The U.S. Army Campaigns of the Civil War

The Gettysburg 

Camp ign

June – July 1863
CMH Pub 75–10

Cover: Scene from the Gettysburg Cyclorama painting, The Battle of Gettysburg, by

Paul Phillippoteaux, depicting Pickett’s Charge and fighting at the Angle.

Photograph ©Bill Dowling, Dowling Photography.
by

Carol Reardon

and 

Tom Vossler

Center of Military History

United States Army

Washington, D.C., 2013

The Gettysburg 

Camp ign

June – July 1863

5

Introduction

Although over one hundred fifty years have passed since the 

start of the American Civil War, that titanic conflict continues to 

matter. The forces unleashed by that war were immensely destructive because of the significant issues involved: the existence of 

the Union, the end of slavery, and the very future of the nation. 

The war remains our most contentious, and our bloodiest, with 

over six hundred thousand killed in the course of the four-year 

struggle. 

Most civil wars do not spring up overnight, and the American 

Civil War was no exception. The seeds of the conflict were sown 

in the earliest days of the republic’s founding, primarily over the 

existence of slavery and the slave trade. Although no conflict can 

begin without the conscious decisions of those engaged in the 

debates at that moment, in the end, there was simply no way to 

paper over the division of the country into two camps: one that 

was dominated by slavery and the other that sought first to limit 

its spread and then to abolish it. Our nation was indeed “half slave 

and half free,” and that could not stand. 

Regardless of the factors tearing the nation asunder, the 

soldiers on each side of the struggle went to war for personal 

reasons: looking for adventure, being caught up in the passions 

and emotions of their peers, believing in the Union, favoring 

states’ rights, or even justifying the simple schoolyard dynamic 

of being convinced that they were “worth” three of the soldiers 

on the other side. Nor can we overlook the factor that some went 

to war to prove their manhood. This has been, and continues 

to be, a key dynamic in understanding combat and the profession of arms. Soldiers join for many reasons but often stay in the 

fight because of their comrades and because they do not want to 

seem like cowards. Sometimes issues of national impact shrink 

to nothing in the intensely personal world of cannon shell and 

minié ball.
6 

Whatever the reasons, the struggle was long and costly and 

only culminated with the conquest of the rebellious Confederacy, 

the preservation of the Union, and the end of slavery. These 

campaign pamphlets on the American Civil War, prepared in 

commemoration of our national sacrifices, seek to remember 

that war and honor those in the United States Army who died to 

preserve the Union and free the slaves as well as to tell the story of 

those American soldiers who fought for the Confederacy despite 

the inherently flawed nature of their cause. The Civil War was our 

greatest struggle and continues to deserve our deep study and 

contemplation.

 RICHARD W. STEWART

Chief Historian 
7

The Gettysburg Campaign

June–July 1863

Strategic Setting 

After the Confederates’ victory at Chancellorsville in May 

1863, General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia and the 

Army of the Potomac, commanded by Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker, 

once again confronted each other across the Rappahannock 

River near Fredericksburg, Virginia. The battle, which cost 

Hooker nearly 16,000 casualties and Lee some 12,300 losses, 

had proved indecisive. The two armies maintained an uneasy 

stalemate, occupying virtually the same ground they had held 

since December 1862. Washington, D.C., the U.S. capital, stood 

fifty-three miles to the north, while Richmond, Virginia, the 

Confederate capital, lay fifty-seven miles to the south. The rival 

presidents, Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis, pondered 

their next moves. 

Despite the defeat at Chancellorsville and mounting 

discontent on the Northern home front, Lincoln could take 

heart from recent developments in the west. In April 1863, Maj. 

Gen. Ulysses S. Grant shifted 20,000 Union troops from the west 

bank of the Mississippi River to the east bank, about thirty-five 

miles below the Confederate garrison at Vicksburg, Mississippi. 

From 1 to 17 May, Grant’s command defeated Confederate forces 

at Port Gibson, Raymond, Jackson, Champion Hill, and the Big 

Black River Bridge. By the end of the month, Grant had trapped 

Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton’s 30,000 Confederates inside their 

fortifications around Vicksburg. After two unsuccessful frontal 
8 

assaults, Grant’s army settled 

into a siege; meanwhile, a 

Confederate relief force under 

General Joseph E. Johnson 

failed to rescue Pemberton. 

Davis confronted a more 

daunting set of problems 

than his Northern counterpart. Amid bad news from 

Vicksburg and other parts of 

the Confederacy, he summoned 

Lee to Richmond twice in 

mid-May to discuss their strategic options. Despite Lee’s 

victory at Chancellorsville, the 

military situation in Virginia 

appeared to be deteriorating. In 

the Tidewater region, a Federal 

garrison of some 20,000 men 

held Suffolk, and their presence 

threatened both Norfolk and 

Hampton Roads. Given the 

size and location of the Federal 

force, Davis and Lee also feared 

for the safety of Richmond.

On 16 February 1863, Lee 

had ordered the infantry divisions of Maj. Gens. John Bell 

Hood and Lafayette McLaws 

to march from the army’s 

winter camp at Fredericksburg 

to Richmond and Hanover 

Junction. Two days later, 

Lee ordered Lt. Gen. James 

Longstreet to take command 

of “the Suffolk Expedition,” as 

he called it. On 21 March, Lee 

advised Longstreet to remain 

alert for “an opportunity of 

dealing a damaging blow, or of 

driving [the enemy] from any 

General Lee (Library of Congress)

General Longstreet by Alfred R. 

Waud (Library of Congress)
9

important positions.” Should Longstreet find such an opening, Lee 

urged him not to “be idle, but act promptly.”

Bad news on nearly all military fronts—above all, the report 

that Grant had trapped Pemberton’s army inside Vicksburg’s 

defenses—forced the Davis administration to consider a wide 

range of options. No single course of action could resolve all the 

challenges facing the president. In addition to Vicksburg and 

Suffolk, Davis also had to consider impending Union offensives in 

middle Tennessee and at Charleston, South Carolina. 

Lee had, in fact, already crafted a plan for his own army. In 

early April, he advised Confederate Secretary of War James A. 

Seddon: “Should General Hooker’s army assume the defensive, 

the readiest method of relieving pressure on [Vicksburg and 

Charleston] would be for this army to cross into Maryland.” One 

week later, Lee suggested to Davis: 

I think it all important that we should assume the aggressive by 

the first of May when we may expect General Hooker’s army to be 

weakened by the expiration of the term of service of many of his 

regiments. . . . I believe greater relief would in this way be afforded 

to the armies in middle Tennessee and on the [South] Carolina 

coast than by any other method.

During his mid-May deliberations with Davis and Seddon, 

Lee continued to advocate an offensive operation against Hooker’s 

army. He hoped to take the Army of Northern Virginia north of the 

Potomac once again. Lee’s reverse at Antietam in September 1862 

did not deter him from making a second northern expedition. 

While in winter camp in February 1863, Lee had directed Jedediah 

Hotchkiss (then Lt. Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson’s chief 

engineer) to draw up a map of the valley of Virginia “extending to 

Harrisburg, PA and then on to Philadelphia—wishing the preparation to be kept a profound secret.” 

Not everyone who participated in the strategic conference in 

Richmond agreed with Lee’s plan. A number of senior Confederate 

officials—including Postmaster General John H. Reagan and, 

for a time, even Davis himself—advocated sending all or part of 

Lee’s army to Mississippi. In the end, however, Lee’s views won 

out. Davis gave his approval for the Army of Northern Virginia’s 

invasion of the North. Only one question remained: When should 

the campaign begin?
10 

Operations

The Advance into Pennsylvania

Lee issued his initial orders for the northern offensive on 

3 June, stealthily breaking contact with Hooker’s Army of the 

Potomac near Fredericksburg to concentrate around Culpeper. 

Despite Lee’s best efforts, Hooker discovered that the Confederates 

were marching northward on 5 June. Hooker sent a force of 7,000 

cavalry and 4,000 infantry and artillery under his new cavalry 

commander, Maj. Gen. Alfred Pleasonton, in pursuit of the 

Confederates. Early on the morning of 9 June, Pleasonton surprised 

Maj. Gen. J. E. B. Stuart’s Confederate horsemen at Brandy Station. 

In a chaotic fight that proved to be one of the largest mounted 

clashes of the war, the Union troopers initially scattered Stuart’s 

men and nearly captured the vaunted cavalry commander himself. 

In the end, Stuart held his ground, but it had been a near thing. 

Richmond newspapers sharply criticized him and demanded that 

he redeem himself through 

heroic action. 

The scare at Brandy 

Station did not deter Lee in 

the least. He forged ahead with 

ambitious plans that would 

test his army’s new organizational structure in active field 

operations. After the death of 

General Jackson on 10 May, 

Lee had reconfigured his army 

of two corps under Jackson 

and Longstreet into three 

corps. Longstreet retained 

command of the First Corps, 

while two newly promoted 

lieutenant generals, Richard 

S. Ewell and Ambrose Powell 

Hill, led the Second and Third 

Corps respectively. The inclusion of Stuart’s cavalry raised 

Lee’s total strength to roughly 

75,000 officers and enlisted 

men. An unbroken string of 

General Stuart (Library of Congress)
11

victories during Lee’s thirteen months in command—assuming 

that Antietam was a tactical draw—inspired high morale among 

the rank and file and great confidence in the commander. As one 

Georgian said while passing the general during the march north, 

“Boys, there are ten thousand men sitting on that one horse.” 

Lee planned his northward route with care. (See Map 1.) After 

concentrating at Culpeper, he intended to clear the Shenandoah 

Valley of Union troops and then continue north into Pennsylvania’s 

rich Cumberland Valley. If he stayed west of the Blue Ridge 

Mountains, the range would shield both his army’s supply trains 

and, in time, southbound wagons filled with goods taken north of 

the Potomac. On 10 June, Lee ordered Ewell to proceed into the 

Shenandoah Valley. Lee chose Ewell’s Second Corps to lead the 

General Ewell (Library of Congress) General Hill (Library of Congress)
12

advance into Pennsylvania because that command contained most 

of the veterans of Jackson’s 1862 Valley Campaign—men who 

knew the region they were marching into.

The fight at Brandy Station, meanwhile, convinced Hooker to 

reconsider his options. When it became apparent that Lee’s entire 

army was heading north, Hooker recommended marching south 

and attacking Richmond instead. President Lincoln, however, 

reminded him that “Lee’s army and not Richmond, is your sure 

objective point.” On 13 June, Hooker ordered the Army of the 

Potomac to begin its pursuit of the Army of Northern Virginia. 

Consisting of seven infantry 

corps and one cavalry corps, the 

Army of the Potomac numbered 

about 94,000 effectives. While 

Hooker saw no need for the 

kind of massive reorganization 

that Lee had recently undertaken, he knew that several of 

his corps contained only two 

divisions rather than the usual 

three and that he had just lost 

thousands of veteran soldiers 

who mustered out when their 

two-year enlistments expired. 

For those reasons and more, 

Hooker believed that Lee 

outnumbered him, and he often 

badgered the general in chief of 

the U.S. Army, Maj. Gen. Henry 

W. Halleck, either for reinforcements or for authority over 

garrisons not currently under 

his control. 

On 14 June, Ewell passed 

his first test as corps commander 

at Winchester soundly defeating 

Union Brig. Gen. Robert H. 

Milroy’s garrison. “So impetuous 

was the charge of our men that in 

a few minutes they were over the 

breastworks, driving the enemy 

General Hooker (Library of 

Congress)
Orange Court House

Fredericksburg

Culpeper 

Court House Brandy Station

Warrenton

Manasas Junction

Front Royal Middleburg

Upperville

Leesburg

Frederick

Harper’s Ferry

Martinsburg

Falling Waters

Williamsport

Hagerstown

Emmitsburg

Chambersburg

Carlisle

Harrisburg

Gettysburg

Hanover

Westminister Boonsboro

Rockville

Washington

Baltimore

York

Aldie

Winchester

Stephenson’s Depot

Cashtown

Greencastle

Heidlersburg

C u m b e r l a n d V a l l e y

S h e n a n d o a h V a l l e y

PENNSY L V ANIA

MARYLAND

W E S T V I R G I N I A

V I R G I N I A

3 June–1 July 1863

Union Forces

Confederate Infantry

Confederate Cavalry

Skirmish

MOVEMENT TO GE TTYSBURG

0 30

Miles

Map 1
14 

out in great haste and confusion,” described a Louisiana captain. 

Ewell captured 23 cannon, 300 wagons, and 4,000 prisoners. He then 

sent Brig. Gen. Albert G. Jenkins’ cavalry brigade scouting ahead 

of the main column. Jenkins’ horsemen rode into Chambersburg, 

Pennsylvania, on 20 June, and two days later, Ewell’s infantry entered 

the Keystone State near Greencastle.

For the next week, Ewell’s troops scoured south-central 

Pennsylvania for supplies, advancing as far north as the outskirts 

of Harrisburg, the state capital. On 21 June, Lee issued General 

Orders 72, setting forth proper foraging procedures: quartermaster, 

commissary, ordnance, and medical officers were to obtain needed 

goods at fair market value, and all soldiers must respect private 

property. Jenkins’ cavalry apparently interpreted the order quite 

loosely. “Some people, with . . . antiquated ideas of business, might 

call it stealing to take goods and pay for them in bogus money,” 

wrote a Chambersburg journalist, “but Jenkins calls it business, 

and for the time being what Jenkins called business, was business.” 

When Ewell’s infantry arrived, they also enjoyed the bounty of 

the region. Pvt. Gordon Bradwell of the 31st Georgia recalled an 

issue of “two hindquarters of very fine beef, a barrel or two of flour, 

some buckets of wine, sugar, clothing, shoes, etc. All this for about 

twenty men.”

Reports of such excesses troubled Lee. On 27 June, he issued 

General Orders 73 chastising his soldiers for their “instances of 

forgetfulness” and reminding them of the “duties expected of us 

by civility and Christianity.” Still, even before Lee’s entire army 

had crossed into Pennsylvania, wagon trains loaded with foodstuffs and other goods began heading south. In addition, reported 

the Chambersburg editor, “Quite a number of negroes, free and 

slave—men, women and children—were captured by Jenkins and 

started south to be sold into bondage.” 

Pennsylvanians responded to the arrival of Lee’s army in 

various ways. Many civilians in Lee’s path simply fled with all they 

could carry. Some Pennsylvania Democrats believed—wrongly, 

as it turned out—that their political affiliation would protect 

them from depredation. A Harrisburg editor opined that Lee’s 

men enjoyed great success as foragers because “the people of the 

State were not prepared to meet any foe, and least of all, such a 

foe as marches beneath the black flag of treason.” He cited the 

legislature’s recent failure to improve the state’s militia system 

for leaving south-central Pennsylvania open to invasion. On 9 
15

June, the Lincoln administration had established the Department 

of the Susquehanna to organize local defense, and Governor 

Andrew G. Curtin had called out the state’s emergency forces, but 

all such efforts proved futile. On 26 June, the 26th Pennsylvania 

Emergency Regiment deployed against some of Ewell’s men just 

west of Gettysburg; those who did not become prisoners scattered 

in panic after exchanging a few shots with the Confederates.

Even as Ewell neared Harrisburg, he faced only minimal resistance; however, the rest of Lee’s army faced far stiffer opposition 

during its northward advance. Now alerted to Lee’s movements, 

Hooker sent his cavalry and some infantry to probe the Blue Ridge 

gaps, seeking opportunities to intercept the Confederate columns. 

Lee had kept Longstreet’s First Corps and Stuart’s cavalry east 

of the Blue Ridge to block Hooker’s advance, resulting in sharp 

clashes between rival horsemen at Aldie on 17 June, at Middleburg 

on 19 June, and at Upperville on 21 June. On 23 June, Lee ordered 

Stuart to “harass and impede as much as possible” the progress 

of Hooker’s army if it attempted to cross the Potomac, and, 

should that occur, to “take position on the right of our column 

as it advanced.” Stuart certainly bothered the Union army and 

caused great consternation in Washington, but he chose a northbound course that placed Hooker’s hard-marching army squarely 

between him and Lee for one crucial week in late June. Lee thus 

had to conduct operations without benefit of the excellent intelligence that Stuart usually provided him. 

Even so, Lee continued to display an aggressiveness that 

confounded Hooker. Still convinced that he faced “an enemy in my 

front of more than my number,” Hooker delivered an ultimatum to 

Halleck on 27 June—either send reinforcements or relieve him of 

command. Hooker’s superiors decided to replace him. In a letter to 

his wife, Maj. Gen. George G. Meade noted that he was awakened 

before dawn on 28 June “by an officer from Washington.” The 

officer, Meade wrote, said that “he had come to give me trouble. 

At first I thought that it was either to relieve or arrest me, and 

promptly replied to him, that my conscience was clear. . . . He then 

handed me a communication to read; which I found was an order 

relieving Hooker from the command and assigning me to it.” 

Hooker was in such a hurry to leave that he failed to provide 

Meade with a detailed assessment of the military situation. The 

new commander therefore knew little about his own army’s status 

and even less about Lee’s. With a hostile army on the march ahead 
16 

of him, his own army in hot pursuit, and a myriad of administrative and operational challenges confronting him, Meade had 

to assume the responsibilities of high command in short order. 

He began by making a few essential administrative and organizational changes and then communicated with General Halleck 

and President Lincoln in Washington. Meade also fielded 

numerous requests for information or supplies from political 

and military officials, and began to develop a plan of action for 

his new command based on Halleck’s instructions: “You will . . . 

maneuver and fight in such a manner as to cover the capital and 

also Baltimore. . . . Should General Lee move upon either of these 

places, it is expected that you will either anticipate him or arrive 

with him so as to give him battle.” 

Despite the defensive 

tone of Halleck’s instructions, 

Meade understood that he had 

“to find and fight the enemy,” 

and he ordered the Army of the 

Potomac to resume its northward advance the next day, 

29 June. On 30 June, Meade 

was still uncertain as to Lee’s 

location and intentions, so he 

drafted a contingency plan to 

concentrate his army along 

Pipe Creek in Maryland, just 

south of the Pennsylvania 

state line. Meade’s critics later 

cited the Pipe Creek circular 

as proof of his unwillingness 

to fight, but his concluding 

sentence suggested otherwise: 

“Developments may cause 

the Commanding General to 

assume the offensive from his 

present positions.”

While encamped near 

Chambersburg, Lee learned of 

Meade’s accession to command 

the day after his appointment. 

Although he assumed that a 

General Meade (Library of 

Congress)
17

new commander would enter his duties cautiously, Lee issued 

orders on 29 June for the Army of Northern Virginia to concentrate 

at Cashtown, east of the Blue Ridge and seven miles northwest of 

Gettysburg. He warned his corps commanders not to give battle 

with Meade’s approaching forces until the whole of the army was 

concentrated to provide ready support. By 30 June, most of Hill’s 

Third Corps had already reached Cashtown. Longstreet remained 

west of the Blue Ridge, but was less than a day’s march away. Ewell 

made plans to leave his camps around Carlisle early on 1 July and 

head for Cashtown. 

On 30 June, Hill sent forward a brigade from Maj. Gen. 

Henry Heth’s division to reconnoiter toward Gettysburg. The 

brigade commander, Brig. Gen. 

James J. Pettigrew, reported 

that Union cavalry had entered 

the town from the south. 

Pettigrew had encountered 

the lead element of the Army 

of the Potomac—Brig. Gen. 

John Buford’s cavalry division, 

which then consisted of two 

small brigades and one six-gun 

battery. An outstanding cavalry 

officer, Buford had deployed his 

command to cover Gettysburg’s 

road network from the Hanover 

Road to the east through the 

York Pike and the Harrisburg 

Road to the northeast, the 

Carlisle Road to the north, 

the Mummasburg Road and 

Chambersburg Pike to the 

northwest, and the Fairfield 

Road to the southwest (Map 2). 

Buford remained uncertain of 

Lee’s location and intentions, yet 

he sensed that the Confederates 

who had appeared west of town 

earlier that day would return 

the next morning in far greater 

numbers. He was right.

General Buford (Library of 

Congress)
Rock Creek

Willoughby Run

Culp’s

Hill

Little

Round Top

Round Top

Benne r ’s

Hill

Cemete r y

Hill

C e m e t e r y R i d g e

M c P h e r s o n ’ s R i d g e

O a k R i d g e

S e m i n a r y R i d g e GET TYSBURG

M U M M A S B U R G R O A D

H A R R I S B U R G R O A D

H U N T E R S T O W N R O A D

Y O R K P I K E

C A R L I S L E R O A D

H A N O V E R R O A D

B A L T I M O R E P I K E

E M M I T S B U R G R O A D

T A N E Y T O W N R O A D

C H A M B E R S B U R G P I K E

F A I R F I E L D R O A D

1–3 July 1863

G E TTYSBURG BAT TLEFIELD

0 1000 2000

Yards

Map 2
19

The First Day of Battle, 1 July

As Buford had expected, Hill ordered Heth’s entire division to 

advance on Gettysburg at first light. About 0700, troopers from the 

8th Illinois Cavalry, posted three miles west of Gettysburg on the 

Chambersburg Pike, spotted shadowy figures nearing the Marsh 

Creek Bridge to their front. According to tradition, Lt. Marcellus 

Jones borrowed a sergeant’s carbine and fired the first shot of the 

Battle of Gettysburg. He then fired several more rounds at skirmishers from Brig. Gen. James J. Archer’s brigade, the lead element 

of Heth’s division. Jones immediately reported the contact; in 

short order, Buford learned not only of the mounting threat along 

the Chambersburg Pike but also of enemy activity along roads 

to the west and north of Gettysburg. He immediately sent brief 

but informative assessments of the rapidly changing situation to 

Meade at Army headquarters and to Maj. Gen. John F. Reynolds, 

whose I Corps had encamped the previous night just a few miles 

south of Gettysburg. In order to keep the Gettysburg crossroads 

under Union control, Buford would need Reynolds’ help. With 

Heth’s division in the lead and Maj. Gen. William Dorsey Pender’s 

division close behind, a force of nearly 14,000 Confederates from 

General Hill’s Third Corps advanced down the Chambersburg 

Pike toward Buford’s 2,800 cavalrymen.

Fortune favored Buford that muggy July morning. Without 

cavalry to scout ahead, Heth admitted, “I was ignorant what force 

was at or near Gettysburg.” This meant that even the slightest resistance from Buford’s pickets compelled Archer’s brigade to halt, 

deploy skirmishers, and proceed cautiously as if the command 

faced a comparable force of infantry. As Capt. Amasa Dana of 

the 8th Illinois Cavalry recalled, “the firing was rapid from our 

carbines, and . . . induced the belief of four times our number of 

men actually present.” For nearly a mile-and-a-half, each time 

Archer’s skirmishers came too close “we retired and continued 

to take new position, and usually held out as long as we could 

without imminent risk of capture.” Buford’s cavalrymen thus 

traded space for the time required for Reynolds to arrive with his 

I Corps. About 1000, Archer’s brigade halted on Herr’s Ridge, two 

miles west of Gettysburg, to await the rest of Heth’s division while 

Buford’s troopers took up their final defensive line on the next rise 

to the east—McPherson’s Ridge—one mile closer to town. 

Reynolds had not yet arrived when Heth launched his strongest attack yet. Deploying Brig. Gen. Joseph R. Davis’ brigade 
20

north of the Chambersburg Pike and Archer’s brigade south of 

it, Heth sent his troops across Willoughby Run and up the slopes 

of McPherson’s Ridge against Buford’s line. Thanks to the ease of 

reloading their single-shot, breech-loading carbines, the cavalrymen produced a volume of fire entirely disproportionate to their 

numbers, but both sides knew the outnumbered troopers could 

not withstand the Confederate infantry much longer. At roughly 

1015, however, the rattle of drums signaled the arrival of General 

Reynolds and the lead division of the I Corps. 

The fighting on 1 July west of Gettysburg breaks down into 

four phases. The advance of Archer’s Confederate infantry against 

Buford’s Union cavalry that began at 0700 and culminated with 

the assault on McPherson’s Ridge around 1015 constituted the 

first phase. No officer in either army more senior than a division 

commander played a major role in this action and casualties 

remained comparatively light. The three remaining phases of the 

1 July fight featured far more lethal action between large infantry 

units, well supported by artillery, with corps commanders and, in 

time, Lee himself present on the battlefield to make key decisions. 

Phase two of the 1 July fight, lasting from about 1030 

until 1200, included two largely independent brigade-level 

infantry actions on McPherson’s Ridge, one on each side of the 

Chambersburg Pike (Map 3). North of the road, Heth sent Davis 

back into the fight, this time against Brig. Gen. Lysander Cutler’s 

infantry brigade rather than Buford’s cavalry. Davis turned Cutler’s 

right flank, but the 380-man 147th New York failed to receive the 

order to withdraw and remained in position to protect an artillery 

battery. The New Yorkers were hard-pressed by enemy troops in 

their front, and their right flank was exposed or “in the air.” To 

confront both threats, the 147th New York refused—or bent back—

its rightmost companies, giving the battery time to withdraw. As 

the New Yorkers’ ranks melted away in the crossfire that engulfed 

them, Maj. George Harney issued a unique command: “In retreat, 

double time, run.” During the short but sharp fight, the 147th New 

York lost almost 80 percent of its troop strength. 

At roughly the same time south of the Chambersburg Pike, 

Brig. Gen. Solomon Meredith’s famed Iron Brigade—consisting of 

the 2d, 6th, and 7th Wisconsin, the 19th Indiana, and the 24th 

Michigan—arrived on the field. Reynolds himself pointed out the 

Midwesterners’ first objective: the repulse of Archer’s brigade, then 

cresting McPherson’s Ridge through the Herbst family woodlot. 
A.P . HILL

D

A

V I S

A R C H E R

H

E

T

H

C U T L E R

M E R E D I T H REYNOLDS

400

400

400

400

380

420

420

420

440

440

420

440

460

460

460

480

420

420

420

420

400

i W l ol gu bh y uR n

O a R k e g d i

e H

s ’ r r i R e g d

M Pc h e r os ’ n s i R g d e

M U M M A S B U R G R O A D

H A R R I S B U R G R O A D

C A R L I S L E R O A D

C H A M B E R S B U R G P I K E

F A I R F I E L D R O A D

U n  n i s h e d R a i l ro a d

U n  n i s h e d R a i l ro a d

County Alms

House

Pennsylvania

College

Lutheran

Seminary

Herbst

Herr’s Tavern

McPherson

GET TYSBURG

Kuhn’s

Brickyard

1 July 1863

D AY 1

LATE MORNING

0 1000 500

Yards

Map 3
22 

Seconds later, Reynolds fell from his saddle, killed instantly by a 

bullet to the back of the head. Unaware of Reynolds’ death, the 

Iron Brigade drove Archer’s men out of the woodlot and back 

across Willoughby Run. Pvt. Patrick Maloney of the 2d Wisconsin 

captured Archer himself, making him the first general officer in the 

Army of Northern Virginia to be captured since Lee had assumed 

command thirteen months earlier. The Iron Brigade learned 

of Reynolds’ fall only after they withdrew to the high ground in 

Herbst’s woods to reorganize. 

The Midwesterners’ position south of the Chambersburg Pike 

was not as secure as it seemed. Reynolds’ death made Maj. Gen. 

Abner Doubleday the senior Union officer on the field, and he 

found his attention quickly drawn north of the turnpike. That was 

because Davis’ troops, emboldened by their success against Cutler, 

continued to push eastward; if left unchecked, the onrushing 

Confederates could sweep in behind the Union troops fighting 

south of the road. To stop Davis’ advance, the Iron Brigade’s 6th 

Wisconsin and two New York regiments charged from south of 

the pike to the lip of an unfinished railroad cut that many of Davis’ 

troops were using for cover. The Federals’ sudden appearance 

made prisoners of hundreds of Confederates who found themselves trapped within the railroad cut’s steep earthen walls. Lt. Col. 

Rufus Dawes of the 6th Wisconsin ordered a Mississippi officer, 

Death of Reynolds by Alfred R. Waud (Library of Congress)
23

“Surrender, or I will fire!” According to Dawes, the man “replied 

not a word but promptly handed me his sword.” Then, “six other 

officers came up and handed me their swords,” Dawes recalled. The 

successful charge consequently averted a Union disaster, inspiring 

Doubleday to hold McPherson’s Ridge in the belief that it had been 

Reynolds’ “intention to defend the place.”

The fight at the railroad cut ended about 1200, and an eerie 

calm settled over the battlefield. When the third phase began 

around 1400, the battle changed in three important ways. First, 

both sides received substantial reinforcements. Second, the morning’s fight west of Gettysburg now extended to the north of town. 

Third, General Lee arrived on the battlefield and took a significant 

measure of tactical control over his army’s actions.

Phase three began when General Heth renewed the contest 

south of the Chambersburg Pike by advancing his two remaining 

fresh brigades against the Iron Brigade. The Midwesterners’ line 

had been bolstered by two newly arrived I Corps brigades. Fighting 

grew in intensity all along McPherson’s Ridge, but nowhere did 

the carnage exceed that in the Herbst woodlot, where the left 

flank of General Pettigrew’s North Carolina brigade assaulted the 

Iron Brigade’s line. Fate had thrown two of the largest regiments 

on the field—the 496-man 24th Michigan and the 800-man 26th 

North Carolina—against each other. Col. Henry Morrow of the 

24th Michigan considered his position to be “untenable,” but he 

received orders that the line “must be held at all hazards.” The 26th 

North Carolina advanced “with rapid strides, yelling like demons,” 

Morrow reported. Before the fighting ended, at least eleven North 

Carolina color bearers—and their 21-year-old colonel, Henry 

K. Burgwyn Jr.—fell to Iron Brigade bullets. Company F, 26th 

North Carolina, contained three sets of twins in its ranks, and 

five of those six men were either killed or mortally wounded. The 

24th Michigan paid dearly as well, reporting 316 men killed and 

wounded, along with another 80 listed as missing in action. 

In the meantime, a new threat emerged against the right 

of the I Corps’ line, this time from the north and northwest. 

Earlier that day, General Ewell was heading southwest toward 

Cashtown with the Second Corps divisions commanded by Maj. 

Gens. Robert E. Rodes and Jubal A. Early. Then word arrived of 

the fighting at Gettysburg. Ewell immediately changed direction 

and began marching south toward Gettysburg, bearing in mind 

that Lee “did not want a general engagement brought on till the 
24 

rest of the army came up.” The deployment of Rodes’ division on 

Oak Hill, an eminence just north of the Mummasburg Road that 

overlooked the morning’s battlefield, placed Ewell’s men in good 

position to strike the right flank of the I Corps’ line astride the 

Chambersburg Pike. As Rodes wheeled his batteries onto the high 

ground, Doubleday saw the potential for disaster and sent Brig. 

Gen. Henry Baxter’s fresh brigade to extend the I Corps’ line to the 

Mummasburg Road and anchor its flank there. Utilizing the cover 

offered by Sheads’ Woods and the reverse slope of a northward 

extension of Seminary Ridge known as Oak Ridge, Baxter’s men 

moved into their assigned position unseen by Rodes. 

Wrongly believing that the Union flank rested squarely in 

Sheads’ Woods, Rodes planned to hit the woodlot hard with a 

coordinated assault launched by three of his five brigades. Because 

of poor execution resulting from incompetence and negligence 

on the part of two brigade commanders, Col. Edward A. O’Neal 

and Brig. Gen. Alfred Iverson Jr., Rodes’ assault soon fell apart. 

O’Neal’s Alabamians attacked alone, and Baxter’s right flank 

regiments along the Mummasburg Road repulsed them easily. 

Iverson’s North Carolinians attacked shortly thereafter, blundering forward without skirmishers to warn them of the enemy’s 

presence. To deal with Iverson’s assault, Baxter’s men simply faced 

left and redeployed behind a stone wall on top of Oak Ridge, firing 

volleys into the Tar Heels’ ranks that literally mowed them down. 

Virginia artilleryman Henry Robinson Berkeley passed the field 

a few days later and noted in his diary: “There were, in a few feet 

of us, by actual count, seventy-nine (79) North Carolinians laying 

dead in a straight line . . . all evidently killed by one volley.” 

Rodes had intended for Brig. Gen. Junius Daniel’s North 

Carolina brigade to support Iverson’s assault, but a growing threat 

on the Tar Heels’ right flank caused the unit to split in two. Two 

of Daniel’s regiments ultimately supported Iverson, but the rest 

turned south toward the railroad cut and the McPherson farm, 

where they clashed with Col. Roy Stone’s small Pennsylvania 

brigade. The Tar Heels and the Pennsylvanians surged back and 

forth in some of the costliest fighting of the day across the narrow 

swath of ground separating the pike and the railroad cut, with 

neither side gaining an advantage. 

While Ewell’s men approached Gettysburg from the north, 

Maj. Gen. Oliver O. Howard brought up the Union XI Corps from 

the south. The unit contained a high percentage of German-born 
25

soldiers. It had been plagued by misfortune, having borne the brunt 

of “Stonewall” Jackson’s flank attack at Chancellorsville, after which 

the XI Corps became known throughout the Army as “Howard’s 

Cowards” or the “Flying Dutchmen.” By virtue of seniority, Howard 

superseded Doubleday as the Union commander at Gettysburg. 

He ordered Doubleday to continue to hold McPherson’s Ridge 

with the I Corps. Recognizing the importance of Cemetery Hill, 

a key terrain feature just south of town, Howard sent Brig. Gen. 

Adolph von Steinwehr’s division there as a reserve in case the situation north of Gettysburg deteriorated. He sent his other two XI 

Corps divisions—those of Maj. Gen. Carl Schurz and Brig. Gen. 

Francis C. Barlow—north through the town. As Howard’s senior 

division commander, Schurz became commander of the XI Corps 

when Howard assumed overall command. 

Schurz intended to deploy on the right flank of the I Corps’ 

line, but Rodes’ presence on Oak Hill made that impossible. 

Worse yet, the acting XI Corps 

commander began to receive 

reports of the advance of Early’s 

division down the Harrisburg 

Road from the northeast. 

Schurz conferred with Barlow 

and quickly decided to establish a defensive line perpendicular to the I Corps’ line to 

counter the threat posed by 

both Rodes and Early. Since 

the Carlisle Road bisected his 

new front, Schurz deployed 

west of it, and he sent Barlow 

east of it. Barlow disliked 

the position that Schurz had 

assigned him. Concerned that 

Early might transform a knob 

of high ground in his immediate front into a commanding 

artillery position, Barlow 

advanced his entire division, 

posting one of his two brigades 

as a heavy skirmish line astride 

the Harrisburg Road at Rock 

General Howard (Library of 

Congress)
26 

Creek and extending the other westward to the knoll. During the 

advance, Barlow broke contact with Schurz’s right flank near the 

Carlisle Road leaving a large gap in that part of the XI Corps’ line. 

To make matters worse, Barlow’s right flank was also in the air. 

Both points were vulnerable to a Confederate attack. 

Schurz faced problems of his own. The general realized that 

he lacked sufficient numbers to do the three things he deemed 

essential to maintaining his position: establish a line of battle to 

stop the Confederates advancing down the Carlisle Road, forge a 

link with the I Corps on Oak Ridge, and retain a reserve force. 

All he could do was deploy one of his two brigades as a strong 

skirmish line between the Carlisle Road and the Mummasburg 

Road, weighted a bit to the left to provide support to the I Corps if 

needed, and keep Col. Wladimir Krzyzanowski’s brigade available 

to respond to crises anywhere along the XI Corps’ front.

When Early finally struck, Barlow bore the brunt of the assault. 

Brig. Gen. John B. Gordon’s Georgia brigade advanced directly on 

Barlow’s line at the knoll, while Brig. Gen. Harry T. Hays’ Louisiana 

brigade marched on the east side of the Harrisburg Road in order 

to turn Barlow’s right flank. (See Map 4.) While Barlow focused 

his attention on Hays and Gordon, Brig. Gen. George P. Doles’ 

Georgia brigade from Rodes’ division advanced in force down the 

Carlisle Road toward Barlow’s unprotected left flank. A gallant 

stand along the road by the 157th New York slowed their progress, 

but the Georgians continued to angle toward Barlow’s open flank. 

Schurz ordered Krzyzanowski’s brigade forward to Barlow’s 

support. Pvt. Edwin Southard of the 119th New York recalled the 

vicious firefight that followed: “We moved straight on to the death 

that hurtled from the enemy’s hidden lines. We returned volley for 

volley, and the sulpherous air seemed filled with hissing bullets 

and bursting shells.” Krzyzanowski’s men briefly held but “suffered 

cruelly” in doing so.

General Lee, meanwhile, arrived on the battlefield about 

1400. Informed of Early’s initial success, Lee ordered a general 

assault around 1600. Thus began phase four of the 1 July fight. 

Overwhelmed by the weight of superior numbers, the entire 

Union line unraveled, starting with the right flank of the XI Corps 

on the Harrisburg Road. During the rout, Barlow fell seriously 

wounded, and his division fled through the streets of Gettysburg 

toward Cemetery Hill. Schurz soon withdrew his skirmish line 

west of the Carlisle Road, his survivors also heading for the high 
27

ground south of town. From Cemetery Hill, Steinwehr sent Col. 

Charles R. Coster’s brigade forward to cover the XI Corps’ withdrawal. Coster’s men became embroiled in a nasty firefight with 

Hays’ Louisianans and Col. Isaac Avery’s North Carolina brigade. 

Making a desperate stand at Kuhn’s brickyard on the northern edge 

of town, Coster’s men soon found themselves all but surrounded. 

Those who managed to cut their way out joined their fleeing 

comrades in the race to Cemetery Hill. Critics point to the large 

number of Union prisoners as evidence of the XI Corps’ cowardice, 

but the long list of killed and wounded says otherwise. 

As the XI Corps’ line disintegrated, the I Corps’ line began 

to give way—but only after six hours of hard fighting. The rout 

began on the right of Doubleday’s line. Brig. Gen. Stephen 

D. Ramseur’s fresh North Carolina brigade reinvigorated the 

remnants of Rodes’ brigades that had fought near Oak Hill, and the 

Confederates finally swept the Union forces off Oak Ridge. During 

the fight, a Confederate bullet struck one of Doubleday’s brigade 

commanders, Brig. Gen. Gabriel R. Paul, in the head and blinded 

him for life—many Northern newspapers reported Paul as killed. 

Col. Charles W. Tilden of the 16th Maine assumed command of 

Paul’s brigade and received orders unwelcome to any commander: 

stand to the last and hold “as long as there was a man left.” Tilden 

tore the regimental battle flag from its pole and gave a shred to 

each soldier in his command. By the end of the day, Tilden and 161 

of his men were prisoners—many captured while occupying the 

same railroad cut that had betrayed so many hapless Confederates 

earlier that day. Oddly enough, the Confederates made their 

greatest haul of Union prisoners at the cut.

On the I Corps’ line south of the Chambersburg Pike, the 

remnants of three Union brigades—including the Iron Brigade—

finally abandoned McPherson’s Ridge and re-formed behind a fencerail barricade in front of Schmucker Hall, the main building of the 

Lutheran Theological Seminary on Seminary Ridge. Col. Charles S. 

Wainwright of the I Corps artillery concentrated his batteries along 

the ridge to the right of the infantry and astride the Chambersburg 

Pike. When General Pender’s fresh division launched its assault 

on the high ground, Wainwright’s guns took a heavy toll on Brig. 

Gen. Alfred M. Scales’ North Carolina brigade, wounding Scales 

and putting every one of his regimental commanders out of action. 

The remaining I Corps troops made Col. Abner M. Perrin’s South 

Carolinians pay in blood for the ridge before they and Wainwright’s 
Map 4

S C A L E S P E R R I N

R A M S E U R

D A N I E L

A.P . HILL

R

O

D

E

S

P E N D E R

D

O

U

B

L

E

D

A

Y

4

400

420

440

440

440

440

400

440

460

460

460

480

420

420

420

400

400

380

Willoughby Run

U n  n i s h e d R a i l ro a d

U n  n i s h e d R a i l ro a d

E M M I T S B 

C H A M B E R S B U R G P I K E

F A I R F I E L D R O A D

M U M M A S B U R 

Lutheran Seminary

E. Sheads

Herbst

Herr’s Tavern

McPherson

GET 

G. Culp

W. Bliss

M c P h e r s o n ’ s R i d g e

O a k R i d g e

H e r r ’ s R i d g e

S e m i n a r y R i d g e

1 July 1863

D AY 1

LATE AFTERNOON

0 500 1000

Yards
A V E R Y

H A Y S

G O R D O N

D O L E S

E WELL

E

A R L Y

H O W A R D

S C H U R Z

B A R L O W

C O S T E R

V O N S T E I N W E H R

HANCOCK

400

400

380

380

400

360

360

420

420

420

420

440

440

460

480

440

380

380

360

360 340

Rock Creek

H A R R I S B U R G R O A D

Y O R K P I K E

H U N T E R S T O W N R O A D

C A R L I S L E R O A D

H A N O V E R R O A D

B A L T I M O R E P I K E

T S B U R G R O A D

U R G R O A D

Pennsylvania

College

D. Scha
er

County Alms

House

Kuhn’s Brickyard

H. Culp

C. Benner

TYSBURG

D. Benner

H. Spangler

Cemete r y

Hill

Culp ’ s

Hill

Benner ’ s

Hill
30 

guns finally gave way and fell back to the Union rallying point 

on Cemetery Hill. About 1700, soldiers from Perrin’s 1st South 

Carolina Infantry raised their regimental flag over the Gettysburg 

town square.

In the meantime, chaos reigned on Cemetery Hill. While 

Doubleday and Howard squabbled over possible courses of action, 

thousands of lost soldiers searched for their units as small groups 

of exhausted men gathered around tattered remnants of regimental colors. To restore order, Maj. Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock, 

the commander of the Army of the Potomac’s II Corps, arrived 

on the scene as General Meade’s personal representative, carrying 

written authorization to make decisions in Meade’s name and 

an order to evaluate Gettysburg as a potential battlefield. “If you 

think the ground and position there a better one to fight a battle” 

than the Pipe Creek line, Meade instructed, then the commanding 

general would “order all the troops up.” Upon his arrival, Hancock 

quickly ended all dissension by assuming command 

in Meade’s name. Then he 

ordered Howard to keep his XI 

Corps on Cemetery Hill, and 

overruled Doubleday’s objection to sending the I Corps 

to defend neighboring Culp’s 

Hill. In a dispatch to Meade, 

Hancock assessed the situation 

at Gettysburg: “I think we can 

retire; if not, we can fight here, 

as the ground appears not unfavorable with good troops.” 

It was well that Hancock 

carried out his orders so efficiently. Buoyed by his tactical 

success, at 1645, Lee sent Ewell 

one more order: attack the 

high ground south of town—

Cemetery Hill—“if practicable.” 

Ewell was unaccustomed to 

such discretionary orders. He 

performed a perfunctory reconnaissance of the ground, saw the 

General Hancock (Library of 

Congress)
31

beginnings of a stout defense, and received reports about possible 

Union activity behind his left flank. Then, realizing that he “could 

not bring artillery to bear” on the hill “and all the troops . . . were 

jaded by twelve hours’ marching and fighting,” he decided—against 

the recommendations of his senior subordinates—not to order an 

assault. Ewell’s controversial decision, still debated today, ended the 

day’s major combat. 

About 2100, General Longstreet arrived at Lee’s headquarters 

on the Chambersburg Pike near the seminary. After offering his 

congratulations on the day’s success, Longstreet was stunned to 

learn that Lee already had decided to renew the fight on 2 July. As 

he later wrote, “I suggested that this course seemed to be at variance 

with the plan of the campaign that had been agreed upon before 

leaving Fredericksburg.” At the time, the two generals had discussed 

a strategic offensive into Pennsylvania, in which Lee would shift 

to the tactical defensive on ground of his choosing if compelled to 

fight. But now Lee said, “If the enemy is there to-morrow, we must 

attack him.” Longstreet replied, “If he is there, it will be because he is 

anxious that we should attack him—a good reason, in my judgment 

for not doing so.” But Lee had made his decision. As he explained in 

his report, “It had not been intended to fight a general battle at such 

a distance from our base, unless attacked by the enemy, but finding 

ourselves unexpectedly confronted by the Federal Army, it became 

a matter of difficulty to withdraw through the mountains with our 

large trains. . . . A battle thus became in a measure unavoidable.” 

The Second Day of Battle, 2 July

Acting on Hancock’s advice, Meade ordered the Army of the 

Potomac to concentrate at Gettysburg and thus made the prospect 

of battle there almost a foregone conclusion. Just after 2400 on 2 

July, Meade established his headquarters at the small farmhouse 

of Lydia Leister on the southwestern slope of Cemetery Hill. He 

consulted with Buford, Hancock, and other senior subordinates, 

and after a quick reconnaissance, laid out a strong defensive 

position. Meade kept the XI Corps on Cemetery Hill, sent the 

XII Corps to Culp’s Hill, and placed the decimated I Corps in 

the saddle between the two heights. He also deployed Hancock’s 

II Corps on a rise that ran south from Cemetery Hill—known as 

Cemetery Ridge—and planned to extend his line along that elevation as additional corps arrived. Meade intended to anchor his 

defensive position on two hills—known as the Round Tops—at the 
32 

southern end of Cemetery Ridge. When placed on a map, Meade’s 

line resembled a giant fishhook.

As Meade deployed his army, Lee considered how best to 

attack it. As his conversation with Longstreet indicated, Lee 

evinced little interest in the other options still open to him. At 

first light, he sent out Capt. Samuel R. Johnston, an engineer 

on his staff, to reconnoiter the Union left flank. Johnston 

described the Union line as extending south from Cemetery 

Hill along the Emmitsburg Road until it ended just south of the 

distinctive red Codori farm buildings. When asked if he had 

found Union troops on Little Round Top—the less forested of 

the two hills—Johnston reported that he had ridden to its peak 

and found it unoccupied.

Present-day students of the battle find Captain Johnston’s 

report befuddling because the Union left flank bore no resemblance to Johnston’s description. In fact, when the captain made 

his reconnaissance, the II Corps’ line—then the army’s left flank—

extended along Cemetery Ridge well south of the Codori farm. 

The line also rested at least 250 yards east of the Emmitsburg 

Road—in reality, Meade had posted no Union troops on the road 

itself. Moreover, troops from Maj. Gen. Henry W. Slocum’s XII 

Corps and later Maj. Gen. Daniel E. Sickles’ III Corps encamped in 

the area of Little Round Top in such numbers that Johnston should 

have detected their presence. Flawed as Captain Johnston’s report 

was, it determined Lee’s plan of attack for 2 July.

About 0900, Lee explained his plan to Longstreet. As Lee 

later reported, “It was determined to make the principal attack 

upon the enemy’s left, and endeavor to gain a position from 

which it was thought that our artillery could be brought to bear 

with effect.” He gave Longstreet command of the assault on the 

Union left, “which he was to drive in.” Lee also ordered Ewell 

to “make a simultaneous demonstration upon the enemy’s right, 

to be converted into a real attack should opportunity offer.” He 

directed Hill’s Third Corps to “threaten the enemy’s center,” in 

order to prevent the shifting of reinforcements against Longstreet 

or Ewell. Longstreet once more raised objections to Lee’s plan. 

When it became clear that Lee would not reverse his decision, 

Longstreet sought to delay its execution. Only two of his divisions—those commanded by Generals McLaws and Hood—had 

arrived. He wanted to wait for Maj. Gen. George E. Pickett’s 

division, still half a day’s march away. Lee determined to press on 
33

without it, but he did permit Longstreet to await the impending 

arrival of Hood’s final brigade and even arranged for Maj. Gen. 

Richard H. Anderson’s division of Hill’s Third Corps to cooperate with Longstreet. Assuming that Longstreet would obey his 

orders to advance rapidly against the Union left flank, Lee rode 

off to Ewell’s headquarters.

When Lee returned around 1100, he was upset to discover 

that Longstreet had not yet moved. Yet again he rejected his subordinate’s objections and ordered him to attack at once. Longstreet’s 

columns soon began their march to the southeast, but they halted 

just south of the Fairfield Road. The advance had spotted a Union 

signal station on Little Round Top, which no doubt would have 

seen them had they continued on their current route. Longstreet 

therefore ordered his columns to face about and countermarch. 

Their detour took them between intervening ridges that screened 

their movement but cost the attackers valuable time. 

At 1515, McLaws’ lead 

brigade reached the base of 

Seminary Ridge several miles 

southwest of Gettysburg where 

the Millersville Road crested 

the ridge and then proceeded 

eastward to intersect with 

the Emmitsburg Road. The 

Confederates’ revised plan 

of attack was to follow the 

Millersville Road over the 

crest, halt at the Emmitsburg 

Road, face left, and advance 

north toward the Union left 

flank. At the top of the ridge, 

however, where McLaws and 

Longstreet had expected to 

see empty fields and quiet 

orchards, they found Sickles’ 

III Corps deployed for battle. 

Sickles’ actions on 2 July 

remain a contentious issue to 

this day. Meade had intended 

for the III Corps to occupy the 

defensive fishhook along the 

General Sickles (Library of 

Congress)
34 

southern portion of Cemetery Ridge and to protect Little Round 

Top until the arrival of the V Corps. From the start, however, 

Sickles disliked his assigned position. If the Confederates placed 

artillery on the high ground half a mile or so in his front, Sickles 

reasoned, his entire line would be at their mercy. The knoll 

that caused Sickles so much concern was the site of Joseph 

Sherfy’s Peach Orchard; it reminded him of a similar position 

at Chancellorsville known as Hazel Grove. Sickles did not want 

to repeat what had occurred there: soon after he obeyed orders 

to abandon Hazel Grove, enemy guns occupied the rise and 

inflicted heavy losses on his men. 

Therefore, Sickles requested that Meade let him advance 

the III Corps from Cemetery Ridge to the high ground near the 

Emmitsburg Road, but Meade refused. A second plea from Sickles 

brought Meade’s chief of artillery, Brig. Gen. Henry J. Hunt, to make 

a reconnaissance of the ground in question. While conceding that 

the position held certain advantages, Hunt also informed Sickles 

that he did not have the authority to approve Sickles’ request. 

About 1200, Sickles’ skirmishers—consisting of a hundred-man 

detachment of Col. Hiram Berdan’s U.S. Sharpshooters—spotted 

some Confederates (though not from Longstreet’s command) 

in the woods just beyond the Emmitsburg Road and briefly 

exchanged fire with them. The skirmish further convinced Sickles 

of the soundness of his plan.

Around 1400, Sickles ordered his command to move 

forward with flags flying and drums beating—and while still 

lacking permission to do so. The problems he created by seizing 

the high ground at the Peach Orchard far outweighed the 

advantages gained. First, Sickles placed Brig. Gen. Andrew A. 

Humphreys’ division along the Emmitsburg Road, exposing it 

to interlocking fields of Confederate artillery fire and leaving it 

without enough cannon to mount an effective counterbattery 

response. Then he ordered Maj. Gen. David B. Birney’s division 

to form on Humphreys’ left and extend the line eastward from the 

Peach Orchard to the Wheatfield and from there southeastward 

all the way to Devil’s Den. Birney soon discovered that he lacked 

the troops to cover his new front. A small gap isolated his left 

brigade at Devil’s Den from the regiments he had deployed 

in the Wheatfield near the Rose farm buildings, and an even 

larger gap separated the troops in the Wheatfield from those 

Birney had posted near the Peach Orchard. Worse yet, the 
35

bend in Sickles’ line at the Peach Orchard created a vulnerable 

salient that the Confederates could attack from both the south 

and the west. In addition, Sickles’ decision to abandon his 

position on the southern stretch of Cemetery Ridge uncovered 

the Taneytown Road, an essential line of communication for 

Meade’s army.

Sickles’ movement did succeed in complicating Longstreet’s 

assault, however. Since the Confederates could not execute their 

plan to attack up the Emmitsburg Road, Longstreet ordered 

McLaws to deploy his men along the crest of Seminary Ridge 

parallel to—rather than perpendicular to—the roadway. He 

then told Hood to extend McLaws’ line to the south and prepare 

to assault Sickles’ new position. The Round Tops had played no 

role in the original attack plan, but now they had to be taken into 

account. Hood sent out scouts, and he reported to Longstreet that 

the way to the Army of the Potomac’s left flank and rear east of 

those hills remained clear of enemy troops. He asked permission 

to bypass the Round Tops by sweeping around them rather than 

attack the hills straight on. 

But the clock had advanced to 1600, and Lee had grown impatient. When Longstreet reported that the situation had changed 

dramatically since the crafting of the original attack plan, Lee 

proved unwilling to reconsider his options. Longstreet betrayed 

his frustration with Lee in his comments to Hood. He rejected 

Hood’s repeated appeals to bypass the Round Tops and ordered the 

attack to start at once. Hood’s division would strike first, followed 

by McLaws and then Anderson, the attack proceeding from south 

to north. A frustrated Hood lodged a formal protest, the first time 

that the hard-fighting general had ever done so. But he continued 

his preparations notwithstanding.

As Hood prepared to attack, Sickles inspected his new 

line. General Meade and his staff caught up with him near 

the Peach Orchard, and after a colorful and mostly one-sided 

verbal exchange—Meade was notorious for his hot temper—

Sickles offered to pull back to Cemetery Ridge. At that moment, 

Longstreet’s artillery opened fire. To prevent the III Corps’ withdrawal from becoming a rout should the Confederates attack, 

Meade ordered Sickles to stay put and await reinforcements. 

Sickles’ advocates later tried to turn Meade’s order into a belated 

endorsement of his subordinate’s initiative, but the commander 

clearly meant no such thing. 
36

Hood’s attack plan for his four brigades seemed straightforward enough (Map 5). Brig. Gen. Evander M. Law’s Alabamians 

would step off first, seize the crest of Round Top and move on 

Little Round Top, bypassing the III Corps’ left flank at Devil’s Den 

entirely. The next unit to step off, Brig. Gen. Jerome B. Robertson’s 

brigade, would assault Devil’s Den. Brig. Gen. Henry L. Benning’s 

Georgians would follow the Alabama flags, presumably to the 

Round Tops. Brig. Gen. George T. “Tige” Anderson’s Georgians 

would support Robertson. Early in the action, Hood fell badly 

wounded; from that point on, his division lacked effective direction, and the attack soon began to fragment. 

Harassed all the way to the Round Tops by Berdan’s 

Sharpshooters in their distinctive green uniforms, Law’s brigade 

split in two, with three regiments heading toward the Round Tops 

as planned, while the remaining two regiments veered off to deal 

with a troublesome Union artillery battery at Devil’s Den. Law’s 

44th and 48th Alabama thus fired the first Confederate volleys 

that bloody afternoon amid Devil Den’s giant boulders. “The 

enemy were as invisible to us as we were to them,” recalled Col. 

W. F. Perry of the 44th Alabama. As his men emerged onto open 

ground, “a sheet of flame burst from the rocks less than a hundred 

yards away.” The fire came from the rifle muskets of the 4th Maine, 

which constituted Birney’s—and by extension, the Army of the 

Potomac’s—left flank just then. The 4th Maine defended the rocky 

gorge at the southern end of Devil’s Den.

Robertson’s brigade also split as it advanced. The 4th and 5th 

Texas formed on Law’s left flank, a move that carried them toward 

the Round Tops. The 1st Texas and the 3d Arkansas, meanwhile, 

attempted to follow orders directing them to keep their left flank on 

the Emmitsburg Road, and were swept into the fight at Devil’s Den. 

They advanced into a triangular field enclosed by stone walls on the 

Devil’s Den’s steep western slope. Col. A. Van Horn Ellis’ 124th New 

York—nicknamed the “Orange Blossoms” in honor of their home 

county—manned the wall at the far end of the field. Pvt. James O. 

Bradfield of the 1st Texas described the fight: “The enemy stood 

their ground bravely, until we were close on them, but [they] did not 

await the bayonet. They broke away from the rock fence as we closed 

in with a rush and a wild rebel yell.” The New Yorkers lost heavily in 

a counterattack down the slope, and the Texans drove them back to 

a stone wall at the top of the hill. “Here occurred one of our wildest 

fiercest struggles of the war,” Bradfield recalled, “a struggle such as 
L A N G

W I L C O X

W R I G H T

B A R K S D A L E

W O F F O R D K E R S H A W

S E M M E S

G . T .

A N D E R S O N

ROBERTSON

L A W

B E N N I N G

L ONGSTREE T

R . H . A

N

D

E

R

S O N

M c L A

W

S

H

O

O

D

H

A

N

C

O

C

K

S I C

K

L

E

S

H U M P H R E Y S

C A L D W E L L

GRAHA M

W E E D

HOWARD

V I N C E N T

B I R

N

E Y

400

420

420

400

360

440

440

400

400

400

360 380

440

440

440

420

460

440

440

420

420

420

400

380

440

Cemeter y

Hill

Little

Round T o p

Round T o p

C e m e t e r y R i d g e

Wheateld

Devil’s Den

Peach

Orchard

N. Codori

L. Leister

J. Rose

J. Sherfy

H. Spangler

W. Bliss E M M I T S B U R G R O A D

T A N E Y T O W N R O A D

2 July 1863

D AY 2

LATE AFTERNOON

0 500 1000

Yards

Map 5
38 

it is given to few men to pass through and live.” It was a chaotic 

fight—one in which “every man became his own commander.” 

The confusion quickly worsened. Under Hood’s original plan, 

Benning’s Georgians should have followed the Alabamians toward 

the Round Tops, but as General Benning later explained, a “wood 

on the right” had concealed “most of Law’s brigade” from him. 

Benning therefore led his men into the fight at Devil’s Den. Pvt. 

Thomas Fluker of the 15th Georgia recalled: “We raised a deafening yell and went over the rock fence and up the hill shouting 

and yelling like demons.” Birney shifted troops from other parts 

of his thin line to reinforce Devil’s Den, but the combined force of 

Alabamians, Arkansans, Georgians, and Texans overwhelmed the 

defenders, who grudgingly yielded both the position and several 

artillery pieces to the victorious Confederates. In truth, serendipity 

played a greater role in the Confederates’ success than deliberate 

execution. With Hood down, the assault lacked a guiding hand to 

separate the entangled brigades 

and put them back on track. 

The absence of capable senior 

leadership on the Confederate 

right flank stymied Longstreet’s 

efforts on 2 July.

In contrast, the Union 

commanders who directed the 

defense of Little Round Top 

displayed remarkable skill and 

initiative. On top of the hill 

with only a small signal detachment, Brig. Gen. Gouverneur 

K. Warren, Meade’s chief 

engineer, spotted Longstreet’s 

line of battle extending beyond 

Sickles’ left flank at Devil’s Den 

and recognized Little Round 

Top’s vulnerability. Knowing 

that Meade intended to anchor 

the left of his fishhook on that 

hill, Warren realized that he 

had to act. He saw reinforcements from the V Corps 

marching toward Sickles’ line 

General Warren (Library of 

Congress)
39

and directed one brigade to occupy Little Round Top. Col. Strong 

Vincent turned his column up the hill and deployed on the spur 

of its southern slope. 

Three Alabama regiments of Law’s brigade, along with 

the 4th and 5th Texas of Robertson’s brigade, soon approached 

Vincent’s position, where his four regiments—the 20th Maine, 83d 

Pennsylvania, 44th New York, and 16th Michigan—formed in line 

from left to right. The fighting first raged on the right of Vincent’s line 

where Texans took on Michiganders and New Yorkers. Sgt. Valerius 

Giles of the 5th Texas recalled that he and his comrades used “every 

tree, rock and stump that gave any protection from the rain of minié 

balls.” Both Sergeant Giles and Pvt. John Griffith took cover behind 

a “moss-covered old boulder 

about the size of a 500-pound 

cotton bale.” The rough terrain 

quickly disrupted attack formations, so “every fellow was his 

own general,” Giles continued. 

“Private soldiers gave commands 

as loud as the officers. Nobody 

paid any attention to either.” 

A few moments later, Law’s 

Alabamians launched an assault 

on the 83d Pennsylvania and the 

20th Maine. 

Colonel Vincent had made 

clear to Col. Joshua Lawrence 

Chamberlain that his 20th 

Maine now held the extreme 

left flank of the entire Union 

line. As a consequence, retreat 

was not an option. Firing first 

broke out on the regiment’s 

right and soon spread along 

Chamberlain’s entire line. After 

repulsing several attacks, the 

Maine soldiers noticed that 

troops of Col. William C. Oates’ 

15th Alabama were sweeping 

around their left flank. In 

response, Chamberlain bent 

Colonel Chamberlain, pictured 

here as major general (Library of 

Congress)
40 

back—or refused—his leftmost companies to confront them 

directly. Cpl. Theodore Gerrish never forgot “how rapidly the 

cartridges were torn from the boxes and stuffed in the smoking 

muzzles of the guns; how the steel rammers clashed and clanged in 

the heated barrels; how the men’s hands and faces grew grim and 

black with burning powder; how our little line, baptized with fire, 

reeled to and fro as it advanced or was pressed back.” He recalled 

as well “a terrible medly of cries, shouts, cheers, groans, prayers, 

curses, bursting shells, whizzing rifle-bullets, and clanging steel.” 

When the men of the 20th Maine had exhausted their ammunition, Chamberlain ordered them to fix bayonets. Accounts vary 

about the impetus for what happened next, but suffice to say that 

the 20th Maine’s refused flank led the charge down Little Round 

Top’s eastern slope, the line of onrushing men swinging out like 

a giant gate. “The effect was surprising,” Chamberlain reported, 

“many of the enemy’s first line threw down their arms and surrendered.” A Confederate officer fired his pistol at Chamberlain while 

offering his sword in token of surrender. The 20th Maine routed 

the exhausted Alabamians, but Chamberlain lost 124 of his 386 

men during the fight, 42 of them killed or mortally wounded. 

History has immortalized the 20th Maine for its stand on 

Little Round Top, but a similar crisis threatened Vincent’s right 

flank, where the line of the 16th Michigan nearly gave way. The 

timely arrival of Brig. Gen. Stephen H. Weed’s V Corps brigade, 

with Col. Patrick H. O’Rorke’s 140th New York in the lead, made 

the difference. “Bloody work was ready for us at our very feet,” 

Adjutant Porter Farley recalled. Many New Yorkers had no time to 

load their rifles or fix bayonets. “Down this way,” O’Rorke shouted, 

and according to Farley, the 140th “rushed down the rocky slope 

with all the same moral effect upon the rebels, who saw us coming, 

as if our bayonets had been fixed and we ready to charge upon 

them.” Little Round Top remained securely in Union hands—

but at a terrible cost. Warren was wounded, and Vincent, Weed, 

O’Rorke, and Lt. Charles E. Hazlett, the commander of Battery D, 

5th U.S. Artillery, all lost their lives defending it. 

While the Confederates succeeded in overrunning Devil’s 

Den and the Federals managed to hold on to Little Round Top, the 

outcome of the clash in the Rose Wheatfield was not so clear-cut. At 

first only a handful of III Corps regiments defended the position, 

but they were soon reinforced by two small V Corps brigades. 

After being crowded out of the fight at Devil’s Den, General “Tige” 
41

Anderson’s Georgians attacked the Union line in the Wheatfield. 

The 17th Maine, posted behind a stone wall at the southern edge 

of the field, bore the brunt of the Georgians’ first attack. According 

to the 17th Maine’s commander, Lt. Col. Charles B. Merrill, “The 

contest became very severe, the enemy at times being driven back 

by our line, and then by superior numbers compelling us in turn 

to give way.” The heavily outnumbered Union defenders began to 

buckle under the pressure of the Confederate attacks.

At that moment, Brig. Gen. John C. Caldwell’s division 

from Hancock’s II Corps arrived to stabilize the position. Each 

of Caldwell’s four brigades launched a separate attack. Brig. Gen. 

Samuel K. Zook’s brigade swept the woods and the western part 

of the Wheatfield, while Col. Edward E. Cross’ brigade attempted 

to clear the eastern half. Col. Patrick Kelly’s Irish Brigade engaged 

Brig. Gen. Joseph B. Kershaw’s South Carolinians—the first of 

McLaws’ brigades to enter the fight—on a little knob of ground 

in the Wheatfield’s southwestern corner. Relieving Cross’ men, 

Col. John R. Brooke’s brigade surged into the woods south of the 

Wheatfield and reached a high rocky shelf, where they collided 

with the Georgians of Brig. Gen. Paul J. Semmes’ brigade. The 

Confederates counterattacked and drove back the Union brigades 

with heavy losses; in the process, Brooke was severely wounded, 

and Cross, Zook, and Semmes all fell with mortal wounds.

The intense combat in the Wheatfield seared itself into the 

survivors’ memories. Pvt. James Houghton of the 4th Michigan 

described one horrific moment: “My tent mate James Johnston was 

shot. He was but a few feet in front of me when he fell. I heard him 

say I am killed. This was the last words that I heard him speak. The 

rest was groans. There was no help for him. He was shot seven times.” 

A terrified Capt. Charles Fuller of the 61st New York, wounded in 

the leg and unable to move to safety, had to lie “entirely helpless . . . 

hearing those vicious bullets singing over my head.”

Among the steady succession of reinforcements that 

Meade fed into the Wheatfield were two small brigades of U.S. 

Regular infantry from the V Corps; they briefly restored the 

numerical balance and prolonged the seesaw fight across the 

trampled grain. As sunset neared, however, the Confederates 

gained the upper hand. By 1830, Brig. Gen. William T. Wofford’s 

Georgians had pushed the Regulars out of the Wheatfield and 

pursued them to the foot of Little Round Top. Lt. John Page of 

the 3d U.S. Infantry remembered seeing artillerymen on the hill 
42 

waving their kepis as a signal to get out of the way. “We realized 

that they wished to use canister,” Page wrote, “so we took up the 

double quick.” In addition to Union artillery, a brigade of the 

Pennsylvania Reserves Division, the V Corps’ last reserve unit, 

as well as a fresh brigade of VI Corps troops, stopped Wofford’s 

advance. 

The Confederates withdrew to the western edge of the 

Wheatfield, while the Pennsylvania reserves deployed along the 

eastern tree line, transforming the trampled field into a grisly 

no-man’s-land strewn with dead and wounded men. One of the 

casualties, a Pennsylvania soldier named Lt. J. Jackson Purman, 

lay “in sleepless pain, during the long hours of that midsummer 

night” and worried about being hit by a stray shot from a nervous 

picket. Purman had good reason to be concerned. He noted that 

some men were wounded a second time—including himself—

while others were killed outright. Pvt. John Coxe of the 2d South 

Carolina “felt sorry for the wounded enemy,” but he and his 

comrades could do little for them. Coxe gave a wounded Union 

officer a drink of water and never forgot “his profuse thanks for the 

little service I was able to render him.” 

In contrast to the Wheatfield, there was little doubt about 

the fate of Sickles’ vulnerable Peach Orchard salient. Although 

the Union artillery chief, General Hunt, supplied several reserve 

batteries to defend that exposed ground, no infantry reinforcements from outside the III Corps were forthcoming. As a result, 

the position finally collapsed under the combined attacks of 

Kershaw’s South Carolinians from the south and Brig. Gen. 

William Barksdale’s Mississippians from the west. Several III 

Corps regiments fought in the Peach Orchard itself, and Brig. 

Gen. Charles K. Graham, whose brigade was posted just north 

of it, tried several times to shift his Pennsylvania regiments there 

before he fell wounded and became a prisoner. One of Graham’s 

men, William E. Loring of the 141st Pennsylvania, recalled 

fighting the Confederates at “close quarters” until the Federals 

were compelled to “fall back, our ranks . . . rapidly being thinned” 

while “the exultant enemy” pressed on in pursuit. As his troops 

gave way, Sickles realized that his worst fear had become reality: 

Confederate batteries wheeled into position on the high ground 

at the Peach Orchard and opened fire on his command. A shell 

from one of those guns nearly severed Sickles’ right leg, and it was 

amputated that night. 
43

Worse yet for Meade’s army, the loss of the Peach Orchard 

uncovered the left flank of Humphreys’ division posted along 

the Emmitsburg Road. This threat, combined with the advance 

of three of General Richard Anderson’s Third Corps brigades—

Brig. Gen. Cadmus M. Wilcox’s Alabamians, Col. David Lang’s 

Floridians, and Brig. Gen. Ambrose R. Wright’s Georgians—

against Humphreys’ front, succeeded in breaking the stubborn 

resistance of the III Corps and finally forcing it back. The collapse 

of the Emmitsburg Road line created yet another crisis for the 

Union high command. A huge gap remained in the Union line 

along lower Cemetery Ridge in the area formerly held by Sickles’ 

men and Caldwell’s II Corps division. A determined push by 

Barksdale, Wilcox, Lang, or Wright could have severed the Union 

supply line on the Taneytown Road just behind the ridge.

General Hancock displayed great initiative in shifting units 

from quiet sectors of his II Corps line to stop the attacking 

Confederates. Col. George L. Willard’s New York brigade slowed 

Confederate Dead at the Edge of the Rose Woods (Library of Congress)
44

Barksdale’s advance, with both commanders losing their lives in 

the desperate fighting. The famous charge of the 1st Minnesota 

helped to stop Wilcox’s Alabamians and some of Lang’s Floridians. 

The regiment lost 82 percent of the Minnesotans who went into 

the charge, but the frightful losses did not deter the survivors from 

accomplishing their mission. According to Sgt. Alfred Carpenter, 

“Bullets whistled past us; shells screeched over us; canister and 

grape fell about us; comrade after comrade dropped from the 

ranks; but on the line went. No one took a second look at his fallen 

companion. ‘We had not time to weep.’”

Wright’s Georgians crested Cemetery Ridge and captured 

several artillery pieces, only to collide with counterattacking II 

Corps soldiers. Meade also sent in XII Corps troops from Culp’s 

Hill, the battered remnants of several I Corps regiments, and 

even rallied some III Corps units to fill gaps in the Union line. As 

daylight faded and Anderson’s last two brigades failed to support 

the Confederate attacks up Cemetery Ridge, Longstreet’s assault 

finally foundered. The Union left flank and center had held.

While Longstreet’s attack unfolded, General Ewell prepared to 

launch his assault on the Confederate left (Map 6). By 1600, Ewell 

had deployed most of his artillery on Benner’s Hill east of town 

and opened a heavy bombardment on Cemetery Hill and Culp’s 

Hill. Although Ewell’s cannonade did considerable damage, the 

Union artillerymen responded with an even heavier counterbattery fire that soon silenced the Confederate guns. Then, following 

Lee’s orders to mount a full-fledged assault—and perhaps regretting his inaction of the previous evening—Ewell sent his infantry 

against the two heights. 

On the evening of 2 July, three brigades of Maj. Gen. 

Edward “Allegheny” Johnson’s division attacked Culp’s Hill. Only 

the 1,400 officers and men of Brig. Gen. George S. Greene’s New 

York brigade remained to defend the section of the line vacated 

by the rest of the XII Corps, which had gone to Sickles’ aid. An 

engineer, Greene had put his men to work building breastworks 

that afternoon. The entrenchments proved invaluable to the 

heavily outnumbered defenders. Near the crest of the hill, the 

60th New York repelled Brig. Gen. John M. Jones’ Virginians, 

capturing both prisoners and battle flags. According to the 60th 

New York’s historian, “The effects of our fire were so terrible 

that the [enemy’s] flags were abandoned, and the prisoners were 

afraid to either advance or retreat.” 
R O D E S

N I C H O L L S

S T E U A R T J O N E S

H A Y S

A V E R Y

E WELL

E A R L Y

J

O

H

N S O N

H

A

N

C

O

C

K

HOWARD

G I B B O N

H A Y S

WADSWORTH

D O U B L E D A Y

CARROLL

G R E E N E

Rock Creek

C emeter y

Hil l

C e m e t e r y R i d g e

Culp ’ s

Hill

400

400

400

400

380 360

420

420

420

400

420

440

420

440

460

440

440

420

380

380

360

360

340

340

Kuhn’s Brickyard

N. Codori

L. Leister

H. Spangler

G E T T Y S BURG

Pennsylvania

College

H. Culp

Y O R K P I K E

H A N O V E R R O A D

B A L T I M O R E P I K E

E M M I T S B U R G R O A D

T A N E Y T O W N R O A D

2 July 1863

D AY 2

E VENING

0 500 1000

Yards

Map 6
46 

Greene’s men, however, could not repulse Johnson’s attacks 

against the lower part of the hill. Brig. Gen. George H. Steuart’s 

swarming North Carolinians, Virginians, and Marylanders 

threatened the overextended 137th New York and forced them to 

withdraw up the hill to an earthen traverse that lay perpendicular 

to Greene’s original line. Together with reinforcements amounting 

to 750 men from at least three other corps, the 137th New York 

continued to defend Culp’s Hill from its new position. But it had 

been a near thing. In the darkness, Johnson’s Confederates had 

advanced to within a few hundred yards of the Union supply line 

on the Baltimore Pike but failed to press their advantage. 

Ewell, meanwhile, ordered Hays’ Louisiana brigade and 

Avery’s North Carolina brigade from Early’s division to assault 

the eastern slope of Cemetery Hill. Ewell also had intended for 

Pender’s and Rodes’ divisions to participate by attacking on Early’s 

right. Pender had been severely wounded earlier that day, and 

command of the division devolved on Brig. Gen. James H. Lane. 

Both Lane and Rodes were slow to deploy their forces, and by the 

time they were ready to step off, the fight on Cemetery Hill was 

over.

In any event, Hays’ Louisianans scattered the XI Corps 

defenders at the eastern base of the hill and headed for the New 

York and Pennsylvania batteries on the crest. As one Union battery 

commander reported, the Louisianans charged his guns “and 

succeeded in capturing and spiking my left piece. The cannoneers 

fought them hand-to-hand with handspikes, ramrods and pistols.” 

Although Colonel Avery, commanding on the Confederate left, 

fell mortally wounded early in the attack, his Tar Heels managed 

to advance across open fields swept by Union artillery and broke 

the XI Corps’ line in their front. As darkness fell, Col. Samuel S. 

Carroll’s brigade from Hancock’s II Corps double-quicked through 

Evergreen Cemetery, plugging the gap in the XI Corps’ line and 

pushing the Confederates off the hill. By then it was so dark 

that Carroll’s men could distinguish friend from foe only by the 

location of their muzzle flashes. While Ewell’s assaults on Culp’s 

Hill and Cemetery Hill had met with initial success, the attackers 

lacked sufficient striking power to exploit it.

The Third Day of Battle, 3 July

Around 2400, Meade summoned his senior subordinates to 

his headquarters at the Leister house. Although the meeting was 
47

not a formal council of war—Meade did not regard its decisions 

as binding—the commanding general’s chief of staff, Maj. Gen. 

Daniel A. Butterfield, nonetheless kept a record of the votes on 

three main questions. First, should the army stay or withdraw? The 

generals wanted to stay. Second, should the army attack or await 

Lee’s next move? This question inspired greater discussion, but the 

majority preferred to remain on the defensive. Third, how long 

should the army wait for Lee to move? The generals agreed that 

if Lee did nothing over the next twenty-four hours, they should 

reconsider their own options. 

As the meeting broke up, Meade spoke to Brig. Gen. John 

Gibbon, whose II Corps division held a portion of Cemetery Ridge 

close to Army headquarters. “If Lee attacks tomorrow,” Meade 

reportedly told Gibbon, “it will be in your front.” Gibbon assured 

Meade that his men would be ready. After the generals departed, 

Meade worked through the night to strengthen weak spots in his 

fishhook line. He paid special attention to his left flank on the 

Taneytown Road behind the Round Tops, the area that Hood had 

wanted to attack on 2 July. Had the Confederates tried to turn that 

flank on 3 July, they would have found two well-posted infantry 

brigades, supported by artillery, waiting for them.

General Lee, for his part, did not hold a meeting of his senior 

leaders but instead formulated his own plans for 3 July. Because 

he considered the results of both Longstreet’s and Ewell’s efforts 

against the Union flanks on 2 July to be partial successes, he determined to renew the attacks on those points. As he later wrote, “the 

general plan was unchanged.” He issued orders for early morning 

assaults against both Union flanks. 

Around 0430, cannon fire shattered the predawn stillness. 

In an effort to reclaim possession of his trenches on lower Culp’s 

Hill, the acting XII Corps commander, Brig. Gen. Alpheus S. 

Williams, ordered his batteries to fire on the Confederate troops 

occupying them. In response, Ewell launched the early morning 

attack that Lee had ordered. Flashes of musketry soon lit up the 

slopes of the hill. During the night, Ewell had doubled the size of 

his attacking force. But the entire XII Corps had since returned 

to join Greene’s brigade in the trenches, and Meade had sent a 

brigade from the VI Corps as additional reinforcement. Hundreds 

of Confederate attackers fell before sheets of unrelenting Union 

musketry, as fresh regiments swapped places with frontline units 

that had emptied their cartridge boxes. A soldier in the 149th 
48 

New York recalled: “It was surprising to behold the number of 

the enemy’s dead, which were scattered on the ground, behind 

rocks, and even hanging on the limbs of trees.” The Union right 

flank on Culp’s Hill remained secure.

Once the firing on the hill had died down, orders came from 

XII Corps headquarters for skirmishers to probe the Confederate 

line at Spangler’s Spring. The message became garbled in transmission and reached the commander of the 2d Massachusetts, Lt. 

Col. Charles R. Mudge, as an order for a full-blown attack. “It is 

murder, but it’s the order,” observed Mudge, who then shouted: 

“Up, men, over the works!” The 2d Massachusetts and the 27th 

Indiana advanced into an open field, only to be mowed down by 

Confederates posted behind strong stone walls. Mudge himself fell 

mortally wounded while leading the futile charge. The two Union 

regiments fell back with heavy losses.

On Seminary Ridge, meanwhile, Lee listened to the firefight 

on Culp’s Hill with growing concern. Mistaking the artillery fire 

as Ewell’s early morning assault, he soon learned that the Union 

army had taken the initiative. He also listened for the sound of 

Longstreet’s attack on the Union left, but discovered that his senior 

subordinate had not yet launched his own assault and showed no 

inclination to do so. In any case, the duration and intensity of the 

fighting on Culp’s Hill convinced Lee that Meade had reinforced 

his right flank overnight and that he had done the same for his 

left. Lee thus surmised that the Union line must be weakest in the 

center, and he considered the possibility of attacking Cemetery 

Ridge itself. Longstreet once again offered his frank assessment 

and restated his preference for alternative courses of action; he 

took seriously his responsibility as Lee’s senior subordinate to 

provide such advice. “General,” he said, “I have been a soldier all 

my life. . . . It is my opinion that no fifteen thousand men arranged 

for battle can take that position.”

After listening to Longstreet state his case, Lee decided on 

the attack that came to be known as “Pickett’s Charge.” Col. 

Armistead L. Long of Lee’s staff later refuted what he considered to be a glaring misconception about the commanding 

general’s decision: “The attack of Pickett’s division on [3 July] 

has been more criticized, and is still less understood, than any 

other act of the Gettysburg drama.” Long noted that “it has 

been characterized as rash and objectless, on the order of ‘The 

Charge of the Light Brigade’; nevertheless it was not ordered 
49

without mature consideration, and on grounds that presented 

fair prospects of success.”

Lee made several important decisions regarding the attack 

on the Union center. First, he selected the troops. He chose his 

only remaining fresh units, Pickett’s three Virginia brigades from 

Longstreet’s First Corps. They seemed primed for action. According 

to Lt. Col. Rawley Martin of the 53d Virginia, “The esprit de corps 

could not have been better.” But the division numbered only about 

5,500 officers and men. To add more weight to the attack, Lee 

turned to Heth’s division, the unit from Hill’s Third Corps that had 

opened the battle on 1 July. Knowing that the division had suffered 

heavy casualties—including the wounded Heth, who was replaced 

by Pettigrew—Lee added two brigades from Pender’s division 

under the command of Maj. Gen. Isaac R. Trimble and directed 

him to support Pettigrew. Lee thus planned to send about 13,000 

soldiers against the Union center, but the commands of Pickett, 

Pettigrew, and Trimble came from two different corps, and two of 

the three senior leaders were new to their duties.

Lee’s second decision called for an artillery bombardment of 

the Union center to precede the infantry assault. The attackers had 

to cross undulating, open ground for nearly a mile, and Lee worried 

about the impact of massed artillery on his ranks. He therefore 

exploited one of the few advantages his sprawling exterior lines 

offered: the ability to concentrate artillery fire on a specific point. 

His target was a prominent copse of trees near the center of the 

enemy line on Cemetery Ridge. 

Third, Lee decided to place Longstreet in command of the 

attack. Lee’s senior subordinate tried to sidestep the assignment by 

suggesting that General Hill should be the commander, because 

slightly more than half of the assaulting force came from his Third 

Corps. A withering look from Lee quickly put that notion to 

rest. Like it or not, Longstreet now had to execute Lee’s plan. As 

Longstreet later noted, “Nothing was left but to proceed.”

About 1300, the Confederate artillery opened fire on the guns 

positioned along the center of the Union line. Many projectiles 

overshot their target and landed among the supply wagons and 

ambulances behind Cemetery Ridge or crashed into Meade’s 

headquarters at the Leister house. The errant rounds wounded 

several of Meade’s staff and forced the temporary evacuation of 

the Union Army headquarters. Yet a large number of Confederate 

shells found their targets, dismounting guns, exploding caissons, 
50 

and killing or disabling artillerymen and draft horses. Union 

batteries answered the Confederate cannonade, of course, but 

Generals Hancock and Hunt engaged in a contest of wills over fire 

control. As the army’s chief of artillery, Hunt ordered all Union 

guns to “fire deliberately, and to husband their ammunition,” 

while Hancock instructed his II Corps batteries to maintain a 

steady fire to bolster the morale of his infantrymen, “covering 

themselves as best they might by the temporary but trifling 

defenses they had erected and the accidents of the ground.” 

Union counterbattery fire took a heavy toll on Lee’s guns. 

Hunt’s inspection of the Confederate line on 5 July convinced him 

that the enemy’s “losses in materiel in the artillery combat were 

equal to ours.” Any shots that sailed long plunged into the ranks 

of the Southern infantrymen deploying for the attack. Sgt. Maj. 

David Johnston of the 7th Virginia never forgot the “fiery fuses 

and messengers of death, sweeping, plunging, cutting, plowing 

through our ranks, carrying mutilation, destruction, pain, suffering 

and death in every direction.” Gettysburg eyewitness accounts that 

mention the bombardment vary widely as to estimates of duration, 

demonstrating the fluidity of time in such stressful circumstances. 

Those who listened far from the scene recall a shelling of only a few 

minutes’ duration, while others within range of the projectiles claim 

that the bombardment lasted from two to four hours. 

At the height of the cannonade, Longstreet received a note 

from his acting First Corps artillery chief, Lt. Col. E. Porter 

Alexander, warning that he was running low on ammunition. 

He added this plea: “If you are coming at all you must come at 

once, or I cannot give you proper support; but the enemy’s fire 

has not slackened at all; at least eighteen guns are still firing from 

the cemetery itself.” A second message soon followed: “For God’s 

sake, come quick. The eighteen guns are gone; come quick or 

my ammunition won’t let me support you properly.” In truth, 

Alexander had observed the removal of several damaged Union 

batteries on Cemetery Hill, unaware that reserve guns were 

standing by to replace them. 

The firing at last stopped, and everyone knew that the 

Confederate infantry would soon advance, but Longstreet hesitated to give the order. As he told Alexander, “I would stop it now 

but that General Lee ordered it and expects it to go on. I don’t see 

how it can succeed.” When Pickett arrived for the order to advance, 

Longstreet could only nod in assent.
51

Hundreds of wartime and postwar illustrations of “Pickett’s 

Charge” depict straight, unbroken battle lines emerging from the tree 

line on Seminary Ridge; extending over a mile in length, they advance 

with parade-ground precision 

across terrain as flat as a table 

top (Map 7). All such depictions 

are mistaken. By midmorning, 

Pickett’s Virginians had taken 

position in the swales around 

the Spangler farm buildings on 

the right-center of Lee’s line, well 

beyond the Seminary Ridge tree 

line. The brigades commanded 

by Brig. Gens. Richard B. Garnett 

and James L. Kemper formed 

ranks in front of the farm buildings, while Brig. Gen. Lewis A. 

Armistead’s brigade deployed 

behind a low ridge in Garnett’s 

rear. From their position, they 

could not see the clump of trees 

on Cemetery Ridge, but neither 

could the Union infantry and 

artillery see Pickett’s men.

Pettigrew’s and Trimble’s Alabamians, Mississippians, 

North Carolinians, Tennesseans, and Virginians enjoyed similar 

protection in their preattack position on the reverse slope of 

Seminary Ridge, behind the tree line and about 600 yards north 

of Pickett’s lines. As these deployments suggest—but most 

popular illustrations fail to depict—the Confederate juggernaut that swept eastward toward the Union center on Cemetery 

Ridge actually consisted of two distinct forces: Pickett’s division 

advancing from the low ground on the Spangler farm, while 

Pettigrew and Trimble marched out of the tree line on Seminary 

Ridge. 

The assault force suffered comparatively light losses until 

it passed the halfway point to Cemetery Ridge. Pickett’s men 

marched by left oblique, angling forward and to the left in 

order to close on Pettigrew’s line prior to the final push on the 

Union center near the clump of trees. As Pickett’s three brigades 

approached the Emmitsburg Road, they came into full view of 

General Pickett (Library of 

Congress)
P I C K E T T

P E T T I G R E W

T R I M B L E

R.H. ANDERSON

R

O

D

E

S

L O

N

G

S

T

R

E

E

T

GARNETT

KEMPER

ARMISTEAD

HANCOCK

H A Y S

8 Ohio

G I B B O N

DOUBLEDAY

B I R N E Y CALDWELL

H O W A R D

400

400

420

420

440

460

440

440

420

420

400

420

380

380

440

440

420

420

420

400

400

400

400

380

440

Cemete r y

Hill

S e m i n a r y R i d g e

Little

Round T o p

Wheateld

Peach Orchard

Copse of Trees

Herbst

N. Codori

L. Leister

W. Bliss

J. Rose

H. Spangler

G E T T Y S BURG

J. Sherfy

B A L T I M O R E P I K E

E M M I T S B U R G R O A D

T A N E Y T O W N R O A D

F A I R F I E L D R O A D

3 July 1863

D AY 3

MIDAFTERNOON

0 500 1000

Yards

Map 7
53

Hancock’s II Corps artillery and several batteries that Hunt had 

massed along the portion of the II and III Corps line reconstructed the previous evening. The Union artillery maintained 

a deliberate fire as it switched from shell to canister, a shortrange round filled with lead balls that transformed cannon into 

giant shotguns. To increase the lethal effect, Union gun crews 

on Cemetery Ridge also fired double canister—two rounds 

loaded simultaneously into the gun tube and fired using a single 

charge. Until Pettigrew’s and Trimble’s men cleared the smoky 

Bliss farmyard, they enjoyed some protection from the Union 

guns. But the batteries soon found their range. On Pettigrew’s 

left, Col. John M. Brockenbrough’s brigade of Virginians 

advanced a short distance before heavy musketry from the 8th 

Ohio Infantry and cannon fire from Cemetery Hill caused the 

men to break to the rear. 

As they approached the Emmitsburg Road, Pickett’s and 

Pettigrew’s men could finally see each other, but whatever success 

they enjoyed in coordinating their actions was more accidental 

than deliberate. The two forces brushed aside a line of Union 

skirmishers, only to confront a pair of post and rail fences that 

lined each side of the road—a daunting obstacle that broke the 

forward momentum of the Confederate advance. Once over the 

fences, Pickett’s troops dressed their lines and pressed on toward 

Hancock’s defenders at the copse of trees. Garnett’s men broke to 

the left of the Codori farm while Kemper’s brigade swung to the 

right, angling toward the copse of trees where Brig. Gen. Alexander 

S. Webb’s Philadelphia Brigade waited. In doing so, the Virginians 

swept past the front of the other two brigades of Gibbon’s division, 

each brigade later claiming that the intensity of its fire had driven 

the Confederates from its sector. According to Capt. Henry L. 

Abbott, the commander of the 20th Massachusetts, his men began 

“shouting out ‘Fredericksburg,’ imagining the victory as complete 

everywhere as it was in front of the Third Brigade.” Indeed, many 

II Corps veterans at Gettysburg saw this battle as an opportunity to exact revenge for their bloody repulse in the Battle of 

Fredericksburg seven months earlier. 

Pettigrew’s and Trimble’s line of advance carried them toward 

the section of the II Corps line on Gibbon’s right, which was held 

by Brig. Gen. Alexander Hays’ division. Gibbon’s and Hays’ men 

enjoyed the cover of rock walls that ran north and south along 

Cemetery Ridge, but the wall in front of Hays’ division stood closer 
54 

to the crest than the wall protecting Gibbon’s men. A perpendicular 

rock wall that connected the walls fronting Gibbon’s and Hays’ 

divisions formed an area behind Gibbon’s right flank known as 

the Angle. Should the Confederates reach the Union line, Pickett’s 

Virginians would first strike Gibbon’s position at the Angle. 

The Confederate advance took about twenty minutes. Garnett’s 

and Kemper’s men halted before the stone wall and traded their 

first volleys with Gibbon’s troops. At first Webb’s men behind the 

rock wall at the Angle held fast, but they began to waver as the 

Confederate attackers drew near. Nearby, Lt. Alonzo H. Cushing, 

the commander of Battery A, 4th U.S. Artillery, pushed forward 

his three undamaged cannon to the wall in preparation for the 

Confederate onslaught. The severely wounded Cushing was so weak 

that he had to issue orders through one of his men. During the final 

rush to the wall, Lt. John Dooley of the 1st Virginia called out: “On, 

men, on! Thirty more yards and the guns are ours!”

Pickett’s men breached the Union line in two places. Firing 

double canister at point-blank range, Capt. Andrew Cowan’s 1st 

New York Independent Battery quickly sealed the smaller gap 

just south of the clump of trees. A few yards shy of the wall, both 

Kemper and Garnett fell—the former severely wounded and the 

latter killed—leaving Armistead to lead a sizeable number of 

Confederates through a second, and much larger, penetration of 

the wall at the Angle just north of the copse of trees. Moments after 

firing his last canister round, Cushing fell dead, the bullet entering 

his mouth and exiting out the back of his skull. As the Confederates 

swarmed over the wall, many of Webb’s Pennsylvanians panicked 

and fled. First Lt. Frank A. Haskell of Gibbon’s staff recalled: “Great 

heaven! Were my senses mad? The larger portion of Webb’s brigade 

. . . was falling back, a fear-stricken flock of confusion! The fate of 

Gettysburg hung upon a spider’s single thread!”

Webb managed to rally a part of his brigade, and his command 

was soon joined by other regiments from Gibbon’s division. The 

defenders sealed the breach at the Angle and then drove Pickett’s 

men back to the stone wall. During the melee, Armistead fell 

mortally wounded, while Webb was shot in the groin and both 

Gibbon and Hancock were severely wounded. Many of the 

remaining Virginians cast anxious glances over their shoulders in 

expectation of reinforcements. Two of General Hill’s brigades—

Wilcox’s and Lang’s—advanced to support Pickett’s right flank, 

but rather than move toward the clump of trees as intended, they 
55

marched toward Hunt’s massed batteries, whose canister fire soon 

halted the Confederates. In the meantime, three regiments of Brig. 

Gen. George J. Stannard’s Vermont brigade swung out and poured a 

deadly fire into the right flank of Pickett’s division. Hard-pressed by 

Stannard’s Vermonters and with no reinforcements in sight, some 

of the surviving Virginians surrendered while the remainder slowly 

fell back. The fight at the wall had lasted about twenty minutes.

On Pickett’s left, some of Pettigrew’s and Trimble’s men advanced 

to a point farther up the slope of Cemetery Ridge than Pickett’s troops 

had reached. Try as they might, however, the Confederates could not 

penetrate the recessed wall that protected General Hays’ division. 

As Hays reported, “Four lines rose from behind our stone wall, and 

before the smoke of our first volley had cleared away, the enemy, in 

dismay and consternation, were seeking safety in flight. . . . In less 

time than I can recount it, they were throwing away their arms and 

appealing most piteously for mercy.”

Both North Carolina and Mississippi claimed the laurels for 

the farthest Confederate advance on 3 July. Based in part on the spot 

where Capt. E. Fletcher Satterfield of the 55th North Carolina reportedly fell dead, North Carolina later adopted as its state motto: “First 

at Bethel, Farthest to the front at Gettysburg and Chickamauga, 

and Last at Appomattox.” Regardless of the truth of these claims, 

the combined firepower of Hays’ infantry and the Union artillery on 

Cemetery Hill succeeded in stopping Pettigrew and Trimble. 

Although no one—least of all Lee or Meade—could have 

known it at the time, the main infantry fight at Gettysburg had 

ended with Pickett’s Charge. Col. Norman J. Hall, who commanded 

a Union brigade near the copse of trees, assessed the decisiveness 

of the final major action: “The decision of the rebel commander 

was upon that point; the concentration of artillery fire was upon 

that point; the din of battle developed in a column of attack upon 

that point; the greatest effort and greatest carnage was at that point; 

and the victory was at that point.”

Lee met Pickett’s men as they returned to Seminary Ridge. 

“It’s all my fault,” he told them, but he also urged them to do their 

duty. When he met Pickett, Lee ordered him to rally his division 

to repulse an expected Union counterattack. “General Lee,” Pickett 

reportedly told him, “I have no division.” Pickett had in fact 

lost roughly 60 percent of his men in the assault. Pettigrew’s and 

Trimble’s commands also lost heavily, but it is impossible to be more 

specific, given that their casualty figures for the three days of battle 
56 

are combined. Horrific memories of the 3 July charge haunted many 

of the survivors long after it was over. In a Christmastime letter to 

his family, Capt. Henry T. Owen of the 18th Virginia described a 

recurring nightmare in which he saw once more “the lofty hills, 

broken rocks and frightful precipices which resembled Gettysburg 

. . . and went all through the Battle of Gettysburg again.”

As Lee launched his assault on the Union center, General 

Stuart—who had finally rejoined the Army of Northern Virginia on 2 

July—became locked in a heated clash with Union cavalry four miles 

east of Gettysburg. In his report, Lee had little to say about Stuart’s 

mission on 3 July, but the cavalry chief offered his own account. At 

Lee’s behest, Stuart rode out beyond the army’s left flank toward 

Hanover, where he found “a commanding ridge” that “completely 

controlled a wide plain of cultivated fields stretching toward Hanover.” 

From this vantage point, he rendered “Ewell’s left entirely secure” and 

“commanded a view of the routes leading to the enemy’s rear.” Indeed, 

Stuart’s position placed him near the key intersection of the Hanover 

Road and the Low Dutch Road. A few miles farther south, the Low 

Dutch Road intersected with the Baltimore Pike. If Stuart could reach 

that point, he would be “in precisely the right position” to disrupt the 

Union retreat should “the enemy’s main body [be] dislodged, as was 

confidently hoped and expected.” 

Stuart also found elements of Brig. Gen. David M. Gregg’s Union 

cavalry division blocking his route to the intersection. Dismounted 

Union troopers fired on the advancing Confederates from behind 

trees, stone walls, and the Rummel farm buildings. The fighting soon 

intensified, culminating in one of the war’s greatest mounted charges. 

Brig. Gen. Wade Hampton’s Southern cavalrymen drew sabers and 

charged south across open fields toward the Hanover Road, while 

reinforcements from a Michigan cavalry brigade led by the newly 

promoted Brig. Gen. George Armstrong Custer raced to intercept 

them. According to a Pennsylvania cavalryman, 

The gait increased—first the trot, then the gallop. . . . The words of 

the Confederate officers could be heard by those in the woods on 

their left: “Keep to your sabres men, keep to your sabres!” for the 

lessons they had learned at Brandy Station and at Aldie had been 

severe. There the cry had been: “Put up your sabres! Draw your 

pistols and fight like gentlemen!” . . . As the charge was ordered 

the speed increased, every horse on the jump, every man yelling 

like a demon.
57

At first, the Michigan men wavered, but then Custer “waved his 

sabre and shouted, ‘Come on, you Wolverines!’” Led by the Michigan 

brigade, Gregg’s Union cavalry broke the Confederate charge. Custer 

later boasted, “I challenge the annals of warfare to produce a more 

brilliant or successful charge of cavalry than the one just recounted.” 

Several miles to the southwest, Union cavalry spent 3 July 

launching their own assaults against the Confederate right flank 

and rear. Brig. Gen. Judson Kilpatrick’s Union cavalry division—less 

Custer and his Wolverines, who were busy making their names east 

of town—advanced up the Emmitsburg Road late that afternoon and 

probed Lee’s right flank just south of the Round Tops. General Law, 

commanding Hood’s battered division, quickly shifted General “Tige” 

Anderson’s Georgia brigade to a new line astride the road and facing 

south to repel the advance of Brig. Gen. Wesley Merritt’s brigade.

On Merritt’s right, Brig. Gen. Elon J. Farnsworth led his brigade 

into position. Kilpatrick ordered Farnsworth to advance into the 

rough low ground in his front, pass through the Slyder farm, cross the 

southwest slope of Round Top, and attack the Confederate line held 

by the Texans and Alabamians of Hood’s division. Farnsworth and 

Kilpatrick allegedly exchanged heated words over the mission, during 

which Kilpatrick accused his subordinate of cowardice. Farnsworth 

led the charge as ordered, and his brigade suffered a bloody repulse. 

Among the casualties was Farnsworth, who became the last general 

officer to be killed in action at Gettysburg. Farnsworth’s futile charge 

marked the end of the fighting on 3 July. 

After the Battle: 4 July and Beyond

On 4 July, the two armies still confronted each other, but only 

an occasional crack of musketry broke the calm that had descended 

on the battlefield. Meade issued orders congratulating his army for 

its victory and directing that the enemy’s dead within their lines be 

buried. The midsummer heat and humidity spawned heavy afternoon thunderstorms, resulting in flash floods that evening. Creeks 

rose so quickly that badly wounded soldiers drowned before their 

comrades could rescue them. During the night, Lee withdrew Ewell’s 

Second Corps from its position around Culp’s Hill and consolidated 

his army along Seminary Ridge. On the morning of 5 July, Union 

skirmishers entered Gettysburg and discovered that Lee’s men had 

evacuated the town.

The Confederates, meanwhile, began the long march south to 

Virginia. Lee sent his infantry and artillery on the Fairfield Road, 
58 

bearing southwest toward the Monterrey Gap, Hagerstown, and 

the Potomac River crossings at Williamsport and Falling Waters. 

About 5,000 Union prisoners marched with the column, guarded 

by the remnant of Pickett’s division. Lee directed that the wounded 

able to travel be loaded into wagons, and he sent the column on 

the Chambersburg Pike under the protection of Brig. Gen. John D. 

Imboden’s cavalry brigade. The wagon train reportedly stretched for 

seventeen miles, its route leading through Cashtown, Greencastle, 

Hagerstown, and Williamsport.

On 4 July, Meade had sent his cavalry around the Army of 

Northern Virginia to disrupt the enemy’s retreat. The blue-clad 

horsemen struck Lee’s long wagon trains, liberating many Union 

prisoners while capturing hundreds of wounded Confederates. 

On 5 July, Meade directed that his freshest unit, Maj. Gen. John 

Sedgwick’s VI Corps, conduct a reconnaissance in force on 

the Fairfield Road, but Sedgwick halted his advance when the 

Confederate rear guard offered battle a few miles east of Fairfield. 

Sedgwick reported that the enemy was marching through narrow 

mountain passes. Concluding that a small force could easily defend 

those passes, Meade abandoned the idea of direct pursuit and 

decided to cut off Lee’s army from its Potomac River crossings. He 

directed the Army of the Potomac to head due south into Maryland 

and then turn west, passing through Turner’s and Fox’s Gaps—

familiar terrain to veterans of the 1862 Maryland Campaign.

Meade moved cautiously, enabling Lee’s army to concentrate 

at Williamsport by 10 July, well ahead of the Union army. But the 

Confederates discovered that Union cavalry had dashed in ahead of 

them and destroyed the pontoon bridge at Falling Waters, and that 

heavy rains had flooded the ford at Williamsport. Lee therefore had 

his exhausted men construct strong fortifications to defend the crossings while his engineers rebuilt the pontoon bridge. 

On 12 July, Meade’s advance reached Williamsport. By that time, 

however, Lee’s men had built a formidable line of earthworks. Meade 

nevertheless decided to attack Lee’s army the next day. Once again he 

summoned his corps commanders to obtain their views on the situation. While all agreed that a golden opportunity to end the war lay 

within their grasp, the strength of the Confederate earthworks gave 

them pause. An attack on those works, General Howard asserted, 

could result in a Pickett’s Charge in reverse. In the end, Meade decided 

to delay the attack for one more day in hopes of better weather. On 

13 July, the Confederates completed their pontoon bridge—“new 
59

boats having [been] constructed and some of the old recovered,” Lee 

reported. Under the cover of yet another heavy rain, the bulk of the 

Army of Northern Virginia safely crossed the Potomac that night, with 

some intrepid Confederates using the rain-swollen ford. The fourteenth of July dawned bright and fair, but the Federals were chagrined 

to find the Confederate works empty. Elements of Buford’s cavalry 

briefly clashed with the Confederate rear guard at Falling Waters; 

during the skirmish, General Pettigrew was mortally wounded, but 

Lee’s army was once more on Virginia soil. 

 Meade’s—and Lincoln’s—hopes for a decisive end to the 

campaign thus met with disappointment. Buoyed by news of Grant’s 

great victory at Vicksburg, Lincoln had expected similar tidings from 

Meade. “We had them within our grasp,” Lincoln said. “We had only 

to stretch forth our hands and they were ours. And nothing I could 

say or do could make the Army move.”

Lincoln failed to appreciate that Meade’s army was as disorganized in victory as Lee’s army was in defeat. Meade had lost heavily 

in officers and men, including two trusted corps commanders, 

Reynolds and Hancock. His men desperately needed food and other 

supplies—above all, new shoes to replace the ones they had worn 

out while marching on Pennsylvania’s paved roads or that had been 

sucked off while slogging along Maryland’s muddy thoroughfares. 

Throughout the pursuit, Meade received messages from General 

Halleck urging him forward. But it never occurred to either Lincoln 

or Halleck that they could have supported Meade by detaching 

troops from the Washington defenses or other nearby garrisons. In 

Pursuit of Lee’s army. Scene on the road near Emmitsburg—marching 

through the rain. 7 July 1863. By Edwin Forbes. (Library of Congress)
60 

their frustration over Lee’s escape across the Potomac, they failed to 

grasp the extent of Meade’s victory at Gettysburg or of the damage 

done to the Army of the Potomac. 

Analysis

Despite the Union victory at Gettysburg and the resulting 

euphoria in the North, the war seemed no closer to winding down. 

Nobody understood this dichotomy better than President Lincoln. 

“I do not believe you appreciate the magnitude of the misfortune 

involved in Lee’s escape,” the president wrote to General Meade in 

a letter that he never sent. “Your golden opportunity is gone and 

I am distressed immeasurably because of it.” Gettysburg had cost 

the Army of the Potomac dearly. Meade lost 3,155 soldiers killed 

in action, 14,529 wounded—including as many as 2,000 who later 

died of their injuries—and 5,365 missing, for a total of 23,049 

casualties. That amounted to roughly one-fourth of the Union 

soldiers engaged in the battle. 

Despite the criticism leveled at him for not crushing Lee’s 

army, Meade realized what he had accomplished. Halleck had 

given him a mission: protect Washington and Baltimore, and bring 

Lee to battle. Meade had done all that and more—and he knew 

it. In his official report, Meade listed his army’s achievements: 

“the defeat of the enemy at Gettysburg, his compulsory evacuation from Pennsylvania and Maryland and withdrawal from the 

upper Shenandoah, and . . . the capture of 3 guns, 41 standards and 

13,621 prisoners and 24,978 small arms.”

Even so, few of Meade’s contemporaries gave him credit for 

the skill that he had demonstrated at Gettysburg. He made effective use of both his numerical superiority and his interior lines 

in shuttling troops from quiet sectors to crisis points, and above 

all, in shoring up Sickles’ shattered line on 2 July. At long last the 

Army of the Potomac had a commander who made full use of 

the manpower at his disposal. Meade also obtained consensus—

though without seeking permission—from his subordinates to 

continue the fight on 3 July. He accomplished all of this during his 

first week as army commander.

Meade’s success also meant that Lee and the Army of Northern 

Virginia had to deal with the unaccustomed consequences of 

defeat. The casualty lists for Lee’s army testify to the extent of the 
61

disaster. According to Medical Director Lafayette Guild, the Army 

of Northern Virginia lost 2,592 killed, 12,709 wounded, and 5,150 

missing, for a total of 20,451 casualties, nearly one-third of Lee’s 

troop strength. Lee also lost the services of several key division 

commanders—most notably, the mortally wounded Pender and 

the severely injured Hood. Many of Lee’s regiments never recovered from their losses at Gettysburg. Lee blamed himself for the 

defeat and offered his resignation, but President Davis immediately rejected it. 

There was certainly plenty of blame to go around. In the weeks 

following the battle, Richmond newspapers criticized General 

Stuart for his long absence, General Ewell for his failure to take 

Cemetery Hill on 1 July, General Richard Anderson for putting 

only three of his five brigades into action on 2 July, and General 

Pettigrew for not properly supporting what Richmond journalists 

increasingly referred to as Pickett’s Charge. Even Lee’s judgment 

came under scrutiny—something rarely done up to then. Yet 

Longstreet managed to escape much of the opprobrium attached 

to the Confederate high command, which is ironic given that he 

would become a lightning rod for controversy after the war.

Within a few short years, the Battle of Gettysburg attained a 

special aura that has distinguished it ever since. Boston journalist 

Charles Carleton Coffin dubbed it “the high water mark” of the 

rebellion, while others described it as the “turning point of the 

war.” But it was President Lincoln who most eloquently expressed 

Gettysburg’s significance. On 19 November 1863, Lincoln delivered “a few appropriate remarks” at the dedication of the Soldiers’ 

National Cemetery that became known as the Gettysburg 

Address: “We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have 

died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth 

of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for 

the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
62 

The Authors

Carol Reardon holds a Ph.D. from the University of Kentucky and 

is the George Winfree Professor of American History at Pennsylvania 

State University. Her publications include Pickett’s Charge in History 

and Memory (1997) and With a Sword in One Hand and Jomini in the 

Other: The Problem of Military Thought in the Civil War North (2012). 

Tom Vossler is a retired U.S. Army colonel and former director of the 

U.S. Army Military History Institute. Since 1998, he has worked as a 

licensed battlefield guide at Gettysburg National Military Park where 

he conducts military staff rides, civilian corporate leadership seminars, 

and general interest tours of the battlefield.

Further Readings

Coddington, Edwin B. Gettysburg: A Study in Command. New York: 

Touchstone, 1997.

Hess, Earl J. Pickett’s Charge: The Last Attack at Gettysburg. Chapel Hill: 

University of North Carolina Press, 2000.

Pfanz, Harry W. Gettysburg: Culp’s Hill and Cemetery Hill. Chapel Hill: 

University of North Carolina Press, 1993.

———. Gettysburg: The First Day. Chapel Hill: University of North 

Carolina Press, 2000. 

———. Gettysburg: The Second Day. University of North Carolina Press, 

1987. 

Reardon, Carol. Pickett’s Charge in History and Memory. Chapel Hill: 

University of North Carolina Press, 1997.

Sears, Stephen W. Gettysburg. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2003.

Trudeau, Noah Andre. Gettysburg: A Testing of Courage. New York: 

Harper, 2002.

Wert, Jeffry D. Gettysburg: Day Three. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001.

Woodworth, Stephen E. Beneath a Northern Sky: A Short History of the 

Gettysburg Campaign. Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 2003. 

For more information on the U.S. Army in the Civil War, please read 

other titles in the U.S. Army Campaigns of the Civil War series 

published by the U.S. Army Center of Military History.
63

Map Symbols

The topographic contour lines on the maps in this publication 

are based on the 1895 Map of the Battle-field of Gettysburg, surveyed 

and drawn under the direction Maj. Gouverneur K. Warren. This 

map used a local datum on the Gettysburg battlefield—the plane of 

reference is taken 500 feet below a benchmark on Cemetery Hill. 

The contour intervals are 20 feet.

raphic contour lines on the maps in this publication are based on the 1895 Map of the Battle-eld of Gettysburg; surveyed an

er the direction Major Gouverneur K. Warren. This map used a local datum on the Gettysburg battlefield—the plane of refe

feet below a bench mark on Cemetery Hill. The contour intervals are 20 feet.

Confederate Union

MILITARY SYMBOLS

Units of various strength

Axis of Advance

Axis of Retreat

Unit Movement

Major Roa

Minor Roa

Woods

Wheatfield

Unit Movement

Axis of Retreat

Axis of Advance

Units of various strength

Confederate Union

Confederate Union

MILITARY SYMBOLS

Units of various strength

Axis of Advance

Buildings

GENERAL SYMBOLS

Major Road

Minor Road

Orchard

TION

Woods

Wheatfield

Minor Road

Major Road

Buildings

Confederate Union

MILITARY SYMBOLS

Units of various s

Axis of Advance

GENERA

Orchard

VEGETATION

Woods

Wheatfield

Orchard

Wheatfield

Woods

Vegetation General Symbols

Military Symbols
PIN : 103392–000

The

Civil

War Sesquicentennial