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directing matters as a temporary chief of staff for Meade."

Upon this view of his relations to Hancock on the first day at Gettysburg, General Howard has insisted down to the present time. When, on the 4th of February, 1891, I had occasion to read a paper on General Hancock before the New York Commandery of the Loyal Legion, General Howard, in conversation with me, took exception to the statements I had made on this subject, and gave his own account of the 1st of July in substantially the terms of the Atlantic article. "There we were," he said, "working away just like two brothers." Now, I desire to remark, first, that if there was any officer in the Union army who was incapable of performing in the "two-brothers act," it was Winfield Scott Hancock; and, secondly, that the whole record is dead against General Howard's position. Certainly General Abner Doubleday, who succeeded to the command of the First Corps upon the death of Reynolds, was not in doubt that Hancock came to take command. In his History of Chancellorsville and Gettysburg he says: "About half-past three General Hancock arrived with orders from General Meade to supersede Howard . . . Howard stated, in a subsequent account of the battle, that he merely regarded Hancock as a staff officer acting for General Meade . . . I know that he rode over to me and told me that he was in command of the field"

(pp. 150, 151). But Hancock is entitled to be heard on this matter in his own words. In the Galaxy Magazine of 1876 he published an account of the meeting on Cemetery Hill. The following quotation will suffice: "General Howard claims that there was an understanding between us whereby I was to take charge of the troops on the left of the turnpike while he arranged those on the right. He does not disclose the fact that I exercised independent powers; but, in his letter to General Meade, already quoted, he says: 'General Hancock assisted me in carrying out orders which I had already issued.' Now, I had no such understanding with General Howard, and I did not so assist him in carrying out orders which he had already issued.` The only pretext for his statement of such an understanding is that, as I was about riding away to the left, I understood him to indicate to me that he would prefer the right, where his troops were then posted, for his own position, and he said that he would be found there personally; but there was no division of command between General Howard and myself. Indeed, one of the first orders I gave on assuming the command was for the troops of the Eleventh Corps (Howard's) to be pushed forward to the stone walls in the next field, to give room for development and to deter the enemy's advance. And about the same time I addressed a few words to his own troops on the left of the pike, with a

view to encourage them

our lines were forming.

to hold the position while I then rode on to place the

First Corps farther to the left, in order that we should cover the whole of Cemetery Hill, only a small portion of which was occupied when I rode

upon the field. General Doubleday, commanding

the First Corps after the fall of Reynolds, can give positive evidence that I assumed immediate command and directed the disposition of his troops as soon as he fell back to Cemetery Hill. General Buford was also directed by me to hold his command in the flat to the left and front of Cemetery Hill as long as possible, in order to give me time to form our line of battle on the hill itself. I took charge of all our forces on the field, as my orders directed me to do, and, seeing the importance of the point, immediately sent Wadsworth's division and a battery to occupy Culp's Hill. I had no idea of consulting General Howard as to the propriety of that movement, which he states he noticed but to which he made no objection.' I ordered the movement because, as commander of the troops and being responsible for what was done on the field, I considered it proper that it should be promptly made."

CHAPTER VII.

GETTYSBURG. THE SECOND DAY.

THE morning of the 2d of July found General Lee possessing the advantage of superior concentration, Pickett's division and Law's brigade alone being more than three miles away, as well as the great advantage arising from the prestige of victory in the encounter of the first day. On the Union side the Second Corps was brought upon the field early in the morning; but the Fifth and two brigades of the Third were still on the march, while the Sixth Corps could not possibly be brought up until late in the afternoon.

It is now time to speak more at length of the battlefield. The position which the Union army had taken up, after the severe fighting on Willoughby Run and Seminary Ridge, had the general shape of a fishhook. The long shank was represented by the line drawn from the Round Tops on the left northward along Cemetery Ridge. Just where the turn took place the ridge rose into Cemetery Hill, directly beneath which, in front, lay the town of Gettysburg. As our line from this

point curved to the rear it was extended along the north face of Cemetery Hill; thence through low ground to and over Culp's Hill, which formed the extreme right of our position so far as the infantry was concerned, though during the 3d of July and a portion of the 2d the cavalry prolonged our line still farther to and beyond Wolf's Hill on our right rear. Within the Union position were the Baltimore pike, running southeast from Gettysburg, and the Taneytown road, running south. Both these roads ran out through our lines, near together, over Cemetery Hill and entered Gettysburg under cover of our guns. The Confederate forces occupied the town opposite our right center, and curved round. the Union line to confront our troops on Culp's Hill. Opposite our left center and left the Confederates held Seminary Ridge, at a general distance of fourteen hundred yards. The two armies were nearly equal in numbers, with the advantage slightly in favor of the Union forces.

The generally clean and neat division, geographically, of the field was marred in one particular by a subordinate ridge which ran from Cemetery Ridge, near Gettysburg, diagonally across the plain to Seminary Ridge, nearly opposite our extreme left, reaching Seminary Ridge at a point known in the accounts of the battle as the Peach Orchard. Along the subordinate ridge described ran the road from Gettysburg to Emmittsburg. This road, there

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