to reengage the Federals and defeat them, his lack of clarity and vagueness in his orders combined with the reluctance of a subordinate to carry them out hindered his plan. Lee again had not published a written plan of attack and relied on verbal instructions, which were vague, and more importantly he and Longstreet “had not reached a clear understanding on the nature, extent, and direction of his offensive operations.” ^{^[12]} The misunderstandings and disagreement between the two men had not gotten better over the course of the battle, and somehow, in “the strange, undeclared conflict of wills that had begun thirty-six hours before, neither general was thinking clearly. As Longstreet would now do anything to avoid assuming responsibility for a full-scale attack, Lee would do anything to get him to move out.” ^{^[13]}

Pickett’s division had arrived at Marsh Creek was of Gettysburg after a long and tiring forced march from Chambersburg on July 2^nd at about 4 p.m.. Lee informed Pickett that his division would not be needed that day and ordered him to rest his troops. Thereafter, for whatever reason, they remained in that position until about 4 in the morning on July 3rd. Neither Lee nor Longstreet ordered them up earlier, which would have allowed them to be in position for an earlier assault on the Federal center, an attack that might have been coordinated with Ewell’s attack on Culp’s Hill which went off about 4 a.m.

Some of the blame for this can be laid at the feet of Longstreet, who still determined to find a way to turn the Federal left flank had his staff planning throughout the night for a way to execute that attack, but Lee was remiss in not clearly communicating his intent to his subordinate, to include what he expected him to do as well as when and where he expected him to do it. These questions were not cleared up until after sunrise on July 3rd, when Lee reiterated his plans to Longstreet and A.P. Hill.

Lee decided to attack the Federal center, where Cemetery Ridge was less commanding than Cemetery Hill, or the Round Tops which had been so costly to attack on the first two days of battle. All of Pickett’s division arrived behind Seminary Ridge between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m. on the morning of July 3rd. There it joined the other units assigned to the attack by Lee. Those units, apart from Pickett all came from A.P. Hill’s Third Corps, Longstreet having convinced Lee that the badly cut up divisions of Hood and McLaws should remain in place on the south end of the battlefield to protect the flank. Longstreet was of the opinion, and gained Lee’s concurrence that if those units joined the assault that the flank would be exposed to the well dug in and reinforced Federal units on and around the Round Tops, as Longstreet explained, “To have rushed forward with my two divisions, then carrying bloody noses from their terrible conflict the day before, would have been madness.” ^{^[14]}

The decision to leave these two divisions in place resulted in a change of plan as to where the Confederate assault would be directed. Lee initially planned for Longstreet’s corps to continue its push in the south, from the positions they had taken near Little Round Top, Devil’s Den, the Peach Orchard and the Wheat Field. In that attack Hood’s division now lead by Evander Law, would be on the extreme right, McLaws division in the center attacking from the Wheat Field and Peach Orchard and Pickett on the left, supported by some of A.P. Hill’s Third Corps. Their target would be the south center of Cemetery Ridge, where Wright’s brigade had made it the day before.

However, with the change of plan Pickett’s division was now on the left of the attack, while Heth’s division, now commanded by Johnston Pettigrew would be in the center supported by Lane’s and Scales’ brigades of Dorsey Pender’s division, now commanded by Isaac Trimble, who had taken command only that morning. The selection of Heth’s division to join the attack now “provided a focal point for the attack, since it was roughly opposite the Federal center; then, too, there was a concealed position to the right of Heth’s line that offered room enough for Pickett’s men.” ^{^[15]} This necessitated a change to the intended target of the attack, which Lee now identified as the “small clump of trees” visible in the center of the Federal position.

Lee discounted the terrain as a factor, thinking that the fences that crisscrossed the open field between the two opponents were of little concern. The open ground lent itself to the “massive attack on the scale that Lee visualized” but would “expose his men to a raking fire from enemy muskets and artillery.” ^{^[16]} Lee hoped to reduce this danger with an overwhelming artillery barrage as we have already discussed.

While Longstreet had opposed the attack opposed the attack and finally consented to Lee’s wishes, and other Confederate commanders such as Armistead and Garnett realized the near hopelessness of the attack but maintained their silence, William Mahone, whose brigade was part of Anderson’s division and not assigned to the attack was mortified. Mahone begged Anderson to observe the battlefield and told him his honest opinion of the coming attack: “That no troops ever formed a line of battle that could cross the plain of fire to which the attacking force would be subjected, and…that I could not believe that General Lee would insist on such an assault after he had seen the ground.” ^{^[17]} But Lee was determined and Anderson refused to confront Lee, saying “in substance, that we had nothing to do but to obey the orders.” ^{^[18]}

Mahone was right both about the ground and the fires from the Federal army that the attacking Confederates would encounter. While the fences along the Emmitsburg road in Pickett’s area were not much of a factor, they were on Pettigrew’s front. The Plum Run Valley which cut across the battlefield was a wide swale which “was truly a valley of death; Union artillery placed on Little Round Top could easily fire up its shallow groove as if it were a bowling alley, and Federal infantry could easily counterattack into it.” ^{^[19]} In front of Pettigrew the ground formed “a natural glacis. In short, it naturally sloped at a steeper angle, forcing the attacker to literally walk up directly into the muzzles of the defending infantrymen.” ^{^[20]} Whether Lee recognized it or not the ground itself offered major obstacles that the attacking Confederates would have to negotiate under heavy artillery and musket fire.

From a command, control and coordination aspect there was little to be commended in Lee’s plan. The artillery support, nominally to be conducted by all the Confederate artillery from all three corps was not well coordinated and lacked an overall commander, this ensured that the “corps artillery commanders acted independently, without a firm understanding of the crucial importance of their roles.” ^{^[21]} Porter Alexander, who had the heaviest responsibility during the attack, and on whose recommendation the attack would proceed, only had operational control of the batteries of First Corps and a few from Third Corps, the rest of the artillery battalions remained under their respective corps artillery commanders.

Additionally, to further complicate the artillery plan, the senior artilleryman present, Brigadier General William Pendleton, despite his lack of command authority muddled the artillery preparations by batteries committed to Alexander and the infantry assault without telling him. He also moved the artillery trains from their location near the batteries, far to the rear where the ammunition needed to sustain an attack was out of reach when needed. Lacking central control the batteries of Third Corps did not conserve their limited ammunition and became involved in a long battle over the Bliss farmhouse between the lines which limited their ability to take part in the attack. Likewise the guns of Second Corps, some of which could have had good enfilade fire on Cemetery Hill took little part in the action.

Of the three infantry divisions allotted to the attack, only one, Pickett’s actually belonged to Longstreet, the corps commander leading the attack, while the two divisions from Third Corps were badly cut up from the battle on July 1st and commanded by new commanders, neither who had commanded a division, and one of who, Trimble had never worked with or even met his subordinate commanders until that morning. The two brigades assigned to Trimble from Pender’s division were units that had been heavily engaged on July 1^st, while two other brigades, those of Mahone and Posey from Anderson’s division, had “yet to see serious action” and were “just as fresh as Pickett’s division, yet they were overlooked and not even assigned a supporting role.” ^{^[22]}

Despite his objections to it and the challenges posed by the attack, James Longstreet earnestly worked to make it succeed. Longstreet, Pickett and Pettigrew attempted to smooth out communications to “avoid mistakes and secure proper coordination between various units.” ^{^[23]} However, despite his good intentions, Longstreet made a number of mistakes which could be best described as “lapses of thought.” He failed to “explain the details of the attack to all levels of command in all units…he failed to communicate effectively with anyone outside of First Corps, even though Third Corps troops would make up more than half of the attackers.” He left the artillery plan to Alexander and failed to develop a detailed plan that would determine if the artillery bombardment had weakened the Federals enough “to justify sending in the infantry.” He also did not appreciate the weakened condition of the attached Third Corps units and more importantly seemed to give little thought to the placement of Pickett’s troops in relationship to Pettigrew. This left a 400 yard gap between the Pickett and Pettigrew’s divisions, a gap that would cause problems during the attack, as it necessitated “a significant and difficult left oblique movement by the Virginians across the valley, under artillery fire.” ^{^[24]}

Despite Longstreet’s lapses he was not solely responsible for the outcome of the attack. The fact was that Lee reviewed the plans, and troop dispositions late in the morning. Lee had ridden up and down the line inspecting it and receiving the accolades of his devoted soldiers, but somehow despite his keen eye and battlefield prowess, he too “did not detect the hidden flaws in the deployment of his troops and the layout of its batteries.” ^{^[25]} Likewise Lee seemed to continue the passive role that he had maintained throughout the battle. Alexander spelled this out in a private letter noting that “The arrangement of all the troops… must have been apparent to Gen Lee when he was going about the lines between 11 & 12, & his not interfering with it stamps of his approval.” ^{^[26]}

About noon the approximately 13,000 troops in the three attacking divisions continued to make their individual preparations for the attack. As they did this “a great stillness came down over the field and over the two armies on their ridges…the Confederates maintaining their mile wide formation along the wooded slope and in the swale, the heat was oppressive.” ^{^[27]} Pickett wrote his young fiancée “the suffering and waiting are almost unbearable.” ^{^[28]}

Notes

^{^[1]} Weigley, Russell F. The American Way of War: A History of United States Military Strategy and Policy Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis 1973 p.117

^{^[2]} Fuller, J.F.C. Grant and Lee: A Study in Command Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis 1957 pp. 198-199

^{^[3]} Guelzo, Allen C. Gettysburg: The Last Invasion Vintage Books, a Division of Random House, New York 2013 p.375

^{^[4]} Ibid. Weigley The American Way of War p.117

^{^[5]} Ibid. Weigley The American Way of War p.117

^{^[6]} Korda, Michael. Clouds of Glory: The Life and Legend of Robert E Lee Harper Collins Books, New York 2014 p.591

^{^[7]} Coddington, Edwin B. The Gettysburg Campaign: A Study in Command A Touchstone Book, New York, 1968 p.459

^{^[8]} Hess, Earl J. Pickett’s Charge: The Last Attack at Gettysburg University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill and London 2001 p.13

^{^[9]} Coddington The Gettysburg Campaign: A Study in Command p.457

^{^[10]} Golay, Michael To Gettysburg and Beyond: The Parallel Lives of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and Edward Porter Alexander Crown Publishers, New York 1994 p.167

^{^[11]} Freeman, Douglas Southall. Lee’s Lieutenants: A Study in Command One Volume Abridgment by Stephen Sears, Scribner New York 1998 p.592

^{^[12]} Ibid. Coddington Gettysburg: A Study in Command p.454

^{^[13]} Dowdy, Clifford Lee and His Men at Gettysburg: The Death of a Nation originally published as Death of a Nation Skyhorse Publishing New York 1958 p.258

^{^[14]} Trudeau, Noah Andre Gettysburg a Testing of Courage Harper Collins Publishers, New York 2002 p.441

^{^[15]} Ibid. Trudeau Gettysburg: A Testing of Courage p.441

^{^[16]} Ibid. Coddington The Gettysburg Campaign p.459

^{^[17]} Ibid. Trudeau Gettysburg: A Testing of Courage p.458

^{^[18]} Ibid. Trudeau Gettysburg: A Testing of Courage p.458

^{^[19]} Ibid. Hess Pickett’s Charge p.79

^{^[20]} Ibid. Hess Pickett’s Charge p.81

^{^[21]} Wert, Jeffery D. Gettysburg Day Three A Touchstone Book, New York 2001 p.126

^{^[22]} Ibid. Coddington The Gettysburg Campaign p.462

^{^[23]} Ibid. Coddington The Gettysburg Campaign p.491

^{^[24]} Ibid. Hess Pickett’s Charge p.32

^{^[25]} Ibid. Coddington The Gettysburg Campaign p.492

^{^[26]} Ibid. Wert. Gettysburg Day Three p.128

^{^[27]} Foote, Shelby The Civil War a Narrative: Fredericksburg to Meridian Vintage Books a Division of Random House, New York 1963 p.539

^{^[28]} Ibid. Dowdy Lee and His Men at Gettysburg p.281

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Tagged as a.p. hill, battle of gettysburg, cemetery ridge, general george gordon meade, george pickett, isaac trimble, james longstreet, johnston pettigrew, la salle corbell pickett, pickett's charge, porter alexander, robert e lee, seminary ridge, william mahone

August 21, 2015 · 13:31

Logistics, Transportation & Communication in the Civil War

Friends of Padre Steve’s World

Today something a bit wonkish, another section of my Civil War and Gettysburg Staff Ride text. Nothing controversial, but an interesting look at how all of these mundane and often forgotten components of war advanced during the Civil War and how both sides adapted to these developments.

Peace

Padre Steve+

General Montgomery Meigs: Logistician Extraordinaire

With the advances in weaponry, technology turned the adoption of field fortifications and the tactical defense; even during offensive operations changed the way that the armies conducted the war; other advances were occurring. These took place in logistics, transportation, signals and communications.

In a country as vast as the United States logistics was a major concern of both armies. The ante-bellum Army developed its logistic doctrine from Napoleonic examples. That doctrine had to be modified in light of the American reality of a less developed continent with far greater distances involved in the movement of troops. “While the North’s logistical mobilization expanded, the South’s peaked in early 1863 and then declined. Fundamental interlocking problems beset logistics. The Confederacy had few preexisting industries to expand and lacked sufficient raw materials upon which to build an industrial base.” [1]

The Confederacy “did not have the material resources to fight a mass industrial war” [2] and the actions of its leaders from Jefferson Davis down did not help their cause. “The South needed a careful weighing of assets and liabilities, the setting of strict priorities, and centralized direction in order to use its resources efficiently. But Confederate leaders allowed events to control planning, resulting in uncoordinated, tardy, and incompetent centralization of the logistical effort.” [3]

The issue was not limited to industry but also agriculture, which in a region as rich as the Confederacy should not have been a problem. However, it was a major issue that became ever more serious throughout the war, not only for the Confederate armies in the field but also for the population as a whole. While the South managed to maintain effective armies until the end of 1864, it “failed to preserve the population’s well-being.” [4] This would prove to be a major problem.

By the spring of 1863 five major cities experienced bread riots, the most serious being in Richmond. Here, women, many of whose husbands were in the army “could no longer defer starvation. Living without men meant living without livelihood for many women. On the morning of April 2, 1863, a group of working class women met at a Baptist church in Richmond. Unable to feed their families they resolved to march to the governor’s mansion to seek redress.” [5] The governor was unable to satisfy their demands and the women, armed with guns and knives proceeded to wreak havoc, and over the “next several hours, all semblance of order disappeared in Richmond’s commercial district as the enraged women broke down doors and windows, seized bread and meat, and then went on to loot jewelry, clothing, hats, “and whatever they wanted.” [6]

Army troops and militia arrived on the scene and it appeared that Confederate soldiers might soon open fire on upon Confederate women. Jefferson Davis, who heard about the situation went to the commercial district and personally gave an ultimatum to the rioters ordering them to disperse or have the troops and militia open fire. [7] He turned “glanced at the soldiers behind him and turned to the women. “We do not desire to injure anyone, but this lawlessness must stop. I will give you five minutes to disburse, otherwise you will be fired upon.” [8] Soon the crowd disbursed and order was restored, but the damage was done. Other bread riots occurred in Southern cities until the fall of 1863. Many Southerners blamed merchants in general and the press labeled most businesses as speculators and extortionists. However as a result of the great privations at home and the need for a scapegoat, the specter of anti-Semitism rose in the Confederacy. Many, including some influential newspapers and government officials “focused on the Jews as the worst “extortioners” [9] blaming them for many if not most of the Confederacy’s economic woes.

Even as their families went without food many soldiers in the armies of the Confederacy likewise faced hunger and privation. In the fall of 1863 some soldiers of the Army of Tennessee were ordered into line to be reviewed by Jefferson Davis. One soldier, Private Sam Watkins wrote: “When he passed by us with his great retinue of staff officers …cheers greeted them, with the words “Send us something to eat, Massa Jeff! Give us something to eat, Massa Jeff! I’m hungry! I’m hungry!” [10]

During the war, both armies learned to adapt their logistical support services to the reality of war. However, the South, for a number of reasons had difficultly this. Poor infrastructure and the lack of standardized rail systems were significant factors. But even more importantly inability of the government in Richmond, various states governments as well as the private sector to work together helped doom the Confederacy. The South did not lack for food. It was a rich agricultural region, but its ability to provide sustenance for its people and its armies was hindered due to its woeful infrastructure and various self-inflicted political and economic reasons. Several major issues affected the South’s ability to feed its people and its armies.

Among these were “the deficiencies of the Confederate rail system” which deteriorated throughout the war and was made worse by the lack of cooperation of Confederate railroad owners. The South “did not have a railroad network that tied its scant industrial base together or readily permitted long distance movements.” [11] This would hamper Confederate attempts to move and supply its armies as well as sustain its economy throughout the war. The Confederacy never nationalized its railroads, and “no centralized planning or organization developed, and field commanders, supply agencies, and civilian shippers competed for use of Southern rolling stock.” [12]

Southern policy towards the use of its railroads was muddled at best and the demands of the war and by 1863, “the excessive wear of wartime rail movement was chewing up southern rail lines” [13] which resulted in the “South barely keeping a few lines operating by cannibalizing less important lines and could not replace its rolling stock.” [14] The combination of the lack of a strong industrial base to produce the iron to make replacement rails and the similar lack of producing facilities to manufacture locomotives and rolling stock, combined with the “unsure policies of the Confederate government and military” [15] ran the already feeble Southern railway system into the ground.

The Confederacy also faced a basic unwillingness of many producers of food, textiles and other necessities to cooperate with the Confederate government, which often could not even find ways for its own agencies to cooperate with each other. “The government gave no overall direction to the supply bureaus, which often bid against each other for materials and labor.” [16] This was a pervasive problem, and not helped by the efforts of some parts of the Confederate government to nationalize various parts of their economy in direct competition with the private sector. This contrasted starkly with the Union whose “quartermaster and commissary heads contracted out their needs for weapons, horses and clothes by bid on the open market, rather than by appropriating existing industries for government use.” [17]

The Confederate policies meant that many citizens and businesses found ways to not submit to government edicts. There was a basic “unwillingness of farmers to sell goods and produce at government rates” [18] and the greed of hoarders and war profiteers who through “hoarding, black marketing and simple withdraw from the market” [19] crippled Southern war efforts and by “1862 much of the Confederate economy had become unmanageable.” [20] When Davis attempted to use the religious faith of the people to bolster more and “called for a day of fasting and prayer in March 1863, one man wrote that the president asked for “fasting in the midst of famine.” [21]

Where possible each side used railroads and maritime forces to move troops and supplies. The Confederacy, as has been noted was lacking in both, and was at a severe disadvantage. The Union however enjoyed a great advantage in modern rail networks, as well as ocean and river based maritime power. By late 1863 the Army of the Potomac, as well as forces in the West demonstrated “the close integration of operational planning and that of the general in chief and supply bureaus. In this one area, the development of a mature and modern staff was evident.” ^{^[22]}

Once the armies were away from railheads or the ports from where they drew supplies both armies, like their Napoleonic cousins relied on wagons to transport essential food, supplies and ammunition when on campaign. In both armies commanders and their logisticians experimented with the number of wagons per regiment and how army commanders, modified that number at various points during the war based on their situation.

At the beginning of the war the Napoleonic standards by which both armies based the number of wagons, 12 wagons per 1000 men to support the troops on campaign were found to be insufficient as it “placed too much emphasis on foraging for American conditions” [23] and throughout the war standards for what the armies needed would be debated and commanders in different theaters of the war often set their own standards based on their needs and the availability of wagons and livestock to draw them.

As the war went on the Federal army experimented with the use of the “flying column” as a response to the dependency on wagons in order to increase their mobility. The flying column was an idea drawn from the French by Major General Montgomery Meigs, the Union Quartermaster General. The idea was simple; in order to reduce dependency on wagons the army itself would be reorganized at the lowest level, the infantry squad.

“The soldier in a flying column carried eight days’ compressed rations, including desiccated vegetables on his back. He carried a blanket but no overcoat. The men were divided into squads of eight, one of whom was to carry a covered cooking kettle, another a large mess tin, another an axe, another a pick, and one a shovel. One man in each company carried the hospital knapsack. Each man carried his share of a shelter tent. The cavalry were pickets and grain for their horses.” [24]

After Gettysburg and the unsuccessful pursuit of Lee’s army, Halleck and Rufus Ingalls, the Army of the Potomac’s chief quartermaster made provision and set standards “to convert the army into a flying column that would be self-sufficient for eight- and twelve- day periods away from the base of supply.” [25] In contrast, the Confederacy lacked the wagons and livestock to support the field operations of the army on campaign. Wagons, especially those suited for military operations were in short supply and any time the opportunity presented, confederate commanders ensured the capture of Union wagons. This turned out to be a major problem during the Gettysburg campaign, when Stuart during his ride around the Army of the Potomac “succumbed to temptation of capturing a beautifully equipped and heavily laden Union supply train near Rockville, Maryland, at the cost of exhausting his cavalry and wasting precious time.” [26] In most cases Stuart’s action would have been commendable, and he certainly felt that such should have been the case here as well, but the cost to his operations and Lee’s need for his cavalry were such that it was a mistake of disastrous consequences.

The basic load of food and ammunition carried by each soldier in order to increase strategic maneuverability was adjusted to meet the operational need. Both armies, but more often the Confederate army frequently had to live off the land. The success and failure of forage operations and the requirements for people and animals in each theater of operations had a large impact on each army. By early 1863 the Army of Northern Virginia was “greatly deficient in all areas of supply….there were extreme shortages of footwear, clothing, draft animals, and wagons.” [27] When the Army of Northern Virginia advanced into Pennsylvania they found it to be “a land of plenty” while “quartermaster and commissary details, acting under official instructions, filled wagons and supplies with foodstuffs.” [28]

While the Federal army never lacked in provisions or supplies, the Confederate armies were almost always in short supply. Even adequate food supplies needed to maintain an adequate caloric intake on the march were almost impossible to achieve. Food supplies were so limited that they were barely adequate, especially when the army was encamped. In fact, one of the reasons that Lee based his invasion of Pennsylvania was to alleviate his desperate supply situation. One regimental commander in Pickett’s division recalled that Lee told him “the movement was a necessity; that our provisions and supplies of every kind were nearly exhausted in Virginia, and we had to go into Pennsylvania for supplies.” [29]

As Federal forces moved into the South they encountered a new problem, the areas that the conquered and their essential supply bases, railheads and railroads had to protected from Confederate partisans, irregulars, raiders and other insurgents. Railroads were especially important to the Federal logistics chain as they provided “new strategic and operational abilities” to civil war armies, but they were an “extremely delicate sources of dependence when they ran through hostile territory.” [30] As such they had to be protected, as did the sprawling supply bases on which the Federal armies in the South depended. This resulted in an ever increasing logistics tail in proportion to the fighting forces spearheading the Federal advance. The three Union armies commanded by William Tecumseh Sherman that carried “the brunt of the Union effort against Joe Johnston and Atlanta, for example, showed 352,265 men on their muster rolls, but took only about 100,000 directly into the campaign.” [31] The rest were engaged in protecting the vital logistics tail.

Communications and Signals

The size of the armies and the distances involved on the battlefield made command and control difficult. As such, communications became more important and each army experimented with new signals organizations that used both old and new communication technologies. At the beginning of the war both sides made extensive use of visual signals and couriers, but rapidly began to rely on the telegraph for rapid communications.

The organizational tension was particularly evident in the rivalry between the U.S. Army Signal Corps and the Military Telegraph Service. The Signal Corps focused on wireless communications. It preferred the Beardslee wireless telegraphs, however, they were plagued by the limitations of such early wireless technology. The Union Army command favored the traditional wire bound networks operated by the Military Telegraph due to better reliability and security and eventually the Military Telegraph Service and its Morse trained operators were given “jurisdiction for all field telegraph” services at the urging of President Lincoln in November 1863. [32] Though the Army rejected the Beardslee equipment some commanders requested it for their operations.^{^[33]} As each Army became more dependent on the telegraph, each feared that their signals could be compromised through wiretapping and made efforts to encode their transmissions.

While the various forms of telegraphic communication were important in keeping higher headquarters in contact with armies in the field, battlefield communication could be difficult. Commanders on both sides relied on messengers to relay orders to subordinate commanders as well as pass information to senior commanders. On the battlefield this took time, and since the messengers were subject to the same dangers as ordinary soldiers messages might not reach the intended commanders. It took approximately an hour for a message to travel from an army commander to a corps commander, 30 minutes from a corps commander to a division commander, 20 from division to brigade, 15 from brigade to regiment and 5 minutes from regiment to company. ^{^[34]}

Written orders generally provided better clarity if detailed enough but if they were passed orally, as was Lee’s preferred method they could easily be miscommunicated by messengers, or misunderstood or even ignored by commanders. This was a major source of Lee’s consternation during the Gettysburg campaign. A major problem for Lee during the campaign was that his orders, be they written or oral were frequently vague and discretionary, something that we will discuss in detail later, but Lieutenant General Richard Ewell spoke for many Confederate subordinate commanders on the evening of June 30^th when he asked his division commanders in frustration “Why can’t a commanding General have someone on his staff who can write an intelligent order?” ^{^[35]}

The Union Signal Corps also pioneered the use and development with a “modern system of semaphores with a telegraphic alphabet…” as well as “a cipher disk…that allowed the Union Signal Corps to change the code hourly if need be.” ^{^[36]} The one disadvantage to this form of visual communication was that it could be limited due to weather conditions or the smoke of battle. While semaphore was used with a good deal of success by the Union, and Meade would make good use of it at Gettysburg, it was not used by the Confederate army.

Likewise Meade “set a precedent in command procedures” during the Gettysburg campaign, where “for perhaps the first time in military history the commanding general of a large army was kept in communication during active operations with his corps and division commanders.” Likewise Meade “set a precedent in command procedures when he brought signal officers to the conference table for consultation on the plan of battle” [37] and for the first time Signal Corps officers were assigned directly to each corps, when Meade ordered that two Signal Corps officers be “detached for service with each corps.” [38]

The troops of the Union Signal Corps were also a vital link in the transmission of military intelligence gathered by Colonel George Sharpe’s Bureau of Military Information, whose network of scouts during the Gettysburg campaign were “supported by Signal Corps detachments which could establish chains of flag stations from Harpers Ferry to “South Mountain, Monterrey, Greencastle…up to Parnell’s Knob, in the Cumberland Valley.” [39] This link helped provide Meade with much better intelligence regarding the movement of Lee’s army throughout the campaign.

Regardless of the means of transmitting orders, the fact was that at Gettysburg the element of friction entered the communication process. Wireless communications suffered from encryption problems, semaphore could not always be read due to the reduced visibility caused by the smoke covered battlefield. Commanders who took the time to issue written orders found that those could be delayed or lost due to battlefield conditions that impacted a messenger’s ability to deliver them, or misunderstood by their recipients. Likewise, verbal orders sent by messenger were frequently garbled and misunderstood, or depending on the situation, understood in the manner that best fit the situation of the recipient.

The developments in tactics, maneuver, defense and logistics and how those were developed over the course of the war brought about a form of warfare that remained dominant of decades. In studying the campaigns, developments and tensions between the competing theories of Jomini and Mahan in the Civil War, a student can begin to recognize them in future wars fought by the US Army including World War Two.

Russell Weigley picks up this theme in his books The American Way of War and Eisenhower’s Lieutenants. Weigley discusses Lee’s use of Napoleonic strategy and Grant’s corresponding strategy of annihilation as well as Sherman’s campaign against Johnston, as well as Sheridan’s devastation of the Shenandoah Valley to impose its aims on the Confederacy. [40] These lessons influenced American strategic doctrine well into the next century, and were employed by leaders in the First and Second World Wars, as well as much less effectively in Korea and Vietnam. Weigley concluded: “Because it worked so well, achieving total submission, American soldiers thereafter tended to generalize the United States strategy of the Civil War into the appropriate strategy for all major, full scale wars.” [41]

Notes

[1] Ibid. Millet and Maslowski For the Common Defense p.216

[2] Ibid. Thomas, The Confederate Nation p.135

[3] Ibid. Millet and Maslowski For the Common Defense pp.216-217

[4] Ibid. Millet and Maslowski For the Common Defense p.218

[5] Ibid. Goldfield America Aflame pp.296-297

[6] Ibid. Guelzo Fateful Lightening p.326

[7] Ibid. McPherson. The Battle Cry of Freedom p.617-618

[8] Ibid. Goldfield America Aflame p.297

[9] Ibid. McPherson. The Battle Cry of Freedom p.441

[10] Ibid. Robertson Soldiers Blue and Gray p.72

[11] Ibid. Millet and Maslowski For the Common Defense p.156

[12] Ibid. Thomas, The Confederate Nation p.211

[13] Ibid. Guelzo Fateful Lightening p.319

[14] Ibid. Millet and Maslowski For the Common Defense p.216

[15] Ibid. Guelzo Fateful Lightening p.323

[16] Ibid. Millet and Maslowski For the Common Defense p.217

[17] Ibid. Guelzo Fateful Lightening p.322

[18] Ibid. Guelzo Fateful Lightening p.320

[19] Ibid. Guelzo Fateful Lightening p.322

[20] Ibid. McPherson. The Battle Cry of Freedom p.442

[21] Ibid. Millet and Maslowski For the Common Defense p.219

[22] Ibid. Hagerman The American Civil War and the Origins of Modern Warfare p.79

[23] Ibid. Hagerman The American Civil War and the Origins of Modern Warfare p.44

[24] Ibid. Hagerman The American Civil War and the Origins of Modern Warfare p.71

[25] Ibid. Hagerman The American Civil War and the Origins of Modern Warfare p.76

[26] Coddington, Edwin B. The Gettysburg Campaign: A Study in Command, A Touchstone Book, Simon and Schuster New York, 1968 p.198

[27] Ibid. Hagerman The American Civil War and the Origins of Modern Warfare p.126

[28] Wert, Jeffry D. A Glorious Army: Robert E. Lee’s Triumph 1862-1863 Simon and Schuster, New York and London 2011 p.229

[29] Ibid. West A Glorious Army p.230

[30] Ibid. Weigley A Great Civil War p.322

[31] Ibid. Weigley A Great Civil War p.322

[32] Ibid. Hagerman The American Civil War and the Origins of Modern Warfare p.87

[33] Ibid. Hagerman The American Civil War and the Origins of Modern Warfare p.87

[34] Cole, Phillip M. Command and Communication Friction in the Gettysburg Campaign Colecraft Industries, Ortanna PA 2006 p.80

[35] Trudeau, Noah Andre. Gettysburg: A Testing of Courage, Harper Collins Publishers, New York 2002 p.140

[36] Ibid. Hagerman The American Civil War and the Origins of Modern Warfare pp.43-44

[37] Ibid. Hagerman The American Civil War and the Origins of Modern Warfare p.87

[38] Ibid. Guelzo Gettysburg: The Last Invasion p.123

[39] Ibid. Guelzo Gettysburg: The Last Invasion p.42

[40] Ibid. Weigley The American Way of War pp.145-146

[41] Weigley, Russell F. Eisenhower’s Lieutenants: The Campaign in France and Germany 1944-1945. Indiana University Press, Bloomington IN 1981 p.3

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Filed under civil war, Gettysburg, History, Military

Tagged as beardslee wireless telegraph, civil war, communications, flying column, jefferson davis, logistics, military telegraph service, montgomery meigs, railroads, richmond bread riots, semaphore, signal corps, signals, transportation

August 10, 2015 · 15:13

Some are More Equal than Others: The Hatred that Will not Die

Bloody Sunday

Friends of Padre Steve’s World

I am back from Gettysburg and recuperating from the trip. I took my wife Judy to get the staples removed from her abdomen following her surgery and things are looking really good. She will be monitored and tested regularly every three months for the next two years to ensure that the cancer has not returned but the odds are it will not.

Anyway, while I while I was at Gettysburg something happened that took me aback. It was not anything from any of my students who were absolutely awesome, but it was something else.

I always end the staff ride by taking the students to the National Soldier’s Cemetery. There we talk about terrible human cost of the battle and I introduce them to a number important topics related to the cemetery. I talk about the rural cemetery movement and the Greek revival in America in the 1820s, which is culturally important to us. Then I move on the dedication of the Soldier’s Cemetery. I discuss the layout of the cemetery and how it was designed so that the grave of every soldier is of equal importance and then I read some of the comments of the keynote speaker, Edward Everett. Following this I discuss the writing of the Gettysburg Address, the way Lincoln used it to universalize the Declaration of Independence and then I recite it, and remind my students, especially my American officer students why this is so important to us as we remember our oath of office and our duty.

Violence Against Chinese Immigrants in Denver 1880s

While we were gathering near the spot where Lincoln gave his address, an elderly white couple, which appeared to be in their early eighties, was on a bench where my students gathered. I invited them to stay if they wanted and let them know why we were there. They were very attentive as were my students and when we concluded and my students began to head back to our vans or to their own vehicles for the trip back to Norfolk, the man approached me and asked directions on how to get to the Chambersburg Road which I gladly gave him; and then he said: “You know that when they say that “all men are created equal” that some are more equal than others.”

I was stunned and attempted to deflect the man’s obvious racist comment with humor, referring to the rivalry of UCLA where I did my Army ROTC training about thirty-three years ago with that of the University of Southern California. The man looked at me and said that he was from Georgia and wished that California would just drop off into the ocean, and then walked away.

I thought to myself: “you corpulent old racist bastard.” I was really tempted to follow him and confront him, but I backed off. I realized based on his age, and that he probably opposed everything about the civil rights movement and supported Jim Crow and that there was nothing that could change his mind. He was old enough that he may have actually taken part in some of the anti-civil rights actions of the 1950s and 1960s. I don’t know, but it is possible.

The Flag of the Know Nothing Party

Sadly, there are a lot of people in this country who believe exactly what that man voiced. Some are racist, and not just towards African Americans but to Latinos, Native Americans, Asians, Arabs and others. There are those who believe that women and gays are not equal. Many of these people are leading politicians at the federal, state and local levels, media personalities and corporate leaders who have significant political and economic clout and if they ever had complete power would overturn or nullify every law that protects the civil rights of those they believe are less than equal, in some extreme case even less than human.

There are many reasons that people use to justify these attitudes; some pseudo-scientific, some religious, some economic, and many based on a crude Social Darwinism emphasizing the “survival of the fittest.” I heard someone else in a restaurant this weekend say exactly that when they were talking about the poor. Again, lest we want to simply use this to beat on Southerners, this is not simply an attitude confined to the South; it is all over the country, and that was the often the case throughout our American history.

It really does grieve me when I see this. The ghosts of our past intrude on so many parts of our national life, condemning the living to have to relive them in our own time. Historian George Santayana said it so well: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Have a good night.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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Filed under civil rights, Gettysburg, History, Political Commentary

Tagged as civil rights, gettysburg, gettysburg address, racism

July 5, 2015 · 09:52

A New Birth of Freedom

Friends of Padre Steve’s World. Yesterday we celebrated the 239th anniversary of American independence and the revolutionary document we know as the Declaration of Independence. I wrote about that yesterday and discussed the context of it as well as the contradiction to it posed by the institution of slavery. I talked about Abraham Lincoln and how for him the Declaration was the real heart of the American nation. In Novwmber of 1863 after nearly three years of bloody Civil War and about 10 months following the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln was invited to say a few words at the dedication of the Soldeirs Cemetary at Gettysburg.

In those few words Lincoln redefined forever the concept of Liberty found in the Declaration, he universalized it. Though of practice of it often falls short, it is the high bar for which we must strive. If we do not we will return to the days when freedom was only for the few, and sadly there are many on the political right who not only believe that Liberty is reserved for the few but labor incessantly to prevent people from the full excercuse of the rights of citizenship and wherever possible to roll them back.

I hope that you enjoy this.

Peace

Padre Steve+

I am always humbled when I travel to Gettysburg as I about to do again early next month. It is hard to believe in that now peaceful pastoral setting that over 157,000 Americans, almost 82,000 Union and 75,000 Confederates met in a three-day battle. In those three days over 28,000 Confederates and 23,000 Union soldiers were killed, wounded, missing or captured. It was the greatest number of casualties inflicted in one battle on American soil in history.

The places that the battle was fought have become legendary, for they are “hallowed ground” as President Abraham Lincoln so eloquently put it. The places, McPherson’s and Herr’s Ridge, Seminary Ridge, the Railroad Cut, Barlow’s Knoll, Cemetery Hill, Culp’s Hill, The Wheat Field, Devil’s Den, the Peach Orchard, Little Round Top, Cemetery Ridge, the Apse of Trees, the Angle and the High Water Mark are in a sense holy, or hallowed ground. Those who struggled there, those who lived and those who gave the last full measure of devotion to their country consecrated them more than any of us could ever do. When I take my students there I always finish at the Soldier’s Cemetery where Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address.

I think about those men of both sides, fully convinced of the rightness of their cause who fought valiantly in the struggle. That being said when I go to Gettysburg my heart, my mind and my soul are with the men who remained loyal to the Union and those who answered the call of Abraham Lincoln to serve in a cause greater than their own interests, the great and the small alike. This is despite the fact that my family predominantly fought for the Confederacy.

Lincoln was a masterful orator who managed to rally the Union and bring hundreds of thousands of men to volunteer to serve before Gettysburg. These men volunteered for an ideal, an ideal for which Lincoln’s oratory was probably the most effective means at articulating in an ideal that men would volunteer to suffer hardship, fight and die to bring about. It was well put in the movie Gettysburg where Colonel Joshua Chamberlain, played by Jeff Daniels said:

“This is a different kind of army. If you look at history you’ll see men fight for pay, or women, or some other kind of loot. They fight for land, or because a king makes them, or just because they like killing. But we’re here for something new. This has not happened much, in the history of the world: We are an army out to set other men free. America should be free ground, all of it, from here to the Pacific Ocean. No man has to bow, no man born to royalty. Here we judge you by what you do, not by who your father was. Here you can be something. Here is the place to build a home. But it’s not the land. There’s always more land. It’s the idea that we all have value, you and me. What we’re fighting for, in the end… we’re fighting for each other…” [1]

On November 19th 1863 Lincoln delivered a “few words” at Gettysburg which were in all practical aspects a benediction at the dedication of the battlefield cemetery. Lincoln was the second speaker at the ceremony following former Pennsylvania Congressman Edward Everett who spoke for more than two hours, a typical speech from the period.

Everett was one of the leading orators of his day. Everett was “a scholar and Ivy-League diplomat who could hold mass audiences in thrall. His voice, diction, and gestures were successfully dramatic, and he always performed his carefully written text, no matter how long, from memory.” [2]

The 270 words of Lincoln’s address are perhaps the most important of any speech or document in American history save the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States, in those words “Lincoln, nevertheless managed to justify the ways of democracy more than anyone, then or now.” [3]

The speech was so powerful that Everett wrote Lincoln the next day:

“Permit me also to express my great admiration of the thoughts expressed by you, with such eloquent simplicity & appropriateness, at the consecration of the Cemetery. I should be glad, if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion, in two hours, as you did in two minutes.” [4]

The speech is short, but its eloquence is unmatched. Lincoln wrapped ideas, concepts and ideals that men have written volumes about into a speech so powerful that many have memorized it.

But few realize the context that it must be placed. Though the Union had defeated Lee’s Army at Gettysburg and Grant had taken Vicksburg to cut the Confederacy in half the North was growing war weary. During the fall of 1863 after a series of inconclusive battles in northern Virginia both Lee and Meade’s armies had sent significant numbers of troops to the west, to support operations in eastern Tennessee.

Lee sent Longstreet’s First Corps, which took part in the bloody battle of Chickamauga, which “is a Cherokee word meaning “river of death.” [5] where on September 19^th and 20^th the Federal Army of the Cumberland under General Rosecrans “were soundly whipped at …and driven back into the strategic point of Chattanooga.” [6] The number of casualties on both sides, over 16,000 Federal and 18,000 Confederate, a “combined total of 34,634 was exceeded only the three day slaughter at Gettysburg and by the week-long series of five battles known collectively as the Seven Days.” [7] Despite the number of casualties it was one of the biggest Confederate victories of the war. A clerk in Richmond wrote “The whole South will be filled again with patriotic fervor, and in the North there will be a corresponding depression.” [8] That changed rapidly when the Union reacted quickly and reversed the strategic situation. One action taken was to deploy Oliver Howard’s XI Corps and Henry Slocum’s XII Corps west, where “they would be commanded by Joe Hooker, who was conveniently at hand and unemployed.” [9]

In the east during the following weeks “Lee and Meade, like two wounded, spent gladiators, sparred listlessly along the Rapidan. It seemed to Northerners that the fruits of Gettysburg had been thrown away.” [10] Lee sensed an opportunity to go back on the offensive against Meade’s weakened army, but his offensive was stopped on October 14^th when “the Union Second Corps shattered a reckless attack by A.P. Hill’s corps at Bristoe Station, five miles south of Manassas.” [11]

There was a faction in the North, the Copperheads, who were willing even after Gettysburg and Vicksburg to end the war on terms favorable to the Confederacy, even allowing for Confederate independence and the continuation of slavery. They “clamored for negotiations with the Confederacy to restore the Union on the basis of status quo antebellum and, until the closing months of the war charged that as long as the antislavery party remained in power the restoration of the Union could not be achieved.” [12] They believed that the war was a failure and that military action could not be achieved by force of arms.

The leading Copperheads included Clement Vanlandingham of Ohio and George W. Woodward of Pennsylvania were typical, both opposed the use of force against Confederate secession; Woodward had written in 1860 that “Slavery was intended as a special blessing to the people of the United States,” that “Secession is not disloyalty” and “I cannot condemn the South for withdrawing….I wish Pennsylvania could go with them.” [13] The efforts of the Copperheads to gain governorships in Ohio and Pennsylvania met defeat in November 1863, as the Union victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg “undercut their theme of the war’s failure.” [14] Their efforts would persist through the 1864 Presidential election, but instead of preaching the war’s failure they would concentrate on defeating emancipation. The Copperheads, “labeled all Republicans, including Lincoln, as radicals bent upon destroying the Union and undermining the Constitution.” [15]

However, the anti-abolitionist and racist views espoused by the northern Democrat Copperheads had begun to lose their potency in the North after July of 1863 with the onset of “the New York draft riot, which shocked many northerners into a backlash against the consequences of virulent racism” [16] and the sacrifice of the African American 54^th Massachusetts Infantry when it assaulted Fort Wagner outside of Charleston South Carolina, which occurred “just after the Democratic rioters in New York had lynched black people and burned the Colored Orphan Asylum. Few Republican newspapers failed to point the moral: black men who fought for the Union deserved more respect than white men who fought against it.” [17]

It is also important to understand how Lincoln’s address at Gettysburg is reflective of the various intellectual and philosophical movements of the time. Even the location of the cemetery and the burial plots within it was significant. A Gettysburg lawyer, David Wills proposed to “Governor Andrew Curtain of Pennsylvania the establishment of a soldiers’ cemetery where the Union dead could be reburied with dignity and honor.” [18] The place was then outside the city, a plot of 17 acres purchased by Wills adjacent to the existing town cemetery on Cemetery Hill. That was significant culturally, for the Gettysburg Cemetery was part of a movement called the Rural Cemetery movement. The movement was part of the Greek revival in the United States and connected with the Transcendentalist movement.

The Rural Cemetery movement was launched at Cambridge’s Mount Auburn Cemetery, and Edward Everett was a key figure in it. Mount Auburn “took Athens’s Kerameikos as its model, since that ancient burial ground existed outside the city proper, near the groves of the Akademy, in what was still countryside.” [19] In his speech at Mount Auburn’s dedication, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story noted:

“The Greeks exhausted the resources of their exquisite art in adorning the habitations of the dead. They discouraged internments within the limits of their cities; and consigned their relics to shady groves, in the neighborhood of murmuring streams and merry fountains, close by the favorite resorts of those who were engaged in the study of philosophy and nature, and called them, with the elegant expressiveness of their own beautiful language, cemeteries or “places of repose.” [20]

He further noted:

“Our cemeteries, rightly selected and properly arranged, may be made subservient to some of the highest purposes of religion and human duty. They may preach lessons to which none may refuse to listen and which all that live must hear. Truths may there be felt and taught, in the silence of our meditations, more persuasive and more enduring than ever flowed from human lips.” [21]

Everett in his Gettysburg oration linked what they were doing at the Soldiers’ Cemetery with the Greek tradition:

“It was appointed by law in Athens, that the obsequies of the citizens who fell in battle should be performed at the public expense, and in the most honorable manner. Their bones were carefully gathered up from the funeral pyre where their bodies were consumed, and brought home to the city. There, for three days before the interment, they lay in state, beneath tents of honor, to receive the votive offerings of friends and relatives,–flowers, weapons, precious ornaments, painted vases (wonders of art, which after two thousand years adorn the museums of modern Europe),–the last tributes of surviving affection. Ten coffins of funereal cypress received the honorable deposit, one for each of the tribes of the city, and an eleventh in memory of the unrecognized, but not therefore unhonored, dead, and of those whose remains could not be recovered….” [22]

The layout of the cemetery, and the manner in which the dead were buried was also significant when one considers the messages of both Everett and Lincoln that day. “The cemetery at Gettysburg was arranged so that every grave was of equal importance; William Saunders’s design, like Lincoln’s speech, affirmed that every dead soldier mattered equally regardless of rank or station.” [23] In this place “some 3,577 Union soldiers (half of them unknown) from eighteen states are buried.” [24]

The speeches of Everett and Lincoln are deeply connected with Romanticism, the Greek revival and the Transcendentalist movement in the United States. Both were children of the enlightenment, and Everett, a former President of Harvard was well versed in these subjects and Lincoln, though a politician who appealed to the tenets of the Enlightenment, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Lincoln appealed to the “sacred principles of the laws of nature,” and hailed “the constitution and laws” as “hewn from the solid quarry of sober reason.” For Lincoln, the war was a test of the practical worth of liberalism.” [25]

Everett had been a mentor to some of the leading Transcendentalist thinkers of his era including Ralph Waldo Emerson who found that the experience of “Everett’s classroom gave him an entirely new direction in life.” Emerson wrote:

“Germany had created [literary] criticism in vain for us until 1820, when Edward Everett returned from his five years in Europe, and brought to Cambridge his rich results, which no one was so fitted by natural grace and splendor of his rhetoric to introduce and recommend…. The novelty of the learning lost northing in the skill and genius of its interpreter, and the rudest undergraduate found a new morning opening to him in the lecture room at Harvard.” [26]

Everett, who had previously dedicated battlefields at Bunker Hill, as well as Lexington and Concord, was at his best when dedicating battlefields and cemeteries. He spent weeks preparing his speech. Everett had studied the battle and knew it well from official reports and talks with those who fought it. Everett painted a vivid picture of the battle for his audience and connected the sacrifice of those who fought and died to preserve the Union form antiquity and from those who founded the nation. He noted why they had gathered:

“We have assembled, friends, fellow-citizens, at the invitation of the Executive of the great central State of Pennsylvania, seconded by the Governors of seventeen other loyal States of the Union, to pay the last tribute of respect to the brave men who, in the hard-fought battles of the first, second, and third days of July last, laid down their lives for the country on these hillsides and the plains before us, and whose remains have been gathered into the cemetery which we consecrate this day. As my eye ranges over the fields whose sods were so lately moistened by the blood of gallant and loyal men, I feel, as never before, how truly it was said of old that it is sweet and becoming to die for one’s country. I feel, as never before, how justly, from the dawn of history to the present time, men have paid the homage of their gratitude and admiration to the memory of those who nobly sacrifice their lives, that their fellow-men may live in safety and in honor. And if this tribute were ever due, to whom could it be more justly paid than to those whose last resting-place we this day commend to the blessing of Heaven and of men?” [27]

In his narrative Everett aspired to more than mere accuracy. Along “with Bancroft and other romantic historians of his time, he meant to create a tradition that would inspire as well as inform. Like the Attic orators- and dramatists- he knew the power of symbols to create a people’s political identity.” [28]

Lincoln was sick when he delivered the address having what was mostly likely a mild form of Smallpox when he gave the address. Thus the tenor, simplicity and philosophical depth of the address are even more remarkable. It is a speech given in the manner of Winston Churchill’s “Blood sweat toil and tears” address to Parliament upon being appoint Prime Minister in 1940. Likewise it echoes the Transcendentalist understanding of the Declaration of Independence as a “test for all other things.”

Many in the United States and Europe did not agree and argued that no nation found on such principles could long survive. The more reactionary European subscribers of Romanticism ridiculed the “idea that a nation could be founded on a proposition….and they were not reluctant to point to the Civil War as proof that attempting to build a government around something as bloodless and logical as a proposition was futile.” [29]

But Lincoln disagreed. He believed that the “sacrifices of Gettysburg, Shiloh, Murfreesboro, Chancellorsville, and a hundred other places demonstrated otherwise, that men would die rather than to lose hold of that proposition. Reflecting on that dedication, the living should themselves experience a new birth of freedom, a determination- and he drove his point home with a deliberate evocation of the great Whig orator Daniel Webster- “that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” [30]

The Unitarian pastor and leading Transcendentalist Theodore Parker wrote:

“Our national ideal out-travels our experience, and all experience. We began our national career by setting all history at defiance- for that said, “A republic on a large scale cannot exist.” Our progress since that has shown that we were right in refusing to be limited by the past. The practical ideas of the nation are transcendent, not empirical. Human history could not justify the Declaration of Independence and its large statements of the new idea: the nation went beyond human history and appealed to human nature.” [31]

Likewise Lincoln’s address echoes the thought of George Bancroft who wrote of the Declaration:

“The bill of rights which it promulgates is of rights that are older than human institutions, and spring from the eternal justice…. The heart of Jefferson in writing the Declaration, and of Congress in adopting it, beat for all humanity; the assertion of right was made for the entire world of mankind and all coming generations, without any exceptions whatsoever.” [32]

Parker’s words also prefigured an idea that Lincoln used in his address, that being: The American Revolution, with American history since, is an attempt to prove by experience this transcendental proposition, to organize the transcendental idea of politics. The ideal demands for its organization a democracy- a government of all, for all, and by all…” [33]

Lincoln delivered these words on that November afternoon:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.[34]

In a time where many are wearied by the foibles and follies of our politicians, even wondering about our form of government can survive Lincoln’s words matter. Dr. Allen Guelzo, Professor of Civil War Studies at Gettysburg College wrote in the New York Times:

“The genius of the address thus lay not in its language or in its brevity (virtues though these were), but in the new birth it gave to those who had become discouraged and wearied by democracy’s follies, and in the reminder that democracy’s survival rested ultimately in the hands of citizens who saw something in democracy worth dying for. We could use that reminder again today.” [35]

Dr. Guelzo is quite correct. Many people in this country and around the world are having grave doubts about our democracy. I wonder myself, but I am an optimist. I do believe that we will recover because for the life of me I see no nation anywhere else with our resiliency and ability to overcome the stupidity of politicians, pundits and preachers.

The amazing thing was that in spite of everything the Union survived. Lincoln was a big part of that but it was the men who left lives of comfort and security like Joshua Chamberlain and so many others who brought about that victory. Throughout the war, even to the end Southern political leaders failed to understand that Union men would fight and die for an ideal, something greater than themselves, the preservation of the Union and the freedom of an enslaved race. For those men that volunteered to serve, the war was not about personal gain, loot or land, it was about something greater. It was about freedom, and when we realize this fact “then we can contemplate the real meaning of “that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion.” [36]

Now I for one do not think that we are currently living up to the ideals enunciated by Lincoln that day at Gettysburg. I can understand the cynicism disillusionment of Americans as well as those around the world who have for over 200 years looked to us and our system as a “city set on a hill.” That being said, when I read these words and walk that hallowed ground I am again a believer. I believe that we can realize the ideal, even in our lifetime should we desire.

Notes

[1] Shaara, Michael. The Killer Angels, Ballantine Books, New York. 1974 p.28

[2] Wills, Garry. Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words that Remade America Simon and Schuster Paperbacks, New York 1992 p.25

[3] Guelzo Allen C. Fateful Lightening: A New History of the Civil War Era and Reconstruction Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York 2012 p.407

[4] Everett, Edward Letter from Edward Everett to Abraham Lincoln, (Transcription) 20 November 1863 retrieved from http://www.in.gov/judiciary/citc/files/everett-to-lincoln.pdf July 18th 2014

[5] Ibid. Guelzo Fateful Lighteningp.352

[6] Hebert, Walter H. Fighting Joe Hooker University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln and London 1999. Originally published by Bobbs-Merrill, New York 1944

[7] Foote, Shelby, The Civil War, A Narrative. Volume Two Fredericksburg to Meridian Random House, New York 1963 p.758

[8] Ibid. Foote The Civil War, A Narrative. Volume Two p.757

[9] Ibid. Foote The Civil War, A Narrative. Volume Two p.764

[10] Sears, Stephen W. Gettysburg Mariner Books, Houghton Mifflin Company Boston, New York 2004 p.513

[11] McPherson, James M. Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief Penguin Books, New York and London 2008 p.200

[12] Harris, William C. With Charity for All: Lincoln and the Restoration of the Union The University Press of Kentucky, Lexington KY 1997 p.7

[13] McPherson, James. The Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York 1988 p.685

[14] Ibid. McPherson The Battle Cry of Freedom p.685

[15] Ibid. Harris With Charity for All p.7

[16] Ibid. McPherson The Battle Cry of Freedom p.686

[17] Ibid. McPherson The Battle Cry of Freedom p.687

[18] McPherson, James M. This Hallowed Ground Crown Publishers, New York 2003 p.137

[19] Ibid. Wills. Lincoln at Gettysburg p.63

[20] Ibid. Wills. Lincoln at Gettysburg p.64

[21] Ibid. Wills. Lincoln at Gettysburg p.65

[22] Everett, Edward Gettysburg Address retrieved from http://voicesofdemocracy.umd.edu/everett-gettysburg-address-speech-text/ 21 August 2014

[23] Faust, Drew Gilpin, This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War Vintage Books, a division of Random House, New York 2008 p.100

[24] Ibid. McPherson This Hallowed Ground p.137

[25] Ibid. Guelzo. Fateful Lightening pp.406-407

[26] Ibid. Wills. Lincoln at Gettysburg p.45

[27] Ibid. Everett Gettysburg Address

[28] Ibid. Wills. Lincoln at Gettysburg p.51

[29] Ibid. Guelzo. Fateful Lightening p.409

[30] Ibid. Guelzo. Fateful Lightening p.408

[31] Ibid. Wills. Lincoln at Gettysburg p.110

[32] Ibid. Wills. Lincoln at Gettysburg p.105

[33] Ibid. Wills. Lincoln at Gettysburg p.105

[34] Lincoln, Abraham The Gettysburg Address the Bliss Copy retrieved from http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/gettysburg.htm

[35] Guelzo, Allen C. Lincoln’s Sound Bite: Have Faith in Democracy New York Time Opinionator, November 17^th 2013 retrieved from http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/17/lincolns-sound-bite-have-faith-in-democracy/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0 July 18^th 2014

[36] Ibid. McPherson This Hallowed Ground p.138

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Tagged as 54th massachusetts infantry, abolitionism, abraham lincoln, allen guelzo, battle of gettysburg, copperheads, declaration of independence, edward everett, fort wangner, gettysburg address, gettysburg address theodore parker, gettysburg soldiers' cemetery, greek revival, joshua chamberlain, new york draft roits, racism, ralph waldo emmerson, romanticism, transcendentalism

July 3, 2015 · 09:22

Hell at the Peach Orchard

Friends of Padre Steve’s World

Today is another visitation of the Battle of Gettysburg. This too is part of my Gettysburg text, and in the next couple of months I plan on revising, editing and adding to this section. However, since I have recently posted the more recent revisions to parts of that text I have I have tried to avoid repeating those and instead posting this. The Battle of the Peach Orchard, Devil’s Den and the Wheat Field were some of the bloodiest and most confusing battles not only of July 2nd at Gettysburg, but of any during the Civil War.

Though this is pretty much an unedited version of past work that I will be updating I do hope that you will find it interesting as well as informative.

Peace

Padre Steve+

On July 2^nd 1863 as on the first day of battle and throughout the Gettysburg campaign issues of command and control would be of paramount importance to both armies. On the second day the glaring deficiencies of Robert E Lee and his corps commanders command and control at Gettysburg would again be brought to the fore. Likewise the exemplary command of the Army of the Potomac by George Meade, Winfield Scott Hancock, staff artillery officer Henry Hunt and staff engineer Gouverneur Warren exemplified the best aspects of what we now define as Mission Command.

On the morning of July 2nd the Army of the Potomac was mostly assembled on the high ground from Culp’s Hill to Cemetery Hill and along Cemetery Ridge. In the north XII Corps under the command of Major General Henry Slocum held Culp’s Hill. The battered remnants of I and XI Corps under the command of Oliver Howard and Abner Doubleday held Cemetery Hill while Winfield Scott Hancock’s crack II Corps extended the line down Cemetery Ridge. To II Corps right was Dan Sickles’ III Corps with George Sykes V Corps in Reserve. John Sedgwick’s VI Corps was still enroute, marching up the Baltimore Pike.

Father Corby gives General Absolution to the Irish Brigade on July 2nd

It was a solid and well laid out position which commanded the battlefield. Major General Gouverneur Warren the Army’s Staff Engineer Officer who had been sent by Meade to assist Hancock the night of the first wrote his wife that morning: “we are now all in line of battle before the enemy in a position where we cannot be beaten but fear being turned.”[1]

There was one notable problem, Dan Sickles did not like the position assigned to his corps. His corps which joined the left flank of II Corps was to extend down Cemetery Ridge to Devil’s Den and Little Round Top. All morning he had been lobbying Meade, through Meade son and Aide-de-Camp Captain George Meade, the Artillery Reserve Commander Henry Hunt, Warren and even Meade himself to no avail. Sickles was disturbed because John Buford’s Cavalry division which has been deployed on the Federal left had been moved to the rear by Pleasanton the Cavalry Corps commander and not replaced.

Hunt who had accompanied Sickles back to his corps pointed out that the position was too exposed and too expansive for the number of troops Sickles had in his corps. He advised Sickles not to advance and assured Sickles that he would discuss Sickles’ concerns with Meade. [2]

To remedy the situation he sent out four companies of Sharpshooters supported by the 3rd Maine Infantry to make a reconnaissance. Those troops ran into a large force of advancing Confederate Infantry near Seminary Ridge and withdrew, Colonel Brenden of the Sharpshooters informing Sickles of the Confederate advance.

Major General Dan Sickles

Sickles now felt that the Union line was about to be turned as it had been at Chancellorsville and without consulting Meade or Hancock took it upon himself to save the situation. It was an act of brazen insubordination, but typical of the mercurial, vain and scandal plagued man who “wore notoriety like a cloak” and “whether he was drinking, fighting, wenching or plotting, he was always operating with the throttle wide open.”[3]

About mid-afternoon Sickles advanced III Corps forward in a “mile long line of battle with waving flags and rumbling batteries rolling west into the afternoon sunlight.” [4] The sight confused other commanders such as John Gibbon commanding a division in II Corps who watched in amazement from his vantage point on Cemetery Ridge. Sickles advanced nearly a mile in front of his previous position opening a gap between III Corps and II Corps. He attempted to hold a new line that was longer and more exposed than the number of troops that he had available. He placed Humphrey’s division along the Emmitsburg Road and extended Birney’s division through the Peach Orchard, a wheat field down to Devil’s Den where he ran out of troops.

Sickles had formed an exposed and vulnerable salient which was too thinly manned for its length. It was open to attack on three sides, had little depth, no reserves and no place to fall back to as an alternate position.[5] It was also about to be hit by the full fury and power of Hood’s and McLaws’ divisions of Longstreet’s First Corps supported by Alexander’s 46 well placed artillery pieces [6] all about to open fire on Sickles badly deployed corps.

About 3 PM Meade broke from a planned commander’s conference to investigate what had happened to Sickles and III Corps, accompanying Meade was Warren. Warren who was most familiar with that part of the battlefield noted that III Corps was “very badly disposed on that part of the field.” [7]

Confronting Sickles in the Peach Orchard Meade was visibly perturbed. Meade informed Sickles that “General I am afraid that you are too far out” [8] attempting to control his temper. Sickles disagreed and said with support he could hold the position because it was higher ground than what he had previously occupied. Meade then pointed out the obvious stating “General Sickles this is in some respects higher ground than that to the rear, but there is still higher in front of you…” [9] As the conversation progressed Meade told Sickles that “this is neutral ground, our guns command it as well as the enemy’s. The reason you cannot hold it applies to them.” [10]

Sickles offered to withdraw but as he did so the Confederate cannonade began signaling the beginning of Longstreet’s attack. Meade told Sickles “I wish to God you could [withdraw]…but those people will not permit it.”[11]Another account states that Meade told Sickles “You cannot hold this position but the enemy will not let you get away without a fight.” [12]

Since Sedgwick’s powerful VI Corps had just arrived Meade ordered it into reserve. He then ordered Sykes V Corps from its reserve position and one division of II Corps to support the dangerously exposed III Corps around the Peach Orchard and Wheat Field. He then told Sickles “if you need more artillery call on the reserve!” [13] It was an action that very likely saved the day, another example of Meade taking control of a bad situation preventing it from becoming even worse.

For Lee and Longstreet the morning had been spent disagreeing on a plan to crush Meade. Though his army was operating on exterior lines with his corps having no way to effectively coordinate their actions and still lacking Stuart’s Cavalry, Pickett’s Infantry division and Law’s brigade of Hood’s division Lee insisted that Longstreet and First Corps make a frontal attack on the Union left. Longstreet demurred and tried to convince Lee of turning the Union flank to the south of the Round Tops. Longstreet told Hood “The General is a little nervous this morning; he wishes me to attack; I do not wish to do so without Pickett. I never like to go into battle with one boot off.” [14]

Lee did not believe that such a move could succeed without the assistance of Stuart’s cavalry and Longstreet did not believe that with Pickett’s division that his corps had the combat power to successfully complete the mission. Hood objected to the attack pleading with Longstreet that it was “unwise to attack up the Emmitsburg Road, as ordered” and requested that he be allowed to “turn Round Top and attack the enemy flank and rear.” [15]

The debate between Longstreet and Hood continued as Hood objected and Longstreet reiterated Lee’s insistence on the planned attack. Hood pleaded for freedom of maneuver believing that an attack up the rocky hills was doomed and later noted “it seemed to me that the enemy occupied a position so strong- I may say impregnable – that independently of their flank fire, they could easily repulse our attack by merely throwing or rolling stones down the mountainside as we approached.” [16] Despite his objections to the plan Longstreet ordered Hood to attack as Lee planned and after a fourth attempt by Hood to persuade Longstreet to change the plan Longstreet told his subordinate “We must obey the orders of General Lee.” [17]

However in addition to his contention with Lee and Hood Longstreet had to deal with Lee jumping the chain of command. With Longstreet in earshot order McLaws to make an attack on the Peach Orchard and ignored McLaws repeated requests to make a further reconnaissance before launching the attack. By the time Hood and McLaws divisions were in place along with Anderson’s division from Hill’s Third Corps it was nearly four o’clock. The senior commanders of the Army of Northern Virginia had functioned poorly throughout the day but when the attack began it was like a violent storm as Confederate troops fell upon the exposed Federal III Corps.

When the attack was launched McLaws division and the left wing of Hood’s division struck the exposed positions of III Corps. Sickles was severely wounded by a bouncing cannon ball which shattered a leg and knocked him out of the fight. Hood too was badly wounded early in the action leaving command of his division to Brigadier General Evander Law. Law whose brigade had just arrived on the battlefield after a long march from New Guilford in the Cumberland Valley continued to command his own brigade in the assault leaving the rest of the division to fend for themselves and Robertson took the initiative to bring up the rest of the division. [18]

McLaws’ and Hood’s soldiers hit Sickles Corps hard shattering it. Despite fierce resistance from the Federal forces Sickles’ corps was forced to retreat. The reinforcements ordered to the sector from V Corps, II Corps and the artillery reserve arrived piecemeal and also sustained heavy casualties but eventually helped to stem the Confederate tide. III Corps was wrecked and effectively out of the battle but the actions of Meade, Hancock, Warren, Gibbon, Sykes and Hunt to respond to Sickles folly kept the Confederates from sweeping the field.

Law, Robertson’s and Benning’s brigades opened Hood’s attack toward Devil’s Den and Little Round Top. Fierce fighting ensued at Devil’s Den where the Federal line, occupied by Colonel A. Van Horn Ellis’ 124th New York and 4 guns of Smith’s artillery battery put up a stiff resistance. Ellis’s small regiment numbered but 18 officers and 220 men when it entered the fight but it held off several charges of the Texans and even conducted a counter-attack before being overwhelmed by fresh troops from Benning’s brigade.

During the fight Ellis mounted his horse noting that “The men must see us today.” [19] Ellis died in the action as did many of his brave soldiers. In the valley between Devil’s Den and the Round Tops the 4th Maine and Smith’s 2 remaining guns fought large numbers of Hood’s troops and as the outnumbered Federals fell back the Texan’s of Robertson’s brigade and Law’s Alabamians surged toward the rocky hill.

Brigadier General William Barksdale’s Mississippi brigade had distinguished itself at Fredericksburg now stormed the Federal positions. The Mississippians broke through the salient and drove forward driving broken Federal regiments and batteries before them. Barksdale continued to lead his brigade forward though it had suffered significant casualties and was losing cohesion. Barksdale insisted on continuing to advance and would not stop to take time to reform his lines shouting at one of his regimental commanders “No! Crowd them- we have them on the run. Move your regiments.” [20]

George Willard

As the brigade reached the lower portion of Cemetery Ridge a fresh Federal brigade commanded by Colonel George Willard struck the Mississippians. Willard’s brigade was seeking redemption having been one of the units forced to surrender at Harpers Ferry the previous September. His troops fresh and full of fight fell upon the Mississippians who were spent and disorganized having reached their culminating point. Barksdale continued to urge on his men but was mortally wounded and his troops driven back by the New Yorkers. Willard did not live long to savor the redemption as he was hit by a cannon ball and killed instantly.

To the north of the salient Anderson’s division of Hill’s corps attacked toward Cemetery Ridge meeting heavy resistance. Cadmus Wilcox’s brigade advanced unsupported up to Cemetery Ridge which due to the dispatch of troops to the Peach Orchard was only lightly defended. When Hancock saw the threat he ordered the 1st Minnesota commanded by Colonel William Covill, all of 262 men to charge the advancing Confederates telling Covill: “Colonel, do you see those colors?…Then take them.” [21] Between 170-178 of the Minnesotans fell in the counter-attack but they succeeded in blunting Wilcox’s attack and Wilcox seeing no help or support withdrew from Cemetery Ridge.

The Charge of Willard’s Brigade

By the evening fresh Federal troops directed by Meade, Hancock and Hunt poured into the sector. By the end of the day despite sustaining massive casualties the Federal Army held its ground in large part thanks to the active role played by Meade, Hancock, Warren and Hunt in anticipating danger and bringing the appropriate forces to bear.

The fighting around the Peach Orchard, the Wheat field and Devil’s Den was confusing as units of both sides became mixed up and cohesion was lost. Both sides sustained heavy casualties but Lee’s Army could ill afford to sustain such heavy losses. By the end of the evening both McLaws and Hood’s divisions were spent having lost almost half of their troops as casualties. Hood was severely wounded early in the fight, and many other Confederate commanders were killed or mortally wounded including the irrepressible Barksdale. Combined with the repulse at Little Round Top the Confederate troops consolidated their positions.

In the end though McLaws’ and Hood’s divisions had succeeded in thrashing Sickles’ exposed salient they were unsuccessful at breaking the Federal line. Casualties were heavy on both sides but the attack had failed and it had failed because of senior leadership of Lee and his corps commanders. One of Lee’s biographer’s wrote “Longstreet was disgruntled, Ewell was inept and Hill was unwell.” [22] To make matters worse Lee did not assert himself and even his most devoted biographer Douglas Southall Freeman would write that on July 2d “the Army of Northern Virginia was without a commander.” [23]

Freeman McGilvery

“This Fiery Line” Lieutenant Colonel Freeman McGilvery and the Artillery at the Trostle Farm and Plum Run

The disaster that engulfed Sickles’ III Corps now threatened the Federal center. Meade and Hancock rushed reinforcements in the form of V Corps and much of II Corps. The tip of the Sickle’s salient at Sherfy’s Peach Orchard manned by Graham’s brigade of David Birney’s division was overwhelmed and retreated in disorder. Once “the angle had been breached, the lines connecting to it on the east and north were doomed.” ^{^[24]} This exposed the left of Humphrey’s division and it too was forced to retreat under heavy pressure sustaining heavy casualties. The final collapse of Humphrey’s division a large gap opened in the Federal lines between the elements of V Corps fighting along Devil’s Den and Little Round Top and II Corps along the central portion of Cemetery Ridge.

When Meade realized the seriousness of the situation he gave Sickles’ free reign to call for reinforcements from Harry Hunt’s Artillery Reserve as III Corps had only batteries organic to it. Those five batteries were in the thick of the fighting providing invaluable support to Sickles’ hard pressed and outnumbered corps. Firing canister and grapeshot they cut swaths of death and destruction through the massed ranks of wildly cheering Confederates of Kershaw and Semmes and Barksdale’s brigades of McLaws’ division. Kershaw recalled:

“The Federals…opened on these doomed regiments a raking fire of grape and canister, at short distance, which proved most disastrous, and for a time destroyed their usefulness. Hundreds of the bravest and best men of Carolina fell….” [25]

The Confederates believed that they had cut the Union line in half and advanced through the Peach Orchard and across the Wheat Field toward Cemetery Ridge. But they were to befall another furiously conducted defense, this by artillery hastily collected along what is known as the Plum Run Line.

Among the artillery called into action was the First Volunteer Brigade under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Freeman McGilvery. McGilvery, a Maine native was a former sea captain who had organized and commanded the 6^th Maine Battery at the beginning of the war. He commanded it with distinction in a number of engagements. Promoted to Major in early 1863 he assumed command of the Brigade and fought at Chancellorsville and was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel in June as the Army of the Potomac pursued Lee’s Army.

McGilvery rode into the maelstrom of the retreating III Corps soldiers and broken guns. His horse was hit four times but he remained unwounded despite “exposing himself to enemy missiles on all parts of the field from Cemetery Ridge to the Peach Orchard.” ^{^[26]} He noted that there was no infantry anywhere that could plug the gap and acted instantly on his own authority to make a decision that likely saved the Union line.

Bigelow’s Artillery

In the confusion of III Corps disintegration three of his batteries had withdrawn leaving Captain John Bigelow’s 9^th Massachusetts battery alone at the Trostle farm telling them they must “hold at all hazards.” ^{^[27]} Bigelow later explained that McGilvery said that “for 4 or 500 yards in my rear there were no Union troops.” He was then instructed by McGilvery “For heavens [sic] sake hold that line…until he could get some other batteries in position…” ^{^[28]} In another account Bigelow recorded “Captain Bigelow…there is not an infantryman back of you along the whole line which Sickles moved out; you must remain where you are and hold your position at all hazards, and sacrifice your battery if need be, until at least I can find some batteries to put in position and cover you.” ^{^[29]}

The order could have been considered suicidal; the 21^st Mississippi was nearly upon them and they were but one battery and barely one hundred troops. Bigelow did not hesitate to obey; he brought his guns into line at the Trostle house “facing one section slightly to the southwest and the other two sections directly into the path of the oncoming Confederates.” ^{^[30]}

Barksdale’s Charge

Bigelow’s artillerymen fought like demons he described the effect of his fire on Kershaw’s South Carolinians “the Battery immediately enfiladed them with a rapid fire of canister, which tore through their ranks and sprinkled the field with their dead and wound, until they disappeared in the woods on our left, apparently a mob.” ^{^[31]} They poured a merciless stream of fire into the advancing Confederates until “they had exhausted their supply of canister and the enemy began to close in on his flanks.” ^{^[32]} A German born gunner noted “we mowed them down like grass, but they were thick and rushed up.” ^{^[33]} A hand to hand fight ensued among the guns but the Massachusetts men escaped losing 28 of its 104 men engaged,^{^[34]} the brave commander Bigelow was wounded and nearly captured but one of his men helped him to the rear.

Their sacrifice was not in vain. They bought McGilvery an additional 30 minutes to set up a line of guns along Plum Run. Hunt praised the battery “As the battery had sacrificed itself for the safety of the line, its work is specially noticed as typical of the service that artillery is not infrequently called to render, and did render in other instances at Gettysburg besides this one.”^{^[35]}

Barksdale’s brigade did not pause and continued in their relentless advance towards Cemetery Ridge, sweeping Union stragglers up as they moved forward led by their irrepressible Colonel. Before them was McGilvery’s new line, hastily cobbled together from any batteries and guns that he could find. Initially composed of 13-15 guns of four different batteries he was joined by two more batteries giving him about 25 guns in all. Subjected to intense Confederate artillery fire and infantry attacks his guns held on even as their numbers were reduced until only six guns remained operational. “Expertly directed by McGilvery a few stouthearted artillerymen continued to blaze away and keep the low bushes in front of them clear of lurking sharpshooters. Although they had no infantry supports, they somehow managed to create the illusion that the woods to their rear were filled with them, and they closed the breach until the Union high command could bring up reinforcements.” ^{^[36]}

The reinforcements came in the form of Colonel George Willard’s “Harper’s Ferry” Brigade which was looking for revenge and redemption. This unit hit Barksdale’s now disorganized force which had reached its cumulating point hard. Willard was killed and Barksdale mortally wounded and captured in the violent clash which spelled the end of one of the greatest threats to the Union line of the entire battle. Philip Tucker in his book Barksdale’s Charge: The True High Tide of the Confederacy at Gettysburg, July 2, 1863 refers to Barksdale’s charge as the real “high water mark of the Confederacy.”

However it was McGilvery who recognized the emergency confronting the line and on his own took responsibility to rectify the situation. He courageously risked “his career in assuming authority beyond his rank” ^{^[37]} and without his quick action, courage under fire and expert direction of his guns Barksdale’s men might have completed the breakthrough that could have won the battle for General Lee despite all of the mistakes committed by his senior leaders that day.

It was another example of an officer who had the trust of his superiors who did the right thing at the right time. It is an example of an officer used the principles of what we today call Mission Command to decisively impact a battle. McGilvery rose higher in the Federal service and was promoted to Colonel and command of the artillery of X Corps. He was slightly wounded in a finger at the battle of Deep Bottom in August 1864. The wound did not heal properly so surgeon’s decided to amputate the finger. However they administered a lethal dose of chloroform anesthesia and he died on September 9^th, the Union losing one its finest artillerymen. He was buried in his native Maine and the State legislature designated the first Saturday in September as Colonel Freeman McGilvery Day in 2001.

Notes

[1] Jordan, David M. Happiness is Not My Companion: The Life of G.K. Warren Indiana University Press, Bloomington Indiana 2001 p.89

[2] Foote, Shelby The Civil War, A Narrative: Fredericksburg to Meridian. Vintage Books, a Division of Random House, New York 1963 p.495

[3] Catton, Bruce The Army of the Potomac: Glory Road Doubleday and Company, Garden City New York, 1952 pp.150-151

[4] Ibid p.288

[5] Ibid. Foote p.496

[6] Ibid. p.289

[7] Ibid. Jordan p.90

[8] Ibid. Foote p.496

[9] Schultz, Duane The Most Glorious Fourth: Vicksburg and Gettysburg July 4th 1863. W.W. Norton and Company New York and London, 2002 p.251

[10] Sears, Stephen Gettysburg Houghton Mifflin Company Boston and New York 2004 p.263

[11] Ibid.

[12] Ibid. Sears p.263

[13] Ibid. Foote p.497

[14] Pfanz, Harry W. Gettysburg the Second Day University of North Carolina Press, Charlotte and London, 1987 p.112

[15] Ibid. Foote p.499

[16] Ibid.

[17] Ibid.

[18] Coddington, Edwin B. The Gettysburg Campaign a Study in Command A Touchstone Book, Simon and Schuster, New York 1968 pp.402-403

[19] Ibid. Pfanz p.293

[20] Trudeau, Noah Andre Gettysburg a Testing of Courage Perennial Books, Harper Collins Publishers, New York 2002 p.368

[21] Ibid. p.393

[22] Taylor, John M. Duty Faithfully Performed: Robert E Lee and His Critics Brassey’s, Dulles VA 1999 p.149

[23] Freeman, Douglas S. R.E. Lee volume 3 Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York 1935 p.150

[24] Trudeau, Noah Andre Gettysburg: A Testing of Courage Harper Collins, New York 2002 p.368

[25] Kershaw, J.B. Kershaw’s Brigade at Gettysburg in Battles and Leaders of the Civil War Volume III, The Tide Shifts. Edited by Robert Underwood Johnson and Clarence Clough Buel Castle, Secaucus NJ p.335

[26] Coco, Gregory A A Concise Guide to the Artillery at Gettysburg Colecraft Industries, Orrtanna PA 1998 p.31

[27] Hunt, Harry I Proceeded to Cemetery Hill in Battles and Leaders of the Civil War Bradford, Ned editor, Meridian Books, New York 1956 p.378

[28] Guelzo, Allen C Gettysburg, The Last Invasion Vintage Books, a Division of Random House, New York 2013 p.314

[29] Ibid. Trudeau p.385

[30] Ibid.

[31] Bigelow, The Peach Orchard, 54; History of the Fifth, 638 retrieved from WE SAVED THE LINE FROM BEING BROKEN: Freeman McGilvery, John Bigelow, Charles Reed and the Battle of Gettysburg by Eric Campbell http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/gett/gettysburg_seminars/5/essay4.htm#52

[32] Coddington, Edwin. The Gettysburg Campaign: A Study in Command Touchstone Books, New York 1960 p.416

[33] Ibid. Guelzo pp.314-315

[34] Ibid Hunt p.379

[35] Ibid. Hunt. P.379

[36] Ibid. Coddington p.417.

[37] Ibid. Coddington.

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Tagged as 1st minnesota, a.p. hill, as 124th new york infantry, battle of gettysburg, battle of little round top, cadmus wilcox, colonel augustus van horn ellis, colonel george williard, colonel william covill, Devil’s Den, douglas southall freeman, evander law, freeman mcgilvery, general george gordon meade, gouverneur warren, harper's ferry brigade, henry hunt, james longstreet, john bell hood, john bigelow, lafayette mclaws, major general dan sickles, richard ewell, robert e lee, the Peach Orchard, The Wheat Field, william barksdale, winfield scott hancock

July 2, 2015 · 14:04

Racism and the Lost Cause

Friends of Padre Steve’s World

During the anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg I tend to focus on that battle, and the actions of the men who fought it. I anticipate that I will add another article tomorrow from my Civil War and Gettysburg text dealing with a part of that battle, but today because it is so pertinent even 150 years after the war, I will revisit the myth of the Lost Cause and its influence on American history and race relations after the war was over.

Sadly, the desire of Northern corporations, Southern landowners and those who sought reunion over justice, the rights of African Americans were not only subjugated to those interests but blacks were again degraded and their efforts to achieve their own freedom cast aside as politicians, landowners, academics, businessmen, preachers and even veterans organizations raced to forget what the war was about.

This post is also part of my Gettysburg text and I do hope that it will cause us all to think about how history and justice can be obscured in the interest of covering over crimes for political, economic and social goals.

Peace

Padre Steve+

Though Edmund Ruffin and his dreams of an independent republic built on slavery and white supremacy was dead, in the coming years, the Southern states would again find themselves under the governance of former secessionists who were unabashed white supremacists. The institution of slavery did not endure “but southerners’ racial beliefs and habits did…. The white ex-Confederate South proved much more successful in guarding this sacred realm” [1] during Reconstruction and after than they did during the war. Former secessionist firebrands who had boldly proclaimed slavery to be the deciding issue during the war changed their story. Instead of slavery being the primary cause of Southern secession and the war, it was “trivialized as the cause of the war in favor of such things as tariff disputes, control of investment banking and the means of wealth, cultural differences, and the conflict between industrial and agricultural societies.” [2]

Alexander Stephens who had authored the infamous Cornerstone Speech in 1861 that “that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery — subordination to the superior race — is his natural and normal condition” argued after the war that the war was not about slavery at all. Instead, the former Senator and Confederate Vice President changed his tune and argued that the war:

“had its origins in opposing principles….It was a strife between the principles of Federation, on the one side, and Centralism, or Consolidation on the other.” He concluded “that the American Civil War “represented a struggle between “the friends of Constitutional liberty” and “the Demon of Centralism, Absolutism, [and] Despotism!” [3]

Jefferson Davis, who had masterfully crafted “moderate” language, which radicals in the South used to their advantage regarding the expansion and protection of the rights of slave owners in the late 1850s to mollify Northern Democrats, and who wrote in October 1860 that: “The recent declarations of the Black Republican part…must suffice to convince many who have formerly doubted the purpose to attack the institution of slavery in the states. The undying opposition to slavery in the United States means war upon it where it is, not where it is not” [4] was not above changing his longstanding insistence that the slavery was the heart of the Confederacy’s claim to existence and the reason for secession.

After the war a revisionist Davis wrote:

“The Southern States and Southern people have been sedulously represented as “propagandists” of slavery, and the Northern as the champions of universal freedom…” and “the attentive reader…will already found enough evidence to discern the falsehood of these representations, and to perceive that, to whatever extent the question of slavery may have served as an occasion, it was far from being the cause for the conflict.” [5]

Instead of being about slavery the Confederate cause was mythologized by those promoting the false history of the “Lost Cause” a term coined by William Pollard in 1866, which “touching almost every aspect of the struggle, originated in Southern rationalizations of the war.” [6] By 1877 many southerners were taking as much pride in the “Lost Cause” as Northerners took in Appomattox.[7] Alan Nolen notes: “Leaders of such a catastrophe must account for themselves. Justification is necessary. Those who followed their leaders into the catastrophe required similar rationalization.” [8]

The Lost Cause was elevated by some to the level of a religion. In September 1906, Lawrence Griffith, speaking to a meeting of the United Confederate Veterans, stated that when the Confederates returned home to their devastated lands, “there was born in the South a new religion.” [9] The mentality of the Lost Cause took on “the proportions of a heroic legend, a Southern Götterdämmerung with Robert E. Lee as a latter day Siegfried.” [10]

This new religion that Griffith referenced in his speech was replete with the signs, symbols and ritual of religion:

“this worship of the Immortal Confederacy, had its foundation in myth of the Lost Cause. Conceived in the ashes of a defeated and broken Dixie, this powerful, pervasive idea claimed the devotion of countless Confederates and their counterparts. When it reached fruition in the 1880s its votaries not only pledged their allegiance to the Lost Cause, but they also elevated it above the realm of common patriotic impulse, making it perform a clearly religious function….The Stars and Bars, “Dixie,” and the army’s gray jacket became religious emblems, symbolic of a holy cause and of the sacrifices made on its behalf. Confederate heroes also functioned as sacred symbols: Lee and Davis emerged as Christ figures, the common soldier attained sainthood, and Southern women became Marys who guarded the tomb of the Confederacy and heralded its resurrection.” [11]

Jefferson Davis became an incarnational figure for the adherents of this new religion. A Christ figure who Confederates believed “was the sacrifice selected-by the North or by Providence- as the price for Southern atonement. Pastors theologized about his “passion” and described Davis as a “vicarious victim”…who stood mute as Northerners “laid on him the falsely alleged iniquities of us all.” [12] It was a theme that would be repeated by others in the coming decades, instead of a traitor to his nation; Davis became a figure like Jesus Christ, condemned though innocent.

In 1923 a song about Jefferson Davis repeated this theme:

Jefferson Davis! Still we honor thee! Our Lamb victorious, who for us endur’d a cross of martyrdom, a crown of thorns, soul’s Gethsemane, a nation’s hate, A dungeon’s gloom! Another God in chains.” [13]

The myth also painted another picture, that of slavery being a benevolent institution which has carried forth into our own time. The contention of Southern politicians, teachers, preachers and journalists, before, during and after the war was that slaves liked their status; they echoed the words of slave owner Hiram Tibbetts to his brother in 1842 “If only the abolitionists could see how happy our people are…..The idea of unhappiness would never enter the mind of any one witnessing their enjoyments” [14] as well as the words of Jefferson Davis who in response to the Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation called the slaves “peaceful and contented laborers.” [15]

The romantic images of the Lost Cause were conveyed to the American public by numerous writers and Hollywood producers including Thomas Dixon Jr. whose play and novel The Clansman became D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation; a groundbreaking part of American cinematography which was released in 1915. Margaret Mitchell, who penned the epic Pulitzer Prize winning novel Gone With the Wind, which in its 1939 film form won ten academy awards immortalized the good old days of the old South with images of faithful slaves, a theme which found its way into Walt Disney’s famed 1946 animated Song of the South. Through such films and books the myth of the Lost Cause became part of the national heritage with many people in states outside of the South and even some foreigners coming to believe the myth.

The Lost Cause helped buttress the myths that both comforted and inspired many Southerners following the war. “It defended the old order, including slavery (on the grounds of white supremacy), and in Pollard’s case even predicted that the superior virtues of cause it to rise ineluctably from the ashes of its unworthy defeat.” [16] The myth effectively helped pave the way to nearly a hundred more years of second class citizenship for now free blacks who were often deprived of the vote and forced into “separate but equal” public and private facilities, schools and recreational activities. The Ku Klux Klan and other violent organizations harassed, intimidated, persecuted and used violence against blacks.

When Reconstruction ended Southerners elected officials who turned a blind eye to the activities of the Klan and instituted state laws which denied most civil rights to African Americans, “From the 1880s onward, the post-Reconstruction white governments grew unwilling to rely just on intimidation at the ballot box and themselves in power, and turned instead to systematic legal disenfranchisement.” [17] Lynching was common and even churches were not safe. It would not be until the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s that blacks would finally begin to gain the same rights enjoyed by whites in most of the South.

Despite this, many Union veterans to their dying day fought the Lost Causers. Members of the Grand Army of the Republic, the first truly national veteran’s organization, and the first to admit African American soldiers as equals, the predecessor of modern veteran’s groups, continued their fight to keep the public fixed on the reason for war, as well as point out the profound difference between what they believed that they fought for, and what their Confederate opponents fought for during the war.

“The Society of the Army of the Tennessee described the war as a struggle “that involved the life of the Nation, the preservation of the Union, the triumph of liberty and the death of slavery.” They had fought every battle…from the firing on the Union flag Fort Sumter to the surrender of Lee at Appomattox…in the cause of human liberty,” burying “treason and slavery in the Potter’s Field of nations” and “making all our citizens equal before the law, from the gulf to the lakes, and from ocean to ocean.” [18]

At what amounted to the last great Blue and Gray reunion at Gettysburg was held in 1937. The surviving members of the United Confederate Veterans extended an invitation to the GAR to join them there. The members of the GAR’s 71^st Encampment from Madison Wisconsin, which included survivors of the immortal Iron Brigade who sacrificed so much of themselves at McPherson’s Ridge on July 1^st 1863 adamantly, opposed a display of the Confederate Battle flag. “No Rebel colors,” they shouted. “What sort of compromise is that for Union soldiers but hell and damnation.” [19]

Ruffin outlived Lincoln who was killed by the assassin John Wilkes Booth on April 14^th, 1864. However the difference between the two men was marked. In his Second Inaugural Address Lincoln spoke in a complete different manner than did Ruffin. He concluded that address with these thoughts:

“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.” [20]

Why this Matters Today

The American Civil War provides a complex drama that political leaders, diplomats and military leaders would be wise to study, and not simply the military aspects and battles. Though the issues may be different in nations where the United States decides to intervene to prevent humanitarian disasters, to prevent local civil wars from becoming regional conflagrations, or to provide stability after a civil war, the conflict provides poignant example after poignant example. If we fail to remember them we will lose who we are as a nation. Sadly, all too often that is what we do.

Ken Burns wrote:

“after the South’s surrender at Appomattox we conspired to cloak the Civil War in bloodless, gallant myth, obscuring its causes and its great ennobling outcome – the survival of the Union and the freeing of four million Americans and their descendants from bondage. We struggled to rewrite our history to emphasize the gallantry of the wars’ top-down heroes, while ignoring the equally important bottom-up stories of privates and slaves. We changed the irredeemable, as the historian Davis Blight argues, into positive, inspiring stories.” [21]

The Union was preserved. Reconciliation was achieved to some degree, albeit in an imperfect manner. The continuance of legal racism and discrimination through the imposition of Jim Crow laws which discriminated against blacks and promoted segregation, poll-taxes and rigged tests to keep blacks from voting stained honor of the nation. The lack of repentance on the part of many of those who shamelessly promoted the Lost Cause and their current defenders continues to this day. Allen Guelzo wrote in the American Interest about the importance of both reconciliation and repentance to Frederick Douglass after the war:

“Douglass wanted the South not only to admit that it had lost, but also that it had deserved to lose. “The South has a past not to be contemplated with pleasure, but with a shudder”, he wrote in 1870. More than a decade later, Douglass was still not satisfied: “Whatever else I may forget, I shall never forget the difference between those who fought to save the Republic and those who fought to destroy it.” [22]

Likewise, that imperfect but reunited Union was all that stood in the way of Nazi Germany in the dark days of early 1942. Had the American republic fragmented during the war, had the South won, as so many kings and dictators of the day either openly or secretly desired, there would have been nothing to stand in the way of Hitler and his legions. Neither there would there be anyone to stand in the way of the modern despots, terrorists and dictatorships such as the Islamic State today.

Religion does matter to peoples, tribes and nations. It is still an important part of both foreign and domestic policy, even if a civilian policy maker or military strategist or operational planner does not believe in God and the effect of it cannot be minimized. Michael Oren notes “the impact of religion in shaping American attitudes and policies toward the Middle East” [23]in his book Power, Faith and Fantasy: America and the Middle East 1776 to the Present. The conflict between largely secular Roman Catholics, Orthodox Christians and Moslems in the Balkans is a glaring example of how people who are basically non-religious will rally around faith as a means of unity against rivals of a different faith, even those who are their long time neighbors.

Likewise, the attempt of former President Bush as well as President Obama to portray the response against Al Qaida and later the invasion of Iraq as “a war against terrorism – not as a war against Arabs, nor, more generally, against Muslims…” [24] has fallen on deaf ears in much of the Moslem world. Many Moslems, see the war as being waged against them and their religion. Many, even moderates have deeply ingrained beliefs similar to the late Osama Bin Laden, or the current leaders of the Al Qaida or the Islamic State for whom “this is a religious war, a war for Islam against infidels, and therefore, inevitably; against the United States, the greatest power of the world of the infidels.” [25]

In our culture of secularization we forget the primal importance of religion to others. Part of what we do not realize is that for people with Fundamentalist religious beliefs, no-matter what religion they belong to that religion is bedrock in times of tumult. When times are tough it is far easier for people to fall back on the more simple and fundamental aspects of their religious beliefs. For Americans this usually plays out in the individual drama of struggle, faith, sin and redemption and salvation. However, even in the United States religion can be, as we have seen from this brief look at the importance of religious faith and ideology in the ante-bellum United States, the Civil War and the aftermath of the war and Reconstruction, be translated into a catalyst and buttress for mass movements and holy war.

The controversies and conflicts brought on by the ideological, social and religious divides in the Ante-Bellum United States provide current leaders with historical examples. Our Civil War was heavily influenced by religion and the ideologies of the partisans in the North and in the South who were driven by religious motives, be those of the evangelical abolitionists or the proslavery evangelicals. If one is honest, one can see much of the same language, ideology and religious motivation at play in our twenty-first century United States. The issue for the vast majority of Americans, excluding certain neo-Confederate and White Supremacist groups, is no longer slavery; however the religious arguments on both sides of the slavery debate find resonance in our current political debates.

Likewise, for military, foreign policy officials and policy makers the subject of the role of religion can be quite informative. Similar issues are just as present in many the current conflicts in the Middle East, Africa and Eastern Europe which are driven by the religious motives of various sects. The biggest of these conflicts, the divide between Sunni and Shia Moslems, is a conflict that threatens to engulf the region and spread further. In it religion is coupled with the quest for geopolitical and economic power. This conflict in all of its complexity and brutality is a reminder that religion is quite often the ideological foundation of conflict.

These examples, drawn from our own American experience can be instructive to all involved in policy making. These examples show the necessity for policy makers to understand just how intertwined the political, ideological, economic, social and religious seeds of conflict are, and how they cannot be disconnected from each other without severe repercussions.

Samuel Huntington wrote:

“People do not live by reason alone. They cannot calculate and act rationally in pursuit of their self-interest until they define their self. Interest politics presupposes identity. In times of rapid social change established identities dissolve, the self must be redefined, and new identities created. For people facing the need to determine Who am I? Where do I belong? Religion provides compelling answers….In this process people rediscover or create new historical identities. Whatever universalist goals they may have, religions give people identity by positing a basic distinction between believers and non-believers, between a superior in-group and a different and inferior out-group.” [26]

By taking the time to look at our own history as well as our popular mythology; planners, commanders and policy makers can learn lessons if they take the time to learn, will help them understand similar factors in places American troops and their allies might be called to serve, or that we might rather avoid.

Notes

[1] Ibid. Daly When Slavery Was Called Freedom pp.148-149

[2] Gallagher, Gary W. and Nolan Alan T. editors The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis 2000 p.15

[3] Ibid. Dew Apostles of Disunion p.16

[4] Ibid. Catton The Coming Fury p.104

[5] Davis, Jefferson The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government Volume One of Two, A public Domain Book, Amazon Kindle edition pp.76-77

[6] Ibid. Gallagher and Nolan The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History p.12

[7] Millet Allen R and Maslowski, Peter. For the Common Defense: A Military History of the United States of America The Free Press, a division of McMillan Publishers, New York 1984 p.230

[8] Ibid. Gallagher and Nolan The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History p.12

[9] Hunter, Lloyd The Immortal Confederacy: Another Look at the Lost Cause Religion in Gallagher and Nolan The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War p.185

[10] Ibid. McPherson The Battle Cry of Freedom p.854

[11] Ibid. Hunter The Immortal Confederacy Religion in Gallagher and Nolan The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War p.186

[12] Ibid. Hunter The Immortal Confederacy Religion in Gallagher and Nolan The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War p.198

[13] Ibid. Hunter The Immortal Confederacy Religion in Gallagher and Nolan The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War p.198

[14] Ibid. Levine Half Slave and Half Free p.106

[15] Ibid. Gallagher and Nolan The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History p.16

[16] Ibid. Guelzo Fateful Lightening p.525

[17] Ibid. Guelzo Fateful Lightening p.526

[18] Ibid. Guelzo Fateful Lightening p.532

[19] Ibid. Guelzo Fateful Lightening p.532

[20] Ibid. Lincoln Second Inaugural Address

[21] Ibid. Burns A Conflict’s Acoustic Shadows p.102

[22] Guelzo, Allen C. A War Lost and Found in The American Interest September 1^st 2011 retrieved 30 October 2014 from http://www.the-american-interest.com/articles/2011/09/01/a-war-lost-and-found/

[23] Oren, Michael Power, Faith and Fantasy: America and the Middle East 1776 to the Present W.W. Norton and Company, New York and London 2007 p.13

[24] Lewis, Bernard The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror Random House, New York 2003 p.xv

[25] Ibid. Lewis The Crisis of Islam p.xv

[26] Ibid. Huntington The Clash of Civilizations p.97

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Filed under civil war, film, Gettysburg, History, Political Commentary

Tagged as 1860 election, alexander stephens, birth of a nation, bleeding kansas, charles lamar, charles sumner, crime against kansas speech, d w griffith, edmund ruffin, emancipation proclamation, evangelical support for slave trade, fort sumter, frederick douglass, gettysburg address, gone with the wind, grand army of the republic, harpers ferry raid, ideology and war, j.e.b. stuart, jefferson buford, jefferson davis, john brown, jubal early, lincoln house divided speech, Pottawatomie Massacre, preston brooks, rape of lawrence, religion and civil war, robert e lee, secession, secession commissioners, slave ship wanderer, song of the south, south carolina declaration of secession, the clansman, the lost cause, william lloyd garrison

Category Archives: Gettysburg

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A New Birth of Freedom

Hell at the Peach Orchard

Racism and the Lost Cause

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