Gettysburg Page 3

  The country through which we passed towards Gettysburg seemed to abound chiefly in Dutch women who could not speak English, sweet cherries, and apple-butter. As we marched along, the women and children would stand at the front gate with large loaves of bread and a crock of apple-butter, and effectually prevent an entrance of the premises by the gray invaders. As I said before, the women could not talk much with us, but they knew how to provide” cut and smear, “as the boys called it, in abundance.

  —James Hodam, 17th Virginia Cavalry

  On Sunday the 28th retreating Union militia set fire to the mile-long Columbia Bridge over the Susquehanna River to prevent its capture. “The scene was magnificent,” wrote a reporter. “The moon was bright, and the blue clouds afforded the best contrast possible to the red glare of the conflagration. The light in the heavens must have been seen for many miles.” By the next morning Ewell had received new orders from Lee. He would lead his men back the way they had come, south toward Gettysburg, and link up with A. P. Hill’s and Longstreet’s forces advancing eastward from Chambersburg.

  LINCOLN’S COMMAND CRISIS

  At the end of June, President Lincoln was concerned that Commanding General Hooker would lose his nerve when facing Lee a second time on the battlefield. Promoted to command after General Burnside’s disaster at Fredericks-burg in December 1862, Hooker had been quoted during the retreat by the New York Times as saying that “nothing would go right until we had a dictator and the sooner the better.” A few weeks later Lincoln promoted Hooker to command the army and wrote to him, “I have heard, in such way as to believe it, of your recently saying that both the Army and the Government needed a Dictator. Of course it was not for this, but in spite of it, that I have given you the command. Only those generals who gain success can set up dictators. What I now ask of you is military success, and I will risk the dictatorship.”

  President Abraham Lincoln painted by George Peter Alexander Healy. Photo credit: White House Collection.

  Three short months later, during the first week of May, Hooker failed to deliver that success and the Army of the Potomac had to retreat after General Lee’s crushing victory at Chancel-lorsville. It was perhaps Lee’s greatest victory, but also the costliest. Among the thousands of fallen soldiers was Lieutenant General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, Lee’s greatest corps commander. After his death on May 10, Lee confessed in a letter to his son Custis, “It is a terrible loss. I know not how to replace him.”

  General Hooker skillfully regrouped his army and had set them in motion to follow Lee’s advance into Maryland, with five of his seven infantry corps ready to enter Pennsylvania and challenge Lee. But Lincoln could not afford to lose another battle. With his own officers questioning Hooker’s ability to lead, the General knew he had also lost the confidence of the President and, thus, resigned command on June 28. Lincoln now chose Major General George Gordon Meade to replace Hooker. Only days before the largest battle of the Civil War, the Army of the Potomac suddenly had a new commander.

  Lieutenant General Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson

  BRITH NAME: George Gordon Meade, General of the Unoin Army

  BRON: December 31, 1815 in Cadiz, Spain

  DLED: November 6, 1872

  Major General George Gordon Meade photographed by Matthew Brady. Photo credit: Library of Congress; illustrated by Ron Cole.

  George Meade was born in Cadiz, Spain, the eighth child of eleven born to Richard Worsam Meade and Margaret Coats Butler. His father was from Philadelphia, and was a wealthy merchant serving in Spain as a naval agent for the United States. Financially ruined by the Napoleonic Wars, his father died when young George was not yet a teenager. The family, in danger of financial collapse, returned to the United States in 1828.

  In part because West Point offered young men a free education, George entered the academy in 1831, graduating nineteenth in his class of fifty-six cadets in 1835. He served one year with the 3rd U.S. Artillery in Florida, fighting in the Seminole War before resigning his commission to begin a career as a civil engineer.

  In 1840, George married Margaretta Sergeant and they had seven children who gave him seven children over the years. George returned to the army as a second lieutenant in the Corps of Topographical Engineers in 1842.

  Between 1846 and 1848, Meade served in the Mexican War, for which he was promoted to first lieutenant for bravery at the Battle of Monterey. When he returned to the United States, Meade was assigned further civil projects, such as building lighthouses and breakwaters in Florida and New Jersey. He was promoted to captain in 1856. When the Civil War broke out, Meade was working on a surveying mission to the Great Lakes region.

  Promoted to brigadier general of volunteers in August of 1861, Meade took command of the 2nd Brigade of the Pennsylvania Reserves and helped design the construction of defenses around Washington, DC. The brigade fought with McClellan’s army during the Battle of Seven Days at which Meade suffered wounds to his arm, back, and side. He recovered in time to fight again at Second Bull Run. At the Battle of South Mountain he was given command of the 3rd Division, First Corps and fought bravely with his troops yet again.

  Meade had established himself as a “fighting general,” earning the respect of his troops and the officers above him. At the Battle of Antietam in September 1862, Meade took command of the First Corps when its commander, Joseph Hooker, was wounded. Meade was wounded again, this time in the thigh, during this battle. At Fredericksburg that December, Meade’s division made the only breakthrough of the Confederate lines, attacking Lieutenant General “Stonewall” Jackson’s corps. Promoted to major general and given command of Fifth Corps, Meade would fight again at Chancellorsville in May 1863.

  In the pre-dawn hours of June 28, a special messenger reached Meade, who was encamped with the army near Frederick, Maryland. In a letter from Halleck, Meade was promoted to command the Army of the Potomac, with orders to confront Lee as he invaded Pennsylvania. Unknown to Meade at the time, that confrontation was only three days away.

  Meade was an inspired choice by Lincoln. He was a proven combat leader, one without political ambitions, and Lincoln knew he could count on him to defend Pennsylvania from Lee’s invasion. Where other generals had shown timidity in opposing Lee aggressively, Meade knew his duty was to seek battle.

  In a plain little wall-tent, just like the rest, pen in hand, seated on a camp-stool and bending over a map, is the new “General Commanding” for the army of the Potomac. Tall, slender, not ungainly, but certainly not handsome or graceful, thin-faced, with grizzled beard and moustache, a broad and high but retreating forehead, from each corner of which the slightly-curling hair recedes, as if giving premonition of baldness—apparently between forty-five and fifty years of age—altogether a man who impresses you rather as a thoughtful student than as a dashing soldier—so General Meade looks in his tent.

  —Whitelaw Reid

  General Meade (seated at center) with generals on his command staff at Culpeper, Virginia, in September 1863. Gouverneur K. Warren is on the left. Photo credit: Library of Congress.

  On the night of June 30, he wrote his wife: “All is going on well. I think I have relieved Harrisburg and Philadelphia, and that Lee has now come to the conclusion that he must attend to other matters. I continue well, but much oppressed with a sense of responsibility and the magnitude of the great interests entrusted to me . . . Pray for me and beseech our heavenly Father to permit me to be an instrument to save my country and advance a just cause.”

  The battle at Gettysburg over the next three days was the crowning moment for Meade in a lifetime devoted to the service of his country. As a topographic engineer, Meade knew the importance of holding the key terrain on any battlefield. In the early hours of the fighting, Meade entrusted his best officers to lead in his stead and to make decisions that could win or lose the battle before he was even on the field. In this he was most ably served by Buford, Reynolds, and Hancock, who collectively saved the heights near Gett
ysburg from falling into Lee’s hands.

  Meade’s great success on July 3, in defeating Pickett’s Charge was quickly followed a few weeks later by what many considered his greatest failure. With the Potomac River flooded by heavy rain and his only pontoon bridge captured by Union cavalry, Lee was trapped on the northern bank, dug in behind fixed positions in front of Williamsport. Meade was cautious, though, and this time to a fault.

  The caution and thoroughness he displayed at Gettysburg worked against him, faced off with Lee now on the defensive. Just miles away was Antietam where a year earlier, under very similar circumstances, Lee had fought tenaciously against a Union attack that became the single costliest day of fighting in American history. Surely this was on Meade’s mind as he contemplated attacking at Williamsport.

  With his most aggressive and able corps commander, Winfield Scott Hancock, wounded at Gettysburg, his remaining officers voted against attacking Lee at a council of war on the evening of July 12. Meade agreed to wait one more day until he had a proper reconnaissance of Lee’s position. That same evening, Lee’s engineers improvised a pontoon bridge and his army escaped over the Potomac. The old fox had slipped the noose.

  Lincoln was anguished by the news. The president was quoted as saying, “We had them within our grasp. We had only to stretch forth our hands and they were ours. And nothing I could say or do could make the Army move.”

  Meade promptly and furiously offered his resignation from command. This gesture Lincoln quickly (and wisely) refused, instead offering his thanks for what was accomplished at Gettysburg. Meade’s failure to prevent Lee’s escape has been a point of debate ever since. Meade retained command of the Army of the Potomac and served under Ulysses S. Grant for the remainder of the war.

  Meade continued in military and public service after the war as a commissioner of Fair-mount Park in Philadelphia from 1866 until his death in 1872. The lighthouses he designed still stand as monuments to the life of peace he wished to pursue as a civil engineer.

  Meade should be remembered as one of the great Civil War generals. He was one of the few combat leaders who appreciated changes in technology and tactics that made frontal assaults a tragic waste of human lives. The greatest compliment to Meade’s abilities as an army commander came from Robert E. Lee. On the night of June 28, 1863, when Lee received word that Meade had been promoted to command the Union army, he told his fellow officers, “General Meade will commit no blunder in my front, and if I make one he will make haste to take advantage of it.”

  At Gettysburg, when the country needed a careful and thoughtful leader, Meade was there. His trust in his subordinates, his careful movement and deployment of vast numbers of men, guns, and supplies to Gettysburg, and his foresight in sensing Lee would attack his center line on July 3, were all marks of a great general. He was one of the few Union generals to face Robert E. Lee in open battle and to defeat him.

  Gettysburg in 1863 taken from the Chambersburg Pike. Photo credit: Matthew Brady, Library of Congress.

  J. E. B. STUART’S RIDE

  On June 26, one day before crossing into Pennsylvania, General Lee told another officer, “We have again out-maneuvered the enemy, who even now don’t know where we are or what are our designs. Our whole army will be in Pennsylvania the day after tomorrow leaving the enemy far behind, and obliged to follow us by forced marches. I hope with those advantages to accomplish some signal result, and to end the war if Providence favors us.” A great battle awaited them somewhere north of the Shenandoah Valley, he said, pointing on the map in the vicinity of Gettysburg.

  A few days earlier, on June 22, Lee had finalized his plan of advance with cavalry leader General Stuart. He ordered Stuart to use part of his five brigades to guard the mountain passes behind Lee’s army and lead a second force to protect the right flank of Ewell’s Second Corps as he led the way into Pennsylvania. Lee also approved a raid to circle Hooker’s army eastward if Stuart found no resistance to his movements. When Stuart set out on his mission on June 25 he encountered large units of Hooker’s army on the march. Surely, these enemy units blocking his path counted as resistance according the Lee’s orders.

  “He is commonly called Jeb Stuart, on account of his initials; he is a good-looking, jovial character, exactly like his photographs. He is a good and gallant soldier...”

  —Colonel Arthur James Lyon Fremantle

  Stuart then made a fateful decision—he would reach Ewell’s corps by making a wide circle around Hooker’s army, going on a weeklong raid arcing through Rockville, Maryland, and on to Pennsylvania. Prideful of his near defeat at Brandy Station, Stuart felt compelled to seek glory and restore his reputation.

  Nineteenth-century armies relied on the cavalry to serve as their eyes and ears—a general’s best means of tracking enemy movements and scouting terrain were via his cavalry. By taking his mounted troopers on a glorious encirclement of the Union army, Stuart broke contact with Lee’s headquarters. And in doing so, Stuart directly disobeyed Lee’s instructions and put the commanding general in the dark on the movements of the enemy during the critical days between June 25 and July 2. Lee was therefore unaware that Hooker’s army was crossing the Potomac River at Edward’s Ferry in pursuit of his forces. As Lee’s divided army moved into Pennsylvania, he moved blindly, not knowing the whereabouts of his foe or the nature of the terrain in front of him.

  The Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg in 1863. Photo credit: Matthew Brady, Library of Congress.

  THE WAR COMES TO PENNSYLVANIA

  Gettysburg lies only ten miles from the Maryland border and is the seat of Adams County. In 1863, the road networks around Gettysburg were extensive. Ten major roads branched out from the town like the spokes of a wagon wheel in all directions. Anyone traveling in this part of the state would have a hard time not passing through the bustling town. Gettysburg was prosperous, with a population of about 2,400 residents. It was surrounded by rich farm country and was the home of two schools of higher learning: Gettysburg College and the Lutheran Theological Seminary. The town itself was laid out in neat rows of streets filled with brick and stone houses, stores, workshops, churches, and a small railway station. The chief industry of the time was carriage making.

  Daniel Skelly in 1863, age eighteen. Photo credit: Gettysburg National Military Park.

  Map by Hal Jespersen, www.cwmaps.com.

  Daniel Skelly was an eighteen-year-old employee of the Fahnestock Brothers dry goods (clothing and supplies) company in Gettysburg. He wrote of those days, “The month of June, 1863, was an exciting one for the people of Gettysburg and vicinity. Rumors of the invasion of Pennsylvania by the Confederate army were rife and toward the latter part of the month there was the daily sight of people from along the border of Maryland passing through the town with horses and cattle, to places of safety. Most of the merchants of the town shipped their goods to Philadelphia for safety as was their habit all through the war upon rumors of the Confederates crossing the Potomac.”

  Lieutenant General Ambrose Powell Hill, Jr. Photo credit: National Archives.

  Lieutenant General James Longştreet

  “General Longstreet is an Alabamian—a thickset, determined-looking man, forty-three years of age. He was an infantry Major in the old army, and now commands the 1st corps d’armee. He is never far from General Lee, who relies very much upon his judgment. By the soldiers he is invariably spoken of as ‘the best fighter in the whole army.’”

  —Colonel Arthur James Lyon Fremantle

  “Dixie”

  I wish I was in the land of cotton,

  Old times they are not forgotten;

  Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land.

  In Dixie Land where I was born,

  Early on one frosty mornin,

  Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land.

  Those rumors proved all too true. Confederate Lieutenant Generals A. P. Hill and James Longstreet began moving their troops across the Potomac on June 24. On the far bank
, the men were allowed to build fires and rest. Each man was given a shot of good whiskey to bolster him against the cold rain. General Lee crossed the river in a rain shower as a band hailed their commander with the tune “Dixie.” Lee was met on the Maryland shore by a delegation of ladies who welcomed him as a savior and presenting a huge wreath for his horse, Traveller.

  By nightfall on the 26th, Lee’s army was camped south of Greencastle, Pennsylvania. As they entered the town the following morning, the fife and drum of the 48th Alabama Regiment played “The Bonnie Blue Flag.” The British observer Colonel Arthur Fremantle described his arrival with troops from Major General John Bell Hood’s division:

  This is a town of some size and importance. All its houses were shut up; but the natives were in the streets, or at the upper windows, looking in a scowling and bewildered manner at the Confederate troops, who were marching gaily past to the tune of “Dixie Land.” The women (many of whom were pretty and well dressed) were particularly sour and disagreeable in their remarks. I heard one of them say, “Look at Pharaoh’s army going to the Red Sea.” Others were pointing and laughing at Hood’s ragged Jacks, who were passing at the time.

  This division, well known for its fighting qualities, is composed of Texans, Alabamians, and Arkansans, and they certainly are a queer lot to look at. They carry less than any other troops; many of them have only got an old piece of carpet or rug as baggage; many have discarded their shoes in the mud; all are ragged and dirty, but full of good humor and confidence in themselves and in their general, Hood. They answered the numerous taunts of the Chambersburg ladies with cheers and laughter.