Battle of Gettysburg- July 2, 1863- 161st Anniversary Special

Addressing Gettysburg

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During the early morning hours of July 2, an already sleep-deprived Union Army of the Potomac commander, George Gordon Meade, arrived at Gettysburg to find fresh Federal soldiers reinforcing the battered elements of the army from the previous day's battle. After conferring with his subordinates, Meade rode out to look at the ground. He decided to stay and fight.

The Union position was a strong one.

Cemetery Hill dominated the surrounding landscape and offered the Union defenders a strong artillery position. Two key roads that led into Gettysburg from Maryland intersected just north of the hill. Those two roads were crucial avenues of resupply and, if necessary, retreat for the Union Army. The side controlling the hill controlled the field, but the position had one weakness. When he arrived the previous day to act in Meade's stead, Union Second Corps Commander Winfield Scott Hancock assessed the position and reported to Meade that it was strong, but the Confederates could turn its left flank.

This fact didn't escape Robert E. Lee's experienced eye, either. He astutely turned his attention to planning the action for July 2, devising a strategy that would test the mettle of the Union Army.

With Meade deciding to stay, Lee needed to determine the best way to knock the Federals off their strong position. A direct assault on Cemetery Hill could prove devastating for Lee's infantry as they would have to cross open farm fields to attack the hill. Subordinate commanders convinced Lee not to attack the Union Right near Culp's Hill. Just before dawn, Lee dispatched reconnaissance parties to determine the terrain on the Union left and the dispositions of the Army of the Potomac. One such party returned and reported no Union soldiers in the area of Little Round Top. After conferring with his commanders, Lee made his decision. James Longstreet, his trusted second-in-command, his "old warhorse," would take two divisions and, under concealment, get into position to attack the flank of the Union Line. Once Longstreet was in position. His orders directed him to attack north, along the Emmitsburg Road, and roll up the Union left. While Longstreet was executing this move [getting into position?], Ewell's Second Corps would demonstrate on the Union Right to prevent reinforcements from being sent to meet Longstreet. Ewell's demonstration would become an attack if Ewell thought it feasible.

[Chas Fennell on this part of the plan]

It was a bold plan. One that Confederate General James Longstreet did not care for, but, ever the consummate soldier, he followed orders.

Longstreet's Corps, consisting of three divisions under Generals McLaws, Pickett, and Hood, was initially delayed due to the absence of Pickett's division, which was still over 20 miles away. Despite Longstreet's request to wait for Pickett, Lee urged action but acquiesced to Longstreet's request to wait for one of the brigades from Hood's division before commencing the attack. It would be nearly One in the afternoon before Longstreet's march began.

While Lee dealt with the logistics of implementing his plans, Meade had his own difficulties with Daniel Sickles, a New York politician-turned-general and Meade's Third Corps Commander.

Meade had assigned defensive positions to all of his commands in what is now known as the Fish Hook line. The reason for Sickles' assigned position was either not made apparent to him or was certainly not to his liking. Throughout the morning, Sickles tried to get Meade's permission to redeploy his Corps to what he thought was a better position on higher ground along the Emmitsburg Road. Sickles believed that if the Confederates occupied that ground, they could use it as an artillery platform and make Sickles' position, and much of the rest of the Union line, vulnerable.

Every time Sickles tried, Meade brushed him off until he eventually reiterated his original order. Still nervous, Sickles ordered a reconnaissance into a stand of woods just west of the Emmitsburg Road. The reconnaissance discovered Rebels extending the Confederate lines along Seminary Ridge. This information convinced Sickles to take his entire Corps and occupy the ground he desired.

However, Sickles' decision to advance detached his Corps from the rest of the army, leaving his command exposed on neutral ground. This decision would prove to be a turning point, almost leading to the destruction of his Corps and having severe consequences for the Army of the Potomac.

But it also had the effect of confounding Lee's plans that day.

[Jim Hessler on Sickles' thinking]

It was nearly one in the afternoon when Longstreet's Corps began its march to the south. During the march, fears of having been discovered by a signal station on Little Round Top led him to order a countermarch to remain concealed.

[Jim Hessler on Countermarch]

This countermarch had eaten up precious time, and by the time Longstreet's men were in position, they discovered that the Union Army had changed its position since Lee conceived the plans. Instead of finding nothing on the Emmitsburg Road, Longstreet found the entire Third Corps blocking his attack path. This unexpected turn of events forced Longstreet to modify the plan and position of his troops on the spot. [read the following, but you probably won't need it] Longstreet determined to attack with the division of John Bell Hood first, finding and attacking the new Federal left flank. When that attack developed, McLaws' Division was to crash through whatever was in its front. Longstreet's Corps' objective was still Cemetery Hill, but Sickles' new position ensured Longstreet wouldn't get there without a fight.

Around 4 in the afternoon, the Confederates launched their attack, forever immortalizing places like the otherworldly place called Devil's Den and Little Round Top.

[Licensed Battlefield Guide Tracy Baer]

The pastoral landscape of Gettysburg was transformed into a battleground, with ranks of Butternut and Gray clashing among the rocks and hills. The ferocity of the fighting was such that the air was thick with the sounds of gunfire and the cries of the wounded, creating a scene of intense drama and tension.

Meade, realizing almost too late the danger the army was in, rushed reinforcements to the scene. Each new reinforcing command escalated the desperate fighting.

One Union officer in the Wheatfield remembered, "The men were firing as fast as they could load. The din was almost deafening."

By 6 in the evening, Hood's attack had stalled; Hood himself had been wounded early in the fighting.

That was when Longstreet ordered McLaws forward.

Barksdale's brigade of Mississippians crashed through the Union position at the Peach Orchard at the intersection of the Emmitsburg and Millerstown Roads, plunging the Union defense into a chaotic and intense struggle for survival, a scene that was both overwhelming and terrifying.

[Licensed Battlefield Guide Ralph Siegel]

The Confederate attacks, cascading from South to North, shattered the Third Corps. Longstreet's Corps fought fiercely, pursuing the remnants of the Federal commands. AP Hill's Corps joined the attack over the Codori Farm, including one small brigade from Florida.

[LBG Paul Bailey]

Wright's brigade briefly broke through the Second Corps line near a copse of trees on Cemetery Ridge.

In previous battles, a situation like this might have unnerved the Army of the Potomac, leading to a defeat. But this time, the soldiers stood their ground, their determination and courage preventing a potential disaster.

[Licensed Battlefield Guide Mike Rupert]

Timely reinforcements, brave counterattacks from the Pennsylvania Reserves, and men from Maine, Minnesota, New York, and Vermont would stem the Confederate tide as darkness fell across the battlefield.

Longstreet would claim that it was the best three hours of fighting that his men had experienced during the war. They had captured some ground and, in the process, had badly mauled elements of three Union Corps. The Third Corps alone would suffer over 4,000 casualties-- some 40%-- including the wounding of their commander, Dan Sickles.

The Federals could also rightly claim this was their "best three hours of fighting." They had fought desperately and had not yielded. The shank of the Fish Hook line had held.

Though daylight began to wane, the fighting had not, and one New York brigade was about to fight for its life. To bolster the Union left, George Meade had ordered the entire Twelfth Corps to abandon its position on Culp's Hill. But he was soon convinced to allow one brigade to remain. That brigade was that of 62-year-old Brigadier General George Sears Greene.

As darkness descended, Confederate Second Corps commander Richard Ewell decided to turn the demonstration into an attack.

[Chas Fennel on Greene's Brigade]

[RECORD ALL CULP'S HILL STUFF, BUT IT PROBABLY WON'T BE NEEDED IN THE EDIT]

Confederates would attack Culp's Hill and East Cemetery Hill, sometimes using the muzzle flashes to locate their target.

On Culp's Hill, a Union brigade of New Yorkers under the command of 62-year-old George Sears Greene would be successful in repulsing or halting an entire Confederate division. Greene's little brigade was not enough to cover the whole of the position, and the Confederates did capture some fortifications, but timely reinforcements and the tenacity of Greene's men staved off disaster.

At East Cemetery Hill, Louisianans and North Carolinians would brave the incline of the hill and almost make it to the Baltimore Pike before the timely arrival of the Gibraltar Brigade from the 2nd Corps, featuring the 7th West Virginia which, as legend has it, had attached a star "borrowed" from the colors of another regiment to its flag to represent the recently inducted state, pushed back the vaunted Louisiana Tigers. Here again, on this side of the field, the Confederates had some success. However, the tenacity of the Union defenders and the oncoming darkness meant the Union position had bent but was far from broken.

[Jessie Wheedleton]

General Meade called a Council of War for that night. Corps commanders arrived at his headquarters even as they could hear the dying din of battle in the distant darkness.

Meade had received information from his Bureau of Military Information that, up to this point, they had engaged all of Lee's Army except for Pickett's Division. The Army of the Potomac had been bloodied that day, but fresh soldiers from the 6th Corps had arrived after a forced march of over 30 miles that day.

In a room of the Lydia Leister House, Meade asked the opinion of his subordinates on what they should do next. The Union commanders decided that they would stay and fight.

General Lee did not call a similar Council of War. Instead, in his official report, he claimed the plan for the next day remained unchanged, and the attack would renew on the flanks of the Union Army.

July 2, 1863, was a costly day. In intense fighting, both armies combined would sustain over 21,000 casualties. As a point of comparison, The Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest day in American military history, had 23,000 casualties. And still, some of the more dramatic scenes of the war were yet to come.