“…To Die…Fighting for That Flag…”

This week we share an excerpt from my book Three Days in July – Gettysburg 1863 (available on Amazon) describing anxious moments as the Union and Confederate armies grew closer to each other on the eve of battle.

If the rumors were true, there were shoes to be had in Gettysburg, possibly hundreds or thousands, an entire shoe factory.  Strange that Ewell’s men had not discovered it a few days earlier.  Of course, Ewell’s men had not found it because there was no factory; true, there was an unusually large number of cobblers for a town the size of Gettysburg, but no factory, no warehouse bursting with shoes.  But Harry Heth did not know that.  He had somehow come under the impression that the shoes were there.  Perhaps someone had seen a copy of the Gettysburg Star and Sentinel that a few days earlier had an advertisement for Shick’s Store announcing the arrival of a shipment that included a wide selection of shoes and boots.  Whatever the source of his belief, he was determined to uncover the treasure trove.  Shortages in the South and long, frequent marches had left most of his men shoeless and barefoot, so discovering an abundant supply of shoes was akin to finding a king’s ransom.

On they came, that 30^th of June, one of Heth’s entire brigades, General Pettigrew in command, marching down the Cashtown Road, a ragtag bunch, these men, eager to unearth any footwear that might ease their blistered soles.  But a few miles shy of their intended destination they instead discovered the unexpected; Federal troops strung out on either side of the road, lots of them.  General Lee had issued strict orders; he did not want a general engagement brought on, not until the army was concentrated, so Pettigrew halted his column and reluctantly returned to Cashtown.

Just a short time earlier, General John Buford and his two cavalry brigades trotted into Gettysburg on Emmitsburg Road.  As they paraded through town, residents lined the streets to cheer them, waving flags and fetching buckets of water to slake the troopers’ thirst.  The Federal cavalry had arrived once more, and so many of them.  It was all so exciting; small boys ran alongside as the troopers turned west on Cashtown Road.  Buford was searching for any vestige of Lee’s army.  A Confederate patrol left Gettysburg just as the Yankees entered, headed west, and a small cluster of Rebels had been spotted west of town.  Buford’s intuition told him that Lee and the entire Army of Northern Virginia would be found somewhere up that road, so he established a picket line along McPherson’s Ridge a few miles west of town.  Residents reported Rebels to the north and east as well, and pickets were sent to patrol those roads.  Buford seemed to have found what might be the mother lode.

The arrival of Pettigrew’s brigade confirmed his suspicions.  He surveyed the terrain, noting the rolling ridges west of town, good defensive positions should the Rebels come from that direction.  South of town were a series of hills, more high ground that would offer a favorable defensive position if the Feds could hold it.  The network of roads would allow the scattered Union army to concentrate quickly.  This would be a good place to make a stand.  He turned to one of his brigade commanders and offered a prediction.  He sensed that, within the next forty-eight hours, the two great armies would be pitted in a titanic struggle.

Couriers were sent galloping south on Emmitsburg Road, couriers to summon John Reynolds and his 1^st Corps, couriers to summon Generals Howard and Sickles and their corps.  The Union army was scattered but forced marches could bring them together quickly.  There was no doubt in Buford’s mind that the morrow would bring more Rebels than his two brigades could handle.  He remarked to his brigade commander, “They will attack you in the morning and they will come booming – skirmishers three deep.  You will have to fight like the devil until supports arrive.”

A few miles to the west, Confederate General Pettigrew was trying to make sense of it all.  He had seen with his own eyes what appeared to be Federal troops.  They had been observed from a distance, so he could not be certain, but they certainly looked like regular army, not militia.  His men had also abducted a civilian traveling from the east who informed them that there were four to five thousand Federal troops in Gettysburg and even more a few miles down the road farther south.  Pettigrew didn’t know whether to believe the man but then was told another civilian had recounted something similar.

Pettigrew reported to his division commander, Harry Heth, who then took the report to the corps commander, A.P. Hill.  Both were unimpressed.  Convinced of the Union army’s traditionally lethargic movement, they argued that the Army of the Potomac could not be anywhere near Gettysburg, chiding Pettigrew that, “…the enemy are still at Middleburg, and have not yet struck their tents.”  His superiors were convinced it was nothing more than local militia, easily brushed aside.  Pettigrew was insistent; this was Federal cavalry, and that meant that Federal infantry had to be close by.  The two men grew impatient, dismissing such foolish notions.  Heth turned to Hill, “If there is no objection, General, I will take my division tomorrow and get those shoes.”  No objection was offered.

Pettigrew was still uneasy with what he had seen.  He sought out General Archer, whose brigade he was told would lead in the morning, providing details of the topography and warning that he needed to guard his right flank; that is where the Union infantry was likely to appear, coming up the Emmitsburg Road.  Archer dismissed the man’s concerns as well.  It seemed that everyone had deaf ears for Pettigrew’s cautionary words.

About a dozen miles south of Gettysburg, General George Meade had established his headquarters in Taneytown.  He had his engineers planning a defensive line along Pipe Creek near the Pennsylvania border.  If Lee was in the vicinity and his goal was Baltimore or the City of Washington, he could be expected to approach from the north and might be lured to attack the Union army concentrated along this line.  It appeared that something was imminent; reports were flooding in that the Rebels had evacuated York heading west and had evacuated Carlisle heading south; reports that had been sent by telegraph to Harrisburg, then to Washington, and finally forwarded to Meade.  If true, it was likely that Lee was concentrating his forces.  Meade intended to be ready for him.

As evening turned to nightfall, the townspeople of Gettysburg felt a sense of calm, calm not experienced since the Rebels’ hair-raising entry into town a few days before.  Camped nearby was more Union cavalry than they had ever imagined existed and rumor had it that there were more Union soldiers on their way.  For the first time since that day when the Rebels had stormed into the town’s central diamond, they felt safe, settling into their homes with an easy sense of security that betrayed no conception whatsoever of the great calamity that was about to break upon them.  John Buford was not so relaxed, spending an anxious night, hoping that John Reynolds and others would respond to his summons.  He had issued messages to his pickets stationed west, north, and east of town, “Look…for dust in the morning.”

In the bright moonlight that night, men were on the move, thousands of men, men committed to the restoration of a Union living under one flag.  As they passed through a village, battle flags shimmering in the dim light, Colonel Strong Vincent, the officer commanding a brigade comprised of men from New York, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Maine, a true cross section of the United States, mused to an aide, “What death more glorious could any man desire than to die on the soil of old Pennsylvania fighting for that flag?”  He had no way of knowing just how many for whom that fate awaited.

Up ahead lay a sleepy burg little known outside of the region, the name of which would soon be emblazoned on the consciousness of every person in every household in every state of both the Union and the Confederacy, and the events that would make it so were just hours away.  None of the residents knew what the morning would bring, but the deployment of so many Union cavalry on the ridges west of town brought the realization that some great calamity might soon crash on their very doorstep.  “The whole air seemed charged with conditions which go before the storm; everybody anxious, neighbor asking neighbor what was going to happen.”

Just south of town near the gatehouse for Evergreen Cemetery stood a sign erected by the caretaker announcing a five dollar fine for anyone discharging a firearm within the cemetery’s boundaries.  Would that he could personally collect on that decree; he would in a few days be a very wealthy man.