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"A Promiscuous Fight": The Defense of Cemetery Hill James S. Pula Gettysburg Magazine, Number 59, July 2018, pp. 15-29 (Article) Published by University of Nebraska Press DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/get.2018.0012 For additional information about this article https://muse.jhu.edu/article/697386 [ This content has been declared free to read by the pubisher during the COVID-19 pandemic. ] “A Promiscuous Fight” Th e Defense of Cemetery Hill James S. Pula Daybreak on July 2, 1863, found the survivors of the Eleventh Corps clinging to the ground on and around Cemetery Hill. Badly bruised on the previous day when Confederates overwhelmed the First and Eleventh Corps and drove them through town to their new refuge on the high ground southeast of the village, their position stretched from roughly Ziegler’s Grove north along the Taneytown Road to a point near the junction of the Emmitsburg Road. From there it turned right to the junction of Baltimore Street, then angled back along the northern base of Cemetery Hill. Gen. Adolf von Steinwehr’s division held the Taneytown and Emmitsburg Road portions of the line. Where it bent east, Gen. Adelbert Ames’s division took over with Col. Andrew Harris’s brigade formed at the base of Cemetery Hill, the right being extended by Col. Leopold von Gilsa’s brigade. Lacking enough troops to fi ll the space, the 33rd Massachusetts was detached from another division to anchor the right fl ank between von Gilsa and the slope up to Culp’s Hill held by a portion of the First Corps. Gen. Carl Schurz’s Eleventh Corps division was largely in reserve, though several regiments furnished skirmishers. Together, these troops held the strategic apex of the Union defensive line. Brig. Gen. Adelbert Ames succeeded to command of Francis Barlow’s division when that offi cer was gravely Th roughout the morning and early aft ernoon wounded on July 1. National Archives and Records the men simultaneously dueled with rebel Administration. marksmen and listened to the sounds of battle to the south from Rebel assaults on the Round Tops, the Peach Orchard, the Wheatfi eld, and base of Cemetery Hill when “Whizz came a round Cemetery Ridge. Shortly aft er 3:30 p.m., fi ft y- fi ve shot over the heads” of his men,” and plunged into Confederate guns opened fi re on Cemetery Hill. the earth with a dull sound. A shell came shrieking Col. Adin Underwood in the 33rd Massachusetts and hissing in its track and exploded itself into was inspecting his regiment’s position along the destructive atoms; in almost a moment of time a “A Promiscuous Fight” 15 hundred shot and shell were tearing about, bursting I started my skirmishers forward.” Capt. William into fragments that hurried away many a brave life.” Seymour recorded that the “quiet solimn [sic] mien Shells came from so many angles that Underwood of our men showed plainly that they fully appreci- twice moved his men from one side of a stone wall ated the desperate character of the undertaking.”4 to another, eventually leaving them on the side And desperate it seemed not only to them but to nearest the Confederate lines as the safest place generations of authors and historians to come. On during the bombardment.1 Earle Rich in the Bay a fl at paper map the Cemetery Hill position indeed State regiment witnessed “a cannonball hit the man appears impressive. Its height crowned with artil- standing along side of me squarely in the chest. I’ll lery, its base and left fl ank were covered by stone never forget the sound of that hollow thump when walls behind which stood solid lines of infantry. it hit him; the impact knocked him back at least ten How could any attacking force possibly hope to feet. My God, what a horrible sight.”2 succeed? Pummeled for what seemed like an eternity, the Despite its seeming strength, the position vulnerable infantry prayed for darkness to end the contained some serious weaknesses. Cemetery Hill rain of death. Dusk was rapidly settling over the formed a salient protruding at the zenith of the battlefi eld by 7:00 p.m., little more than half an federal line. Aside from the notorious defensive hour before the offi cial sunset at 7:33 p.m., but the weakness of a salient, the rebels surrounded it with temperature still hovered just under eighty degrees artillery to place converging fi re on the hill from with heavy humidity. By now most of the troops three directions. Similarly, rebel sharpshooters in were hopeful that the day’s travails would soon be the town were in range of gunners working the at an end. Th ey were wrong. On the far Confederate federal pieces, offi cers attempting to direct their left Maj. Gen. Edward Johnson had just launched men, or any careless person who showed himself three brigades into the Twelft h Corps lines held by for more than a few brief seconds. To make matters only a single brigade of fi ve New York regiments worse, Capt. Michael Wiedrich’s Battery I, 1st under Gen. George S. Greene. Fortunately for his New York Light Artillery, of the Eleventh Corps men, Greene had insisted that they fortify their and Capt. R. Bruce Ricketts’ combined Batteries F position which made it particularly strong against and G, 1st Pennsylvania Light Artillery, from the attackers moving uphill through the trees. Bolstered artillery reserve both contained 3- inch ordnance by eight regiments sent as reinforcements from the rifl es placed on the heights to aff ord long- range First and Eleventh Corps, Greene held as darkness artillery support to Federal troops north of town descended.3 Yet despite the lateness of the hour the on the previous day. Th ey were not positioned for day’s mayhem was not yet over. defense; indeed, their location atop a steep slope, To the north of Winebrenner’s Run, protected recessed back from the crest, created an eff ective from view by a high ridge, two veteran Rebel bri- blind spot that prevented the guns from being used gades formed for yet another attack. Th is eff ort fell eff ectively in their own defense. Artillerist Edward to Gen. Robert Hoke’s North Carolinians under the Whittier explained: “Th ese batteries had absolutely command of Col. Isaac Avery and the Louisiana no point blank, and were prevented by the sharp “Tigers” of Brig. Gen. Harry Hays. Around dusk, descent of the eastern face of the hill, from exerting Gen. Jubal Early, commanding their division, ar- any control over that portion of his front which an rived with orders to assault Cemetery Hill, the very artillerist holds as his dearest possession, leaving center of the Union defense. “I felt as if my doom in its place a ‘dead angle,’ large and of terrible were sealed,” thought Lt. R. Stark Jackson in the 8th signifi cance, in the place of ground where guns can Louisiana, “and it was with great reluctance that vex and tear assaulting columns with canister.”5 1 Adin B. Underwood, Th e Th ree Years’ Service of the 33rd Massachusetts Infan- 4 “Th e Cemetery Hills,” manuscript, Vertical File 4– 10q, Gettysburg National try (Huntington, WV: Blue Acorn Press, 1993), 123. Military Park (GNMP); Capt. William Seymour account of July 2, 1863, 2 Earle Rich, Cape Cod Echoes (Orleans, MA: Salt Meadow Publishers, 1973), GNMP; R. Stark Jackson letter quoted in Bradley M. Gottfried, Brigades of 44. Gettysburg (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2002), 504. 3 George Gordon Meade, With Meade at Gettysburg (Philadelphia: Military 5 Edward N. Whittier, “Th e Left Attack (Ewell’s) Gettysburg,” Campaigns in Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, 1930), 131. Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania 1862– 1863 (Boston: Papers of the Mili- tary Historical Society of Massachusetts, 1903, Vol. III), 85. 16 Gettysburg Magazine, no. 59 Th ere were also two losses of July 1, other disadvantages Harris and von Gilsa to the position not together reported readily apparent to the a total of only 1,150 anxious Confederates men fi t for duty on contemplating the July 2, with no doubt diffi culty of the task less actually on hand before them. First, when deductions are the approaches from made for those on the direction of the detached duty. Added attack were broken to this should be the by a series of fairly 461 members of the sharp ridges that were 33rd Massachusetts ideal for shielding fi lling the gap much of the assault between the Eleventh until close to the base Corps and the Maine of Cemetery Hill, battery on the slope while at the same time of Culp’s Hill.6 Given protecting most of the the alignment, the attackers from direct right fl ank was clearly artillery fi re from the the strongest with the 5th Maine Battery on only two unscathed Culp’s Hill. Second, regiments assigned although the base of to that position: Cemetery Hill was the 41st New York fringed by a line of which had been on stone fences, these detached service on were only two to two July 1 and the 33rd and one- half feet Massachusetts which tall, not nearly high had been held in Col. Andrew Harris, 75th Ohio, took over Ames’s brigade on July 1. enough to cover with He would later be elected governor of Ohio. U.S. Army Heritage and reserve. Deducting any degree of security Education Center. the approximate a defending line of footage held by battle.
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