Capt. Harlock
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150 Years Ago Today:
At Vicksburg, the negotiations for surrender began. Around 10:00 A.M., white flags were displayed at a point in the Confederate lines, and two officers came over with a letter to U. S. Grant from John Pemberton. The Southern commander prposed a cease-fire and a meeting of commissioners to arrange terms. He added: "I make this proposition to save the further effusion of blood, which must otherwise be shed to a frightful extent, feeling myself fully able to maintain my position for a yet indefinite period."
For the moment, "Unconditional Surrender" Grant lived up to his nickname. Back went the reply:
"Your note of this date is just received, proposing an armistice for several hours, for the purpose of arranging terms of capitulation through commissioners, to be appointed, etc. The useless effusion of blood you propose stopping by this course can be ended at any time you may choose, by the unconditional surrender of the city and garrison. Men who have shown so much endurance and courage as those now in Vicksburg, will always challenge the respect of an adversary, and I can assure you will be treated with all the respect due to prisoners of war. I do not favor the proposition of appointing commissioners to arrange the terms of capitulation, because I have no terms other than those indicated."
--The Personal Memoirs of General U. S. Grant
Nonetheless, the two generals and their staffs met near an oak tree at 3:00 P.M. At first, Grant held out for unconditional surrender, which Pemberton refused. Two subordinate generals then got together, and it was agreed that Grant would send revised terms later.
When I returned to my headquarters I sent for all the corps and division commanders with the army immediately confronting Vicksburg. Half the army was from eight to twelve miles off, waiting for Johnston. I informed them of the contents of Pemberton's letters, of my reply and the substance of the interview, and that I was ready to hear any suggestion; but would hold the power of deciding entirely in my own hands. This was the nearest approach to a "council of war" I ever held.
--The Personal Memoirs of General U. S. Grant
He needn't have bothered, for he ended up ignoring the almost unanimous opinion of the other officers. By this time Grant had realized that the logistics required to send all the Confederate prisoners north would tie up his available transport for weeks. He therefore proposed to parole the entire Southern army, requiring them to turn over their arms. Grant believed that most of the Rebel soldiers would desert, having had enough of war. The new terms were sent to Pemberton.
At Gettysburg, Robert E. Lee was aware that he had come close to breaking the Union lines, though he was probably not aware just how close. Since the Northerners had had to reinforce their flanks, it stood to reason that the center would now be weakened. A break there would split the Army of the Potomac, and allow it to be defeated in detail. Combined with an assault on the Union right, Lee had a plan rather like a land version of Nelson's tactics at Trafalgar, and he hoped just as decisive. to make his victory doubly complete, Lee ordered the cavalry under "Jeb" Stuart, to ride around into the Union rear, which would siphon off troops from the Northern main line and possibly cut the path of retreat.
Map by Hal Jespersen, www.cwmaps.com
But the Yankees were not standing entirely still. They wanted their entrenchments on Culp's Hill back, and at 4:30 a.m. their artillery opened up to prepare the way for their counter-attack. Before the infantry moved, however, the Confederates began their assault. It gained no ground, for the Rebels were outnumbered and outgunned. Even the famous Stonewall Brigade was thrown back with heavy losses. It took seven hours, but the Northerners regained the entrenchments they had lost the evening before.
"Jeb" Stuart's cavalry fared little better. His attack was blocked by a smaller force of Northern horsemen, but who were backed up by artillery. One Southern charge was met by an equally determined counter-charge commanded by the newly promoted youngest general in the army, a 23-year-old George Armstrong Custer. The Federal troopers again demonstrated they were now a match for their opponents, giving about as good as they got, and preventing any attack on the Union rear. Now it was all up to the attack in the center.
To command what would be the largest Confederate field bombardment of the war, Lee selected a colonel rather than the general who was technically in command of the artillery. However, the colonel was Edward Porter Alexander, the man who had achieved the superiority of the Southern guns at Chancellorsville, and Lee knew him for the best artillerist in the army. Over 150 guns were assembled, but it may have actually been too many. Colonel Alexander quickly realized that the smoke from all those cannon, plus the Federal guns firing in reply, would make it very difficult to see the effect of the bombardment:
In a few minutes report came from Alexander that he would only be able to judge of the effect of his fire by the return of that of the enemy, as his infantry was not exposed to view, and the smoke of the batteries would soon cover the field. He asked, if there was an alternative, that it be carefully considered before the batteries opened, as there was not enough artillery ammunition for this and another trial if this should not prove favorable.
-- James Longstreet, From Manassas to Appomattox: Memoirs of The Civil War in America
Longstreet did not believe the attack would be successful (and he would be proved right). But Lee was determined. He knew that the Northerners had taken even more losses than he had the first two days of battle, and he believed that one more push would break the Army of the Potomac. At 1:00 P.M., the guns opened:
The signal-guns broke the silence, the blaze of the second gun mingling in the smoke of the first, and salvoes rolled to the left and repeated themselves, the enemy’s fine metal spreading its fire to the converging lines, ploughing the trembling ground, plunging through the line of batteries, and clouding the heavy air. The two or three hundred guns seemed proud of their undivided honors and organized confusion. The Confederates had the benefit of converging fire into the enemy’s massed position, but the superior metal of the enemy neutralized the advantage of position.
-- James Longstreet, From Manassas to Appomattox: Memoirs of The Civil War in America
As happened on many occasions, the Rebel gunners tended to aim high. The bombardment did significant damage to the Union artillery, and many shells actually went clean over the crests of the hills and landed to the rear of the lines:
All in rear of the crest for a thousand yards, as well as among
the batteries, was the field of their blind fury. Ambulances, passing
down the Taneytown road with wounded men, were struck. The hospitals
near this road were riddled. The house which was General Meade's
headquarters was shot through several times, and a great many horses of
officers and orderlies were lying dead around it. Riderless horses,
galloping madly through the fields, were brought up, or down rather, by
these invisible horse-tamers, and they would not run any more…
The percussion shells would strike, and thunder, and
scatter the earth and their whistling fragments; the Whitworth bolts
would pound and ricochet, and bowl far away sputtering, with the sound
of a mass of hot iron plunged in water; and the great solid shot would
smite the unresisting ground with a sounding "thud”
[...]
An hour has droned its flight since first the war began. There
is no sign of weariness or abatement on either side. So long it seemed,
that the din and crashing around began to appear the normal condition
of nature there, and fighting man's element ... We went along the lines of the infantry as
they lay there flat upon the earth, a little to the front of the
batteries. They were suffering little, and were quiet and cool. How glad
we were that the enemy were no better gunners, and that they cut the
shell fuses too long. To the question asked the men, "What do you think
of this?" the replies would be, "O, this is bully," "We are getting to
like it," "O, we don't mind this." And so they lay under the heaviest
cannonade that ever shook the continent, and among them a thousand times
more jokes than heads were cracked.
--Frank Haskell, "The Battle of Gettysburg"
After nearly two hours, Colonel Alexander saw that several of his guns had been destroyed by the Union counter-fire, and the rest were running low on ammunition. He decided it was now or never:
General Pickett rode to confer with Alexander, then to the ground upon which I was resting, where he was soon handed a slip of paper. After reading it he handed it to me. It read:
“If you are coming at all, come at once, or I cannot give you proper support, but the enemy’s fire has not slackened at all. At least eighteen guns are still firing from the cemetery itself."
“Alexander.”
Pickett said, “General, shall I advance?” The effort to speak the order failed, and I could only indicate it by an affirmative bow. He accepted the duty with seeming confidence of success, leaped on his horse, and rode gayly to his command.
-- James Longstreet, From Manassas to Appomattox: Memoirs of The Civil War in America
Both sides agreed that the spectacle of the over 12,000 advancing Confederates was nothing less than magnificent:
None on that crest now need be told that "the enemy is
advancing". Every eye could see his legions, an overwhelming resistless
tide of an ocean of armed men sweeping upon us! Regiment after regiment
and brigade after brigade move from the woods and rapidly take their
places in the lines forming the assault. Pickett's proud division, with
some additional troops, hold their right; Pettigrew's (Worth's) their
left. The first line at short interval is followed by a second, and that
a third succeeds; and columns between support the lines. More than half
a mile their front extends; more than a thousand yards the dull gray
masses deploy, man touching man, rank pressing rank, and line supporting
line. The red flags wave, their horsemen gallop up and down; the arms of
eighteen thousand men, barrel and bayonet, gleam in the sun, a sloping
forest of flashing steel. Right on they move, as with one soul, in
perfect order, without impediment of ditch, or wall or stream, over
ridge and slope, through orchard and meadow, and cornfield, magnificent,
grim, irresistible. All was orderly and still upon our crest; no noise
and no confusion. The men had little need of commands, for the survivors
of a dozen battles knew well enough what this array in front portended,
and, already in their places, they would be prepared to act when the
right time should come. The click of the locks as each man raised the
hammer to feel with his fingers that the cap was on the nipple; the
sharp jar as a musket touched a stone upon the wall when thrust in
aiming over it, and the clicking of the iron axles as the guns were
rolled up by hand a little further to the front, were quite all the
sounds that could be heard.
--Frank Haskell, "The Battle of Gettysburg"
Then the Federal artillery opened with redoubled fury. A little further, and the nearly untouched Union infantry added their fire, some units even coming down off the hills to enfilade the Southerners:
“A sound filling the air above, below, and around us, like…the whirring sound made by the sudden flight of a flock of quail. It was grape and canister, and the column broke forward into a double quick and rushed toward the stone wall where forty cannon were belching forth grape and canister twice and thrice a minute. A hundred yards from the stone wall the flanking party on the right, coming down on a heavy run, halted suddenly within fifty yards and poured a deadly storm of musket balls into Pickett’s men, double-quicking across their front, and, under this terrible cross fire the men reeled and staggered between falling comrades and the right came pressing down upon the centre, crowding the companies in confusion. But all knew the purpose to carry the heights in front, and the mingled mass from fifteen to thirty deep, rushed toward the stone wall…. Muskets were seen crossed as some fired to the right, and others to the front and the fighting was terrific--far beyond all other experience even of Pickett’s men ... On swept the column over ground covered with thedead and dying men, where the earth seemed to be on fire, the smoke dense and suffocating, the sunshut out, flames blazing on every side, friend could hardly be distinguished from foe, but the division…pushed forward, fighting, falling and melting away, till half way up the hill they were met by a powerful body of fresh troops charging down upon them…”
--Captain Henry T. Owen, 18th Virginia, Pickett’s Division
Under both frontal and flanking fire, the Confederates took terrible casualties. Most of the units faltered. But at one place, the "Angle", they broke the Northern line, if only for a few moments:
--great heaven! Were my senses mad? The larger portion of Webb's brigade -- my God, it was true -- there by the group of trees and the angles of the wall, was breaking from the cover of their works, and, without orders or reason, with no hand lifted to check them, was falling back, a fear-stricken flock of confusion! The fate of Gettysburg hung on a spider's single thread!
A great magnificent passion came upon me at the instant, not one that overpowers and counfounds, but one that blanches the face and sublimes every sense and faculty. My sword, that had always hung idle by my side, the sign of rank only in every battle, I drew, bright and gleaming, the symbol of command. Was that not a fit occasion, and these fugitives the men on whom to try the temper of the Solinzen steel? All rules and proprieties, were forgotten; all considerations of person, and danger and safety despised; for, as I met the tide of these rabbits, the damned red flags of the rebellion began to thicken and flaunt along the wall they had just deserted, and one was already waving over the guns of the dead Cushing. I ordered these men to "halt," and "face about" and "fire," and they heard my voice and gathered my meaning, and obeyed my commands. On some unpatriotic backs of those not quick of comprehension, the flat of my saber fell not lightly, and at its touch their love of country returned...
--Frank Haskell, "The Battle of Gettysburg"
In addition to the men beaten back into line, Northern reinforcements were rushed to the spot. The 72nd Pennsylvania delivered a volley from a distance, but refused to charge. Other regiments were more eager; the colonel of the 19th Massachusetts said to II Corps commander Winfield Hancock, "The colors are coming over the stone wall; let me go in there!" Hancock replied, "Go in there pretty God-damned quick!" And the breach was sealed:
General Armistead, of the second line, spread his steps to supply the places of fallen comrades. His colors cut down, with a volley against the bristling line of bayonets, he put his cap on his sword to guide the storm. The enemy’s massing, enveloping numbers held the struggle until the noble Armistead fell beside the wheels of the enemy’s battery. Pettigrew was wounded, but held his command. General Pickett, finding the battle broken, while the enemy was still reinforcing, called the troops off. There was no indication of panic. The broken files marched back in steady step. The effort was nobly made, and failed from blows that could not be fended. Some of the files were cut off from retreat by fire that swept the field in their rear. Officers of my staff, sent forward with orders, came back with their saddles and bridles in their arms. Latrobe’s horse was twice shot. Looking confidently for advance of the enemy through our open field, I rode to the line of batteries, resolved to hold it until the last gun was lost. As I rode, the shells screaming over my head and ploughing the ground under my horse, an involuntary appeal went up that one of them might take me from scenes of such awful responsibility...
-- James Longstreet, From Manassas to Appomattox: Memoirs of The Civil War in America
To Lee's credit, he immediately took responsibility for the disaster. Everyone thought that there would now be a Union counter-attack, and Lee rode out among the survivors staggering back, telling them that it had been his fault and not theirs, and encouraging them to re-group. Remarkably, they did. But the only Northern move was a small cavalry attack under Kilpatrick, which lost more casualties than it inflicted. George Meade had little taste for sending his infantry across ground covered by masses of cannon -- he was not aware that the Southerners were now very low on artillery ammunition. The Battle of Gettysburg was effectively over.
The butcher's bill was not on the level with such historical bloodbaths as Cannae or the Somme, but by American standards it was immense. Estimated losses are Union: 3,155 killed, 14,531 wounded, 5,369 captured or missing for a total of 23,055, Confederate: 4,708 killed, 12,693 wounded, 5,830 captured or missing for a total of 23,231. (The Confederate estimate is almost certainly low.) In other words, the Union army had lost about a quarter of its effective strength, and the Confederate army had lost a full third.
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< Message edited by Capt. Harlock -- 7/3/2013 4:15:07 AM >
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