July 1 1863

[Valin]

American  Battlefield Trust

Gettysburg | July 1-3, 1863 | Now and Then.

The History

On the morning of July 1, an engagement between Union cavalry commanded by John Buford and Confederate infantry and artillery commanded by Lt. Gen. A. P. Hill set into motion one of the most famous battles in military history. By 10 a.m., Hill’s men had Buford’s troopers on their heels. Timely Union infantry reinforcements poured onto the field, overseen by “Left Wing” Cdr. John Reynolds. Shortly after entering the battle, Reynolds was killed, and after an hour and a half of stout resistance, the Federals held their own as a lull came across the field.

Tens of thousands of Confederate soldiers approached the field from the west and the north, as tens of thousands of Federals approached from the south. Late in the afternoon, outnumbered and in a poor tactical position, the Federals were driven from the north and west sides of the town. The Yankees rallied on Cemetery Hill and bolstered their line, incorporating the dominating Culp’s Hill on their right flank into their defensive position. Meanwhile, on their left, the Federals extended their line south along Cemetery Ridge, to the base of Little Round Top.

(Snip)

_______________________________________________________________________________________

 

[Valin]

 

[Valin]

One of my favorite scene from  the movie.

 

[Valin]

 

The death of John Reynolds was a key moment on the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg. Join Pete Miele, Dr. Carol Reardon, Sarah Kay Bierle, and Garry Adelman. #GettysburgTour

 

 

 

[Valin]

July 2, 1863
A Brief History

The Wheatfield Violet Clark

Hallowed Ground Magazine, 150th Anniversary Gettysburg

How Brig. Gen. Daniel Sickles singlehandedly shifted the position of the entire union army, resulting in horrific casualties on both sides.

By the morning of July 2, most of the infantry units of both armies had arrived on the field. The Union army’s defensive position had assumed the shape of a fish hook, beginning on Culp’s Hill, curving around Cemetery Hill and proceeding down Cemetery Ridge. Maj. Gen. Daniel Sickles, however, dissatisfied with the position of his III Corps on southern Cemetery Ridge had advanced west, without orders, onto higher ground in the area of the Peach Orchard, the Wheatfield and Devil’s Den.

Lee’s plan called for coordinated attacks on both Union flanks. While two divisions demonstrated against the Union right at Culp’s and Cemetery Hills, Lt. Gen. James Longstreet’s First Corps would move to the south and make the main attack on Union left. Due to faulty intelligence, exacerbated by the absence of Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart’s cavalry, the Confederate high command was not aware of Sickles’s redeployment. A series of delays kept the Confederate attacks from beginning until after 4:00 p.m.

Reports of Confederate movements were relayed to the Union command by a detachment of signalmen on the rocky heights of Little Round Top. Realizing the strategic significance of this nearly undefended hill, the army’s chief engineer, Maj. Gen. Gouverneur Warren, sprang into action with a desperate plea for any available troops. Luckily, Commanding general George Meade had sent Maj. Gen. George Sykes’s V Corps to reinforce the Union left flank and Col. Strong Vincent redirected his brigade to take up position on Little Round Top — without waiting for orders from his direct superiors.

Longstreet’s lead division under Maj. Gen. John Bell Hood advanced and encountered stubborn resistance from Union infantry holding a strong defensive position around the craggy rock formation known as Devil’s Den, even as elements of the force skirted this action and moved toward the Round Tops. Col. Vincent had just arrived on Little Round Top when Texans and Alabamians assaulted the rocky height. The resulting fight is one of the war’s most celebrated engagements, concluding in dramatic fashion when the regiment on the far left of the entire Union line, the 20th Maine, having expended its supply of ammunition, executed a precise and unexpected bayonet charge, sweeping the hillside clear of its equally exhausted foes.

In the bloodiest fighting at Gettysburg, the combat spread to the Wheatfield, the Peach Orchard and as far north as Cemetery Ridge, where a near-suicidal bayonet charge by the 1st Minnesota, bought time for reinforcements to arrive and push back some of the last of Lt. Gen. A.P. Hill’s Confederates. Of the 262 men who made the charge, only 47 escaped unscathed — a staggering 82 percent casualty rate. While the Southerners captured Devil’s Den and the Peach Orchard, the Federal line on Little Round Top and Cemetery Ridge held firm.

On the Union right, the earlier Confederate demonstrations had escalated into full-scale assaults on Culp’s Hill and East Cemetery Hill by about 7:00 p.m. Although Culp’s Hill, in particular, had seen many of its original defenders sent to face the attacks elsewhere on the line, the remaining troops had constructed a substantial network of earthworks and repulsed these attacks. Here, as elsewhere on the second day, the Confederates gained ground, but were unable to dislodge the Union defenders.

[Valin]

 

 

[Valin]

 

 

 

 

[Valin]

 

 

[Valin]

Meanwhile a short distance away

1st Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment at Gettysburg

(Snip)

For the second day of the battle, Lee planned to attack the Union’s left and roll the line up from the south. But confusion in Confederate ranks delayed the start of the attack. “We lay quietly in a slight hollow,” Lochren wrote, “fairly secure from the enemy’s shells, which came over us occasionally, killing one of our men and wounding another; and although there were some collisions of infantry in establishing positions, there was no protracted fighting during the afternoon.”

Through this delay Sickles brooded. At 2 pm, thinking better ground lay ahead, he advanced his corps without orders. Now separated, in a salient, from the rest of Meade’s line, III Corps was squarely in the path of the Confederate assault when it finally hit around 4 pm.

Seeing the danger, the 1st “were sent to the centre of the line just vacated by Sickles’ advance,” Lochren recalled, “No other troops were then near us, and we stood by this battery, in full view of Sickles’ battle in the peach orchard half a mile to the front, and witnessed with eager anxiety the varying fortunes of that sanguinary conflict.”

Sickles’ troops eventually fell back, “broken and in utter disorder, rushing down the slope” Lochren wrote, “Here was no organized force near to oppose them, except our handful of two hundred and sixty-two men.”

In desperation, Hancock galloped to Colvill and asked: “What regiment is this?”

“First Minnesota,” Colvill answered. “Colonel, do you see those colors?” Hancock asked, indicating the advancing Confederates. Colvill did, and Hancock ordered: “Then take them!”

The 1st were now some of the world’s most experienced soldiers: they knew the fate that awaited them. “Every man realized in an instant what that order meant — death or wounds to us all, the sacrifice of the regiment, to gain a few minutes’ time and save the position,” Lochren remembered, “And every man saw and accepted the necessity for the sacrifice.”

He recalled:

…in a moment…the regiment, in perfect line, with arms, at “right shoulder, shift,” was sweeping down the slope directly upon the enemy’s centre. No hesitation, no stopping to fire, though the men fell fast at every stride before the concentrated fire of the whole Confederate force, directed upon us as soon as the movement was observed. Silently, without orders, and almost from the start, “double- quick” had changed to utmost speed, for in utmost speed lay the only hope that any of us could pass through that storm of lead and strike the enemy. “Charge!” shouted Colvill as we neared the first line, and with leveled bayonets, at full speed, we rushed upon it, fortunately, as it was slightly disordered in crossing a dry brook. The men were never made who will stand against leveled bayonets coming with such momentum and evident desperation. The first line broke in our front as we reached it, and rushed back through the second line, stopping the whole advance. We then poured in our first fire, and availing ourselves of such shelter as the low bank of the dry brook afforded, held the entire force at bay for a considerable time, and until our reserves appeared on the ridge we had left. Had the enemy rallied quickly to a countercharge, its overwhelming numbers would have crushed us in a moment, and we would have effected but a slight pause in its advance. But the ferocity of our onset seemed to paralyze them for a time, and though they poured in a terrible and continuous fire from the front and enveloping flanks, they kept at a respectful distance from our bayonets, until, before the added fire of our fresh reserves, they began to retire and we were ordered back.

“The bloody field was in our possession,” Alfred Carpenter wrote, “but at what cost! The ground was strewed with dead and dying, whose groans and prayers and cries for help and water rent the air.” Colvill was hit in the back and leg; Goddard in the leg and shoulder. Marvin, his foot shattered, fainted twice crawling back to the Union lines. Among the dead was Isaac Taylor, “A shell struck him on the top of his head and passed out through his back, cutting his belt in two,” his brother wrote,

[We] buried him at 10 o’clock am, 350 paces west of a road which passes north and south by the house of Jacob Hummelbaugh and John Swisher (colored) and equi-distant from each, and by a stone wall where he fell, about a mile south of Gettysburg. I placed a board at his head on which I inscribed:

No useless coffin enclosed his breast, Nor in sheet nor in shroud we bound him, But he lay like a warrior taking his rest, With his shelter tent around him.

At twilight, just 47 men answered the regimental roll call. Of the 262 Minnesotans who charged the Confederates, 215 — 82 percent — were killed or wounded, the most severe losses suffered by a Union regiment in a single engagement during the Civil War. Some died later. Goddard, 15 on enlistment, died of complications from his wounds at 23. Colvill died in his sleep in 1905, the evening before the reunion, surrounded by his men.

“The superb gallantry of those men saved our line from being broken,” Hancock reported, “No soldiers, on any field, in this or any other country, ever displayed grander heroism.” The regiment suffered a further 55 casualties the following day repulsing Pickett’s Charge, Lee’s last, desperate gamble, where Private Marshall Sherman captured the flag of the 28th Virginia and won the Medal of Honor. With that, the Confederacy lost the battle and, eventually, the war.

(Snip)

[Valin]

 

 

[Valin]

 

[Valin]

Battle of Gettysburg Day 3

Early in the morning on Gettysburg day 3, July 3rd, 1863, Union batteries from the XII Corp opened up on Confederate positions on lower Culp’s Hill. General Johnson was ordered to attack the Union positions at the top of Culp’s Hill which had been reinforced overnight by units from the I and VI Corps and was significantly stronger from the day before.

Johnson attacked multiple times but was repulsed on each attempt. The fighting on Culp’s Hill ended around 11 am with no advantage gained and preparations were being made by the Confederates for the next phase of the battle. Lee had planned to attack the Union positions in a similar fashion as the day before, but the Union artillery bombardment early in the morning on Culp’s Hill on Gettysburg day 3 had forced the Confederates to develop another strategy. 

 

 

[Valin]

Battle of Gettysburg Day 3: Planning Pickett’s Charge

Robert E. Lee decided on a frontal assault on the Union Center at Cemetery Ridge with close to 12,000 men under the command of General Longstreet. Close to 160 Confederate artillery pieces would soften up the Union defenses prior to the advance of the infantry. Then once the infantry advanced, they would have conserved enough ammunition to support the attack.

The Confederate artillery barrage began at 1 pm and its prime objective was to inflict damage on Union artillery prior to the advance of the infantry. After 30 minutes, the Union artillery returned fire with about 80 cannons. Most of the Confederate shells overshot their targets and did not inflict much damage to the Union defenses.

Battle of Gettysburg Day 3: The Attack

Around 3 pm the Confederates were running very low on artillery ammunition, and the attack was ordered by Longstreet. Close to 12,000 Confederate soldiers with ranks stretching a mile long stepped out of the protection of woods and began the 3/4 mile march to reach the Union lines on Cemetery Ridge.

Major General George E. Pickett led his men on the Confederate right, and Brigadier General James J. Pettigrew led his men down the left. As they advanced closer to the Union lines, they were to converge in the center on the Union position called the Angle.

From the moment the Confederates advanced toward the Union lines, they were hit with long-range flanking artillery fire from north of Little Round Top and Cemetery Ridge. A fence in the middle of the advance further slowed the Confederate advance and split up the ranks into disorganized groups.

The Union artillery in the center had ceased firing toward the initial artillery barrage thereby making the Confederates believe they had been knocked out. At a critical moment, they were turned on the advancing Confederates with devastating results.

Despite their losses, the Confederates continued to converge and advance toward the low stone wall at the Union position known as the Angle. General Winfield S. Hancock commanded II Corps in the Union center and was wounded during Gettysburg day 3.

As the remaining Confederates advanced toward the center, the Union troops were able to flank them on both sides and continued the murderous fire into the ranks. Under a final charge led by Confederate Brigadier General Lewis A. Armistead, a commander under Pickett, they momentarily broke through the Union center and by storming the Angle and were able to able to capture some artillery.

This is referred to as the “High-water mark of the Confederacy” as it is considered the closest the Confederacy came to defeating the Union in achieving ultimate victory. The Union center, however, was quickly reinforced and the Confederates were unable to support their initial success with reinforcements of their own and the attack thereafter was know as “Pickett’s Charge”.

The Confederate lines were forced into full retreat and roughly 50% of the 12,000 making the charge were killed, wounded or missing at Gettysburg. The Union losses are generally estimated at 1,500.

(Snip)

 

 

[Valin]

 

Historical Fiction

 

[Valin]

 

 

Play List

[Valin]

 

[Draggingtree]

Remembering Robert E. Lee

JUNE 2022BY JACK TROTTER

Forbearance is a moral principle from which General Robert E. Lee rarely if ever wavered, and his unflinching practice of that virtue is the primary reason that he should be remembered today.:snip: https://chroniclesmagazine.org/remembering-the-right/remembering-robert-e-lee/

: