Part of Third Corps up.
Find Sherfy's on Map.
Other Corps where?
As regards the rest of the army, some part of the Third Corps had now reached the ground by the Emmettsburg road, though too late to get into line; its pickets, however, were thrown out on that road as far to the left as a cross-road leading down from Sherfy's house to Little Round Top. The rest of this corps would come up by this same road in the morning. The Second Corps was halting for the night three miles back, also in a position to guard the left of the line. Nominally, therefore, five of the seven corps were up at dark that night, or at least near enough to go into position by daybreak. The Fifth being then at Hanover, twenty-four miles back, and the Sixth, which was the strongest in the army, at Manchester, thirty-five miles from Gettysburg, it still became a question whether the whole Union army could be assembled in season to overcome Lee's superiority on the field.[50]
Chances against Meade.
Indeed, when Meade did finally order the whole army to Gettysburg, the chances were as ten to one against its getting up in time to fight as a unit.
Would that portion of the Union forces found on Cemetery Hill on the morning of the second be beaten in detail, as the First and Eleventh had been the day before?
Lee's Plan.
Longstreet demurs.
This seems, in fact, to have been Lee's real purpose, as he told Longstreet at five o'clock, when they were looking over the ground together, that if Meade's army was on the heights next day it must be dislodged. Knowing that but two Union corps had been engaged that day against him, Lee seemed impressed with the idea that he could beat Meade before the rest of his army could arrive. Longstreet strongly opposed making a direct attack, though without shaking his chief's purpose. As Lee now had his whole army well in hand, one division only being absent,[51] he seemed little disposed to begin a new series of combinations, when, in his opinion, he had the Union army half defeated, half scattered, and wholly at a disadvantage. And we think he was right.