The History of the Confederate War, Its Causes and Its Conduct, Volume 2 (of 2) / A Narrative and Critical History

by George Cary Eggleston

So Ewell struck hard with what force he had, and the enemy struck back with equal vigor. Hour after hour the conflict endured, the men on both sides fighting with determination and calmly enduring a slaughter that only veterans could have stood.

When Lee heard the roar of the conflict and, with practised ear measured its severity, he hurried forward reinforcements as fast as possible, and meanwhile sent a messenger to ask Ewell "What are you fighting there?" In response Ewell answered, "The whole Yankee army, I think."

Here at last the advance forces of the two greatest and gallantest armies ever assembled on this continent had met, each under a leader in whom it had confidence. Here at last, with approximately equal numbers those two armies faced each other with intent to fight out to a finish the question which of them was the better organized for the work of war. The Federals outnumbered the Confederates by no more than 15,000 men or so, and the élan the Confederates had brought with them out of recent victories, together with their limitless confidence in Lee's superiority to any living man as a general, served adequately to offset that small advantage.

The courage of the men on both sides was matchless. Their endurance was superb. Their heroism was such as poets rejoice to celebrate in song. The drama, with all its arts and all its accessories has no "effects" to offer, that can for one instant compare in masterfulness with those presented by the story of this struggle of Americans against Americans for the mastery.

Toward the end of the day, the Confederate onsets proved irresistible and the Federal forces in large part at least, fell into retreat. But with the cavalry standing fast and with a brigade of infantry strongly posted on Cemetery Ridge, Hancock, who had assumed command on the field, succeeded in stopping the flight and forming a new line along the crest of Cemetery Ridge.

Thus ended the first day's fight. The Confederates had had the better of it in certain ways. They had been taken by surprise, not in the usual way by being unexpectedly set upon by an army whose assault they were not anticipating, but by finding in their path, when seeking to occupy an advantageous position, a veteran army skilfully handled and well commanded, where they had expected to meet only light bodies of cavalry and militiamen whose resistance they might regard as lightly as they would the small embarrassment of a field of ripening grain. They had lost heavily in the ensuing conflict, but they had driven their foes—or most of them—into retreat and had occupied positions from which the great battles of the ensuing days might be waged with hope and confidence.

During all the night that followed, as during all that first day of fighting, the army corps and divisions and brigades on both sides marched ceaselessly in an endeavor to put themselves into their places on the line in time for the final struggle. Some of them, on either side, marched eighteen miles, some twenty-five, and one at least on the Federal side tramped wearily over thirty-three miles of distance without sleep or rest, in its eagerness to bear its part in what promised to be the crowning conflict of the war.

But each side having secured a strong position neither desired to bring on the conflict until its forces should be fully up, and so the two armies did not fall a-fighting again until about four o'clock in the afternoon of the second day—July 2, 1863. Then Longstreet with his Confederates fell upon Sickles with a fury that only a seasoned corps could have withstood for a moment. Sickles occupied a line of rather low-lying hills that stretched diagonally across between the Federal and Confederate positions. His left wing having no natural obstacle to rest upon, was bent back toward Little Round Top, thus presenting an angle to the enemy.

Upon this angle Longstreet's veterans were hurled with determination, while a part of his corps—Hood's fierce fighting Texans, and that most desperate of rowdy corps, Wheat's Louisiana Tigers—passing around the flank of it, made a determined attempt to seize Little Round Top, a position from which, had they secured it, their guns could have swept a large part of the Federal line with a destructive enfilade fire. General Warren saw the danger in time and moved a heavy force toward the coveted hill, including a battery whose guns the men dragged by hand up the steep and into position.

Hood's men pressed on in face of the fire opened upon them, and with a desperate determination rarely equaled even in this war, endeavored to conquer the position in a hand to hand struggle. The men on both sides saw the vital importance of the position and fought for its possession like so many war-drunken demons. They fought hand to hand, using bayonets when too close together to load and fire. They brained each other with the butts of their muskets. They assailed each other with bowie knives. They even resorted to the use of stones, hurling them in each other's faces and breaking each other's skulls with heavy boulders.