The Battle of Gettysburg, 1863

by Samuel Adams Drake

It was now Meade's turn, and right nobly did he rise to the crisis. Such as it was, Hancock's report enabled him to come to a quick decision. Instead of ordering a retreat, he instantly ordered the corps to Gettysburg. From the moment he became satisfied that there was a fighting chance in front, Meade's conduct was anything but that of a defeated or even timid general; he seems never to have looked behind him. Had he been so unalterably wedded to his own chosen line of defence as some critics profess to believe, it is difficult to see what stronger excuse could have offered itself for falling back than the defeat he had just suffered. And if he had shrunk from the hazard of fighting so far from his base before, how much more easily could he have justified his refusal to do so after the loss of ten thousand men, the sudden disruption of his plans, with the increased sense of responsibility all this involved! We think few would deny that the bringing up of four-sevenths of the army over distances varying from thirteen to thirty-six miles must appear a far bolder act, even to the unmilitary mind, than causing three-sevenths to fall back some fifteen miles. Fortunately Meade was one in spirit with his soldiers, who with one voice demanded to be led against the enemy. The shock of battle seems to have aroused all the warrior's instinct within him. Reynolds may have forced the fighting, Hancock suggested, or even advised, but it was Meade, and Meade alone, on whose deliberate judgment the battle of Gettysburg was renewed, and who therefore stands before history as its undoubted sponsor.

Twelfth Corps comes up, 5 P.M.

To return to the now historic Cemetery Hill. Here the right, reinforced by at least three thousand fresh troops,[49] had been strongly occupied. Everything appeared in surety on this side. But all the way from the Taneytown Road to Little Round Top there was not one solitary soldier or gun except some cavalry pickets. By the time, however, that Hancock had succeeded in bringing order out of this chaos and courage out of despair, the whole situation was changed by the arrival of the Twelfth Corps from Two Taverns. As it came up by the Baltimore pike the leading division (Williams') turned off to the right, feeling its way out in this direction as far as Wolf's Hill and the Hanover road; but on finding the enemy already installed on that side, the division was massed for the night on the Baltimore pike, so rendering secure our extreme right at Culp's Hill. There was no longer anything to apprehend on this side. We cannot refrain from asking what would have been the effect of the appearance of these troops on Early's flank an hour or two earlier in the afternoon?

Geary at Little Round Top.

Fix this on the Map.

Geary's division of this corps having kept straight on up the pike to Cemetery Hill, Hancock turned it off to the extreme left, partly to make some show in that as yet unguarded quarter, about which he felt by no means easy, partly to hold control of the Emmettsburg and Taneytown roads (see map), by which more of the Union troops were marching to the field. Stretching itself out in a thin line as far as Little Round Top, and after sending one regiment out on picket toward the Emmettsburg road, and just to the right of the Devil's Den, the division slept on its arms, in a position destined to become celebrated, first on account of Hancock's foresight in seizing it, next by reason of its desertion by the general intrusted with its defence.

Second Corps nearly up.

Hancock had the satisfaction of feeling that the position was safe for the present when he rode back to Taneytown, first to meet his own corps on the road, and next to find that the whole army had already been ordered up. Throwing Gibbon an order to halt as he passed, Hancock kept on to headquarters. His work was done.

Union Line at Dark.

Nothing but the importance which this critical period of the battle has assumed to our own mind could justify the giving of all these details by which the gradual patching up and lengthening out of the line, until it took the form it subsequently held, and from a front of a few hundred yards grew to be two miles long, may be better followed.