July 2, 1863---The Battle of Gettysburg: Day Two

JULY 2, 1863:    

The Battle of Gettysburg  (Day Two):  

The first day at Gettysburg ended with an apparently complete Confederate victory. The Union had been chased out of Gettysburg proper, the road network was in Confederate hands, and nothing could seemingly stop General Lee from marching on Harrisburg, at least. Lee was concerned, however, about the large, supposedly shattered Union force that would be in his rear, and decided to dedicate the Second of July to thoroughly impairing the ability of the Army of the Potomac to challenge him. The essential destruction of the most crucial of Union armies would force the United States to recognize the independence of the Confederacy.

General George Meade, the General-in-Chief of the Army of the Potomac arrived at Gettysburg after dark on the first day, and after conferring with his subordinates decided that it was an ideal place to do battle with Lee's army. Despite losing most of two Corps on the first day, Meade was confident, as he anticipated reinforcements totaling up to 100,000 men to arrive and strengthen his defensive position.  And, indeed, overnight, four of the remaining five Corps of the Army of the Potomac began arriving and emplacing, By dawn, Meade’s forces were more than twice greater than his entire force on the first day, and they were holding the high ground.

Robert E. Lee had several choices to consider for his next move. His order of the previous evening that Ewell occupy Culp's Hill or Cemetery Hill "if practicable" was now impossible, because the Union army was now in strong defensive positions with compact interior lines. His senior subordinate, General James Longstreet, saw the Union position as nearly impregnable and counseled a strategic move, advising Lee that the Army of Northern Virginia should leave its current position, swing around the Union left flank, and interpose itself on Meade's lines of communication, inviting an attack by Meade that could be received on advantageous ground. Longstreet argued that this was the entire point of the Gettysburg campaign, to move strategically into enemy territory but fight only defensive battles there.

Lee rejected this argument because he was concerned about the morale of his soldiers having to give up the ground for which they fought so hard the day before. He wanted to retain the initiative and had a high degree of confidence in the ability of his army to succeed in any endeavor, an opinion bolstered by their spectacular victories the previous day and at Chancellorsville. He was therefore determined to attack on July 2nd. As of the early morning the Union forces had resolved themselves into an inverted “U” –shape occupying Cemetery Ridge, Culp’s Hill and Cemetery Hill south of town. Lee contemplated attacks on the twin arms of the U, and a charging attack into the open end of the “U.” Attacked on both sides, Lee figured, the Union forces would be overwhelmed. Lee’s error was that the “U” he envisioned was really more in the shape of a walking cane, shortened on one side, and that there were Yankee troops on Power’s Hill in the mouth of the “U”.

Had J.E.B. Stuart’s cavalry been nearby, it is possible that Lee might have had a better picture of the ground assault positions. But Lee was essentially blind to Union movements, and was suffering from a strange, uncharacteristic, obstinacy about the course of the battle. Lee had begun to believe in the invincibility of his Army of Northern Virginia, and worse yet, in his own infallibility. After a string of victories, Lee had begun to believe that the Union Army of the Potomac was intimidated and poorly-led. He was wrong on all counts: His army was not invincible and he was not infallible. And the Army of the Potomac hadn’t been intimidated since First Manassas, it had merely had equivocal leadership. This was no longer the case. Lee was right about George Meade---he was a cautious man and unfamiliar with his command---but he was not Ambrose Burnside, Joe Hooker or George McClellan. He was willing to fight under good conditions, and the conditions at Gettysburg were a gift to Meade.

Lee’s plan was also spoiled by the necessity of James Longstreet having to countermarch his troops in the vicinity of the Emmitsburg Road in order to keep them hidden from Union observers on Little Round Top. Thus, his assault, scheduled for 10:00 AM, was not launched until 4:00 PM. Longstreet was also bedeviled by Union General Dan Sickles, who had inexplicably moved his Division out of line and into the area of Devil’s Den and The Wheatfield. This had several effects: First, Sickles’ force was isolated and subject to being overrun; second, Meade had to stretch his lines thin to accommodate the gap that Sickles’ departure had created, giving the Confederates a natural weak spot to exploit; third, Sickles had moved his troops right into Longstreet’s intended path, fouling up the plan to enter the mouth of the “U” uncontested; and fourth, though Sickles had acted precipitately, he had wisely anchored his men in the roughest patch of Gettysburg real estate, ever after known as “Devil’s Den.”

Sickles has been blamed for the Union nearly being defeated at Gettysburg, and Longstreet has been blamed for the Confederacy’s defeat, but both men’s actions made some sense, though Sickles is harder to defend. Sickles had been blamed for prematurely surrendering the Hazel Grove at Chancellorsville, a move that led to the Union’s defeat, and so he chose to be more aggressive at Gettysburg. Sickles violated orders and complicated it all with bad tactics, inept though understandable in a “political general.” 

On the other hand, Longstreet, a skilled veteran commander realized that had he not taken steps to shield his men from view they would have been cut down on the march. Lee simply did not know the ground at Gettysburg. Lee’s plan, as conceived, could not have worked.

The Second Day at Gettysburg resolved itself into several localized and interlinked battles:

1.       The Battle of Cemetery Hill:  

This battle had been contemplated by Lee as a “demonstration,” a feint or a distraction from Longstreet’s assault against the open mouth of the “U”. As it turned out, it became an assault against the center of the Union line, the bow of the “U”. General R.S. Ewell C.S.A. began his “demonstration” upon hearing the sound of Longstreet's guns to the southwest. For three hours, Ewell limited his attack to an artillery barrage from Benner's Hill. Although the Union defenders on Cemetery Hill received some damage from this fire, they returned counterbattery fire with a vengeance. Cemetery Hill is over 50 feet taller than Benner's Hill, and the geometry of artillery science meant that the Union gunners had a decided advantage. Ewell's four batteries were forced to withdraw with heavy losses.

2.       The Battle of Cemetery Ridge:          

The Battle of Cemetery Ridge was the last battle of the Second Day, and it could very well have been decisive to the Confederate cause had things gone just a bit differently.  At 6:00 PM, Confederate forces from Seminary Ridge managed to go over the crest of parallel Cemetery Ridge against almost no Union opposition.  For a time, the only Union soldiers in this part of the line (“The Copse of Trees”) were General Meade and some of his staff officers, as so many Union troops had by then been dispatched to Devil’s Den, The Wheatfield, and The Peach Orchard.

Having marched down one hill, across a valley, and up another in the relentless 100-degree heat of the day, the Confederates were forced to a halt to regroup, and this gave the Union adequate time to counterattack. General Winfield Scott Hancock ordered the men of the 1st Minnesota, Harrow's Brigade, of the 2nd Division of the Second Corps to "Advance, and take those colors!" The 262 Minnesotans charged an Alabama brigade with bayonets fixed, and they blunted their advance but at a horrible cost—215 casualties (82%), including 40 deaths or mortal wounds, one of the largest regimental single-action losses of the war.

Despite superior Confederate numbers on the Ridge, the small 1st Minnesota had checked the Rebel advance, and the Alabamians were forced to withdraw. The retreating Confederate commander, Brigadier General Ambrose R. Wright, later that evening told Robert E. Lee that it was relatively easy to get to the crest, “but it was difficult to stay there,” and it is probable that Lee derived some false confidence from Wright about the ability of his men to reach Cemetery Ridge, hence encouraging Lee to order Pickett’s Charge the next day. By then, any Union weakness in the center had been rectified. On the Third Day, Lee’s men were marching into a deathtrap.

3.       The Battle of Culp’s Hill:        

The loss of Culp’s Hill, near the bow of the “U” or what eventually became a “fishhook,” would have been catastrophic to the Union army. Culp’s Hill dominated Cemetery Hill and the Baltimore Pike, the latter being the Union army’s main supply route and the road to the capital. Holding it meant blocking any Confederate advance on Baltimore or Washington, D.C. Compared to Cemetery Hill and other areas of the field, Culp’s Hill was thinly defended at the outset, though the troops were very well dug in.  Around 7:00 PM, Ewell chose to begin his main infantry assault here. He sent three brigades up the eastern slope of Culp's Hill against a line of breastworks manned by the Twelfth Corps, which held off the Confederate attack for hours. Large numbers of Union reinforcements were sent to Culp’s Hill to beat back the assault. The Confederates were shocked at the strength of the Union breastworks on the crest of the hill. Their charges were beaten off with relative ease by the 60th New York, which suffered very few casualties. Confederate casualties were very high. One of the New York officers wrote "without breastworks our line would have been swept away in an instant by the hailstorm of bullets and the flood of men," although the attackers established a foothold in some abandoned Union rifle pits near Spangler’s Spring.  In a rare Civil War night action, the battle continued after dark, and random shooting went on all night.  In the darkness, several Rebel units attacked each other. The Battle of Culp’s Hill continued into the third day. 

4.       The Battle of Little Round Top:       

At the southern end of the battlefield, Longstreet’s offensive began around 4:00 P.M.   Major Gen. John Bell Hood's division was assigned to attack up the eastern side of the Emmitsburg Road, but parts of Hood's division detoured over Big Round Top and approached the southern slope of Little Round Top in order to avoid Sickles’ entrenched troops, the storied 2nd U.S. Sharpshooters, the rough terrain near Devil’s Den, and, also, because of command confusion.   

At this point in time, Little Round Top was undefended by the Union; it was supposed to have been in Sickles’ area, but Sickles was in Devil’s Den. When Meade discovered this situation, he was enraged and hurriedly dispatched messengers to direct reserves to the hill. Hearing of Meade’s need, Colonel Strong Vincent, commander of the third brigade sent his four regiments to Little Round Top. The 16th Michigan, the 44th New York, the 83rd Pennsylvania, and, at the extreme end of the line, the 20th Maine were ordered to hold their positions at all costs. They arrived just ten minutes before Hood’s men.

The approaching Confederates were the 4th, 15th, and 47th Alabama, and the 4th and 5th Texas. Ordered to take the hill, the men were already exhausted, having marched more than 20 miles that day. The day was hot and their canteens were empty.

Approaching the Union line on the crest of the hill, the Confederates were thrown back by the first Union volley and withdrew briefly to regroup. The 15th Alabama attacked the Union left flank consisting of the 358 men of the 20th Maine.

To hold the line, Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain first stretched his troops to the point where his men were in a single-file line, then ordered the southernmost half of his line to swing back or "re-fuse the line," forming an angle to the main line in an attempt to prevent the Confederates from flanking them. Despite heavy losses, the 20th Maine held through two subsequent charges for a total of ninety minutes.

At the last, knowing that his men were out of ammunition, that his numbers were being depleted, and that another charge could not be repulsed, Chamberlain ordered a maneuver that was considered unusual for the day: He ordered his left flank, which had been pulled back, to advance with bayonets in a "right-wheel forward" maneuver. As soon as they were in line with the rest of the regiment, the remainder of the regiment charged, akin to a door swinging shut. This simultaneous frontal assault and flanking maneuver halted and captured a good portion of the 15th Alabama. At the same time, the 20^th Maine’s Company B who had been placed by Chamberlain behind a stone wall 150 yards to the east, having been out of range of the battle until now, finally opened up on the Confederates with enfilading fire. Attacked on three sides, the Confederates broke. Chamberlain’s men took more prisoners than there were surviving members of the 20^th Maine.

While the 20^th Maine’s actions are justly famous and while Chamberlain deserved his eventual Medal of Honor, the other Union regiments on Little Round Top did yeoman service this day. The 4th and 5th Texas attacked the 16th Michigan, on the Union right. Before the Michiganders could be demoralized, reinforcements arrived in the form of the 140th New York and a battery of four guns---Battery D, of the 5th U.S. Artillery. Simply maneuvering these guns by hand up the steep and rocky slope of the hill was an amazing achievement. However, this effort had little effect on the action since the artillerymen were exposed to constant sniper fire and could not work effectively. More significantly, however, they could not depress their barrels sufficiently to defend against incoming infantry attacks. The 140th New York charged into the fray of the battle, driving the Texans back and securing victory for the Union forces on the hill. Union forces held the hill throughout the rest of the battle, enduring persistent fire from Confederate sharpshooters stationed around Devil's Den. Little Round Top remained the site of constant skirmishing and was the starting point for a Union counterattack at dusk, launched in the direction of The Wheatfield.

5.       The Battle of Devil’s Den:        

Devil’s Den is a boulder-strewn ridge near Little Round Top. Inaccessible by direct assault, Longstreet’s Confederates (under John Bell Hood) entered Devil’s Den through Rose Woods at about 4:00 PM, and hit Sickles’ Union line head-on. For over an hour both sides participated in a standup fight of unusual ferocity.

The pressure grew great enough that the Union called for reinforcements. Nonetheless, the Confederate assault was inexorable, as wave after wave of fresh troops poured into the rocky defiles of Devil’s Den.  As one of the Union commanders later related, the Confederates "converged on me like an avalanche, but we piled all the dead and wounded men in our front."

The Union ground defense was fierce. The Confederates were also receiving murderous fire from the crest of Little Round Top, but they kept pushing forward. The rocky, broken ground that the survivors fought over would be remembered as the "Slaughter Pen," and the small creek of Plum Run became known as "Bloody Run"; the little river valley of Plum Run earned the moniker "The Valley of Death." The pressure on the Union brigades was eventually too great, and the Blue was forced to call for a retreat. Hood's division secured Devil's Den. The battered Confederates spent the next 22 hours in Devil's Den, firing across the Valley of Death at Union troops massed on Little Round Top.  The assaults by Hood's brigades were classic, tough infantry fights. Of 2,423 Union troops engaged, there were 821 casualties (138 killed, 548 wounded, 135 missing); of the 5,525 Confederates engaged they lost 1,814 (329 killed, 1,107 wounded, 378 missing).

6.       The Battle of The Wheatfield:          

The Wheatfield is, literally, a wheat field. Owned by the Rose family in 1863, The Wheatfield battlefield also consists of Rose Woods and Stoney Top, both of which are adjacent to Devil’s Den. Rose Woods had acted as the Confederate approach route to Devil’s Den, and as Hood’s men took Devil’s Den around 5:15 PM, the fighting spilled out of Devil’s Den and into The Wheatfield. The combatants were no less aggressive in The Wheatfield than in Devil’s Den, and The Wheatfield soon became known as “The Bloody Wheatfield.” Eleven brigades battled in the area until 7:30 PM. 

Early in the battle, the Confederates seized Stoney Top, using it to fire on Union men in The Wheatfield. Reinforcements retook Stoney Top, and then The Wheatfield, but Confederates freed up from the fighting in the Peach Orchard retook The Wheatfield in vicious hand-to-hand combat. U.S. Regulars (not State Militia) arrived, and The Wheatfield changed hands once again, until more Confederates arrived, turning the battle once again. The Regulars retreated in good order. Encouraged, the Confederates charged out of The Wheatfield, but were met by withering fire from the Pennsylvania Reserve Division (including men from Gettysburg) who cut them down. Reeling pell-mell back across The Wheatfield, the Rebels surrendered the ground permanently.

Though The Wheatfield remained quiet afterward, it was a charnel house of the dead, and a hell for the wounded and dying men who lay there forgotten. Of the 21,000 men who fought in The Wheatfield, 7,000 were casualties. Suffering in the 100-degree heat, many dehydrated wounded tried to crawl to Plum Run for water, but died in the attempt or fell in and drowned. Their blood stained the little creek red.

7.       The Battle of The Peach Orchard:    

At around 5:30, Confederates streamed into The Peach Orchard, then also a Rose property which lies directly northwest of The Wheatfield. The Peach Orchard was the site of General Sickles’ Command Post, and was heavily defended. Union artillery, solid shot and canister, literally tore men apart in the arbor. Despite this, increasing Confederate pressure led to the abandonment of The Peach Orchard. Sickles himself lost a leg in the battle and soon after retired from the army.

Dan Sickles, who had once killed a man namely, Barton Scott Key, Francis’ son, and successfully pled temporary insanity, had nearly cost the Union the day. By breaching the Union line, he’d made inevitable the gruesome battles in The Wheatfield, Devil’s Den and The Peach Orchard. And by forcing Meade to fill the gap in the line and support Sickles’ brave troopers, who’d followed orders into a near-disaster, he’d left the Union center dangerously vulnerable. Relief must have flooded through Union headquarters as the wounded General Sickles was taken away on a stretcher, still nonchalantly puffing a cigar. Yet, others argue that it was Sickles’ bravado that forced the Union to fight so fiercely. In any event, both sides battered each other brutally on The Second Day.

By about 10:30 PM the day's furious fighting came to an end. “Old Pete” Longstreet, who’d gotten his men off to an excruciatingly late start in the day but yet triumphed, described July 2^nd as “the best three hours fighting ever” by his troops. The Federals had lost ground during the Rebel onslaught but still held the defensive position along Cemetery Ridge, which they were reinforcing. Meade was determined to hold the center and throw the remaining Confederates off Culp’s Hill.

Both sides regrouped and counted their causalities while the moaning and sobbing of thousands of wounded men on the slopes and meadows south of Gettysburg could be heard throughout the night under the blue light of a full moon.

The second day of the Battle of Gettysburg saw horrific casualties that outstripped the first day’s totals by far. The Union lost 1,500 men killed, and an astonishing 7,250 wounded. Like the Union, the Confederacy had been badly bled this day as well, losing 1,175 killed and 5,325 wounded. The combined two day casualty total of the battle thus far was fully 26,000. Plum Run ran red with blood. The Wheatfield stank of bodies bloating and bursting in the heat. Torn corpses were piled in Devil’s Den and lay neglected under the blasted bare trees of the Peach Orchard. Snipers exchanged fire across the face of Culp’s Hill, and Billy Yanks atop the Round Tops fired down on Johnny Rebs who cursed and fired back. An eerie moan rose from the earth, filling the air, horrifying forever all the men who lived to remember it.

 The Fighting 69th

Near the Seminary, Robert E. Lee planned his next day’s offensive. Convinced that the Union flanks were strong but that the Union center was weak, he planned a drive right through the copse of trees. It’s said that Longstreet and some others tried to dissuade him, but Lee was suffering from a peculiar lack of vision. He knew that Cemetery Ridge had been invested earlier in the day. He knew he could take it. While Lee’s grasp of the battlefield remained oddly static, Meade was reinforcing his previously soft centerline. The Third Day would tell. 

On this day as well, Mary Todd Lincoln is forced to leap from the Presidential Carriage (in which she was riding alone at the time) to avoid a fatal accident. Mrs. Lincoln strikes her head on a rock. People later say that Mrs. Lincoln's behavior becomes erratic after the accident. She suffers terrible migraines for the rest of her days. 

When the carriage is examined, it is found that several of the bolts holding the passenger seat in place have been removed, making the carriage a potentially deadly conveyance. Mary Todd Lincoln becomes convinced that the accident was no accident but a botched attempt at assassinating the President, though Mr. Lincoln downplays the incident.