July 3, 1863---The Battle of Gettysburg: Day Three

JULY 3, 1863:   

The Battle of Gettysburg  (Day Three):         

Men waited for dawn. The exhausted, the wounded, the tired and the merely frightened tried to sleep on the field where so many of their fellows would never wake; in the village of Gettysburg, the citizens huddled in cellars and attics trying to blot out the roar of battle still ringing in their ears. Shots whistled across the face of Culp’s Hill, though the later it became the less they were heard. Everyone wished for rest. But it was not to be.

At 4:30 AM on the third day, the Union cannons opened up, shattering the false peace, targeting Culp’s Hill. George Meade had grown tired of having Rebels too close to the crucial Baltimore Pike, and was determined to drive them out. The artillery barrage pinned the Rebels down, but they dared not withdraw under fire. Rebel cannons were of no use on the wooded terrain. At 8:00 AM, Meade sent men swarming up Culp’s Hill into the breastworks that had been occupied by the Confederates, and a vicious three hour struggle ensued that moved back and forth over the face of the hill like an army of ants. Union men entrenched on Culp’s Hill ceased firing so as to avoid hitting the assault force. Extremely heavy fire was exchanged until 11:00 AM, when the Union dislodged the Confederates and retook the area around Spangler’s Spring.

In the meantime, the debate continued at Meade’s headquarters at the Widow Leister’s house, as to where Lee’s next move would be. Meade finally told his commanders, “If Lee attacks…it will be in [the] front," a prescient prediction, but oddly enough Meade then decided to bolster his left flank. Nevertheless, about 6,000 men held the center on the morning of the third day, and that was nearly 6,000 more than had been there twelve hours earlier when the Alabama Regiment had crested the hill against the determined First Minnesota.

With the peculiar blindness that had marked many of his Gettysburg decisions, Lee had convinced himself that the Union forces could be shattered in the middle; he did not much consider that Meade might reinforce the line. Also, Lee had not moved far away from his original plan of breaking the bow of the inverted “U” line of the Federals, though it was no longer a “U” but a “fishhook,” and though the critical element of flank attacks had been exhausted the day before. He decided to send General George Pickett’s fresh Division, 15,000 strong, across from Seminary Ridge to Cemetery Ridge. Longstreet strongly objected to Lee’s plan, insisting that "no 15,000 men ever arrayed for battle can take that position." Lee disregarded him.  As it evolved, Pickett's Charge was planned for three Confederate divisions, commanded by Major General George Pickett, Brigadier General J. Johnston Pettigrew, and Major General Isaac R. Trimble, consisting of troops from Lieutenant General James Longstreet's First Corps and Lieutenant General A.P. Hill's Third Corps.

Throughout the morning and into the afternoon amid 90° heat and stifling humidity the Rebels moved into position in the woods just below Seminary Ridge. Just as Wright had done on The Second Day, the plan was to advance across the valley and up Cemetery Ridge to the copse of trees where Union resistance had been weakest---yesterday.

Lee ordered J.E.B. Stuart's recently returned cavalry to swing around the Union position and mount a demonstration in the Union rear in order to divert Federal forces from the main battle area. Around noon, Union and Confederate cavalry troops clashed at the Battle of Rummel’s Farm, three miles east of Gettysburg. Stuart was repulsed by cannon fire and by the Union cavalry led by the Union’s youngest General, 23 year old George Custer. Lee’s diversion attempt failed after a violent hour. 500 casualties---about 250 per side---littered the ground.

Just as Stuart broke off from Custer, 170 Confederate cannons opened fire on the Union position on Cemetery Ridge to clear the ridge of Union troops. It was an intense barrage, but most of the Rebel shells shot high, missing their targets and flying into rear-echelon areas like Command Posts and the hospital. Some Union troopers were killed, and the barrage caused a lot of disruption in the rear, but the mass of Union troops on Cemetery Ridge were unaffected. After about 45 minutes, the Rebel barrage ended, cut short by lessening stocks of shells.  

As the Confederates wound down their barrage the Federals opened up an even larger barrage which was on target. Soon big clouds of blinding smoke and dust hung over the battlefield. Around 2:30 p.m. the Federals slowed their rate of fire, then ceased firing entirely, to conserve ammunition and to fool the Rebels into thinking the cannons were out of action---exactly what the Rebels did think.

It was at this point that General George Pickett went to see Longstreet and asked, "General, shall I advance?" Longstreet, aware that the Union had been reinforcing their front all night and all day, realized that Pickett’s charge was going to be a disaster. A dour man, Longstreet was overcome with emotion at the thought of his men dying needlessly.  He did not respond to Pickett verbally, but simply bowed his head and raised his hand. Thus the order to march was given. Pickett’s Charge began at 2:45 PM.

"Charge the enemy and remember old Virginia!" yelled Pickett as 15,000 men in butternut and gray formed an orderly line that stretched a full mile from flank to flank. In deliberate silence, and with a military pageantry not seen since days gone by, they slowly headed toward the Union Army a mile away on Cemetery Ridge. The waiting Federals gazed in silent wonder at this spectacular picture-book sight.

 

But as the Rebels got within range of Cemetery Ridge, Federal cannons using canister and grapeshot (shells containing iron balls or shrapnel that flew apart when fired) and deadly accurate rifle volleys ripped into the Confederates killing hundreds in the most gory manner, and tearing huge holes in the advancing line. What had been, just moments before, a majestic line of infantry, quickly became a nightmare of dismembered body parts, headless corpses, dying men and wounded men screaming in agony. Many men hit the ground, playing possum rather than be torn to shreds. The Union flank opened up enfilading fire on the Confederate troops, mowing them down brutally. But like an inexorable wave, the remaining Rebels continued on over the undulating ground, rifles on their shoulders, drummers beating a tattoo, flags fluttering, disappearing and reappearing as the landforms changed.   

The Confederate assault, bloodied and battered, nevertheless advanced as far as the sturdy rail fence at the Emmitsburg Road.   

This obstacle became a killing ground. Men tried to climb over it in order to advance, in the process making of themselves even larger targets. Canister shot that blew men apart also blew holes in the fence, and as the troops crowded around these openings trying to pass through, more canister wiped them out. The following units, seeing this carnage, stopped, and individual men turned back for Seminary Ridge. Angry comrades-in-arms and an occasional officer berated them, most men looked on their frightened fellows sympathetically. As one man saw a frightened jackrabbit flee the battlefield, he said, “Run ole hare, run. If I was a ole hare, I’d be runnin’ too.”

As they got very close to the Union line, the remaining Confederates stopped, fired their rifles once at the Federals, and then lowered their bayonets and commenced a running charge, all while screaming the Rebel yell.

When the two forces met at a low freestone wall set obliquely to the line of advance, a fierce battle raged with brutal hand to hand fighting. Enemies were facing each other, standing shoulder to shoulder and firing at intended targets over the wall. Men without ammunition fought each other with knives, rifle butts, rocks and even fists, shooting each other at pointblank range and stabbing one another with bayonets. The low stone wall would be known forever afterward as "The Bloody Angle."

At this point, confusion reigned. Two gaps opened up in the Union line when the 71st Pennsylvania retreated from The Bloody Angle. The 59th New York followed suit, but the 1st New York Independent Artillery Battery redeemed the honor of The Empire State when five guns fired double canister simultaneously. The entire Confederate line in front disappeared. Still, the Confederates exploited the absence of the Pennsylvanians. 2,500 men led by General Lewis “Lothario” Armistead C.S.A. began to cross the stone wall. Many of them were shot down, but Armistead managed to turn two guns on the Union troops. With no ammunition, it was a legendarily symbolic gesture, Armistead’s last. He was shot down a few moments later and died the next day. But for a brief moment, the Rebels nearly had taken their objective. It was “the high water mark” of the Confederacy.

As more Union reinforcements arrived and charged into the breach, the defensive line became impregnable and the Confederates began to slip away individually, with no senior officers remaining to call a formal retreat. The battered, outnumbered Rebels finally began to give way and this great human wave that had been Pickett's Charge began to recede as the men drifted back down the slope, leaving 7,500 men lying on the field of battle.  Less than an hour had passed since Longstreet had lifted up his hand.

The failure of Pickett’s Charge did not end the Battle of Gettysburg. Rather, the battle spluttered out when Union cavalry drove off the Confederates remaining in Devil’s Den and The Peach Orchard. After the breaking of that remaining Confederate line, Robert E. Lee called for a general retreat back to Virginia, a movement which started the next day, July 4^th. The Confederate hospital wagon train alone was nineteen miles long.

On the Third Day, Union losses were over 700 killed and 2,800 wounded, while Confederate losses were over 1,500 killed and 6,000 wounded.  In total, the three day battle took 3,200 Union lives and left 14,700 men wounded, while 3,700 Confederates were killed and 15,900 wounded. Approximately 6,000 men were taken prisoner by each side, 12,000 in total, adding up to a shocking 49,000 men lost in the three day battle; and some sources estimate as many as 6,000 more for a total of 54,000. For comparison, the United States lost 53,000 men in three years in Korea, 56,000 in the ten years of Vietnam, 4,500 in nine years in Iraq, and 2,227 in twelve years in Afghanistan (these figures reflect fatalities only). Civil War wounds were often fatal days, weeks, months or years after the battle: Stonewall Jackson died of his wound gotten at Chancellorsville a week later, and Joshua L. Chamberlain is documented as having died in 1914 of complications from a wound received at the Siege of Petersburg in 1865. Thus, Civil War casualty figures are usually best guesses even when very specific numbers are given.

  

Of 120 generals present at Gettysburg, nine were killed or mortally wounded during the battle. The Confederate side lost Generals Semmes, Barksdale, Armistead, Garnett, and Pender (plus Pettigrew during the retreat). The Union lost Generals Reynolds, Zook, Weed, and Farnsworth (and Vincent, promoted posthumously). No other Civil War battle claimed as many general officers.

Gettysburg is by far the best-documented Civil War battle, but even so it is difficult to assess certain elements that made it what it was. For example: What went wrong with Robert E. Lee’s invasion plan? Several points can be made---

1.       Lee had begun to believe his own legend:

While not a braggart like Joe Hooker nor a megalomaniac like George McClellan, Robert E. Lee had had one of the greatest runs of good fortune ever to be found in the military annals. Since the Seven Days’ Battles a year prior to Gettysburg he had not suffered a significant setback, even though his men were worse armed and supplied than the Union army. Given its inadequacies, the Army of Northern Virginia was one of the greatest fighting forces ever known. Lee, unreasonably, expected them to win against any odds, and failed to make contingency plans.

2.       Lee underestimated George Meade:

           

Meade was not an inspired commander, nor an inspiring one. He is not found in “Familiar Quotations,” and everyone who met him remarked on his resemblance to a snapping turtle. But unlike McClellan and Hooker, Meade did not broadcast victories before they happened, nor fool himself regarding battlefield conditions. Having been in command only some 72 hours before the contest at Gettysburg, Meade limited himself to simple, straightforward orders and simple, straightforward maneuvers. Meade also made good use of his reserves, unlike McClellan on the Peninsula or Hooker at Chancellorsville.

3.       Lee overestimated Confederate sentiment in the lower North: 

Maryland was still a slave State in 1863, excluded as it was as Union territory from the Emancipation Proclamation, but the people had elected Abolitionists to high office in 1862, and except for the Eastern Shore, slavery had all but vanished by 1863, particularly in the area Lee’s troops traversed to reach Pennsylvania. As slavery vanished, Unionism grew, so that by the time the Army of Northern Virginia entered Maryland, most Marylanders turned their backs even on the Confederate Maryland regiments. The situation was even worse in southern Pennsylvania. Though the area around Gettysburg was strongly Peace Democrat and even “Copperhead,” the Keystone Staters around Gettysburg resented the invading army come to seize their goods and wreck their lives. Lee got no support from the locals. Lee was a Virginian and Meade a Pennsylvanian. And the Confederacy was the invader at Gettysburg, a position which troubled most of its better men, making them perhaps less effective.

4.       Lee had “battlefield myopia”:            

Lacking Jeb Stuart, and indeed very much Military Intelligence at all about Pennsylvania, Lee had no idea where the Union army was, what the topography of the Gettysburg area was, or what his best maneuvers were, and no way to find out. Likely, General Longstreet was right in that drawing Meade away from the hilly area of Gettysburg could not have helped but to improve the Confederate position. But Lee had only a vague mental picture of the lay of the land. Lee, for instance, never grasped the need for Longstreet’s countermarch on the Second Day. Worse yet, he seemed slow to understand that the Union position was not static---Meade was moving units around like a croupier to address the various threats the Union faced. This movement made an action like Pickett’s Charge (which would have been masterful a half-day before it was ordered) into an unmitigated disaster. And the Union had short, interior lines of communication while Lee’s were extended and easily disrupted.

5.       Lee’s Orders were unclear: 

From the moment he told R.S. Ewell to seize Culp’s Hill “if practicable,” Lee seemed unable to make his intentions clearly known to his commanders. The Battle of Culp’s Hill (the Third Day) was supposed to be a diversion from Pickett’s Charge; instead, it ended just as Pickett’s Charge began. Attacks in the field were uncoordinated and confused even when fierce, giving Meade’s men a hidden advantage. Actually, the problem began before the battle itself, with Jeb Stuart, who felt free to vanish for better than a week on the eve of a great battle. Had Lee ordered Stuart to stay with the Army of Northern Virginia, Stuart would never have left; so some of the blame for Stuart’s absence lies with Lee. (Michael Shaara in The Killer Angels makes the point that Lee was ill during the battle, and there is some evidence for this, which may explain much.)

6.       Lee severely underestimated the Esprit de Corps of the Union Army: 

Engagements which should have been Rebel steamrollers turned into atavistic battles to the death in The Wheatfield and Devil’s Den, The Peach Orchard and Culp’s Hill as the Union refused to cede an inch of ground. Perhaps Wright’s comment to Lee regarding Cemetery Ridge needs to be re-examined: “It’s easy to get up there, it’s not so easy to stay.”  This was not an invitation to plan Pickett’s Charge, it was a warning not to. When an understrength and isolated brigade can take 82% casualties and still fight a determined enemy right out of its Senior Command Post, it may be time to reconsider both strategy and tactics.