Lee's first intended movement was to push the success gained at the close of the second day by Ewell on the National right; but Meade anticipated him, attacking early in the morning and driving Ewell out of his works. In preparation for a grand charge, Lee placed more than one hundred guns in position on Seminary Ridge, converging their fire on the left centre of Meade's line, where he intended to send his storming column. Eighty guns (all there was room for) were placed in position on Cemetery Ridge to reply, and at one o'clock the firing began. This was one of the most terrific artillery duels ever witnessed. There was a continuous and deafening roar, which was heard forty miles away. The shot and shells ploughed up the ground, shattered gravestones in the cemetery, and sent their fragments flying among the troops, exploded caissons, and dismounted guns. A house used for Meade's headquarters, in the rear of the line, was completely riddled. Many artillerists and horses were killed; but the casualties among the infantry were not numerous, for the men lay flat upon the ground, taking advantage of every shelter, and waited for the more serious work that all knew was to follow. At the end of two hours Gen. Henry J. Hunt, Meade's chief of artillery, ordered the firing to cease, both to cool the guns and to save the ammunition for use in repelling the infantry charge. Lee supposed that his object—which was to demoralize his enemy and cause him to exhaust his artillery—had been effected. Fourteen thousand of his best troops—including Pickett's division, which had not arrived in time for the previous day's fighting—now came out of the woods, formed in heavy columns, and moved forward steadily to the charge. Instantly the National guns reopened fire, and the Confederate ranks were ploughed through and through; but the gaps were closed up, and the columns did not halt. There was a mile of open ground for them to traverse, and every step was taken under heavy fire. As they drew nearer, the batteries used grape and canister, and an infantry force posted in advance of the main line rose to its feet and fired volleys of musketry into the right flank. Now the columns began visibly to break up and melt away; and the left wing of the force changed its direction somewhat, so that it parted from the right, making an interval and exposing a new flank, which the National troops promptly took advantage of. But Pickett's diminishing ranks still pushed on, till they passed over the outer lines, fought hand to hand at the main line, and even leaped the breastworks and thought to capture the batteries. The point where they penetrated was marked by a clump of small trees on the edge of the hill, at that portion of the line held by the brigade of Gen. Alexander S. Webb, who was wounded; but his men stood firm against the shock, and, from the eagerness of all to join in the contest, men rushed from every side to the point assailed, mixing up all commands, but making a front that no such remnant as Pickett's could break. Gen. Lewis A. Armistead, who led the charge and leaped over the wall, was shot down as he laid his hand on a gun, and his surviving soldiers surrendered themselves. On the slope of the hill many of the assailants had thrown themselves upon the ground and held up their hands for quarter; and an immediate sally from the National lines brought in a large number of prisoners and battle-flags. Of that magnificent column which had been launched out so proudly, only a broken fragment ever returned. Nearly every officer in it, except Pickett, had been either killed or wounded. Armistead, a prisoner and dying, said to an officer who was bending over him, "Tell Hancock I have wronged him and have wronged my country." He had been opposed to secession, but the pressure of his friends and relatives had at length forced him into the service. Hancock had been wounded and borne from the field, and among the other wounded on the National side were Generals Doubleday, Gibbon, Warren, Butterfield, Stannard, Barnes, and Brook; General Farnsworth was killed, and Gen. Gabriel R. Paul lost both eyes. Among the killed on the Confederate side, besides those already mentioned, were Generals Garnett, Pender, and Semmes; and among the wounded, Generals Hampton, Jenkins, Kemper, Scales, J. M. Jones, and G. T. Anderson.
| AN HEROIC INCIDENT—COLOR SERGEANT BENJAMIN CRIPPEN REFUSES TO SURRENDER THE FLAG. |
While this movement was in progress, Kilpatrick with his cavalry rode around the mountain and attempted to pass the Confederate right and capture the trains, while Stuart with his cavalry made a simultaneous attempt on the National right. Each had a bloody fight, but neither was successful. This closed the battle. Hancock urged that a great return charge should be made immediately with Sedgwick's corps, which had not participated, and Lee expected such a movement as a matter of course. But it was not done.
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MAJOR-GENERAL DANIEL BUTTERFIELD. (Chief of Staff to General Meade.) |
That night Lee made preparations for retreat, and the next day—which was the 4th of July—the retreat was begun. General Imboden, who conducted the trains and the ambulances, describes it as one of the most pitiful and heart-rending scenes ever witnessed. A heavy storm had come up, the roads were in bad condition, few of the wounded had been properly cared for, and as they were jolted along in agony they were groaning, cursing, babbling of their homes, and calling upon their friends to kill them and put them out of misery. But there could be no halt, for the Potomac was rising, and an attack was hourly expected from the enemy in the rear.
Meade, however, did not pursue for several days, and then to no purpose; so that Lee's crippled army escaped into Virginia, but it was disabled from ever doing anything more than prolonging the contest. Gettysburg was essentially the Waterloo of the war, and there is a striking parallel in the losses. The numbers engaged were very nearly the same in the one battle as in the other. At Waterloo the victors lost twenty-three thousand one hundred and eighty-five men, and the vanquished, in round numbers, thirty thousand. At Gettysburg the National loss was twenty-three thousand one hundred and ninety—killed, wounded, and missing. The Confederate losses were never officially reported, but estimates place them at nearly thirty thousand. Lee left seven thousand of his wounded among the unburied dead, and twenty-seven thousand muskets were picked up on the field.
| GENERAL MEADE'S HEADQUARTERS. |
The romantic and pathetic incidents of this great battle are innumerable. John Burns, a resident of Gettysburg, seventy years old, had served in the War of 1812, being one of Miller's men at Lundy's Lane, and in the Mexican war, and had tried to enlist at the breaking out of the Rebellion, but was rejected as too old. When the armies approached the town, he joined the Seventh Wisconsin Regiment and displayed wonderful skill as a sharp-shooter; but he was wounded in the afternoon, fell into the hands of the Confederates, told some plausible story to account for his lack of a uniform, and was finally carried to his own house. Jennie Wade was baking bread for Union soldiers when the advance of the Confederate line surrounded her house with enemies; but she kept on at her work in spite of orders to desist, until a stray bullet struck her dead. An unknown Confederate officer lay mortally wounded within the Union lines, and one of the commanders sent to ask his name and rank. "Tell him," said the dying man, "that I shall soon be where there is no rank;" and he was never identified. Lieut. Alonzo H. Cushing commanded a battery on General Webb's line, and in the cannonade preceding the great charge on the third day all his guns but one were disabled, and he was mortally wounded. When the charging column approached, he exclaimed, "Webb, I will give them one more shot!" ran his gun forward to the stone wall, fired it, said "Good-by!" and fell dead. Barksdale, of Mississippi, had been an extreme secessionist, and had done much to bring on the war. At that part of the line where he fell, the Union commander was Gen. David B. Birney, son of a slaveholder that had emancipated his slaves, had been mobbed for his abolitionism, and had twice been the presidential candidate of the Liberty party. A general of the National army, who was present, remarks that Barksdale died "like a brave man, with dignity and resignation." On that field perished also the cause that he represented; and as Americans we may all be proud to say that, so far as manly courage could go, it died with dignity if not with resignation.
Gen. Rufus R. Dawes, who was colonel of the Sixth Wisconsin Regiment, gives some particulars of the fight at the railroad cut on the first day: "The only commands I gave, as we advanced, were, 'Align on the colors! Close up on that color!' The regiment was being broken up so that this order alone could hold the body together. Meanwhile the colors were down upon the ground several times, but were raised at once by the heroes of the color-guard. Not one of the guard escaped, every man being killed or wounded. Four hundred and twenty men started as a regiment from the turnpike fence, of whom two hundred and forty reached the railroad cut. Years afterward I found the distance passed over to be one hundred and seventy-five paces. Every officer proved himself brave, true, and heroic in encouraging the men to breast this deadly storm; but the real impetus was the eager, determined valor of our men who carried muskets in the ranks. The rebel color could be seen waving defiantly just above the edge of the railroad cut. A heroic ambition to capture it took possession of several of our men. Corporal Eggleston, a mere boy, sprang forward to seize it, and was shot dead the moment his hand touched the color. Private Anderson, furious at the killing of his brave young comrade, recked little for the rebel color; but he swung aloft his musket, and with a terrific blow split the skull of the rebel who had shot young Eggleston. Lieutenant Remington was severely wounded in the shoulder while reaching for the colors. Into this deadly mélêe rushed Corporal Francis A. Waller, who seized and held the rebel battle-flag. It was the flag of the Second Mississippi Regiment.... Corporal James Kelly turned from the ranks and stepped beside me as we both moved hurriedly forward on the charge. He pulled open his woollen shirt, and a mark where the deadly minié-ball had entered his breast was visible. He said: 'Colonel, won't you please write to my folks that I died a soldier?'"