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A Most Desperate Hour: 6:45 P.M.-7:45 P.M

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A Most Desperate Hour: 6:45 P.M.-7:45 P.M $0RVW'HVSHUDWH+RXUSPSP-XO\ 7KH)HGHUDO&RXQWHUDWWDFNDORQJWKH(PPLWVEXUJ 5RDG -RKQ0LFKDHO3ULHVW Gettysburg Magazine, Number 52, January 2015, pp. 2-24 (Article) 3XEOLVKHGE\8QLYHUVLW\RI1HEUDVND3UHVV DOI: 10.1353/get.2015.0008 For additional information about this article http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/get/summary/v052/52.priest.html Accessed 14 Oct 2015 15:31 GMT A Most Desperate Hour: 6:45 p.m.– 7:45 p.m. July 2, 1863 Th e Federal Counterattack along the Emmitsburg Road John Michael Priest Anyone who goes to Gettysburg knows the story Wright’s Georgians fi nished the formation farther of the First Minnesota and its fatal charge against to the north. Barksdale’s brigade late in the day on July 2, 1863. A tenuous Federal line, stretching from the Celebrated in a terrifi c painting by the renowned George Weikert orchard to the Copse of Trees, Don Troiani and perpetually commemorated by a prepared for the onslaught. Maj. Freeman McGil- magnifi cent monument along southern Hancock very formed an artillery line on the ridge imme- Avenue, the story recalls the raw courage and selfl ess diately north of George Weikert’s orchard, its left devotion to duty of a small western regiment as it fl ank anchored on the woods west of the house. Th e charged to its demise against a much larger Confed- badly mauled Battery B, First New Jersey, had the erate force. Th e First Minnesota rightfully deserves left , with the Sixth Maine and the battered Battery its accolades and as such has become part of the my- E, Fift h Massachusetts, continuing it to the right. thology of the most studied battle in history. Th e 262- man First Minnesota was lying down to Th e regiment, however, did not act alone on that the right of the Fift h Massachusetts with Battery C, fateful day. It participated in a much larger coun- Fourth U.S., on its right. A large gap of about three terattack, which stretched from the Trostle farm hundred yards separated the battery’s right from north to the Codori farm and the infamous Copse the Nineteenth Maine. Another 350 yards separated of Trees. Again the First Minnesota deserves its the New Englanders from the left of Col. Norman J. place in history, but so do the other regiments in Hall’s brigade near the Copse of Trees. Th e Sixty- the Army of the Potomac that fought that day. Th is Ninth Pennsylvania (Brig. Gen. Alexander Webb’s is their story. brigade) fi nished the infantry’s front. Batteries A from the Fourth U.S. and the First Rhode Island Situation between 6:30 p.m.– 7:00 p.m. secured the right of the Second Corps line. Battery By 6:30 p.m. Maj. Gen. Daniel E. Sickles had B, First Rhode Island Artillery, was deployed in the been taken from the fi eld seriously wounded. fi eld about one hundred yards to the front of the Th e Wheatfi eld, the Peach Orchard, and the Em- Sixty- Ninth Pennsylvania when Wright’s brigade mitsburg Road fell to the Confederates. Th e Th ird overran the Codori buildings. Corps, in disarray, had fallen back toward Cem- Th e narrative begins from here. etery Ridge and the Trostle farmhouse. While the Twenty- First Mississippi closed in on the Ninth On the Slope East of the Brien Orchard Massachusetts Artillery at Trostle’s, the rest of Brig. Hancock, now commanding the Th ird Corps by Gen. William Barksdale’s and Cadmus Wilcox’s Maj. Gen. George G. Meade’s authority, clattered mixed brigades attempted to regroup on the east onto northern Seminary Ridge, desperately looking side of the Emmitsburg Road to the Rodgers’ house. for regiments to shore up the disintegrating Th ird Col. David Lang’s Florida Brigade continued the at- Corps position to the south. He locked his eyes on tack farther to the north and Brig. Gen. Ambrose Brig. Gen. Alexander Hays and Col. George L. Wil- 2 Gettysburg Magazine, no. 52 The Klingle farm to the Codori farm. The Confederates overrun the Emmitsburg Road, 6:30 p.m.– 7:00 p.m., July 2, 1863. Reproduced from Stand to It and Give Them Hell: Gettysburg as the Soldiers Experienced it from Cemetery Ridge to Little Round Top, July 2, 1863 (Savas Beatie, 2014) by permission of the publisher. A Most Desperate Hour 3 lard, both mounted behind Willard’s regiments, and without any hesitation dispatched his adjutant general, Lt. Col. Orson H. Hart, with specifi c orders to commit them to action. Colonel Hart breathless- ly interrupted the two offi cers. Speaking directly to Hays, he blurted, “General Hancock sends you his compliments and,” pointing south, “wishes you to send one of your best brigades over there.” Abrupt- ly turning toward Willard, Hays snapped, “Take your brigade over there and knock the Hell out of the Rebs.”1 Willard spurred over to his regiments and yelled them to their feet. “Fix Bayonets!” Steel clinked coldly on steel. “Shoulder arms! Left face; forward march.” Swinging into columns of division, the regiments marched steadily south on two company Col. Norman Hall commanding the Third Brigade, Second 1 David L. Ladd and Audrey J. Ladd, eds., Th e Bachelder Papers: Gettysburg in Th eir Own Words (Dayton oh: Morningside, 1995), 3:1984; George W. Sweet to Division, Second Corps. Courtesy of the U.S. Army Heritage Charles A. Richardson, September 4, 1894, quoted in Eric Campbell, “Remem- and Education Center. ber Harper’s Ferry,” Gettysburg Magazine, no. 7 (June 1, 1992): 64n69. Lt. Col. Orson H. Hart, adjutant general, Willard’s brigade. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. 4 Gettysburg Magazine, no. 52 fronts at the common Heath immediately time. Th e 125th New snapped the command York took the right as Hancock swung into with the Th irty- Ninth the saddle and be- to its left . Th e 126th gan to ride away. Th e New York covered the thundering and clang- 125th, and the 111th fell ing of Weir’s approach in behind the Garibaldi from behind attracted Guards (the Th irty- Heath’s attention. Real- Ninth New York).2 izing that the battery Galloping south, was going to collide Hancock ran into Lt. with his right compa- Gulian Weir’s Bat- ny, he promptly yelled tery C, Fift h U.S. Artil- for the fi les on the end lery, and blustered at to break to the rear him to wheel his guns to allow the guns to into the low ground pass. Hancock, mis- southeast of the Codori understanding what buildings. Weir, suff er- was going on, stormed ing from a chronically to Lt. Weir and his of- ulcerated throat, reluc- Col. George L. Willard commanding a brigade in the Third fi cers, swearing up a tantly rasped at his men Division, Third Corps. Courtesy of the U.S. Army Heritage blue streak. “If I com- to wheel right over the and Education Center. manded this regiment, crest of Cemetery Ridge. I’d be God Damned if I Before he could eff ectively execute the command, the would not charge bayonets on you.” While Hancock volatile Hancock had ridden to the top of the ridge, headed south, the shamed artillerymen reluctantly about 375 yards due east of the Codori barn, where rolled down the slope into the hollow and went into he found the Nineteenth Maine from Brig. Gen. Wil- battery with their left fl ank on the northern termi- liam Harrow’s brigade prone in the tall grass. nus of the ravine running from Trostle’s. Th e Nine- Hancock leaped from his horse and charged down teenth Maine advanced over the wooded crest into on the front rank of Company F on the left of the the low ground behind the demolished rail fence line. Grabbing Pvt. George Durgin from the end at its base. Heath ordered the line prone to protect fi le, he yanked the short, stocky man to his feet and them from the incoming rounds, which material- pushed him to the wooded knoll about one hundred ized from the smoke obscuring Emmitsburg Road.4 yards to the front left of the regiment. Posting the Heath anxiously paced the front of his prone reg- enlisted man exactly where he wanted him, Hancock iment. Its right fl ank started on the ridge just north bellowed, “Will you stay here?” Staring into Han- of the wooded knoll southeast of the Codori house, cock’s face, Durgin shot back, “I’ll stay here, General, and its left fl ank rested at the head of the overgrown until hell freezes over.”3 With a grin, Hancock trotted ravine, which ran almost parallel with the creek back to the startled Col. Francis E. Heath and em- bottom. Peering through the smoke, he spied Brig. phatically told him to dress the rest of the regiment Gen. Andrew A. Humphreys and his staff emerge on Durgin. from the sulfuric mantle some 150 yards ahead of 2 J. W. Hardee, Rifl e and Light Infantry Tactics, vol. 1 (Philadelphia: J. B. Lip- the remnants of the general’s shattered division. pincott, 1861), 29; Arabella M. Willson, Disaster, Struggle, Triumph: Th e Adventures of 1000 “Boys in Blue,” from August, 1862, to June 1865 (Albany: Passing through Weir’s silent battery, the gaggle of Argus, 1870), 168. Th e regimental history of the 126th said the brigade formed offi cers trotted up to Heath, and the general de- in four columns but did not specify the front. In light of subsequent testimony, I believe the men advanced in a column four companies wide and ten compa- manded that the colonel call the regiment to its feet nies deep.
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