(6) Pursuit Order
5.—You are Major General Jervey in command of the 12th division 6th corps. You have just defeated the enemy, and you have defeated him so badly that he is retreating in great disorder in the direction of Gettysburg. You are near Cashtown when you issue your 12th field order of the campaign. It is twenty minutes to four in the afternoon, June 12, 1925, when you issue to your brigade commanders, and to Lt. Col. Miles, Colonel Forse, Major Good, and Captain Harrow copies of your order. You decide to pursue the enemy without any delay. You want your second brigade, which is now without the 6th infantry which ordinarily belongs to that brigade, to reform itself, and you want the second brigade at half past four to follow the third brigade in the general direction of Gettysburg. The third brigade, which is under the command of Brigadier General Dunn, you think ought to advance at once. You are going to reenforce it, however, with the second infantry, the second field artillery, and the first cavalry. The third brigade ought, by all reasonable surmise, to drive the enemy inside of Gettysburg or even beyond Gettysburg. After the third brigade with this reenforcement has done so, it ought to seize the whole of the McPherson Ridge and hold it. Two companies from the second brigade ought to be detailed to report to the division surgeon there. They should assist him in policing all the field. You are going to be at Seven Stars as soon as you can get there and you are going to start at five o’clock. All but one squadron of the first cavalry will move out by the north of Gettysburg. You plan that it shall be the first cavalry’s object to interrupt communication and delay traffic on the railroad there, and then it ought to reconnoiter in the general direction of the east. The first brigade you think ought to follow the first field artillery. The first brigade you figure should select two companies from its organization and detail them to report to the division surgeon. Those two companies should assist in policing all the battle-field. The first field artillery will follow the second brigade: this regiment should detail an officer and thirty men, and this officer and thirty men ought to do the same thing as the two companies from the first brigade were detailed to do. The division will have entire charge of the policing of the field. A field hospital ought to be established at Cashtown. Cars will be available for the division surgeon by five o’clock at Ortanna. The evacuation of the wounded, therefore, should be through Ortanna. The whole of the first battalion of engineers will report to the division surgeon and go under his orders.