Pictorial history of the war for the Union, volume 2 (of 2)

by Ann S. Stephens

From this time till about eleven o’clock, the battle continued to rage with equal intensity and equal advantages or disadvantages to both sides; and then for a time a short, general quiet prevailed. It had already been proven by the battle of the previous day, that the final issue of the contest turned upon the occupation of Cemetery Hill; and, therefore, all General Lee’s ingenuity was exercised to obtain a clue to its capture, as all General Meade’s military skill was put in force to retain his valuable position. The rebel general had made preparations early in the morning for an attack upon Meade’s entire line; and he had also concentrated a large body of his troops against the Union centre, with the design of taking the ground it occupied. In other respects, as well, the rebel forces were skillfully and powerfully placed. The Union artillery on Cemetery Hill was subjected to a half-circle of cross fires, from the skillful arrangement of the enemy’s troops; General Longstreet having massed fifty-five guns of long range upon the brow of a slight eminence in front of General Hill’s extreme right, and General Hill had massed sixty guns along the hill, in front of the heights held by the National troops.

At one o’clock the signal gun was fired, and the cannonading commenced. The fire of the enemy was thus concentrated on the position held by the Eleventh and Second corps. It drew a most terrific response from the Federal batteries. It is thus described by a spectator in the Union army:

“The storm broke upon us so suddenly that soldiers and officers—who leaped, as it began, from their tents, or from lazy siestas on the grass—were stricken in their rising with mortal wounds, and died, some with cigars between their teeth, some with pieces of food in their fingers, and one at least—a pale young German, from Pennsylvania—with a miniature of his sister in his hands. Horses fell, shrieking such awful cries as Cooper told of, and writhing themselves about in hopeless agony. The boards of fences, scattered by explosion, flew in splinters through the air. The earth, torn up in clouds, blinded the eyes of hurrying men; and through the branches of the trees and among the gravestones of the cemetery a shower of destruction crashed ceaselessly. As, with hundreds of others, I groped through this tempest of death for the shelter of the bluff, an old man, a private in a company belonging to the Twenty-fourth Michigan, was struck, scarcely ten feet away, by a cannon ball, which tore through him, extorting such a low, intense cry of mortal pain as I pray God I may never again hear. The hill, which seemed alone devoted to this rain of death, was clear in nearly all its unsheltered places within five minutes after the fire began.”

The same contest is thus described by an eye-witness in the Confederate army:

“I have never yet heard such tremendous artillery firing. The enemy must have had over one hundred guns, which, in addition to our one hundred and fifteen, made the air hideous with most discordant noise. The very earth shook beneath our feet, and the hills and rocks seemed to reel like a drunken man. For one hour and a half this most terrific fire was continued, during which time the shrieking of shell, the crash of fallen timbers, the fragments of rocks flying through the air, shattered from the cliffs by solid shot, the heavy mutterings from the valley between the opposing armies, the splash of bursting shrapnell, and the fierce neighing of wounded artillery horses, made a picture terribly grand and sublime, but which my pen utterly fails to describe. After the firing had continued for little more than an hour, the enemy’s guns began to slacken, and finally all were silenced save some six or eight, which were in a clump of woods a little to the left of the stone fence.”

For three hours the firing had continued steadily; suddenly the Union fire was slackened for a moment to allow the guns to cool, when the enemy, supposing they had been silenced, prepared to make a final and irresistible attack. Their storming party was moved up. The division of General Pickett, which had arrived since the previous day, led the advance, supported on the right by General Wilcox’s brigade of General Anderson’s division, and on the left by Heath’s division, commanded by General Pettigrew. The troops of General Pickett’s division advanced in splendid order. On his left, the command of General Pettigrew emerged from the woods, and swept down the slope of the hill to the valley beneath, and some two or three hundred yards in the rear of General Pickett.

The Union line met the advance bravely. As they came under the fire of the First and Second Corps, the enemy’s batteries became suddenly silent. Their ammunition was exhausted. But still the rebel advance pressed boldly forward, never wavering, even when a fire of grape and shell was opened upon them. Steadily they crossed the Emmetsburg road, and with undaunted front approached the Union infantry, who quietly awaited their advance. General Gibbon, in command of the Second Corps, walking composedly along the front of his line, encouraged his men with his calm and steady voice:

“Hold your fire, boys—they are not near enough yet,” he called out almost loud enough for the advancing rebels to hear, who, still coming steadily onward, suddenly charged bayonets, and rushed forward on the rifle pits. Then from the Union line flashed a blaze of fire before which hundreds fell to the earth; but their comrades filled up the vacant spaces, and charged over the pits. Now General Gibbon called to his men to fall to the rear of the batteries, and without any sign of confusion, the order was obeyed. But General Pettigrew’s brave division no longer remained steady and unbroken; the artillery pouring in upon them a blasting and destroying fire, had scattered their ranks in wild confusion; and completely panic-stricken they fled over the plain, and far to the rear. General Pickett was now left to bear the whole strength of the Union forces alone, his officers wounded and falling around him on every side. Further resistance was worse than useless, and the rebel general gave the order to fall back. The Unionists pressed them strongly, but their retreat was successfully effected under cover of a brigade commanded by General Wright, and sent forward for that purpose by General Lee.

While this fierce attack was being resisted, and utterly repulsed by General Gibbon’s corps, the extreme right and left had been severely tried by the rebels under Generals Ewell and Longstreet; but on every side they were beaten back, and the night ended in the complete success of the National arms, and the glorious victory of Gettysburg. During the whole of the next day, both armies were engaged in the mournful duty of burying their dead, and caring for their wounded. The losses upon both sides during these three days were very heavy. That of the National army in killed was two thousand eight hundred and thirty-four; in wounded, thirteen thousand seven hundred and ninety; in missing, six thousand, six hundred and forty-three. That of the rebels in killed, wounded, and prisoners, was much greater. The Union soldiers buried four thousand five hundred of the rebel dead. They estimated their entire killed at about one thousand more; their wounded numbered twenty-one thousand; and their loss in prisoners, stragglers, and deserters numbered thirteen thousand.

During all day of the 4th of July, General Lee sent forward such of his wounded as would bear removal, to Hagerstown; and when night fell the entire remnant of his army was put in motion on the road to Fairfield. On the 6th General Lee reached Hagerstown, and took up position there with his army. On the following day General Meade’s advance in hot pursuit of the rebel army, reached Funktown, a place six miles south of Hagerstown. On the 8th a sharp conflict took place at Boonsboro’ between the retreating rebels and the pursuing Federal troops. The opposing forces were the Union cavalry under General Buford and General Kilpatrick; and the divisions under Generals Stuart, Hampton, and Jones, together with a division of infantry.