Right Wing Nut House

This is the fifth in my series of week-long blog posts called Countdown to Gettysburg“. They are written from the perspective of someone who lived at that time and as if the internet existed in 1863.

The introduction to the series is here.

Previous Posts:

June 27, 1863

June 28, 1863

June 29, 1863

June 30, 1863

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(Check back often for updates)

And so, it’s begun.

Here’s a dispatch from General Buford at Gettysburg:

The enemy’s force (A.P. Hill’s) are advancing on me at this point, and driving my pickets and skirmishers very rapidly. There is also a large force at Heidlersburg that is driving my pickets at that point from that direction. General Reynolds is advancing, and is within 3 miles of this point with his leading division. I am positive that the whole of A.P. Hill’s force is advancing.

That’s uh…12,000 men people! And Johnny Buford has 2700 effectives (with every 4th man detailed to “hold horses”).

It began around 8:00 AM this morning when, as Buford reports, the rebs came “booming…skirmishers three deep” just as Major Rathbone predicted. Two brigades from Henry Heth’s division moved down the Chambersburg Pike encountering Bufords videttes and alerting the rest of his command. The rebs must have thought they were facing only local militia because they didn’t even bother to deploy into a line of battle. Meanwhile, Buford sent an urgent message to General Reynolds telling him to hurry because even though his troopers were armed with the brand new Sharps 7 shot repeaters, he couldn’t hold against those odds for long.

Thank God Johnny Reyonolds pushed his boys so hard the day before because they were bivuaced a scant three miles from Bufords position. Meantime, General Buford had devised a brilliant plan. Called “defense in depth,” in essence, he was trading space for time. As the rebs began to pile up in front of him, he slowly withdrew to prepared positions in the rear. This caused more delay as the rebs would then have to sort themselves out all over again to make ready to attack. All the while, Bufords troopers are giving the Johnny Rebs what for with their repeaters.

Finally, around 10:00 AM, John Reynolds Black Hats arrived and started to form up. I’ve made a rough map of what I think the battlefield looks like at this point:

GETTYSBURG AT 10:00 AM, JULY 1

Buford positioned his three batteries of artillery nicely. He had one battery each covering the approach down Chambersburg Pike and Mummasburg Road with one battery in reserve “firing for effect.” The effect was to tear great big holes in the reb line causing Heth to committ another brigade, and then another, until his entire division of 7,000 men were engaged.

Bully for John Buford and the Union Cavalry!

Meanwhile, I sure would have liked to have seen the look on the faces of those johnny rebs when they saw the Black Hats of the Iron Brigade marching in perfect formation headed straight for them. I bet they were wetting their britches! My source at I Corp headquarters tells me that the Black Hatters went in on the left of Gamble’s brigade pushing through a wooded area down near Willoughby Run. Perfect! They may be able to turn the flank of Heth’s division and send them running for their lives.

If we’re lucky, we’ll bag the lot of them!

I’ll be updating this post all day as reports come in.

UPDATE

Here’s the situation as of 11:30 AM.

Our boys really have a twist on the rebs. Archer’s reb brigade apparently just walked into it when, thinking that Buford’s troopers had withdrawn from McPherson’s ridge, they were surprised to find the Black Hats of General Meredith ready and loaded for action. Before the rebs knew it, our boys had pretty much surrounded Archers entire Brigade and, as I predicted earlier, we bagged about 800 prisoners including one very mad and embarassed General Archer!

Things aren’t going so well elsewhere, however.

General Cutler’s boys were deployed along a railroad cut (a long, shallow depression running southwest to northeast just below Seminary Ridge) when General Davis’ rebs came screaming down on top of them, jumping them from 3 sides. It must have got pretty bloody and I hear that most of our boys had to surrender. But just when Davis’ rebs were ready to break through to the town itself, a couple of regiments of Wisconsin badgers showed up and pushed them back. Now it was the rebs turn to be caught like a fish in a barrel in the railroad cut. That too, got pretty bloody.

So at this moment, the rebs are widening an arc from Willoughby Run around to a point just below Seminary ridge with most of A.P. Hills Corp yet to arrive on the scene. We’ve got General Howard’s Dutchmen of the XI Corp on the way. They better get here soon. We’re outnumbered as it is.

UPDATE II

John Reynolds is dead.

I don’t know what else to say. Oh, cruel blow! Our best field commander killed before the battle is 3 hours old. I hear General Doubleday took command. I hope he’s up to the task.

Rest in peace General Johnny.

More later…

UPDATE III

One word can describe the situation as it stands now.

Disaster!

After the death of General Reynolds, the battle turned decisively against us. It really was nobody’s fault. Although people will say it was those damn Dutchmen of XI Corp that broke once again like they did at Chancellorsville, the fact is the rebs apparently had a lot more men reach the field of the battle sooner than our boys got there. Like that crazy reb cavalryman in Bragg’s outfit Bedford Forrest might say, they got their “fustest with the mostest.”

It happened like this. General Howard placed his XI Corps in an arc from the railroad cut around to a little stream called Rock Creek. He was spread pretty thin but it was good ground with plenty of cover and the rebs had to attack uphill, pretty steep in some places. By the time Howard was deployed reb General Rodes Corps of 8,000 had added his weight to A.P. Hill’s 12,000 men and 20,000 rebs attacked our boys along the entire front, screaming like wild indians. It must’ve been a sight to see. Any way, we were badly outnumbered but more than holding our own. In fact, two brigades of General Baxter’s division hammered most of Rode’s boys to pieces. But then the rebs got some artillery on Oak Hill and started to pound away and Baxter had to withdraw. Meanwhile, more and more rebs were showing up to the north. Here’s a map of the battlefield from around 3:00 pm this afternoon:

GETTYSBURG AT 3:30 JULY 1

As you can see, our boys were in a real pickle. Ewell’s entire Corps was bearing down on General Howard’s boys and reb General Early was showing up on the battlefield after a forced march from York down the Heidlersburg Road damn near behind General Barlow!

So it wasn’t really the Dutchmen of XI Corps fault that they broke. The problem was, once XI Corp abandoned their positions, the entire line started to retreat. Some of the boys left the field in good order but most of them just ran. This left I Corps exposed to the entire fury of the reb advance. I don’t have any casualty figures at the moment but it looks pretty grim. I daresay the Iron Brigade is finished as a fighting force what with most of them dead or captured.

The information I have now is that General Howard has set up a defensive position on some hills south and west of town. With our boys still streaming through Gettysburg proper and totally unorganized, it remains to be seen whether or not the Army of the Potomac has ceased to be an effective fighting force. If the rebs decide to keep pushing, they may shove our boys all the way out of Pennsylvania. That would leave a wide open road to Washington.

Too, too terrible to contemplate.

I should have one more update later today. I’m almost afraid to talk to my source at the War Department telegraph office for fear that the news will be too wrenching. I will, however, keep posting.

God help us all.

UPDATE IV

Bloody, bloody, day.

How we survived it, I don’t know. I can tell you that it was no thanks to our “generalship.” I put that in quotation marks because I don’t think there’s ever been a more wretched group of incompetent officers in the history of warfare. Oh there are exceptions like General Reynolds (God Rest his soul), General Hancock and a few others. But by and large, the only reason our army still lives is because of the individual bravery of the union soldier.

My beloved Iron Brigade is a perfect example. Cut off from the rest of I Corps on the extreme left of the fight, most of our boys running for their lives, those boys in the slouched black hats stood firm! They had rebs on three sides of them but they stopped the advance of Lee’s men long enough to give ther rest of their comrades from I Corps the chance to get away and fight tomorrow.

It cost my Black Hatters dear; they lost 1100 out of 1800 engaged.

I’m getting similar figures from other commands. Some regiments in XI Corps have simply ceased to exist with 90% or more in killed, wounded, missing. It looks like we lost about 30% from both Corps but the stragglers are still coming in.

The retreat through town was a mess and with no real leadership our boys had to pretty much figure out for themselves where the army was making a stand. As I mentioned in an earlier update, General Howard had established a defensive line south of town on a low ridgeline fronting a cemetary. There are two bigger hills further east and south and a smaller hill to the north. Here are the positions at about sundown:

Gettysburg 6:00 PM July 1

Hancock has arrived thank God!. He’s brought Slocum and Sickles Corps with him. That should shore up the line until the rest of our boys get there tomorrow morning.

One mystery that I can’t fathom. Ewell had his entire Corps ready to attack the hill where the Cemetary sits and never made a move. I guarantee you if he had tried it, our boys would’ve been in big trouble. But he didn’t and for the life of me, I can’t figure out why. I get a feeling that if Stonewall was still in charge of that Corps we wouldn’t have been so lucky.

Just heard from Meade. “Good ground” he says. I sure hope so. We’re going to need all the luck we can get to win after the shellacking we took today.

Also heard that they call that little hill where Howard placed the remainder of his Corps “Cemetary Ridge.” Gives me the creeps. My friend Mr. Wilkeson who’s a correspondent for the New York Times just wired me:

“There’s a sign at the entrance to the cemetary that reads ‘The Discharge of Firearms within this cemetary is prohibited. Violators are subject to a $5 fine.”

Heh.