For the Union, 1 July 1863 had been a bad day. General Robert E. Lee's Confederates had shoved the Army of the Potomac east and south from McPherson's Ridge and Oak Ridge out of Gettysburg and back to their 'fishhook' position on the high ground formed by the Round Tops, Cemetery Ridge and Hill, and Culp's Hill. The Union troops had been driven through the town, only just making it to the lower slopes of Cemetery Hill, where they had rallied and reformed as sundown approached. Lee, who regretted that: 'we did not or we could not pursue our advantage', was still uncertain of the Union's dispositions the following morning so an early attack was out of the question. However, he was not intending to stay on the defensive, as he clearly stated early on 2 July: 'The enemy is here and if we do not whip him, he will whip us'.
The Confederates already knew the value of a strong defensive position from their experience at Fredericksburg. To carry one by assault, it was generally accepted that the attacker needed minimum odds of three to one in favour. At Gettysburg the Confederates were to learn that assaults against such positions were doomed at these odds. Pickett's charge up Cemetery Ridge is the best-known Confederate failure, but there were also attacks on 2 and 3 July that could have decided the battle: on Little Round Top with its hastily assembled defense, and on Culp's Hill. Here the Confederates arguably came as close to success as at any other point in the battle.
The Union Position
Culp's Hill rises 140 feet above Gettysburg at its northern peak to the west of Cemetery Hill. Between the two hills the Baltimore Pike runs southeast from the town; for the Army of the Potomac this was a critical line of communication. Northeast is Benner's Hill and the Hanover Road out to the east. Rock Creek runs between Culp's Hill and Benner's Hill and, turning south, separates the former from Wolf's Hill to the east. Although passable in many places, Rock Creek was not easy to ford in this area and is referred to as a ravine in some contemporary accounts. The lower ground to the east and southeast was marshy swamp on either side of Spangler's Spring. Culp's Hill's northern and eastern slopes are liberally strewn with rocks and boulders with cliff-like outcrops rising 15-20 feet in places and deeply shadowed by thick and closely spaced trees. Here it is naturally defended and a place made for ambushes. The southern and western slopes, inside the Union position, are more gentle.
For most of 2 July XII Corps was positioned on the crest of Culp's Hill, nearly 10,000 men under the command of General Alpheus S. Williams, holding the right of the Union line, the barbed tip of the fishhook. Captain Lewis R. Stegman wrote of his regiment: 'The One hundred and second New York was formed in line upon the side of a precipitous hill . . . Skirmishers and pickets from First Corps occupied our front, but were relieved by detail. The men were ordered to build breastworks, and did so with the best material at hand, cord wood and rock, making, however, a strong line.' Captain Joseph Moore of the 147th Pennsylvania wrote ' . . . the pioneer corps was not at hand, and bayonets, tin pans, tin cups etc. were improvised as implements in the construction of earthworks.' Traces of their overnight efforts can still be seen today. Combining man-made protection with natural features and commanding enfilading and intersecting fields of fire, the Union position was a good one.
At Culp's Hill, more than half a mile of trenches was held by men from I Corps' 1st Division and XII Corps. Dawn was slightly after 4.30am, and within an hour the temperature was in the high seventies and climbing. Through the wooded slopes to the east, hot thirsty Union soldiers could catch glimpses of Rock Creek below them. Only skirmishers were close enough to drink from it, but Confederate pickets and skirmishers made it unsafe to venture to the water's edge. Until now this had been a campaign of speedy movement; through most of 2 July it was a waiting war for the men in blue and gray.
The Confederate Plan
By late morning of 2 July Lee had decided on a three-pronged attack. The main thrust was to be directed across the Emmitsburg Road towards Cemetery Ridge There was also to be a flanking attack on the Union left, which was not then thought to extend as far south as was actually the case, and a simultaneous diversionary move against the Union right, curling around Culp's Hill. This feint was designed to pin down forces that might otherwise strengthen the lines facing north and west from Cemetery Hill and Cemetery Ridge. Lieutenant-General Richard Ewell in charge of II Corps had orders to escalate to a full attack if the opportunity arose.
Because of delays in assembling the forces for Lieutenant-General James Longstreet's main thrust from the west, and then some cumbersome manoeuvring, the real fighting did not begin until about 4.30pm.
Preliminaries
All day long intermittent rifle fire had crackled along the front between the skirmishers on either side of Rock Creek. From around the time of Longstreet's attack some artillery fire had been exchanged, with the Union gunners finally winning the duel. Lieutenant Edward D. Muhlenberg of the 4th US Artillery, commanding XII Corps artillery wrote: 'The enemy seriously annoying the left of the line of the Twelfth, a vacant space eligible for a battery was found about 200 yards on the right of I Corps. At 3.30pm one gun (10-pounder Parrott), and at 5pm two more of the same caliber . . . were placed in position.' Napoleon guns joined them, but their movement attracted the full attention of the Confederate artillery: 'The moment their presence was observed, the enemy opened with eight guns; continued an incessant fire for some thirty minutes; then, having a caisson exploded, ceased.' The Confederate guns withdrew behind Benner's Hill to shelter from the larger caliber and greater range of the accurate Union counter-battery fire. This did not really add up to the convincing diversionary action Lee's simultaneous plan called for.
At about 6pm 2nd Division's 1st and 2nd Brigades were ordered from Culp's Hill to strengthen the Union left, which Maj.Gen. George Meade believed to be seriously threatened. A request from Williams to retain at least a division had been overruled and only Brig.Gen. George S. Greene's 3rd Brigade and one regiment from II Corps, scarcely 1400 men, were left. Greene wrote: 'We remained in this position with occasional firing of the pickets until 6.30pm, when the 1st (Williams') Division and the 1st and 2nd Brigades of the 2nd Division were ordered from my right, leaving the entrenchments of Kane's Brigade and Williams' Division unoccupied on the withdrawal of the troops.' Colonel David Ireland's 137th NY Volunteers were initially positioned in the trenches they had dug about half way along the line on the eastern side of the hill. In Ireland's own words, they ' . . . remained there until about 6pm, when I received orders to send out a company of skirmishers . . . At the same time we were ordered to change our position to the line of works constructed by General Kane's Brigade, to occupy which we had to form line one man deep . . . In this position, the right of our regiment was entirely unprotected.' Greene was forced to spread his men to cover virtually three times the area he should have covered.
This drastic reduction of Union strength on Culp's Hill is often described as a blunder. This would be fully justified if the position had fallen. But a fairer judgement is that Meade took a calculated risk, encouraged by the apparent reluctance of Maj.Gen. Edward Johnson's II Corps to mount a serious attack on this very strong position. His short internal lines of communication were added insurance.
Night Attack: 7pm–12am
The Confederates finally decided to attack at about 7pm, quite possibly having heard the sounds of the withdrawal of a large proportion of the defending force. They now outnumbered the Union defenders four to one. Light was failing as they moved through the woods to Rock Creek, intent on crossing and sweeping up the slopes of Culp's Hill. Behind trees, boulders, and from the shadows on the other side, musketry shattered the dimness, sending Confederates diving for cover. Greene had immediately sent out 200 men from the 78th New York to double the strength of his skirmishing screen, which slowly withdrew up the hill. Both the steep hillside and thick woods and boulders, and the knowledge of what the deepening shadows concealed, slowed the advance to a crawl. They were fired upon first from ahead, then their right, their left, and occasionally up the slope from behind. Every Southerner who fell made his comrades move more cautiously. What could have been a ten minute charge to the crest took nearly an hour.
Greene takes up the narrative: 'We were attacked on the whole of our front by a large force a few minutes before 7pm, the enemy made four distinct charges between 7 and 9.30pm, which were effectually resisted. About 8pm the enemy appeared on our right flank and attacked the right flank of the One hundred-thirty-seventh regiment New York Volunteers. Colonel Ireland withdrew his right, throwing back his line perpendicular to the entrenchments in which he had been in position, and presenting his front to the enemy in their new position.'
Colonel Barnum of the 149th NY Infantry described the more stable situation in the main part of the line: 'My command was second from the right of our brigade. A substantial breastwork of stones, logs, rails, and earth was hastily constructed, and the regiment rested in its rear until about 6.45pm, when the enemy drove in our skirmishers and attacked us in large force. The enemy made repeated and desperate charges upon our position, but was as often repulsed with great slaughter to him until our ammunition gave out, when we held the position with the bayonet and such limited firing as could be made with the ammunition of the killed and wounded.'
However, the situation was critical on Greene's right where Col. Ireland and his 137th were desperately resisting a powerful flank attack at the point of weakness he had already identified. Brig.Gen. George Steuart's Brigade was threatening to roll up the Union line from the lower end of Culp's Hill which would in turn have exposed the flank and rear of the Union's centre facing north and west on Cemetery Hill and Ridge.
There was a good deal of confusion in the darkness and the Confederates were cautious in their awareness that they were converging from points of the compass, from northeast to southwest, and in danger of being caught in their own crossfire. In daylight they could have seen how wide the intervals were between men and units, and how shallow the Union defense was. In the dark, they saw none of this, nor could they be sure of the positions of their friends. So Ireland, though almost surrounded, was able to retreat to a stronger position where a short traverse ran west from the southernmost point of Greene's original sector.
At about the same time he was joined by reinforcements sent by Maj.Gen. John Hancock from his centre on Cemetery Ridge, rightly concerned that the earlier call for reinforcements had left Greene in a dangerously weak position now that he was seriously under attack. Other reinforcements arrived from the north end of Culp's Hill and one more regiment from the centre. Finally, when the fighting was almost over for the night, the two XII Corps brigades that had been moved to the south of Cemetery Ridge, and had only been involved in the tail end of the fighting there, came back to find their original positions in Confederate hands. After some exploratory skirmishing in this sector, both sides settled down for a short and uneasy night. This had been rather more than a diversionary action.
Morning, 3 July
On reporting at midnight, Williams had been given a straightforward and predictable order by Maj.Gen. Henry Slocum, his commander: 'Well, drive them out at daylight.' The next three hours were spent in planning for this and positioning his forces, XII Corps artillery in particular. For Ewell and Johnson the objective was equally straightforward, to exploit the previous day's gains and play their part in Lee's unchanged overall plan by pressing the Union's right while Longstreet resumed his assault on Cemetery Ridge. Ewell reinforced Johnson's division and the Stonewall Brigade also rejoined it during the night, more or less doubling its strength. However, though pushed back on the line of Spangler's Lane southwest from the traverse at the bottom of Greene's sector and down towards the Baltimore Pike, the Union position was little weaker and now more strongly manned than it had been the previous afternoon. And the Pike itself was strongly defended.
Johnson was ready to attack all along the line with probably the best expectations for success at the southern, lower end of the hill. But the Union actually opened proceedings at 4.30am with an intensive barrage from batteries positioned to the west of the Baltimore Pike and due south on Power Hill and McAllister Hill. Leaving aside some 'friendly fire' damage, Muhlenberg's report that his gunnery 'was of essential service, and did excellent execution' was fully justified. This was sustained for most of the next six hours and the Confederates could not respond.
Through the morning the Confederates made three attacks on Greene's line and at some points a few men actually reached it, but each attack ended in failure. Between attacks sniping fire was continuous.
Greene fully exploited the advantage of his position pouring fire into the oncoming Confederates. When his units tired, ran low on ammunition, or their rifles began to overheat, he sent them behind the lines to relative safety while fresh troops moved into the trenches. A soldier of the 137th New York, Ireland's regiment, wrote, 'just back of the breast work was a hollow where the reinforcements stayed. A regiment would use up their ammunition in about two hours, when another one would relieve them and they fall back to the hollow where the balls would whistle over their heads. They would clean their guns and get some more ammunition and be ready to relieve another regiment. They would all rather be in the trenches than in the hollow. In this way we could have stood as long as the rebs chose to show themselves below, which was until 11am, but few were seen after this.'
Johnson's first two attacks had been direct assaults up the hill from Rock Creek. His third and final attempt on the position combined a repetition of the first two with a move against the lower southern part of the hill. The Stonewall Brigade, right of the line, took on Greene's center and Brig.Gen. George Steuart's brigade advanced to the northwest to assault the line at Spangler's Lane. Brig.Gen. Junius Daniel's Brigade was to advance on Steuart's right and link with the Stonewall Brigade. It was observed that both Steuart and Daniel 'strongly disapproved' of the plan. The major commanding the 1st Maryland Battalion on Steuart's right regarded it as, 'nothing less than murder to send men into that slaughter pen'. The attackers on the eastern side of the hill at least had the benefit of patches of cover and shelter from artillery harassment
Steuart's Brigade had to leave the protection of the captured trenches and make its final advance, mostly in the open across the Pardee Field, into a crossfire of artillery and musketry, and was shattered. Was this the real blunder of the battle?
Daniel's Brigade made some slight impression on the Union line but had to withdraw when its left was exposed by the evaporation of Steuart's Brigade. Brig.Gen. James Walker reported laconically that his Stonewall Brigade had met with 'equally bad success as our former efforts'. Solid volleys broke them up. A few made it to within 15 yards of the breastworks and one sergeant died on the parapet in an attempt to take the colours of the 149th New York. After an hour or so Walker withdrew: 'as it was a useless sacrifice of life to keep them longer under so galling a fire'.
Conclusion
Johnson made no further attempt on this Union bastion: 'All had been done that it was possible to do', he wrote: 'The enemy were too securely entrenched and in too great numbers to be dislodged by the force at my command'. But Steuart's success the night before had marked as much of a high-water mark as Pickett's charge would later that day. Ewell's diversion had turned into a series of major but ultimately fruitless brigade and divisional actions, and cost the Army of Northern Virginia 2000 or more killed, wounded, missing or captured. Union losses totalled a few hundred, the majority, 300, in Greene's brigade, which had the largest share of the action and had crucially held fast at the moment of crisis when night and the hill were their only allies.
by Carl Smith
Suggested reading
Arnold, James and Wiener, Roberta, Order of Battle 6: Gettysburg 2 July 1863 Confederate: The Army of Northern Virginia, (Osprey, 1999)
Arnold, James and Wiener, Roberta, Order of Battle 7: Gettysburg 2 July 1863 Union: The Army of the Potomac, (Osprey, 1999)
Coddington, Edwin B. The Gettysburg Campaign: A Study in Command, (Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1968)
Pfanz, Harry W., Gettysburg: Culp's Hill and Cemetery Hill, (University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1993)
Scott, Robert N., LTC. The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Vol. XXVII, Part I Reports, (Government Printing Office, Washington, 1889)
Smith, Carl Campaign 52: Gettysburg 1863, (Osprey, 1998)
About the author
Carl Smith resides in Virginia with his wife and family and is the author of several books on both the American Civil War and World War II.