On this day 150 years ago, July 2, 1863, the battle that everyone expected to happen was slow to get going. Neither side had been prepared for the battle to happen at Gettysburg, so much of July 2nd was spent getting soldiers into position - especially for the Confederates, who intended to attack the Union line to their east.
Finally, at around 4:30 in the afternoon, a massive assault began, as the Confederates essentially attacked the entire Union line all at once, with the heaviest fighting taking place on the Union left, which was the southern end of the battlefield. This day would immortalize such places as Little Round Top, Devil's Den, The Wheat Field, The Peach Orchard, and the Valley of Death, along with such names as Joshua Chamberlain, Daniel Sickles, and James Longstreet.
At Little Round Top, the 20th Maine Regiment under the command of Colonel Joshua Chamberlain would hold off charge after charge of Confederates as these Maine fishermen and lumberjacks would fight until they ran out of ammunition, necessitating a bayonet charge that sent the attacking Confederates running and saving the extreme left flank of the Union line. Closer to the center of the Union line, a Confederate brigade (about 3,000 men) broke through, and the only Union men available to stop them from bisecting the Union army were the 262 men of the 1st Minnesota Regiment. When the 1st Minnesota's delaying action was complete, only 47 of them walked away from the engagement.
With the darkness came the end of fighting on that second day of the Battle of Gettysburg. The Confederate assault had come thisclose to breaking the Union line, but at the end of the day, the battlefield arrangement was essentially the same as it had been at the beginning of the day. With General Robert E. Lee noting that the attacks on the Union flanks were unsuccessful, he was convinced that attacking the center of the Union line the next day could decide the battle in favor of his Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. Lee's July 3rd attempt to take the Union center would set up what many believe to be the defining moment of the War for Southern Independence, better known as the U.S. Civil War.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." --Thomas Jefferson
1 comment:
Nice post. Just a reminder, from someone who's married to a Civil War historian and battlefield guide (who I met at a Civil War Roundtable Meeting!), that I think what makes this week significant isn't the fact that we had Gettysburg, but the fact that we had three important campaigns going on at the same time. The Fall of Vicksburg which cut the Confederacy in half, thus depriving the south of many sources of supplies, as well as the loss of over 50,000 prisoners was an incredible blow. I've often noted how many diaries and letters mention Vicksburg, but not Gettysburg. And of course, the Tullahoma Campaign which opened up the entire South to the Federal Army. It doesn't get much attention because of small casualties (1,000 total) but in terms of what it did, it's very significant. Hubby and I spent the weekend tracing the entire campaign here through southern Tennessee, and I have the utmost respect for the men on both sides. The terrain is nasty - cliffs, gaps, mountains - and then add in to the equation the fact that it rained for 10 out of the 14 days of the campaign, and you have a recipe for misery. The veterans said that Tullahoma game from two Greek words - Tulla for mud and homa for more mud.
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