CHAPTER II
LEE CHANGES PLAN OF CAMPAIGN

“General, I have been a soldier all my life. I have been with soldiers engaged in fights by couples, by squads, companies, regiments, divisions, and armies, and should know as well as any one what soldiers can do. It is my opinion that no fifteen thousand men ever arrayed for battle can take that position,” pointing to Cemetery Hill.​—​Longstreet to Lee.

General Longstreet’s personal account of this magnificent battle “up the Emmitsburg road” will not be out of place here. In the newspaper article previously quoted from he very graphically describes the advance of the two divisions of McLaws and Hood, for when he went into battle it must be understood that even yet one of his divisions, that of Pickett, was still absent. He states his total force at thirteen thousand men. An account of this clash of arms must send a thrill of pride through every Southern heart:

“At half-past three o’clock the order was given General Hood to advance upon the enemy, and, hurrying to the head of McLaws’s division, I moved with his line. Then was fairly commenced what I do not hesitate to pronounce the best three hours’ fighting ever done by any troops on any battle-field. Directly in front of us, occupying the peach-orchard, on a piece of elevated ground that General Lee desired me to take and hold for his artillery, was the Third Corps of the Federals, commanded by General Sickles.


MAJOR-GENERAL D. E. SICKLES

“Prompt to the order the combat opened, followed by artillery of the other corps, and our artillerists measured up to the better metal of the enemy by vigilant work....

“In his usual gallant style Hood led his troops through the rocky fastnesses against the strong lines of his earnest adversary, and encountered battle that called for all of his power and skill. The enemy was tenacious of his strong ground; his skilfully handled batteries swept through the passes between the rocks; the more deadly fire of infantry concentrated as our men bore upon the angle of the enemy’s line and stemmed the fiercest onset until it became necessary to shorten their work by a desperate charge. This pressing struggle and the cross-fire of our batteries broke in the salient angle, but the thickening fire, as the angle was pressed back, hurt Hood’s left and held him in steady fight. His right brigade was drawn towards Round Top by the heavy fire pouring from that quarter, Benning’s brigade was pressed to the thickening line at the angle, and G. T. Anderson’s was put in support of the battle growing against Hood’s right.

“I rode to McLaws, found him ready for his opportunity, and Barksdale chafing in his wait for the order to seize the battery in his front. Kershaw’s brigade of his right first advanced and struck near the angle of the enemy’s line where his forces were gathering strength. After additional caution to hold his ranks closed, McLaws ordered Barksdale in. With glorious bearing he sprang to his work, overriding obstacles and dangers. Without a pause to deliver a shot, he had the battery. Kershaw, joined by Semmes’s brigade, responded, and Hood’s men, feeling the impulsion of relief, resumed their bold fight, and presently the enemy’s line was broken through its length. But his well-seasoned troops knew how to utilize the advantage of their ground and put back their dreadful fires from rocks, depressions, and stone fences, as they went for shelter about Little Round Top.... The fighting had become tremendous, and brave men and officers were stricken by hundreds. Posey and Wilcox dislodged the forces about the Brick House.

“General Sickles was desperately wounded!

“General Willard was dead!

“General Semmes, of McLaws’s division, was mortally wounded!...

“I had one brigade​—​Wofford’s​—​that had not been engaged in the hottest battle. To urge the troops to their reserve power in the precious moments, I rode with Wofford. The rugged field, the rough plunge of artillery fire, and the piercing musket-shots delayed somewhat the march, but Alexander dashed up with his batteries and gave new spirit to the worn infantry ranks.... While Meade’s lines were growing my men were dropping; we had no others to call to their aid, and the weight against us was too heavy to carry.... Nothing was heard or felt but the clear ring of the enemy’s fresh metal as he came against us. No other part of the army had engaged! My seventeen thousand against the Army of the Potomac! The sun was down, and with it went down the severe battle.”

Surely these are not the utterances of one who had been slow, balky, and obstructive on that field. The ring of these sentences tells no tale of apathy or backwardness because his advice to pursue a different line of operations had been ignored by Lee.

General Gordon, continuing, very complacently assumes that “two of the largest corps of Meade’s army would not have been in the fight” of the 2d had Longstreet attacked early in the morning. He refers to the Union Fifth and Sixth Corps. That statement is correct only as regards the Sixth Corps, which, it is true, did not arrive on the field until late in the afternoon. But it took only a slight part at dark on the 2d, when the battle was over. Indeed, as it was so slightly engaged, the hour of its arrival at Gettysburg is unimportant. The losses of the different corps conclusively show what part the Sixth, which was the largest in the army, took in the battle of the 2d of July; as given in the Rebellion Records:

Killed and wounded: First Corps, 3980; Second Corps, 3991; Third Corps, 3662; Fifth Corps, 1976; Sixth Corps, 212; Eleventh Corps, 2353; Twelfth Corps, 1016.

Its non-participation strongly militates against the spirit of Gordon’s argument, in that Meade entirely frustrated Lee’s plans and defeated the Confederate army, scarcely using the Sixth Corps, some fifteen thousand men, at all. This is a significant commentary on the anti-Longstreet assumption of how easy it was to win at Gettysburg if only Longstreet had obeyed orders!

At sunrise on the 2d, the hour at which Longstreet’s critics would have had this attack delivered, the Federal Fifth Corps was as near the battle-ground of that day as Longstreet’s troops. Longstreet’s troops were bivouacked the night previous at Marsh Creek, four miles west of Gettysburg. They began to arrive near Lee’s head-quarters on Seminary Ridge not earlier than 7 A.M. of the 2d, and the last of the column did not get in until near noon. Then they were still five miles by the route pursued from the chosen point of attack.

The Union Fifth Corps was bivouacked five miles east of Gettysburg about the same hour on the 1st that Longstreet’s tired infantry reached Marsh Creek. At four o’clock A.M. of the 2d they marched on Gettysburg, arriving about the same hour that Longstreet’s troops were being massed near Lee’s head-quarters, and were thereupon posted upon the extreme Federal right.