Lee wants to push Things. We have seen Lee arriving on the field his troops had carried just as ours were streaming over Cemetery Hill in his plain sight. Seeing Ewell already established within gunshot of this hill, Lee wished him to push on after the fugitives, seize Cemetery Hill, and so reap all the fruits of the victory just won. Ewell hesitated, and the golden opportunity slipped through Lee's fingers. At four o'clock he would have met with little resistance: at six it was different. Hancock arrives. Finds Situation gloomy. By riding hard, Hancock Hancock's animating presence gradually put heart into the men. He saw just what ought to be done, and instantly set about doing it. Order is restored. First Reinforcements. A swift and comprehensive view of the ground—and his grasp of its capabilities was singularly just—seems to have convinced Hancock that no better place to fight in was likely to be found, even should the enemy allow them the time to concentrate in the rear, which was become the all-important question just then. He gave his orders rapidly, broken ranks were re-formed, fugitives brought back to their colors, Culp's Hill. Commands Cemetery. In riding up, Hancock had not failed to notice—indeed, no one could—a wooded hill standing off at some distance to the right of Cemetery Hill, from which it was separated by a wide and deep hollow, yet at the same time joined by a ridge so low and narrow as to be Ewell sees it too. But Hancock seizes it. The enemy had not been slow to perceive this on his part, and while hesitating what to do Early had pointed it out to Ewell, his chief, who fully agreed with him that it should be seized as soon as Johnson's fresh division got up. Hancock reports all safe. Considered merely as a rallying point for broken troops, Cemetery Hill had now served its purpose. Hancock could now say to Meade, not that the position was the best they could have taken for disputing the enemy's progress, but that all was safe for the present, or equally in train for the withdrawal of the troops, should that be the decision. In a word, he would not commit himself unreservedly to a simple yes or no. Meade's Decision. It was now Meade's turn, and right nobly did he rise to the crisis. Such as it was, Hancock's report enabled him to come to a quick decision. Instead of ordering a retreat, he instantly ordered the corps to Gettysburg. From the moment he became satisfied that there was a fighting chance in front, Meade's conduct Twelfth Corps comes up, 5 P.M. To return to the now historic Cemetery Hill. Here the right, reinforced by at least three thousand fresh troops, Geary at Little Round Top. Fix this on the Map. Geary's division of this corps having kept straight on up the pike to Cemetery Hill, Hancock turned it off to the extreme left, partly to make some show in that as yet unguarded quarter, about which he felt by no means easy, partly to hold control of the Emmettsburg and Taneytown roads (see map), by which more of the Union troops were marching to the field. Stretching itself out in a thin line as far as Little Round Top, and after sending one regiment out on picket toward the Emmettsburg road, and just to the right of the Devil's Den, the division slept on its arms, in a position destined to become celebrated, first on account of Hancock's foresight in seizing it, next by reason of its desertion by the general intrusted with its defence. Second Corps nearly up. Hancock had the satisfaction of feeling that the position was safe for the present when he rode back to Taneytown, first to meet his own corps on Union Line at Dark. Nothing but the importance which this critical period of the battle has assumed to our own mind could justify the giving of all these details by which the gradual patching up and lengthening out of the line, until it took the form it subsequently held, and from a front of a few hundred yards grew to be two miles long, may be better followed. Part of Third Corps up. Find Sherfy's on Map. Other Corps where? As regards the rest of the army, some part of the Third Corps had now reached the ground by the Emmettsburg road, though too late to get into line; its pickets, however, were thrown out on that road as far to the left as a cross-road leading down from Sherfy's house to Little Round Top. The rest of this corps would come up by this same road in the morning. The Second Corps was halting for the night three miles back, also in a position to Chances against Meade. Indeed, when Meade did finally order the whole army to Gettysburg, the chances were as ten to one against its getting up in time to fight as a unit. Would that portion of the Union forces found on Cemetery Hill on the morning of the second be beaten in detail, as the First and Eleventh had been the day before? Lee's Plan. Longstreet demurs. This seems, in fact, to have been Lee's real purpose, as he told Longstreet at five o'clock, when they were looking over the ground together, that if Meade's army was on the heights next day it must be dislodged. Knowing that but two Union corps had been engaged that day against him, Lee Chances favor Lee. We have seen that Lee's conclusions with respect to the force before him were so nearly correct as to justify his confidence in his own plans. Ever since crossing South Mountain he had expected a battle. It is true he found it forced upon him sooner than he expected, yet his own army had been the first to concentrate, his troops had gained a partial victory by this very means, and both general and soldiers were eager to consummate it while the chances were still so distinctly in their favor. Even if Lee was somewhat swayed by a belief in his own genius, as some of his critics have Ewell says No. Cemetery Hill too Strong. At the close of the day Lee therefore rode over to see if Ewell could not open the battle by carrying Cemetery Hill. Ewell bluntly declared it to be an impossibility. The Union troops, he said, would be at work strengthening their already formidable positions there all night, so that by morning they would be found well-nigh impregnable. Culp's Hill had been snatched from his grasp. The rugged character of these heights, the impossibility of using artillery to support an attack, the exposure of the assaulting columns to the fire of the Union batteries at short range, were all forcibly dwelt upon and fully concurred in by Ewell's lieutenants. In short, so many objections appeared that, willing or unwilling, Lee found himself forced to give over the design of breaking through the Union line at this point and taking the road to Baltimore. Ewell says, try the Left. It was then suggested that the attack should Inasmuch as Ewell was really ignorant of what force was in his front at that moment, his advice to Lee may have sprung from a not unnatural desire to see that part of the army which had not been engaged do some of the work cut out for him and his corps. Be that as it may, Lee then and there proposed giving up Gettysburg altogether, in order to draw Ewell over toward his right, thus massing the Confederate army in position to strike the Union left, as well as materially shortening his own long line. What, give up Gettysburg. But to this proposal Ewell as strongly demurred again. After losing over three thousand men in taking it, he did not want to give up Gettysburg. It involved a point of honor to which Jackson's successor showed himself keenly sensitive. His arrival had decided the day; and at that moment he held the bulk of the Union "Well, then, if I attack from my right, Longstreet will have to make the attack," said Lee at last; adding a moment later, and as if the admission came from him in spite of himself, "but he is so slow." Lee's Dilemma. Finding that Ewell was averse to making an attack himself, averse to leaving Gettysburg; that Hill was averse to putting his crippled corps forward so soon again; and that Longstreet was averse to fighting at all on that ground,—Lee may well have thought, like Napoleon during the Hundred Days, that his generals were no longer what they had been. Meade did not reach the field until one in the morning. It was then too early to see the ground he was going to fight on. It thus appears that Lee had well considered all his plans for attacking before Meade could so much as begin his dispositions for defence. And In the mellow moonlight of a midsummer's night, looking down into the unlighted streets of Gettysburg, the tired soldiers dropped to rest among the graves or in the fields wet with falling dew, while their comrades were hurrying on over the dusty roads that stretched out in long, weary miles toward Gettysburg, as if life and death were in their speed. FOOTNOTES: |