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JULY 2—PREPARATIONS FOR BATTLE
General Meade, at his headquarters at Taneytown, Maryland, nine miles
south of Gettysburg, must have received information on the battle
throughout the afternoon of July 1 for before receiving Hancock's
recommendation to make a stand there, he had ordered his far-flung army
to that field. The Twelfth Corps arrived tardily from nearby Two Taverns
as the fighting ended, the Third Corps reached the field from Emmitsburg
that evening, the Second bivouaced nearby, and the Fifth would arrive
over the road from Hanover early on July 2. Only the large Sixth Corps,
at Manchester, Maryland, over thirty miles away, would not be at hand on
the morning of July 2. Meade himself reached Cemetery Hill at 11:30 P.M.
on July 1 and set to work at once to locate positions for his seven
corps of infantry. The result was a hook-shaped position about three
miles long. Cemetery Hill at the south edge of the town was at its
curve. Culp's Hill to the right rear of Cemetery Hill was at the barb of
the hook, low Cemetery Ridge running south of Cemetery Hill two miles to
Little Round Top was the shank, and Little Round Top the eye. The
Confederates occupied Seminary Ridge, high ground paralleling Cemetery
Ridge a mile to the west. It ran south from Oak Hill, by the Lutheran
seminary, and continued south beyond the Emmitsburg Road. Ewell's Corps
was in the town and along the Hanover Road to the east. Meade feared
that Lee would attack before his troops were in place, but his fears
proved groundless. Meade contemplated making an attack from his right
but gave it up because he learned that it was not feasible to do so.
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MAJOR GENERAL WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK (USAMHI)
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Lee had his own problems. He had several courses of action to
consider. He could establish a position on Seminary Ridge and invite an
attack, he could adopt Longstreet's recommendation and try to move south
to an advantageous position where the enemy might be forced to attack
him, he could retire to the passes of South Mountain and await
developments, or he could remain at Gettysburg and take the offensive.
Lee believed that he had to retain the initiative, but he knew that as
hours passed the enemy would become stronger as his army weakened. He
knew also that without more information on the enemy and a cavalry
screen he could not manuever his army at will in the presence of the
Army of the Potomac. He decided that his best alternative was to
continue the attack at Gettysburg. To this end he would make an early
assault with Longstreet's Corps against the Union left, particularly at
the Peach Orchard 600 yards east of Seminary Ridge, and to the north on
the high ground along the Emmitsburg Road. Longstreet would attack with
the divisions of Maj. Gens. Lafayette McLaws, and John B. Hood, and Maj.
Gen. Richard H. Anderson's division of Hill's Corps would strike the
Union center on Cemetery Ridge. At the same time Ewell's Corps would
demonstrate against the Union forces on Cemetery Hill and Culp's Hill
and convert their feint into an all-out assault if warranted.
As it happened, Meade had directed that the two divisions of the
Union Third Corps be placed on Cemetery Ridge about 0.7 of a mile east
of the Peach Orchard. The left of the corps would be anchored on Little
Round Top, a hill that rose 150 feet above Plum Run at its base and
dominated the lower end of Cemetery Ridge. Maj. Gen. Daniel E. Sickles
commanded the Third Corps. Sickles was a bumptious fellow who had been
a lawyer and a Tammany Hall politician; he had limited
experience in militia affairs before the war and was a friend of
President and Mrs. Lincoln. He and Meade had little in common except a
love for the Union and a mutual distrust of each another.
(click on image for a PDF version)
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JULY 2, 1863, 3 P.M.
General Longstreet has marched the divisions of Hood and McLaws by a
concealed route to the right of the Confederate army. His command and
Anderson's division are now poised to launch an attack to crush the
Union left flank. On the Confederate left, Ewell has Johnson and Early
ready to attack the Union right if opportunity offers. Union General
Sickles has advanced his 3rd Corps, without orders, beyond its assigned
position to occupy the high ground around the Peach Orchard and
Emmitsburg Road.
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Sickles did not like his assigned position and on the morning of July
2 sought to have it changed. He believed that much of it was dominated
by the high ground along the Emmitsburg Road and feared an attack
against his left flank. (We know today that his fear of a flank attack
was groundless.) At about 10:30 A.M. Sickles's alarm increased when
Buford's cavalry, which had been screening his front, left the field and
through error was not replaced. He then sent a reconnaissance force,
including sharpshooter companies, to Seminary Ridge. It met Confederates
extending their line south. Col. Hiram Berdan, who was in command of the
reconnaissance party, later claimed wrongly that they had met and
delayed Longstreet's approach. Instead, it was Wilcox's brigade of
Anderson's division. Yet this finding seemed to confirm Sickles's fears.
By this time he had placed a heavy skirmish line along the Emmitsburg
Road and Brig. Gen. Charles K. Graham's brigade 500 yards in front of
Cemetery Ridge to support it. Shortly afternoon, on learning that there
were Confederates in Pitzer's Woods and not getting satisfaction from
army headquarters, Sickles took the bit in his teeth and moved his corps
to a position far in front of the sector assigned him on Cemetery Ridge.
Instead of manning Little Round Top, he posted his left at Devil's Den,
a mass of elephantine boulders that spilled from a low ridge 500 yards
to the front of the foot of Little Round Top. From there his new line
ran northwest through Rose's Woods and by the Wheatfield to the
Emmitsburg Road at the Peach Orchard south of its intersection with the
Wheatfield Road. It extended north from the Peach Orchard along the
Emmitsburg Road about 0.7 of a mile to a point less than 400 yards from
the Codori farm buildings. Although the line had certain advantages and
numerous batteries of artillery posted along it, its flanks were in the
air, and it was too long for Sickles's small corps to hold alone. In his
rashness Sickles had exposed his corps to a drubbing and forced Meade to
change his battle plan.
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MAJOR GENERAL DANIEL E. SICKLES LOST HIS LEG DURING THE BATTLE AT THE
PEACH ORCHARD (GNMP)
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LIEUTENANT GENERAL JAMES LONGSTREET (CWL)
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Anderson's division, the force discovered by Berdan's men in Pitzer's
Woods, had its right in the woods's north end. It ran north from there
in a single line along Seminary Ridge for a mile and was opposite the
Union center on Cemetery Ridge. At noon as Anderson's five brigades took
their positions, Hood's and McLaws's divisions of Longstreet's Corps
were beginning a circuitous, tiring, and controversial march that they
tried to conceal—especially from Union signalmen they could see on
Little Round Top. It began on Herr Ridge near the scene of the July 1
battle and ended at their jumping-off points on Seminary Ridge opposite
the Peach Orchard and Little Round Top. When they reached these
positions at about 4 P.M., each division formed in a double line. Lee's
orders stipulated that they were to wheel left from there and advance up
the axis of the Emmitsburg Road against the Union left, which he
believed was at the Peach Orchard. But a disgruntled Longstreet saw that
the Union line continued beyond the orchard into the woods near Little
Round Top and Round Top, the higher hill to the south.
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BATTLE AT CULP'S HILL (PHOTO BY RUSS FINLEY)
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MAJOR GENERAL JOHN B. HOOD (GNMP)
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General Hood asked for a change in orders, but time was running out,
and Longstreet, who later wrote that the matter had already been
discussed with General Lee, refused. Longstreet would have Hood's
division wheel left from the ridge line and attack with its left along
the Emmitsburg Road. McLaws's division on Hood's left would drive
straight ahead against the Peach Orchard and the Emmitsburg Road and
then wheel left; Anderson's men would assault the Union center on
Cemetery Ridge. That was the plan.
Meanwhile, Meade finally appreciated that things had gone awry in
Sickles's sector. He rode there and saw the peril of the new position.
Since the enemy was in the Third Corps's front and preparing to attack,
Meade believed that it was too late for Sickles to return his corps to
Cemetery Ridge. Therefore, he ordered Maj. Gen. George Sykes's Fifth
Corps from the rear to bolster Sickles's line. Fortunately, the van of
the Sixth Corps had reached the field, and it could serve as the army's
reserve.
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MAJOR GENERAL LAFAYETTE MCLAWS (LC)
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