網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版

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

rear.

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 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.

a

The generally clean and neat division, geographically, of the field was marred in one particular by 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

fore, ran out from our skirmish line on the right center and ran into the Confederate lines opposite our left. While, in a broad view of the field, this ridge is properly called a subordinate one, it was yet, for a certain distance, after Cemetery Ridge had fallen away to the level of the plain and before the ground began to rise again into Little Round Top, somewhat higher and better as a military position than the part of our line opposite it.

The disposition of our troops was as follows: General Slocum, commanding the right wing, consisting of his own, the Twelfth Corps, together with what remained of the First and Eleventh Corps, held Culp's Hill and Cemetery Hill, the whole curved portion of the Union line and that which overlooked the town. General Hancock held the center, his corps being drawn up along Cemetery Ridge. The Third Corps, under Sickles, formed the left, extending toward, but not reaching, Little Round Top. The latter point had, as stated, been in a degree covered by troops of the Twelfth Corps during the night; but these had been withdrawn. It was part of the matter subsequently in controversy between Generals Meade and Sickles whether the orders to the latter had not required him to hold Little Round Top in force. In fact, it was not occupied even by the Third Corps skirmishers.

During the morning of the 2d the Union army naturally looked for a renewal of hostilities by the

Confederates. But the day wore on, hour after hour, without anything more serious than a reconnoissance from the Third Corps in front of the Emmittsburg road, and some fighting on the skirmish line in front of the Second Corps. Responsibility for this long delay has remained in dispute. Generally speaking, the blame has been cast upon Longstreet, all the more since his accession to the Republican party and his acceptance of office under President Grant. It is alleged that Longstreet was in the early morning ordered to move around the left flank of the Union forces with a portion of his corps, and at the same time make a vigorous front attack with the remainder. A success on the Union left was to be followed up by the other Confederate troops, in order successively from their right to their left.

However it came about, the attack was, in fact, delayed until about four o'clock in the afternoon, at which time the Fifth Corps was up on our side and lay, resting after its long march, along Rock Creek, at the Baltimore pike. Meanwhile, however, a change. had taken place in the disposition of the Union forces a change fraught with momentous consequences. General Sickles, dissatisfied with the ground on which his corps was drawn up and seeing that the ridge over which the Emmittsburg road ran in his front was at some points higher than his own, suddenly and without notice either to Meade or to Hancock, advanced his troops to the Emmitts

burg road, along which he extended his line (Humphreys's division on the right) as far as the Peach Orchard, from which point it was "refused," or drawn back at an angle toward, but not to, Little Round Top, the left of the corps resting on the "Devil's Den," a wild, rocky bit of country strangely in contrast with the general character of the region. So that when Longstreet, after compassing his long detour, brought Hood's and McLaws's divisions up against the Union left, that line had been advanced to meet him part way, and offered to his attack an angle both sides of which it was in his power to enfilade by artillery fire.

The causes which had delayed the Confederate attack took nothing from its vehemence when once it fell. The men of the Third Corps met the assault with the utmost bravery, battling long and hard as became the old divisions of Hooker and Kearney. But even before the troops along the Emmittsburg road and from the Peach Orchard to the "Devil's Den" were assailed, the Confederates were passing around Sickles's flank to lay hold on Little Round Top, so strangely left undefended. It was the prescience and prompt action of General Gouverneur K. Warren which discerned the hostile advance in this direction and brought up the brigade of Vincent from the Fifth Corps, which, after a deadly struggle, often hand to hand, defeated this dangerous movement and made the Union flank secure.

« 上一頁繼續 »