Chapter1 “Wewillstayandfightitout...” TheStrategicSituationonthe AfternoonofJuly3,1863 Union Army of the Potomac under George G. Meade and The the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia under Robert E. Lee spent the first two days of July 1863 locked in titanic combat. The second day witnessed large scale Southern attacks against both ends of the Union line. James Longstreet’s massive assault smashed Dan Sickles’ Third Corps, wrecked additional brigades, and nearly collapsed Meade’s left flank. On his right, another attack swept across Rock Creek and up the wooded and rocky slopes of Culp’s Hill, where only hard fighting and good luck saved the Union defenders. The day produced combined casualties of more than 16,000 men and continued late into the night before finally sputtering out on theslopesof Culp’s Hill.1 By the end of the day, the Army of the Potomac held a shorter fishhook-shaped line anchored on high ground with the advantage of interior lines of communication. The prominent points on this line were Culp’s Hill and Cemetery Hill on the northern end, and Little Round Top and Big Round Top on the southern end. Between those hills ran a low ridge called 1 Edwin B. Coddington, The Gettysburg Campaign: A Study in Command (New York: CharlesScribner’sSons,1968),442. 2 Gettysburg’sForgottenCavalryActions Cemetery Ridge. Meade’s army had the advantage of holding a more compact line anchored on good terrain, but he was not convinced his army should stand and fight at Gettysburg for a third day. Meade, a military engineer by training and experience, preferred a formidable defensive line in MarylandalongthebanksofBigPipeCreek. About 9:00 p.m. on July 2, Meade convened a council of war with his two wing commanders, his seven corps commanders, his chief engineer, and his chief of staff. The Federal brass debated the merits of staying and fighting at Gettysburg versus retreating to the Pipe Creek line until Meade finally put it to a vote. The majority favored staying at Gettysburg. Accordingly, Meade resolved to “stay and fight it out.”2 He had fresh forces available to defend his line despite two days of heavy combat. Almost an entire infantry corps, the Sixth, was fresh; only one of its divisions had been engaged in the fighting on the second. Meade was confident that General Lee would resume the offensive the next day. The only question was where hewouldattack. For his part, Lee had indeed tested both Union flanks on the second and failed. Reasoning that Meade had shifted troops to his flanks to meet threats, Lee concluded that the Union center was weaker than it should be and resolved to attack it the next day using George Pickett’s fresh division of Virginians from Longstreet Corps, together with other troops. The attack would have to be made across a long gently undulating open field a mile wide against a position on higher and more commanding ground. In order to give his infantry a better chance of success, Lee ordered a massive artillery barrage before the attack to knock out the more potent Federal long-arm and demoralizethewaitingenemyinfantry. Unlike Meade’s army, Lee’s army held a long extended exterior line curved at both ends and roughly parallel to the Federal position. Lee had to weaken his flanks somewhat to support his grand attack on July 3 because of the heavy loses his army had suffered on July 1-2. In particular, he had largely stripped his right flank to support the infantry assault against the Federal center; only a small force of exhausted infantry was available to hold that flank, which made it vulnerable to being turned. Lee and his army of veteransfacedadifficulttaskasdawnbrokeonthemorningofJuly3. 2 Ibid.,453. TheStrategicSituationonAfternoonofJuly3,1863 3 TheStrategicSituationonthe AfternoonofJuly3,1863 *** Only July 2, when Longstreet was preparing his divisions to march and then launch his sledgehammer blow against the exposed Federal left on July 2, Brig. Gen. John Buford’s two tired and battered brigades of Federal cavalry rode off the battlefield at Gettysburg. Buford had orders to ride to Maryland to guard the Army of the Potomac’s wagon trains, which were at 4 Gettysburg’sForgottenCavalryActions that time near Taneytown. His departure meant there was no Federal cavalry on the southern part of the battlefield on July 2. Only Brig. Gen. David M. Gregg’s depleted Second Cavalry Division was near the battlefield, pinned down and battling Confederate infantry of the legendary Stonewall Brigade on Brinkerhoff’s Ridge, about two miles east of the main battlefield on the Hanover Road. As a result, there were no horsemen available to screen the Federal left flank and no good force available to gather intelligence about Southern dispositions on the morning of July 3. All of this would prove criticalinthecomingfight.3 BrigadierGeneralWesleyMerrittandhisRegulars On the evening of July 1, Buford faced Lt. Gen. A. P. Hill’s Confederate corps with only two-thirds of his division. To his great regret, one of his brigades, the Reserve (or Regular) Brigade, commanded by Brig. Gen. Wesley Merritt, had been detached to patrol the passes through the South Mountain range in Maryland several days before the beginning of the battle. The Reserve Brigade consisted of some of the best cavalrymen in any army of the Civil War. It had a nucleus of the four regiments of Regular Army cavalry attached to the Army of the Potomac (the 1st, 2nd, 5th, and 6th U.S., the latter a new regiment formed at the beginning of the war), along with the 6th Pennsylvania Cavalry, a fine volunteer regiment. It was no wonder that BufordregrettedlosingthisfinebrigadeonJuly1. The four Regular Army regiments had been used improperly during the early phases of the Civil War and were largely under-strength by the time of the battle of Gettysburg. The 6th Pennsylvania Cavalry (Rush’s Lancers) had done so well at the Brandy Station fight that Buford told Cavalry Corps commander Maj. Gen. Alfred Pleasonton, “These men did splendidly yesterday; I call them now the Seventh Regulars.” In fact, some Confederates believed the Lancers were in fact Regular cavalry. Writing many years later, George W. Watson of the 12th Virginia Cavalry actually 3 For the only detailed treatment of Gregg’s engagement with the Confederate infantry on Brinkerhoff’s Ridge, see Eric J. Wittenberg, Protecting the Flank: The Fights for Brinkerhoff’s Ridge and East Cavalry Field, Battle of Gettysburg, July 2-3, 1863 (Celina, Ohio:IroncladPublishing,2002;reprintedbySavasBeatie,Fall2011). TheStrategicSituationonAfternoonofJuly3,1863 5 Brig.Gen.WesleyMerritt,Commander,ReserveBrigade USAHEC referred to them as the Seventh Pennsylvania Regulars. The proud and well-disciplined professional men of the Reserve Brigade had borne the brunt of the 14-hour fight at Brandy Station on June 9, 1863, and a day of severe fighting at Upperville, Virginia, on June 21. By the time of 6 Gettysburg’sForgottenCavalryActions Gettysburg, the Reserve Brigade numbered 52 officers and 1,870 enlisted men.4 Twenty-nine year-old Wesley Merritt, a West Pointer who graduated 22nd out of 41 in the Class of 1860, commanded the Reserve Brigade. He was assigned to the 2nd Dragoons and served in John Buford’s company at Camp Floyd, Utah. After the outbreak of the Civil War, Merritt came east with the 2nd Dragoons, now known as the 2nd U.S. Cavalry, and served as aide-de-camp to Brig. Gen. Philip St. George Cooke, commander of the Army of the Potomac’s cavalry forces and the father-in-law of Confederate cavalry chieftain Maj. Gen. J. E. B. Stuart. Cooke, known as the father of the U.S. cavalry, wrote the official manual for cavalry field operations and was an outstanding role model for the young West Pointer. Merritt performed ably as Cooke’s aide and later served as ordnance officer under the Army of the Potomac’s first Cavalry Corps commander, Maj. Gen. George Stoneman. When Stoneman took medical leave after the Chancellorsville Campaign in the spring of 1863, Pleasonton assumed temporary command of the Cavalry Corps. Merritt took active command of the 2nd U.S. Cavalry aboutthesametime.5 Merritt performed conspicuously at Brandy Station and his courage and leadership skills caught Pleasonton’s eye. Buford, his former company commander, also praised him and, as one Regular noted, “in those days the praise of John Buford was more highly esteemed by the officers under his command than a brevet commission.” Merritt again distinguished himself at Upperville on June 21, and a couple of days later Pleasonton requested Merritt’s promotion to brigadier general. Pleasonton had been disappointed with the performance of the two officers who led the Army’s Regular Cavalry after John Buford was promoted to division command when 4 “Address of Col. Frederic C. Newhall,” included in Dedication of the Monument of the Sixth Penna. Cavalry on the Battlefield of Gettysburg (Philadelphia: privately published, 1889), 12-13; George William Watson, The Last Survivor, Brian Stuart Kesterson, ed. (Washington, WV: Night Hawk Press, 1993), 12; John W. Busey and David G. Martin, Regimental Strengths and Losses at Gettysburg (Hightstown, NJ: Longstreet House, 1982), 103. The regimental strengths are as follows: 1st U.S., 17 officers and 449 enlisted men; 2nd U.S., 5 officers and 505 enlisted men; 5th U.S., 11 officers and 567 enlisted men; 6th U.S., detached to Cavalry Corps headquarters; and 6th Pennsylvania Cavalry, 15 officers and349enlistedmen. 5 Ezra J. Warner, Generals in Blue: Lives of the Union Commanders (Baton Rouge: LouisianaStateUniversityPress,1964),321. TheStrategicSituationonAfternoonofJuly3,1863 7 Maj.Gen.AlfredPleasanton,Commander,CavalryCorps, ArmyofthePotomac LibraryofCongress 8 Gettysburg’sForgottenCavalryActions Stoneman left for his medical leave. The first, Maj. Charles J. Whiting, was relieved of command of the Reserve Brigade for allegedly treasonous conductfollowingBrandyStation.6 Whiting’s successor, Maj.