HISTORICAL 50CIETY MONTGOMERY COUNTY PENNSYLVANIA J\Roj^Msrown
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BULLETIN HISTORICAL 50CIETY MONTGOMERY COUNTY PENNSYLVANIA j\roj^msrowN fflMERY PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY AT \T6 BUILDING 1654 DEKALB STREET NORRISTOWN.PA. SPRING, 1963 VOLUME XIll NUMBER 4 PRICE $130 The Historical Society of Montgomery County OFFICERS Hon. David E. Groshens, President George K. Brecht, Esq., Vice-President Hon. Alfred L. Taxis, Jr., Vice-president Dr. Edward F. Corson, Vice-President Eva G. Davis, Recording Secretairy Mrs. Earl W. Johnson, Corresponding Secretary Mrs. XjERoy Burris, Financial Secretary and Librarian Lyman a. Kratz, Treasurer TRUSTEES Kirke Bryan, Esq. Robert C. Bucher Harry L. Christman Mrs. H. H. Francine Donald A. Gallager, Esq. Herbert H. Ganser Hon. David E. Groshens Kenneth H. Hallman Nancy P. Highley Arthur H. Jenkins Hon. Harold G. Knight Lyman A. Kratz William S. Pettit Robert R. Titus Mrs. F. B. Wildman, Jr, The statue of General W. S. Hancock as it stood in the shop of the Gorham Mfg. Co., Providence, R. I. The casting and erection of the statue, at Washington, was done by W. S. Allebaugh, a Norristown boy, now deceased. THE BULLETIN of the HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY Published Semi-Annually — Spring and Fall Volume XIII Spring, 1963 Number 4 CONTENTS Hancock at Gettysburg Glenn Tucker 265 Real Estate Transaction, Anno 1718 John F, Reed 289 Recollections of the War Charles A. C. Lear 299 Neighborhood News and Notices Charles R. Barker 826 Reports 340 Constitution and Membership 343 PUBLICATION COMMITTEE Mrs. LeRoy Burris John F. Reed Mrs. Earl W. Johnson Dr. William T. Parsons Chairman Copyright, 1963, by the Historical Society of Montgomery County 268 Hancock at Gettysburg* Glenn Tucker Major General Winfield Scott Hancock revealed at Gettys burg the connwtence, versatility and dominant spirit of a great tactician under supreme trial.^ His was the quick shift and deft employment of troops at the iwint of peril, his cool genius on the firing line. His achievement would not likely have been so note worthy nor his handling of his units classic had he not been pitted in most of his fighting against another of America's most eminent tacticians. This was James Longstreet, who, now that the rancors of the personality wars have abated and the morbid eyes ofearlier political prejudice have grown dim, is being viewed by numerous painstaking students of this war, and responsible historians, as the thorough, dogged soldier General Lee believed him to be.2 If, as an accepted definition goes, "tactics is the art of dispos ing and maneuvering troops on th field of battle," then Hancock displayed in many bloody contests of the Confederate War his *This is the substance of a paper read before the Fourth Annual Civil War Study Group at Gettysburg College August 1, 1961, revised and an notated at the request of the Publication Committee of the Historical Society of Montgomery County. The writer, Glenn Tucker, of Flat Rock, North Carolina, is the author of Hancock the Superb, High Tide at GettyS' burg, Chiekamauga and other books of American history (Bohbs-Merrill Company, Inc., publishers). *General Hancock was bom February 14,1824 at Montgomery Square, eleven miles norUi of Norristown, in a house still standing on the BeUilehem road. He died February 9, 1886 and is buried in Norristown, where he was reared and which he always regarded as his home. ®The military qualities of James Longstreet, Hancock's frequent opponent, are analyzed by the writer of this paper in High Tide at Gettys burg, 4-8, and in an article appearing in the April, 1962 issue of Civil War Times, in which a trend of opinion supporting Longstreet is seen. 265 266 BtTLLBTIN OF HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY firm mastery of this branch of military learning: on the Penin sula, where he dexterously turned Jubal Early's flank and forced Longstreet, who commanded Johnston's rear, to evacuate Wll- liamsburg and retire toward Richmond; at Chancellorsville, where he prudently conducted the rear-guard and allowed the confused Hooker to withdraw his army—defeated mainly at the summit — to the security of the north bank of the Rappahan- nock; at Spotsylvania, where in the murky dawn he crashed through the salient of L^'s defenses and captured Edward John son's veteran division; and in the most compelling fashion at Gettysburg, where by his perception, resolution and quick con trivances he saved the Federal army and the Union cause on eadi of the three days of that epodial struggle. This country has developed other distinguished tacticians: George H. Thomas, the noble, selfless hero of Chickamauga and Nashville; Andrew Jackson, whose spectacular victory with his frontiersmen over the British veterans at New Orleans still awes and perplexes the student of military affeirs; George Patton, whose fame in the years since his passing seems ever to grow more lustrous; Anthony Wayne perhaps — soldier of the Revo lution and winner of the Northwest whose battles resounded -with fire superiority or flashed with the bleam of naked steel; hard hitting "Old Pete" Longstreet; shoeless Pat Cleburne, the so- called "Stonewall Jackson of the West,"® of whose command it has been said that when it defended "no odds broke its lines; where it attacked no numbers resisted its onslaught."^ (This writer, mind you, is not including in this group of tacticians those who have been essentially great as statesmen-soldiers, as Wash ington or Lee, nor leaders of our own generation, nor those pre eminent as strategists, as Winfield Scott, Stonewall Jackson, Joseph B. Johnston, Nathan Bedford Forrest, or William Tecumseh Sherman.) *A title conferred on him by President Jefferson Davis. Thomas Rob- son Hay, "Pat Clebume — Stonewall Jackson of the "West," a foreword to Captain Irving A. Buck Clebume and His Command (Jackson, Tenn., 1959), 39. *Buck, Clebume, 40. HANCOCK AT GETTYSBURG 267 Among the talented tacticians — Hancock, Longstreet, An drew Jackson and others who might be added — were men of widly ranging background and outlook. Some were capable stu dents of history and military affairs. Some could never have heard of Jomini or Clausewitz. They had got along well enough without Hardee's Tactics or Halleck's Elements of Military Art and Science. Andrew Jackson, for example, probably never opened a military textbook of any character before he marched his cooncapped riflemen to the Tallapoosa and the Mississippi. Some may have been impulsive and nervous, others more apa thetic and constrained. But widely as they may have differed in personality, temperament and mental characteristics, they possessed one attribute in common. This was their intense, burning, driving determination to win. The overpowering resolution which inflamed them became a dynamic force which they were able to communicate to their followers on the battleline. What Andrew Jackson may have lacked in military education he more than compensated for in the impact of his ascendant personality on the fierce, at times mutinous pioneers who composed his army. And it was just this dominant spirit which Hancock exhibited at almost every turn at Gettysburg. To look on him in battle was to know he was a leader and to have confidence that he was a winner. Handsome, vigorous, healthy, erect — personally as brave as any man in either army — his finely cut features radiating not only strength and purpose but also a high degree of intelligence; frank and articulate; at times so profane as to be conspicuous even in an age when oaths and army life had the same affinity as fence rails and camp fires — Hancock at Gettysburg made one of the sub lime pictures of American history. Many momentous American historical events have been caught in all their significant glory by the artist or poet. But one of the supreme, stirring moments of the American story, the arrival of Hancock on the panic-swept field of Gettysburg, when a good many about him seemed to be losing their heads and the defeated Northern army was at the point of disintegration, has been largely neglected. It remains for some writer, artist or poet, 268 bulletin op historical society of Montgomery county perhaps in these centennial years, to portray this dramatic, momentous incident in all its splendor for jwsterity. One detracts nothing from the somber Meade's careful gen eralship by awarding to Hancock the full measure of credit to which he is entitled for his conduct on this field. What is due to Hancock is honor to Meade also, for Meade was exercising the role of a capable army commander when he discerned and gave play to Hancock's superb talents. Hancock's principal contributions to Union victory may be dealt with in this order: 1. Arriving at the moment of Federal defeat, he checked the flight of a large part of the army down the Baltimore pike and by his exertions and inspiring presence turned a mass of broken units into a fairly reliable defensive force that might hold the position until Meade brought up fresh troops. 2. By posting elements of the First, Eleventh and Twelfth Corps in strong defensive situations, he laid out the Federal position along the fishhook extending from Gulp's Hill to Little Hound Top, an interior line which proved no small factor in Northern victory. 3. On the second day, by his prompt dispatch of Caldwell's division and later his deft employment of other units, he saved the left wing from destruction and checked Longstreet's advance. 4. By his personal exertions on the firing line, his skillful use of available units in the weakened center of the army, and especially his quick employment of the First Minnesota regiment and subsequently the balance of Harrow's brigade, he stopped the advance of Anderson's division, which threatened to split the Federal army.