page_title: Culp's Hill
section_title: Third day
hierarchical_section_title: Culp's Hill / Battle / Third day
caption_attribution_description: English: (Map of actions in the Battle of Gettysburg, third day, Culp's Hill. Drawn by Hal Jespersen in Macromedia Freehand. Graphic source file is available at http://www.posix.com/CWmaps/ New version improves accuracy of unit positions and graphic style that matches others in the Gettysburg series. Drawn by Hal Jespersen in Adobe Illustrator CS5. ) Dansk: Kort over kampene i Slaget ved Gettysburg, tredje dag, Culp's Hill. Tegnet af Hal Jespersen
context_page_description: Culp's Hill, which is about ³⁄₄ mi south of the center of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, played a prominent role in the Battle of Gettysburg. It consists of two rounded peaks, separated by a narrow saddle. Its heavily wooded higher peak is 630 ft above sea level. The lower peak is about 100 feet shorter than its companion. The eastern slope descends to Rock Creek, about 160 feet lower in elevation, and the western slope is to a saddle with Stevens Knoll with a summit 100 ft lower than the main Culp's Hill summit. The hill was owned in 1863 by farmer Henry Culp and was publicized as "Culp's Hill" by October 31, 1865.
  During the Battle of Gettysburg, July 1–3, 1863, Culp's Hill was a critical part of the Union Army defensive line, the principal feature of the right flank, or "barbed" portion of what is described as the "fish-hook" line. Holding the hill was by itself unimportant because its heavily wooded sides made it unsuitable for artillery placement, but its loss would have been catastrophic to the Union army.
context_section_description: On July 3, 1863, General Lee's plan was to renew his attacks by coordinating the action on Culp's Hill with another attack by Longstreet and A.P. Hill against Cemetery Ridge. Longstreet was not ready for an early attack, and the Union forces on Culp's Hill did not accommodate Lee by waiting. At dawn, five Union batteries opened fire on Steuart's brigade in the positions they had captured and kept them pinned down for 30 minutes before a planned attack by two of Geary's brigades. However, the Confederates beat them to the punch. An attempt by Lee to hold off the start of the fighting was fruitless. Ewell sent back a terse reply by messenger: "Too late to recall." Fighting continued until late in the morning and consisted of three attacks by Johnson's men, each a failure. The attacks were essentially a replay of those the previous evening, although in daylight.
  Since the fighting had stopped the previous night, the XI Corps units had been reinforced by additional troops from the I Corps and VI Corps. Ewell had reinforced Johnson with additional brigades from the division of Maj. Gen. Robert E. Rodes, under Brig. Gens. Junius Daniel and William "Extra Billy" Smith and Col. Edward A. O'Neal. These additional forces were insufficient to deal with the strong Union defensive positions. Greene repeated a tactic he had used the previous evening: he rotated regiments in and out of the breastworks while they reloaded, enabling them to keep up a high rate of fire.
  In the final of the three Confederate attacks, around 10 am (10:00), Walker's Stonewall Brigade and Daniel's North Carolina brigade assaulted Greene from the east, while Steuart's brigade advanced over the open field toward the main hill against the brigades of Candy and Kane, which did not have the advantage of strong breastworks to fight behind. Nevertheless, both attacks were beaten back with heavy losses. The attacks against the heights were again fruitless, and superior use of artillery on the open fields to the south made the difference there.
  The 1st Maryland Potomac Home Brigade (despite its name, a regiment of inexperienced recruits) was badly shot up struggling for a stone wall crossing the open field parallel to the line of works. Geary replaced them with the 147th Pennsylvania of Candy's brigade, which charged successfully, giving the field the name "Pardee Field" after the Pennsylvanians' Lt. Col. Ario Pardee Jr.
  The end of the fighting came near noon, with a futile attack by two Union regiments near Spangler's Spring. General Slocum, observing from the distant Powers Hill, believing that the Confederates were faltering, ordered Ruger to retake the works they had captured. Ruger passed the order to Silas Colgrove's brigade, and it was misinterpreted to mean a direct frontal assault on the Confederate position. The two regiments selected for the assault, the 2nd Massachusetts and the 27th Indiana, consisted of a total of 650 men against the 1,000 Confederates behind the works with about 100 yards (100 meters) of open field in front. When Lt. Col. Charles Mudge of the 2nd Massachusetts heard the order, he insisted that the officer repeat it: "Well, it is murder, but it's the order." The two regiments attacked in sequence with the Massachusetts men in front, and they were both repelled with terrific losses: 43% of the Massachusetts soldiers, 32% of the Hoosiers. General Ruger spoke of the misconstrued order as "one of those unfortunate occurrences that will happen in the excitement of battle".
  Despite receiving reinforcements and attempting his assaults again, Johnson was repulsed with terrible losses from one end of his line to the other. Colonel O'Neal wrote that his brigade "charged time and again up to their works but were every time compelled to retire. Many gallant men were lost." The losses at Culp's Hill included approximately 2,000 men in Johnson's division, nearly a third. An additional 800 fell from the reinforcing brigades on July 3. The XII corps lost about 1,000 men over both days, including 300 men in Greene's brigade, or one fifth. Alpheus William
caption: Fighting resumes, morning, July 3, 1863.
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