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 REYNOLDS MEMORIAL. 
 
 ADDRESSES 
 
 DELIVERED BBPORE 
 
 !i HISIOliL SOCl! OF PliSimi 
 
 UPON THE OCCASION OV THE 
 
 PRESENTATION OF A PORTRAIT 
 
 OF 
 
 MAJ.-GEN. JOHN F."®YNOLDS, 
 
 MAKCH 8, 1880. 
 
 PRINTED BY 
 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO., PHILADELPHIA. 
 
 1880. 
 
A.f^ 
 
 > 
 
 Cornell 
 
 UNlVERSITYi 
 
 .RY 
 
PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 SflORTLT after its date the following letter was received by the Historical 
 Society of Pennsylvania : 
 
 Lahcasteb, Pa., December 8, 1879. 
 John "Wm. Wallace, Esq., 
 
 President of Historical Society of Pennsylvania. 
 Dear Sib, — Kear-Admiral 'Williain Eeynolds, IT.S.N., of this city, died No- 
 vember 5, 1879. By his will he bequeathed to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania 
 the portrait by Balling of John Fulton Reynolds, late a citizen of Pennsylvania, 
 and colonel of the U.S.A. and major-general of volunteers. It will be sent to you 
 from Washington to-morrow by Adams' Express, free of expense. 
 
 Very respectfully, 
 
 Eebecca Betnolds, 
 Charles A. Heinitsh, 
 
 Executors. 
 
 At a meeting of the Council of the Historical Society, held December 29, 1879, it 
 was unanimously 
 
 Resolved, That the Council entertain a profound affection and respect for the 
 name and memory of John Fulton Eeynolds, late a citizen of Pennsylvania, colonel 
 in the army of the United States, and major-general of volunteers, whose bravery 
 and military skill, as exhibited on the field of Gettysburg, assisted in the highest 
 degree to the preservation of this city from capture by the enemy in July, 1863, and 
 to the overthrow of the rebellion against the Constitution, laws, and liberty of the 
 United States of America. 
 
 Resolved, That the portrait of Major-General John F. Eeynolds, bequeathed to 
 the Society by his brother, Eear-Admiral William Eeynolds, be presented at the 
 stated meeting of the Society to be held in March next with appropriate ceremonies, 
 and that Major J. Edward Carpenter, Colonel William Brooke Eawle, and Colonel 
 John P. Nicholson be a committee to make arrangements in the matter, and to 
 invite specially such gentlemen of the Army and Navy and others, as they think 
 proper so to invite (reference being had to the size of the hall) , and generally to 
 take order and action in and about the said meeting and the presentation of the 
 said picture, so that the same may be worthy of the memory, so far as the Society 
 can make it so, of the gallant soldier whose life was given for the preservation of 
 his country. 
 
 In accordance with the above resolution the formal presentation and acceptance 
 of the portrait of General Eeynolds took place at the meeting of the Society held 
 March 8, 1880. The report of the proceedings is hereinafter contained. 
 
 Wm. Brooke Eawle, 
 Recording Secretary Historical Society of Pennsylvania. 
 
 3 
 
REYNOLDS MEMORIAL. 
 
 In accordance with the notice given to the members of the Histori- 
 cal Society of Pennsylvania, and the special invitations to others, to 
 attend the stated meeting of the Society held on the evening of March 
 8, 1880, the hall of the Society, in Spruce Street, Philadelphia, was 
 filled to its utmost capacity. There were in attendance His Excellency 
 the Governor of the Commonwealth, the Hon. Henry M. Hoyt, Brevet 
 Brigadier-General U.S.V., Ex-Governors the Hon. Andrew G. Curtin 
 and Major-General John F. Hartranft, the Pennsylvania Commandery 
 of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, with 
 Rear-Admiral George F. Emmons at its head, and many other dis- 
 tinguished oificers of the Army and Navy, as well as many prominent 
 citizens and ladies. 
 
 The chair was occupied by John "William Wallace, Esquiee, 
 LL.D., President of the Society. 
 
 After the meeting had been called to order and the reading of the 
 minutes had been formally dispensed with, the President said : 
 
 You are all aware, ladies and gentlemen, of the chief object for 
 which we are assembled. The picture which the late Admiral Rey- 
 nolds has bequeathed to our Society hangs before you, upon the wall 
 behind the President's chair, against the crimson damask. The sword 
 of honor in a golden scabbard, so handsomely inscribed, and with a 
 hilt studded with diamonds, is suspended under the picture. As you 
 will hear this evening, it was intended to have been presented to Gen- 
 eral Reynolds by his loving soldiers of the Pennsylvania Reserves. 
 His untimely death prevented his receiving it, and his gallant brother, 
 the Admiral, was made the custodian of it in his stead. Yon tattered 
 flag hanging near the portrait is what is left of the corps flag of the 
 First Army Corps which General Reynolds commanded at the time of 
 his death. 
 
 The testamentary executors of Admiral Reynolds have requested 
 
 5 
 
6 REYNOLDS MEMORIAL. 
 
 Mb. Joseph G. Eosengaeten, formerly of General Reynolds's staff, 
 his personal friend, and the friend of his family, to present this picture 
 to our Society in their behalf. The selection of no gentleman could be 
 more appropriate, and I have the honor to introduce him to you. 
 
 addkess of me. j. g. eosengakten. 
 
 Mr. Peesident and Membees of the Histoeical Society: 
 — By his last will, dated at Kobe, Japan, on the 25th June, 1876, the 
 late Admiral Reynolds, then in command of the United States naval 
 forces on the Asiatic Station, bequeathed to the Historical Society of 
 Pennsylvania the portrait of his brother, the late General John Fulton 
 Reynolds, painted by Balling, a Danish artist. I am directed by his 
 widow and her co-executor, who is present on her behalf, to present to 
 you that portrait. In doing so, I ask leave to submit a brief memoir 
 of the lives and services of these two gallant sons of Pennsylvania. 
 As the representative for this purpose of the family, I am debarred 
 from even the customary license of eulogy, and my aim will be simply 
 to give an account of their ancestry, their training, and their record in 
 the naval and military service of the country. In the letters and ad- 
 dresses of their fellow-oificers, from which I havfr made liberal extracts, 
 there will be found eloquent praise of these two gallant brothers, who 
 lent lustre to the respective arms of the service in which they spent 
 their lives. The sword of honor which hangs below the portrait on 
 your walls bears testimony to the affection of the soldiers of General 
 Heynolds's command, — it was voted to him by the enlisted men of the 
 Division of Pennsylvania Reserves, and after his death it was presented 
 to the Admiral, who bequeathed it to their nephew, Lieut. John F. 
 Reynolds Landis, U.S.A., by whose permission it is now loaned to this 
 Society to grace the solemn ceremonies of the presentation of General 
 Reynolds's portrait. 
 
 There are both in this country and elsewhere notable examples of two 
 brothers achieving distinction in the sister services, but these cases are 
 not so frequent as to allow the latest as well as the most shining instance 
 to pass without special comment. There was much in common in the 
 character of Admiral and General Reynolds. They were alike in their 
 dislike of mere popular applause ; alike in their zealous discharge of 
 duty ; alike in always putting their whole strength in all they did ; 
 alike in the high estimate put upon them by all who knew them • alike 
 in enjoying the affection and confidence of all who served with them • 
 alike in the hold they have gained upon the memory of those who 
 
MB. EOSENGARTEN'S ADDBESS.^ 7 
 
 could best appreciate their abilities and their patriotic devotion to their 
 country in its hour of direst need, — in the great struggle for its exist- 
 ence. General Reynolds gave up his life on the battle-field in the 
 midst of health and strength, Admiral Reynolds died in consequence 
 of exposure to the malarial fever of the East when he was in com- 
 mand of the Asiatic Squadron. He had undergone forty years before 
 the hardships incident to his service as a subaltern in Wilkes's Ex- 
 ploring Expedition, but later was forced by ill health to go upon the 
 retired list, and was employed for some years in the Sandwich Islands. 
 He returned home at once on the outbreak of the Rebellion, and, although 
 still disabled, sought and at once found active employment, and was 
 soon restored to the active list as a reward for his successful discharge 
 of the important and responsible duties assigned to him. Nor were 
 these brothers alone in serving their country in its hour of peril. An 
 elder brother was a paymaster, and a younger was the quartermaster- 
 general of Pennsylvania throughout the war, and served with great 
 zeal, rendering efficient and valuable aid to his commander, the 
 war governor of that great Commonwealth, helping to call forth its 
 strength and contribute its resources of men and means to meet the 
 exigencies of those trying times, and to support the strain put upon 
 its patriotism. 
 
 William and John Fulton Reynolds were the sons of John Rey- 
 nolds, who was born near Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1787. He was 
 the son of William Reynolds, a Protestant Irishman, who came to this 
 country in August, 1762, was in the "Flying Camp" in 1776, and 
 in 1778 married Catharine Ferree Le Fevre, the great-granddaughter 
 of Mary Ferree, a French Huguenot, who settled in Lancaster County 
 in 1709. This Mary Ferree came from the Rhine Provinces, where 
 she had taken refuge from persecution in France, until a French 
 invading army forced her to go still farther. Finally, with her 
 three sons and three daughters and a large following of her fellow- 
 countrymen, she found a home in Pennsylvania. She was a widow 
 before she left Europe, yet so much of a leader that on her arrival 
 she took up four thousand acres, — two thousand by grant from the 
 Proprietor, who thus encouraged the settlement of an excellent class 
 of emigrants, and two thousand by purchase. All of this and much 
 adjacent land was subdivided among and settled by French and other 
 Protestant refugees. They were all heartily welcomed by the Indians, 
 whose king, Tanawa, lies buried in the grave-yard at Paradise, in 
 Lancaster County, set apart by her. Her daughter, Catharine, mar- 
 ried Isaac Le Fevre, who had come to this country with the Ferrees, in 
 
8 REYNOLDS MEMORIAL. 
 
 his seventeenth year, first settling with many other French Huguenots 
 in Esopus in New York, subsequently removing with his fellow-Hugue- 
 nots to Pennsylvania. Their son was the first white child born in Pequea 
 Valley, now one of the richest, most populous, and most fertile tracts 
 of Eastern Pennsylvania. Penn, in a deed dated 1712, for land con- 
 veyed to Daniel Ferree and Isaac Le Fevre, described them as " late 
 of Steinmeister, in the Palatinate of the Rhine," and the passport from 
 the authorities of their native place speaks of them as coming "to 
 the Island of Pennsylvania." Rupp, in his "History of Lancaster 
 County," calls them Walloons. Redmond Conyngham reports a tra- 
 dition that Mary Ferree was presented to Queen Anne at Hampton 
 Court by Penn himself when she was on her way to his colony, and 
 she was certainly treated with unusual honor as a representative and 
 leader of the French Huguenots in their exodus to a new home. 
 
 The mother of Admiral and General Reynolds was Lydia, daugh- 
 ter of Samuel Moore, a Protestant Irishman too, an early settler in 
 Lancaster County, and an ofiicer of the Pennsylvania line during the 
 Revolutionary War ; although on the reorganization of the Continental 
 army he lost his commission, his services were rewarded by a grant 
 of land in the West and by a pension to his widow, and in 1794 he 
 was commissioned by Governor Mifflin, an Associate Judge of the 
 Court of Common Pleas of Dauphin County. Her maternal grand- 
 father, Samuel Fulton, another north of Ireland emigrant, gave to 
 John Fulton Reynolds his middle name. The Reynolds' well bear 
 out the strong praise given to their race by Judge Chambers in his 
 account of " The Irish and Scotch Settlers of Pennsylvania," where, 
 after premising that " character is said to be transmissible, and that of 
 descendants may often be traced in that of their ancestors," he asserts 
 that " in all stations under the National and State governments, civil 
 and military, the men of the Scotch-Irish race have generally been 
 prominent, eminent, patriotic, faithful, wise, judicious and deliberate 
 in council, resolute, unwavering, and inflexible in the discharge of 
 duty, and when called by their country to face the public enemy in 
 arms, there were none more brave, fearless, and intrepid." John 
 Reynolds, the father, was left an orphan at an early age, and coming 
 from Lancaster to Philadelphia, became an apprentice to Archibald 
 Bartram, a well-known printer in the early years of the century; he 
 was made a partner before he was of age, and the imprint of Bartram & 
 Reynolds is found on some important publications. Reynolds returned 
 to Lancaster, and in 1820 bought the Lancaster Journal, established 
 in 1794, which grew in importance under his management. He sold 
 
MB. BOSENGABTEN' S ABDBESS. 9 
 
 it in 1836, and thenceforward devoted himself to the care of numerous 
 important public and private trusts. He sat in the State Legislature 
 for a short time, and he was honored with the esteem and confidence 
 of all his associates there, while he was active and energetic at home 
 in advancing the interests of his fellow-townsmen, and especially in 
 the cause of education, taking a large part in securing the establish- 
 ment of the system of common schools, and in every way maintaining 
 the credit and distinction which made Lancaster pre-eminent in the 
 State, and that at a time when its influence was quite out of proportion 
 to its mere size. John Reynolds died in Baltimore on the 11th of May, 
 1853, leaving to his children the inheritance of a spotless reputation. 
 William Reynolds, his second son, was born in Lancaster, December 
 18, 1815; was appointed a midshipman November 17, 1831; served 
 on Wilkes's Exploring Expedition from 1838 to 1842, receiving his 
 commission as lieutenant while he was with it, and went on the retired 
 list in consequence of ill health in 1851. He was assigned to duty 
 at the Sandwich Islands, and remained there until 1861, when he 
 returned to the United States and applied for active duty. He was 
 made commander of the naval forces at Port Royal, and on the recom- 
 mendation of Admiral Dupont and Admiral Dahlgren, and at the 
 urgent request of his juniors, was restored to the active list; became 
 a commodore in 1870 ; served as Chief of Bureau and as Acting Sec- 
 retary of the Navy in 1873, and again in 1874; and having been 
 made rear-admiral December 12, 1873, was appointed in that year 
 to the command of the United States naval force on the Asiatic Station, 
 where he was again stricken down and obliged to return home. 
 
 It was while he was in Japanese waters that he made his will, 
 bequeathing the sword intended to be presented to his brother. General 
 Reynolds, by the enlisted men of the Pennsylvania Reserves, and after 
 his death sent to the Admiral, as the representative of the family, to 
 their nephew. Lieutenant John Fulton Reynolds Landis, now of the 
 First United States Cavalry, and Balling's portrait of General Rey- 
 nolds to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, thus showing that his 
 last thought was of that brother's memory, and that his last wish was 
 to perpetuate the name and fame of the gallant soldier whose death on 
 the battle-field has forever connected him with the successful issue of 
 the great struggle at Gettysburg. 
 
 Of Admiral Reynolds's services the Secretary of the Navy, in 
 the order announcing his death, says, "In the administration of the 
 duties committed to him he did much to improve the personnel and 
 efficiency of the enlisted men of the navy, and in the discharge of all 
 
10 REYNOLDS MEMORIAL. 
 
 the duties devolving on him during a long career in the service 
 he exhibited zeal, intelligence, and ability, for all of which he was 
 conspicuous." 
 
 Judge Allen, the Hawaiian representative at "Washington, said, 
 " Admiral Reynolds, when a young man attached to Wilkes's Exploring 
 Expedition, made a thorough examination of the Hawaiian Islands. 
 Eeturning there on account of ill health, he became strongly impressed 
 with the importance of their position, not only as a resort for the mer- 
 cantile and naval marine, but as an outpost of defense to the United 
 States. He urged the establishment of more intimate commercial 
 relations between the two countries, not only on the score of increased 
 business, but as tending to strengthen the political position of the 
 United States in its control of the great western world. His judg- 
 ment was striliingly correct, not only in all that related to his profes- 
 sional duty, but in regard to promoting the commercial and industrial 
 interests of the whole country. He seconded heartily the action of 
 the government in negotiating the Hawaiian treaty of reciprocity, 
 viewing it as of great political as well as commercial value, and urging 
 on all the public men who consulted him on account of his long resi- 
 dence in the islands, the necessity of favorable action. His opinion 
 was clear and emphatic that the treaty would give the United States 
 a controlling interest in the islands, and it had great and deserved 
 weight with those who, knowing his thorough acquaintance with the 
 subject, could rely implicitly on his sound advice and his mature 
 judgment. The Hawaiians have always borne in grateful memory his 
 long residence in their midst, and his action in forwarding the treaty 
 which has secured them a strong alliance with the United States, and 
 saved them from the risks of an unwelcome protectorate from some 
 distant power. It was eminently characteristic of Admiral Reynolds 
 that in his successive visits to the islands and in his frequent inter- 
 course with their representatives, he never failed to do and to secure 
 justice to them, and to maintain the high and well-earned confidence 
 which has always been put in our naval representatives by those 
 countries with which they have had most to do." 
 
 Rear- Admiral Rodgers said, "I know that Admiral Dupont 
 placed the greatest confidence in Reynolds, — his administration of his 
 command was always admirable, he was always ready for duty, and no 
 one was ever detained for a moment for anything which it laid in his 
 power to do at once. The letters on file in the Navy Department 
 show how valuable, how indispensable were the services he rendered 
 to the fleet at Port Royal. At the Sandwich Islands, as elsewhere, he 
 
MR. B0SENGABTEIP8 ADDRESS. H 
 
 was conspicuous for his attention to his duties and for his skill in per- 
 forming them. To a ready command of language he united clear 
 perceptions, a facile pen, and elegant diction, — he wrote well and with 
 great strength. In losing Admiral Reynolds the navy lost one of its 
 most devoted servants and one of its most esteemed oiBcers." 
 
 His last service was in command of the United States naval forces on 
 the Asiatic Station. Sailing from New York in his flag-ship " Tennes- 
 see," he went through the Suez Canal, receiving unusual honors from 
 the Khedive of Egypt and from the British officers in India. In China 
 and Japan, in Siam and Singapore, he discharged with great success 
 the large discretion necessarily vested in our naval commanders in the 
 East. Lieutenant-Commander "White, who was a member of Admiral 
 Reynolds's staff, in his rough notes of his last cruise, speaks of the 
 thoroughness with which he carried out all his orders and visited all 
 the points prescribed, notably working to secure the success of his 
 negotiation with the King of Siam and to re-establish friendly relations 
 with his kingdom, and in all his dealings and intercourse making a 
 strong and favorable impression on all with whom he was personally 
 and officially brought in contact. In Japan, his relations with native 
 as well as foreign dignitaries were always of the pleasantest kind. In 
 China, he took his flag-ship close to the great China Wall, where it 
 comes down to the sea, and afterwards visited Pekin, and was received 
 by the regent with the distinction due his rank and the country he so 
 well represented. His health failing, he relinquished his command 
 and returned home. This was his last duty; he soon after went on 
 the retired list, and after a long illness he died in Washington, on 
 the 5th of November, 1879, and was buried in Lancaster, Pa., near 
 his brother. General John F. Reynolds. 
 
 Jolin Fulton Reynolds was born in Lancaster on the 20th of Sep- 
 tember, 1820. Like his elder brother William, and with his younger 
 brother James Le Fevre, he was sent to school at Litiz, a Moravian 
 village laid out as a colony from Bethlehem in 1757, and deriving 
 its name from a village in Bohemia, whence many of the United 
 Brethren had emigrated to this country. It has always been famous 
 for its schools. Originally there was one for boys belonging to the 
 society and another for those of other denominations, but finally these 
 were consolidated, and in 1815 put under charge of Mr. John Beck, 
 who remained at its head for fifty years. In his valedictory address of 
 1865 he gives a catalogue of his pupils, and it contains the names of 
 William Reynolds in 1827, and John and James Reynolds m 1833. 
 Beck was noted for his social intercourse and parental influence with 
 
12 REYNOLDS MEMORIAL. 
 
 his boys ; he inspired them with a real love of work and a hearty en- 
 thusiasm in all their pursuits ; he had the gift of teaching them how 
 to learn, and in giving them a good practical education he made his 
 school deservedly popular and successful, so that it left its marked and 
 lasting influence on all those whose early education was begun under 
 his fostering care. 
 
 One of Reynolds's school-fellows says of him, "He was a general 
 favorite ; of a kindly but very lively temperament, he attracted sym- 
 pathy and love with all, and was held in high esteem, — his happy and 
 joyous face showed that he belonged to a race of hardy scholars, work- 
 ing and playing in earnest." To give them a classical training the 
 Reynolds boys were sent from Litiz to Long Green, Maryland, about 
 sixteen miles from Baltimore, where the Rev. Mr. Morrison, a Pres- 
 byterian clergyman, had established a very successful high school in an 
 old colonial mansion of the Carrolls. Afterwards they returned to 
 Lancaster, attended the Lancaster County Academy, of which the Rev. 
 Mr. Marcellus, a graduate of Union College, New York, was the 
 principal; there they studied Trench and mathematics, and received 
 their appointments, William going into the navy as a midshipman, 
 John to West Point as a cadet. They received these from Mr. Bu- 
 chanan, at that time a leading representative of Pennsylvania in Con- 
 gress, and one of that strong body of able men who made the local 
 reputation of Lancaster and carried it into the highest place in our 
 government. With him as with his other contemporaries the elder 
 Reynolds maintained a life-long intimacy, — the tie of Federalism bound 
 them together for many years, and their friendship outlived their party, 
 for they went together over to the new Jacksonian Democracy. 
 
 Reynolds was appointed a cadet at West Point on the 30th of June, 
 1837, being then nearly seventeen ; he graduated on the 22d of June, 
 1841, number twenty-six in a class of fifty-two. Among his class- 
 mates were General Wright, now Chief of Engineers U.S.A., Lyons, 
 Garesche, Tower, Whipple, Rodman, Howe, Totten, Garnett, all well 
 known for their share in the late war, and in which like him they won 
 honor and distinction. 
 
 He was appointed brevet lieutenant July 1, 1841, and second 
 lieutenant in the Third Artillery October 23, 1841 ; first lieutenant 
 June 1, 1846 ; was in the battery under T. W. Sherman in the battle 
 of Monterey, and was for his services there brevetted captain September 
 23, 1846 ; was engaged in the battle of Buena Vista, on the 21st of 
 January, 1847, and was brevetted major for his gallantry on that field. 
 He was appointed captain March 5, 1855; was mentioned in general 
 
MB. JiOSENGARTEN'S ADDRESS. 13 
 
 orders for his services in the expedition against the Rogue E.iver 
 Indians in Oregon ; took part in the Utah Expedition, under General 
 A. S. Johnston, in 1858 ; and in 1859 was appointed commandant of 
 cadets at West Point. May 14, 1861, he was appointed lieutenant- 
 colonel of the Fourteenth Infantry, and on the 20th of August, 1861, 
 brigadier-general U.S.V. At the request of Governor Curtin he was 
 assigned the command of the First Brigade of the division of Penn- 
 sylvania Reserves, then under Major-General McCall, in front of "Wash- 
 ington, Meade and Ord taking the other brigades. In May, 1862, he 
 was made military governor of Fredericksburg, and it is characteristic 
 of the man that when he was taken prisoner at the battle of Gaines' 
 Mills, on the 28th of June, and sent to Richmond, the civil author- 
 ities of Fredericksburg went to Richmond to solicit his exchange. 
 This was finally effected, and he was exchanged for General Barks- 
 dale, who was also killed at Gettysburg. Reynolds employed his 
 enforced leisure in prison by preparing a careful report of the opera- 
 tions of his command in the campaign under McClellan, and on his 
 release rejoined the army on the 8th of August, and was assigned com- 
 mand of the division of Pennsylvania Reserves, taking a distinguished 
 part in the campaign of the Army of Virginia under General Pope ; 
 at the request of Governor Curtin he was assigned command of the 
 militia at the time of the first invasion of Pennsylvania ; returning to 
 the Army of the Potomac, he succeeded General Hooker in command 
 of the First Corps; on the 29th of March, 1863, he was appointed 
 major-general U.S.V. ; and on the 1st of June, colonel Fifth United 
 States Infantry ; on the 12th of June he was assigned to the command 
 of the left wing of the Army of the Potomac, consisting of his own 
 and the Third and Eleventh Corps, and of the cavalry division under 
 Buford; and on the 1st of July, 1863, he fell at Gettysburg at the head 
 of his troops, in the advance of the army, and at the very outset of 
 the great battle. 
 
 The letters written by him during his busy career well illustrate 
 his character. He writes from camp near Monterey, 6th of December, 
 1846, " In the first place, our battery was ordered into town on the 
 21st, with four guns, four caissons, and six horses to a carriage. It 
 was discovered that only one gun could be brought into action, the 
 remainder was therefore exposed to the fire from the enemy's works 
 without being of the least use. It was therefore ordered back where 
 it started from, and which it never should have left at the time it did; 
 afterwards the men were of some use in driving back the cavalry of 
 the enemy. On the 23d we were again in town, and suffered more in 
 
14 BETNOLDS MEMORIAL. 
 
 the loss of men than we did on the 21st ; in all we had twenty-two 
 horses and about twelve or fourteen men disabled. My horse was shot 
 on the 21st, but has entirely recovered, and is in much better condition 
 than ever, inasmuch as he can go over his four bars and think nothing 
 of it. There are but three of us now in the company, Thomas, 
 myself, and French, Bragg having succeeded to the company poor 
 Ridgeley commanded. What an unfortunate fate was his ! A more 
 gallant officer there was never in the service, or a more noble, generous 
 companion ; his death will be regretted by the whole army. He was 
 looked upon as the real hero of the Eesaca." 
 
 From camp near Monterey, May 16, 1847, he writes, "All I care 
 for and all the reward I expect is the good opinion of my brother 
 officers in the army. I have been gratified to my heart's content with 
 all the honors of war, but I am in for the war and expect to see it 
 through." Carleton, in his " History of the Battle of Buena Vista," 
 makes frequent mention of Reynolds, who was in command of a sec- 
 tion of T. W. Sherman's battery, and was with his two guns in May's 
 cavalry operations, doing gallant service in repelling the attack of the 
 Mexicans on Buena Vista, and aiding in turning the enemy's right at 
 very close quarters. 
 
 In General Orders No. 14, of November 13, 1857, and No. 22, of 
 November 10, 1858, from headquarters of the army. Brevet Major 
 J. F. Reynolds, Company H, Third Artillery, is one of the officers 
 " specially commended for skill, perseverance, and judgment in their 
 conduct of the campaign of March, April, May, and June, 1856, in 
 which, after traversing the mountains and valleys of the Rogue River, 
 the troops had a number of severe conflicts, and compelled the Indians 
 to surrender at discretion, thus terminating the war in Southern 
 Oregon." 
 
 In September, 1859, he writes from camp at Fort Dalles, Oregon, 
 describing the march of eight hundred and thirty-eight miles from 
 Camp Floyd, Utah, having spent seventy-one days on the journey. 
 He says, " And now we are at the end of the land route, about to ship 
 the battery by water to "Vancouver, ninety miles down the river. The 
 march was tedious but very successful, and we are glad to get away from 
 the despicable Mormons, whose hordes have seized the heart of the 
 country and live in open defiance of the law." On tiie 18th of June 
 1861, writing from West Point, he speaks of "the sorrowful condition 
 of our only lately happy and prosperous country," and of the visit 
 of Mr. Jefferson Davis, in the preceding September, with a committee 
 of Congressmen " laboring to reorganize our national school, whose 
 
MR. BOSEKGABTEIPS ADBBESS. 15 
 
 sons never, until the seeds sown by his parricidal hand had filled it 
 with the poisonous weed of secession, had known any other allegiance 
 than that due to the whole country, or worshiped any other flag than 
 that which waved over our youthful hopes and aspirations, and under 
 which we marched so proudly in our boyish days. Who could have 
 believed that he was then brooding over his systematic plan for dis- 
 organizing the whole country? The depth of his treachery has not 
 been plumbed yet, but it will be." In a letter from Fort Trumbull, on 
 the 15th of July, 1861, he says, "I left "West Point on the 3d, and 
 have been busy since dispatching officers of my new regiment on re- 
 cruiting service. I would have preferred, of course, the artillery arm 
 of the service, but could not refuse at this time, when the government 
 has a right to my services in any capacity. We have just received the 
 news of General McClellan's victories, and hope they are the harbingers 
 of the ultimate triumph and vindication of the Constitution of our 
 fathers." After he had gone to the field, on the 4th of November, 
 1861, he writes, " I put the division through a review, the form of 
 which I arranged according to my idea of the proper formation and 
 disposition of large bodies of troops ; it was a decided success. We 
 are to have a review of three divisions soon, and in the same manner, 
 putting about thirty thousand men in, and allowing them to manoeuvre 
 and pass in review in proper order." 
 
 He did his best to make the Pennsylvania militia as useful as pos- 
 sible in the emergency for which he was called to command them in 
 the autumn of 1862, and his labors were fully appreciated by those 
 most competent to judge, although he was also the subject of much 
 adverse comment by persons unwilling or unable even then to ap- 
 preciate the advantage and necessity of strict military discipline. On 
 the conclusion of this service Governor Curtin wrote him the follow- 
 ing letter of thanks : 
 
 Pennsylvania Executive Chamber, 
 Hakkisbukq, 26tli September, 1862. 
 
 General, — Having relieved you from duty as commander of the Pennsyl- 
 vania Volunteer Militia, recently called out for the defense of the State, I deem 
 it proper to express my strong sense of the gratitude which Pennsylvania owes for 
 the zeal, spirit, and ability which you brought to her service at a period when her 
 honor and safety were threatened. That for her security you left the command 
 of your brave division, the Pennsylvania Eeserves, thus losing the opportunity 
 of leading this gallant corps at South Mountain and Antietam, is a just demon- 
 stration of the true affection you bear for your native State, which, be assured, 
 her freemen reciprocate, and for which, in their behalf, I am happy to make you 
 
 this acknowledgment. 
 
 (Signed) A. Gr. Cuktin. 
 
 To Brioadibr-General John F. Eetnolds, U.S.A. 
 
16 REYNOLDS MEMORIAL. 
 
 In his letter from camp near Sharpsburg, Maryland, October 5, 
 1862, Reynolds says, " I finished up the militia just as soon as possible 
 as far as I was concerned, though I was sorry to see they did not 
 escape without an accident, which I was apprehensive all the time 
 might occur. They were impatient beyond any conception, and 
 finally exhausted my patience in one or two instances. The President 
 visited us on Friday last. My corps, for I am commanding Hooker's 
 temporarily, were kept under arms waiting in the sun for so long a 
 time as to have entirely melted out what little remained of their en- 
 thusiasm." And on the 14th of October, speaking of Stuart's raid, he 
 says, " When I heard that the enemy's cavalry had got over into the 
 State I rejoiced, because I thought they must be caught before they 
 recrossed the river, but their escape has given me quite a shock. I 
 did not think they could perform such a feat in our own country. 
 On the Chickahominy it was different, — the very audacity of the thing 
 was the secret of its success. The State should have an organized force 
 on the frontier, of cavalry, infantry, and artillery, to be posted on 
 their exposed points, which could be moved with something like rapid- 
 ity in a body. Militia without artillery would be good only to be 
 paroled." 
 
 In his letter of November 30, 1862, from headquarters First 
 Army Corps, camp at Brooks' Station, Virginia, he says, "The removal 
 of General McClellan was a surprise to the greater portion of the 
 army here, but, take it altogether, it created less feeling than I feared 
 such a step would have done. I saw more of him on this march than 
 I have done since he has been in command of the army ; had been 
 with him most of the time in the advance, and think the step taken 
 by the authorities in Washington was as unwise and injudicious as 
 it was uncalled for ; yet the prevailing spirit, with few exceptions, 
 is to obedience to the powers that be and a determination to do all 
 that they are capable of under the new chief, who is as noble a spirit 
 as ever existed, and who feels, no doubt, in his honesty of purpose, that 
 he is fairly qualified to carry an army of such magnitude as this 
 through a campaign. Very few are, that I know of, under all the 
 circumstances. The country is not as favorable as Maryland, and 
 the enemy are now in position where they can receive supplies and 
 information ad libitum. We will have a hard campaign if we under- 
 take to advance from this point, the roads and the country itself are 
 not favorable." 
 
 Eeynolds tells bis own story in his testimony before the Committee 
 on the Conduct of the War, as given on the 23d March, 1863 (vol.i., 
 
MR. ROSENGARTEN'S ADDRESS. 17 
 
 Part I., p. 593) : " When the Rebellion broke out I was commanding 
 the cadets at West Point, and joined the army in the field in Septem- 
 ber, 1861, when it was opposite Washington, under General McClellan. 
 I was attached to McDowell's corps,' in the division commanded by 
 General McCall. I remained attached to that corps until the begin- 
 ning of June, when the division was sent from Fredericksburg to 
 General McClellan, by way of the Rappahannock and York Rivers. 
 The division joined the Army of the Potomac at the White House 
 about the 10th of June. I was present at the battle of Mechanics- 
 ville, on the 26th of June; it began in the afternoon, between two 
 and three o'clock. The forces engaged were two brigades of McCall's 
 division, occupying a defensive position along the line of Beaver 
 Dam Creek, which had been selected prior to our arrival or about 
 that time by General Porter, and the troops disposed on it by General 
 Seymour and myself, under General McCall's direction. The enemy 
 attacked the position on the two roads leading to the left and right with 
 quite a large force and with great vigor. The action continued until 
 nightfall, when the enemy were repulsed in every effort that he made 
 to assault or to turn the immediate position on the right. About 
 twelve o'clock at night I received orders from General McCall to 
 evacuate the position and fall back on Cold Harbor Road to Gaines' 
 Mills. I was present at the battle of Gaines' Mills, and my 
 brigade was engaged for the greater part of the afternoon, and until 
 our line was broken on the left and the enemy succeeded in cutting 
 off a portion of the troops engaged on the right, and I was unfor- 
 tunately cut off myself, so that I was made prisoner the next morn- 
 ing. I rejoined General McClellan's army at Harrison's Landing, 
 and immediately reported for duty, and took command of the division 
 of Pennsylvania Reserves. The division was ordered to embark for 
 Acquia Creek, and debarked there about the 20th of August, when 
 I proceeded to Fredericksburg and reported to General Burnside. I 
 was then ordered to Kelly's Ford, on the Rappahannock; reported 
 to General Pope, who assigned my division temporarily to General 
 McDowell's corps. On the morning of the next day I received 
 orders from General Pope to join him on the march to Warrenton. 
 We took part in all the operations of his army after that time, being 
 engaged in the battles of the 29th and 30th, retiring with his forces 
 to the defenses in Washington." 
 
 In his examination before the Fitz-John Porter court-martial, 
 General Reynolds testified on the 30th December, 1862, " T was a 
 brigadier-general commanding the division of Pennsylvania Reserves. 
 
18 REYNOLDS MEMORIAL. 
 
 I was attached to General Porter's corps in the Army of the Potomac. 
 My command was the first from the Army of the Potomac to the 
 Army of Virginia. After leaving Rappahannock Station, at which 
 point my division joined the Army of Virginia, I was temporarily 
 attached to General McDowell's corps. On the night between the 
 27th and 28th of August I was at Buckland Mills, between "Warrenton 
 and Gainesville. On the morning of the 28th, after passing Gaines- 
 ville for a short distance, my column was directed to the right, to 
 march on Manassas. On the 29th I was on the left of General Sigel's 
 command, engaged with the enemy. I was on the extreme left of 
 our troops, facing the enemy, and their right, towards sunset, had been 
 extended across the pike, with fresh troops coming down the Warren- 
 ton Pike. I made an attack on their right with my division, but was 
 obliged to change front to meet the enemy coming down the pike, I 
 was forming my troops parallel to the pike to attack the enemy, which 
 was on the other side of the pike, but was obliged to change front 
 from front to rear to face the troops coming down the pike. They con- 
 tinued to come on there until they formed and extended across the 
 pike. The enemy's right outflanked my left towards evening. The 
 division was manoeuvring almost all the morning, and indeed in 
 action all that day. On the morning of Saturday, the 30th, I was 
 up in the front, and found the enemy in heavy force to the front and 
 left by personal reconnoissance. Between two and three the main 
 attack was made by the enemy." 
 
 It was Reynolds's corps and Meade's division that, under Reynolds's 
 orders, made the one brilliant success at Fredericksburg, attacking 
 and breaking the enemy's line. That it was nugatory for want of 
 prompt support was no fault of Reynolds or of Meade or of their 
 troops. Their orders were carried out with impetuous and unhesita- 
 ting courage, and it does not lessen the credit due them that so com- 
 petent and impartial a critic as the Count of Paris, in his "History 
 of the Rebellion," decides that the success of the movement would 
 not have secured a victory for the Union forces. Reynolds, in his 
 report, after describing the movements of his command, says, "Meade's 
 division successfully carried the wood in front, crossed the railroad, 
 charged up the slope of the hill, and gained the road and edge of the 
 wood, driving the enemy from his strong position in the ditches and 
 railroad cut, capturing the flags of two regiments, and sending about 
 two hundred prisoners to the rear ;" and concludes his account of the 
 day's operations with marked emphasis: "The gallantry and steadiness 
 of the troops brought into action on the left is deserving of great praise, 
 
MR. ROSENGARTEN'S ADDRESS. 19 
 
 the new regiments vying with the veterans in steadiness and coolness. 
 That the brilliant attack made and the advanced position gained by 
 them were not more successful in their results was due to the strong 
 character of the enemy's defenses, the advantage he had of observing 
 all our dispositions, while he made his own to meet them entirely under 
 cover, and the loss of many of the leading officers of the command." 
 
 In the complicated series of operations at Chancellorsville, Reynolds, 
 with the First Corps, made a demonstration in force on the extreme 
 left, and then moved with great speed to the extreme right, arriving 
 there in time to take the place in line of that part of the force under 
 General Hooker which had been overcome. In all the operations 
 Reynolds was distinguished for his untiring activity, and a character- 
 istic story is told of him that, when exhausted by fatigue, he coolly went 
 to sleep at a council of war, after saying that he was in favor of moving 
 on the enemy at the earliest moment, and he asked General Meade to 
 vote for him, modestly adding, that as his corps had not been engaged, he 
 thought the question of fighting ought to be decided by those who had 
 been, but he was sure his men would fight as well as they had marched. 
 
 The report was current in the corps at that time that Reynolds had 
 been summoned to Washington and offered the command of the Army 
 of the Potomac, and that he refused it on the ground that there was 
 too much interference from Washington ; that no man could lead it 
 safely or successfully without being freed from any such control, and 
 that he preferred doing his duty as a corps commander rather than 
 undertake an empty honor which carried with it no equivalent power 
 or authority. It is characteristic of the man that even in his private 
 letters to his family he never made any mention of the fact or in 
 any way discussed the burning questions that were then making such 
 sad havoc in the relations of the corps commanders and the command- 
 ing general of the Army of the Potomac and the authorities at 
 Washington. 
 
 During the long and weary months spent on the Rappahannock, 
 broken only by the unfortunate " mud march," Reynolds kept his corps 
 in good heart; and at a time when it became a fashion for officers high 
 in command to go to Washington to give advice as to who ought to be 
 put at the head of the army, Reynolds remained steadily at his own 
 headquarters, looking after his men, holding stoutly aloof from all 
 personal or partisan quarrels, and keeping guardedly free from any 
 of the heart-burnings and jealousies that did so much to cripple the 
 usefulness and endanger the reputation of many gallant officers. His 
 only utterances were his answers made under examination before the 
 
20 REYNOLDS MEMORIAL. 
 
 Congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War, and in the long 
 series of volumes of their reports, wherever Reynolds spoke, his testi- 
 mony is clear, straightforward, direct, to the purpose, and entirely free 
 from any criticism of those under and with whom he served. Those 
 reports remain one of the most extraordinary features of the war, and 
 make a surprising exhibition of the extent to which civilians sat in 
 judgment upon military operations, and undertook to guide, direct, in- 
 fluence, and criticise them. It would be surprising, indeed, if soldiers 
 in the field could have remained strangers to the partisan and personal 
 influences thus directly brought to bear upon them, and it is perhaps 
 equally plain that military headquarters in Washington were most in- 
 juriously affected by the necessity, real or imaginary, of conciliating 
 the political leaders, who mistook the power and office of representatives 
 of the people in Congress for a direct commission to control those who 
 by military training, both at West Point and in the field, were best 
 fitted to direct the movements of the armies, to select their commanders, 
 and to give them that freedom of operation which alone can secure 
 success. It was Eeynolds's merit that he never would accept command 
 unless it was unfettered and independent and absolute within its sphere. 
 
 When Lee began his second invasion of Pennsylvania, Hooker 
 assigned Reynolds to the command of the right wing of the Army of 
 the Potomac, consisting of his own corps, the First, the Third, under 
 Sickles, and the Eleventh, under Howard. As soon as Hooker had 
 Crossed the Potomac, he directed Reynolds to send detachments to seize 
 the passes of the South Mountain, and to follow and confine the enemy 
 in its line of advance within the one valley in which he then was, prom- 
 ising to bring a strong force within supporting distance should the 
 enemy turn back from Pennsylvania and offer battle to the force which 
 Hooker was about to send upon its rear. 
 
 It is a tradition of the corps that when Hooker was about to be re- 
 lieved, the command was again offered to Reynolds, who declined it in 
 favor of Meade, and that it was only long after Reynolds's death that 
 Meade learned this fact at the War Department. Meade and Reynolds^ 
 had a long conference at Frederick City, Maryland, when the former 
 assumed command, and the plans on which the army was operated were 
 no doubt fully discussed between them. On the 28th of June orders 
 were issued for the army to move on the following morning in three 
 columns from Frederick, where it had been concentrated, the First 
 and Eleventh Corps being directed to Emmettsburg, the cavalry un- 
 der Buford on the left, covering the flanks and head of the infantry 
 column. 
 
MB. BOSENGARTEN' S ADDBESS. 21 
 
 On the 30th the order of march was issued for the movement of the 
 army on the 1st of July, — the Third Corps to go to Emmettsburg, the 
 First to Gettysburg, the Eleventh in supporting distance. Reynolds, 
 in view of the near approach to the enemy, turned over the command 
 of his own corps to Doubleday, and directed the general movement in 
 close communication with Buford in the advance. Buford, with his 
 division of cavalry, encamped at Fountain Dale on the 29th of June, 
 and started at an early hour in the morning towards Gettysburg, but 
 unexpectedly came upon a detachment of the enemy's infantry. It was 
 a part of Pettigrew's brigade, of Heth's division, of Hill's corps. He 
 moved towards Emmettsburg, and received orders to march to Gettys- 
 burg, and to hold the town, with the assurance of instant support from 
 the infantry. On the same morning a portion of Heth's division, of 
 Hill's corps, approached Gettysburg as near as the crest of Seminary 
 Ridge, but after a short time countermarched, and by half-past ten had 
 disappeared. In an hour after they had gone Buford arrived with his 
 division, passed through the main street of the town, and out upon the 
 Chambersburg Pike, and at a distance of a mile and a half went into 
 position, — Gamble's brigade across the pike, Devin's across the Mum- 
 masburg and Carlisle Roads. Gamble threw out his pickets towards 
 Cashtown, Devin his towards Hunterstown, scouring the country, 
 capturing stragglers from the enemy, and obtaining information that 
 satisfied Buford that the rebel army was converging on Gettysburg, and 
 that heavy columns were already near that place. The Union army too 
 was moving in the same direction, and on the night of the 30th, Reynolds 
 bivouacked on the banks of Marsh Creek, four miles away, with the 
 First Corps. Howard was with the Eleventh a few miles farther back, 
 on the Emmettsburg Road. Sickles was with the Third Corps at 
 Emmettsburg. General Reynolds was kept fully aware of the move- 
 ments of the enemy by Buford, who had reported to him in person on 
 the afternoon of the 30th, and through an aide of Reynolds's, who had 
 gone with Buford to the front and returned late at night with the latest 
 news. 
 
 Reynolds formed his troops for the night on ground and in positions 
 from which he could fight, if attacked, until he could gather together 
 and hold in hand his whole force, and reported the condition of affairs 
 to Meade. On the morning of the 1st, Buford's line extended from 
 the point where the Millerstown Road crosses Willoughby Run, across 
 the Chambersburg Pike, around the Mummasburg, Carlisle, and Har- 
 risburg Pikes, and the railroad, thus covering all the roads entering the 
 town from the north and west. The guns of his light batteries were 
 
22 REYNOLDS MEMORIAL. 
 
 placed on a ridge parallel with Seminary Eidge, about half a mile from 
 it, where the rest of his forces were posted, dismounted, as a reserve. 
 Lieutenant Jerome, Buford's signal officer, says that on the night of 
 the 30th, Buford, in conversation with Devin, said the battle would be 
 fought at this point, and that he was afraid it would commence in the 
 morning, before the infantry could get up. Buford, in his report, dated 
 August 27, says, " On the 1st of July, between 8 and 9 a.m., reports 
 came in from the First Brigade, Colonel Gamble, that the enemy was 
 coming down from towards Cashtown in force. Colonel Gamble made 
 an admirable line of battle, and moved off to meet him. The two 
 lines soon became engaged, we having the advantage of position, he in 
 numbers. The First Brigade held its own for more than two hours, 
 and had to be literally dragged back a few hundred yards, to a position 
 more secure and better sheltered. Tidball's battery, commanded by 
 Lieutenant Calif, Second Artillery, fought on this occasion as is seldom 
 witnessed. At one time the enemy had a concentric fire upon this 
 battery from twelve guns, all at short range, but Calif held his own 
 gloriously and worked his guns deliberately, with great judgment and 
 skill, and with wonderful effect upon the enemy. The First Brigade 
 maintained this unequal contest until the leading division of General 
 Reynolds's corps came up to its assistance, and then most reluctantly 
 did it give up the front. A portion of the Third Indiana found horse- 
 holders, borrowed muskets, and fought with the Wisconsin regiment 
 that came to relieve them." 
 
 Reynolds left his camp early on the morning of the 1st, and starting 
 Wadsworth's division himself and putting the whole corps in motion, 
 went on in advance, passing through the town to the Seminary, where 
 he had a short but significant conversation with General Buford. 
 From him and from actual observation he ascertained the real state of 
 the case, and requesting Buford to hold fast the position he had secured, 
 and promising to bring up the whole force under his command as fast 
 as it could be concentrated, he dispatched a staff-officer to headquarters 
 to report to Meade, another to Howard to bring up his corps with all 
 possible speed, another to Sickles to come forward at once, another to 
 hasten on the divisions of the First Corps, and then rode back across 
 the fields to meet the head of his advancing column. This he took by 
 the direct route he had improvised, leveling fences and hastily break- 
 ing a straight road for the troops to the ridge in front of the Seminary, 
 where he found the enemy pressing Buford's cavalry, and at once led 
 his men to their relief. Cutler's brigade, of Wadsworth's division, had 
 the advance; three regiments, the Seventy-Sixth and One Hundred 
 
MB. EOSHNGABTEN'S ADDRESS. 23 
 
 and Forty-Seventh New York, and the Fifty-Sixth Pennsylvania, 
 Wadsworth, by Reynolds's order, took to the right, facing westward, 
 north of the bed of an old unfinished railroad ; the two remaining regi- 
 ments, the Ninety-Fifth New York and Fourteenth New York State 
 Militia, Eeynolds himself took, along with Hall's Second Maine Bat- 
 tery, to the south of the railroad, posting the battery on the pike, the 
 cavalry withdrawing as the infantry went into position. The Fifty- 
 Sixth Pennsylvania, under General Hofmann, had the honor of opening 
 the infantry engagement. 
 
 Colonel Dudley, who succeeded General Meredith in command of 
 the " Iron Brigade," says, in his report, " At a point about one mile 
 south of the town the column left the Emmettsburg Road, bearing 
 away to the west, and moved at double-quick across the fields to the 
 crest of the Seminary Ridge, along which it moved with celerity to the 
 Hagerstown Road, then bearing away again to the west, came into the 
 low ground or swale immediately west of the Seminary ; hardly had 
 the first regiment arrived upon this ground when Captain Wadsworth, 
 of General Reynolds's staff, brought information that the enemy were 
 advancing in strong force along and upon both sides of the Chambers- 
 burg Pike, and almost simultaneously the Second Brigade became en- 
 gaged upon the right. The directions of General Reynolds to the 
 ' Iron Brigade' were to hurry forward and over the ridge in our front, 
 and attack the enemy then advancing up its western slope. The Second 
 Wisconsin being upon the ground, was at once directed to charge, and 
 moved with their accustomed steadiness into the northern edge of 
 McPherson's woods, and became at once hotly engaged. The Seventh 
 Wisconsin and the following regiments were hurried up, and striking 
 the enemy, forced them to retreat down the slope upon which he had 
 been so confidently advancing. Reaching Willoughby Run at its base, 
 the Twenty-Fourth Michigan and Nineteenth Indiana were hastily 
 thrown across into position to enfilade the enemy's line." 
 
 The result of this dash was the surrender of General Archer with 
 the larger portion of his brigade. The keen prescience of General 
 Reynolds comprehended at once the importance of holding in check 
 the advancing enemy and preventing, if possible, their occupation of 
 so important a position. General Reynolds was personally attending 
 to the hasty formation for the charge of the " Iron Brigade" when he 
 was fatally wounded by one of Archer's skirmishers, at a moment 
 when his aides were riding to the various regiments carrying the in- 
 structions of the general " to charge as fast as they arrived." General 
 Doubleday, in his report, says, " McPherson's woods possessed all the 
 
24 REYNOLDS MEMORIAL. 
 
 advantages of a redoubt, strengthening the centre of our line and en- 
 filading the enemy's columns should they advance in the open space on 
 either side. This tongue of wood was also coveted by the enemy, and 
 Archer's brigade, of Heth's division, had been sent across the run to 
 occupy it, and was already advancing upon its base when the ' Iron 
 Brigade' arrived." Reynolds at once ordered it to advance at double- 
 quick, and followed as the leading regiment, the Second Wisconsin, 
 under Fairchild, hurried into the woods, full of rebel skirmishers and 
 sharpshooters; as soon as the troops were engaged there, Reynolds 
 turned to look for his supporting columns and to hasten them on, and 
 as he reached the point of woods he was struck by a ball fired, it is 
 supposed, by a rebel sharpshooter in one of the trees, and was fatally 
 wounded ; his horse carried him a few rods towards the open and he 
 fell on the ground dead. Almost at the moment when his aides. 
 Riddle and Wadsworth, had effected the capture of Archer's brigade, 
 Reynolds fell, and the rebel brigadier-general and his men were 
 marching to the rear while the dead body of Reynolds was carried in 
 the same direction in a bier hastily improvised, a blanket swung over 
 muskets, on the shoulders of his men. It was first taken to the Semi- 
 nary, and when the fortune of the day was turning against us it was 
 taken through the town to a little house on the Emmettsburg Road, 
 where it remained until the final retreat of our forces was ordered, and 
 then it was taken in an ambulance to Meade's headquarters and to 
 Uniontown, whence it was brought by rail to Baltimore, on the next 
 day to Philadelphia, and on Saturday, the 4th of July, to Lancaster, 
 where it was quietly interred along side of his father and mother. 
 Sixteen years later the body of his elder brother, Admiral Reynolds, 
 was brought to the same spot. 
 
 There was a general expression of grief for the untimely death of 
 General Reynolds, and an almost unanimous feeling that his services in 
 seizing the position in front of the town and in boldly engaging the 
 enemy with a largely inferior force went far towards securing the ulti- 
 mate success of the battle of Gettysburg, and largely contributed to 
 make it a crowning triumph for the Union cause. His name and fame 
 are now indissolubly bound up with the history of the operations that 
 culminated in the battle which finally and forever freed the North from 
 the fear even of an invasion in force. 
 
 In General Doubleday's " Military Memoir and Report of Service" 
 he gives an itinerary, from which, with his permission, I have made 
 the following extracts, as throwing light on the movements of Reynolds 
 in liis last campaign : 
 
MR. BOSENGARTEN'S ADDRESS. 25 
 
 June 14, 1863, Reynolds was given the command of the First, 
 Third, and Eleventh Corps, constituting the right wing of the army. 
 After the army faced about, this became the left wing. 
 
 June 20, Ewell crossed the Potomac at Williamsport with Rodes's 
 and Johnson's divisions of his corps. 
 
 June 24, Lee, Hill, and Longstreet crossed the Potomac at Shep- 
 pardstown and Williamsport, and the columns united near Hagerstown. 
 
 June 25, Hooker's army crossed at Edwards' Ferry. The cavalry 
 moved to Frederick City. 
 
 June 26, Early occupied Gettysburg. 
 
 June 27, Lee determined to concentrate near Gettysburg. Hooker 
 relieved by Meade. 
 
 June 28, Meade assumed command, Reynolds returning to that of 
 the First Corps. 
 
 Meade ordered the First and Eleventh Corps from Middletown to 
 Frederick City, and thence through Mechanicsburg and Emmettsburg 
 towards Gettysburg. The First Corps, under Reynolds, went to 
 Frederick. 
 
 June 29, The left of the army at Emmettsburg. Buford's division 
 covered the left flank, moving from Middleburg towards Gettysburg. 
 The First Corps at Emmettsburg bivouacked on the heights to the 
 north of the town; in the expectation that the enemy would advance in 
 this direction, General Reynolds devoted several hours to selecting a 
 position for a defensive battle ; he chose a battle-ground with a stronger 
 position back of it to retreat to in case of disaster. Buford's division 
 of cavalry was at Fountain Dale. 
 
 June 30, it was ordered to Gettysburg to occupy it, with the prom- 
 ise of ample infantry support; he encountered part of Hill's division, 
 and, having no orders to attack, made a circuit by way of Emmetts- 
 burg; as he approached Gettysburg a foraging party of Pettigrew's 
 brigade, of Hill's corps, retreated through the town and fell back upon 
 the main body, who were in the vicinity of Cashtown and Mummas- 
 burg. Buford bivouacked a mile and a half west of the town, putting 
 Gamble's brigade across the Chambersburg Road, and Devin's across 
 the Mummasburg and Carlisle Roads towards Hunterstown. The First 
 Corps moved to Marsh Creek, the Third to Taneytown and Emmetts- 
 burg, the Eleventh to Emmettsburg. 
 
 The orders for the next day directed the First Corps to Gettysburg, 
 the Third to Emmettsburg, the Eleventh to support the First. 
 
 The First Corps marched three or four miles to Marsh Creek, and 
 took up a defensive position against the enemy, who were supposed 
 
26 REYNOLDS MEMORIAL. 
 
 to be at Fairfield. Wadsworth's division, with Hall's Second Maine 
 Battery, covered the Gettysburg Eoad, the Third (Doubleday's) Di- 
 vision, with Cooper's First Pennsylvania Battery, covered the Fairfield 
 Eoad, and Robinson's division, with the remaining batteries, was posted 
 on the left, towards Emmettsburg, as a reserve. Here at Marsh Creek 
 Reynolds was again placed in command of the left wing of the army, 
 consisting of the First, Third, and Eleventh Corps. 
 
 July 1, early in the morning, Heth and Pender's division of Hill's 
 corps advanced to seize Gettysburg, but Buford determined to hold on 
 until Reynolds's corps, which was six miles back, could come to his as- 
 sistance. At 9 A.M. Heth's division, of Hill's corps, and "VVadsworth's 
 division, of Reynolds's corps^ were each pressing forward to occupy Get- 
 tysburg. Davis' and Archer's brigades of the former came in contact 
 with Buford's skirmish lines. Buford, with his batteries, kept them 
 back until Reynolds arrived, at 10 a.m., with Wadsworth's division. 
 The cavalry then withdrew. Gamble's brigade in rear of the left of our 
 line. Devin's brigade picketed the roads to the north and east. After 
 placing Cutler's brigade in position, Reynolds ordered Meredith's bri- 
 gade to enter the woods and attack Archer's rebel brigade. Reynolds 
 sent word to Doubleday, " I will hold on to the Chambersburg Road; 
 you must hold on to the Millersburg Road." This was his last message 
 to his second in command. 
 
 Still more valuable and interesting are the last dispatches that passed 
 between Reynolds and Meade and Buford and Howard and Sickles. 
 These, by the kindness of General E. D. Townsend, the adjutant-gen- 
 eral of the army, and by the courtesy of Captain R. N. Scott, in charge 
 of the war-records oifice of the War Department, I am enabled to add 
 to, and thus complete, this sketch of Reynolds's last campaign. These 
 have not hitherto been published, and therefore may have peculiar im- 
 portance, as throwing light upon the events that crowded the last hours 
 of Reynolds's life. It is characteristic of the affection with which his 
 memory is cherished by his old comrades and companions in arms of the 
 regular service, that they have all gladly given every aid in their power 
 to contribute the material for this memoir. Reynolds's name is still dear 
 to all who knew him in the army, and especially to his fellow-graduates, 
 and to them all that he wrote and all that was written to him in refer- 
 ence to the last movements under his direction at Gettysburg will have 
 a special interest that fully justifies this use of it in these pages. 
 
 Reynolds to Howard, June 30, 1863. "Buford is in Gettysburg, and 
 found a regiment of rebel infantry there, advancing on the town, but 
 which retired as he advanced, — reports a division of the rebels moving 
 
MR. aOSENGARTElPS ADDRESS. 27 
 
 in direction of Berlin. I forwarded the dispatches to Meade. Buford 
 sent a regiment to Fairfield. I have one division and a battery on the 
 Gettysburg Road, one division on the road to Fairfield from here, and 
 one in reserve on the Gettysburg Road. I do not believe the report of 
 the enemy's marching on Berlin. They are moving out into the valley, 
 but whether to get to York or to give battle I cannot tell." 
 
 Reynolds to Howard, June 30. "Buford sends reliable information 
 that the enemy occupy Chambersburg in force, and are moving over 
 from Cashtown. I have taken position behind Marsh Creek." 
 
 Heynolds to Bviterfield, Jane 30 (found on Reynolds's body). "I 
 have forwarded all the information to you that I have been able to 
 gain to-day. I think if the enemy advance in force from Gettysburg, 
 and we are to fight a defensive battle in this vicinity, that the posi- 
 tion to be occupied is just north of the town of Emmettsburg, covering 
 the plank road to Taneytown. He will undoubtedly endeavor to turn 
 our left by way of Fairfield and the mountain roads leading down 
 into the Frederick and Emmettsburg Pike, near Mount St. Mary's 
 College. 
 
 " The above is mere surmise on my part, — at all events, an engineer 
 officer ought to be sent to reconnoitre this position, as we have reason 
 to believe that the main force of the enemy is in the vicinity of Cash- 
 town or debouching from the Cumberland Valley above it. The corps 
 are placed as follows : two divisions of the First Corps behind Marsh 
 Run, one on the road leading to Gettysburg, and one on the road lead- 
 ing from Fairfield to the Chambersburg Road at Moritz Tavern ; the 
 Third Division, with the reserve batteries, is on the road to Chambers- 
 burg, behind Middle Creek, not placed in position. This was the posi- 
 tion taken up under the orders to march to Marsh Creek. I have not 
 changed it, as it might be necessary to dispute the advance of the enemy 
 across this creek, in order to take up the position behind Middle Creek, 
 which is the one I alluded to, near Emmettsburg. Howard occupies 
 in part the position I did last night, which is to the left of the position 
 in front of Middle Creek, and commands the roads leading from Fair- 
 field down to Emmettsburg and the pike below." 
 
 Meade to Heynolds, June 30, 1 1.30 A.M. " Your despatch is received. 
 The enemy undoubtedly occupy the Cumberland Valley, from Cham- 
 bersburg, in force; whether the holding of the Cashtown Gap is to 
 prevent our entrance or is their advance against us remains to be seen. 
 With Buford at Gettysburg and Mechanicsville, and a regiment in 
 front of Emmettsburg, you ought to be advised in time of their ap- 
 proach. In case of an advance 4n force either against you or Howard 
 
28 REYNOLDS MEMORIAL. 
 
 at Emmettsburg, you must fall back to that place, and I will reinforce 
 you from the corps nearest to you, which are Sickles at Taneytown and 
 Slocum at Littlestown. We are as concentrated as my present infor- 
 mation of the position of the enemy justifies. I have pushed out the 
 cavalry in all directions to feel for them, and so soon as I can make up 
 any positive opinion as to their position I will move again. In the 
 mean time, if they advance against me, I must concentrate at that point 
 where they show the strongest force. . . . 
 
 " P.S. — If, after occupying your present position, it is your judgment 
 that you would be in better position at Emmettsburg than where you 
 are, you can fall back without waiting for the enemy or further orders. 
 Your present position was given more with a view of an advance on 
 Gettysburg than a defensive position." 
 
 June 30, 1863, Reynolds assigned command of tne three corps 
 forming the left wing, viz.. First, Eleventh, and Third, by order from 
 Headquarters Army of the Potomac. 
 
 Sickles to Meade, — June 30, Bridgeport, on the Monocacy, — ^in- 
 closing orders from Reynolds, as follows: "General Reynolds wishes 
 you to camp upon Cat-Tail Branch with your command, and for 
 you to send a staff-ofScer to his headquarters. General Reynolds 
 wishes you to face towards Gettysburg and cover the roads leading 
 from Gettysburg." Sickles says, " It is in accordance with my written 
 orders received from headquarters at 1 p.m., but in conflict with the 
 verbal order given me by the general commanding while on the march. 
 Shall I move forward? My first division is about a mile this side of 
 Emmettsburg." 
 
 Buford to Pleasonton, Gettysburg, June 30. Reports that he entered 
 at 11 A.M., found everybody in a terrible state of excitement on account 
 of the enemy's advance to within half a mile of the town. " On push- 
 ing him back, I learned that Anderson's division was marching from 
 Chambersburg by Mummasburg, Hunterstown, and Abbotstown in 
 towards York. I have sent parties to the two first-named places, 
 towards Cashville, and a strong force towards Littlestown. . . . The 
 troops that are coming here were the same that I found early this 
 morning at Fairfield. General Reynolds has been advised of all that 
 I know." 
 
 Buford to Pleasonton, Gettysburg, June 30, p.m. "A. P. Hill's 
 corps, composed of Anderson, Heth, and Pender, is massed back of Cash- 
 town, nine (9) miles from this place. His pickets, composed of infantry 
 and artillery, are in sight of mine. There is a road from Cashtown. . . 
 which is terribly infested with roving detachments of cavalry. Rumor 
 
MR. BOSENGABTEJSrS ADDRESS. 29 
 
 says Ewell is coming over the mountains from Carlisle. ... I have 
 kept General Reynolds posted of all that has transpired." 
 
 Reynolds to Buford, June 30. "Have you ascertained positively 
 about the infantry force of the enemy at Fairfield, whether they have 
 fallen back or are still in the position they occupied at Newpilman's 
 Farm ? Send me word by bearer." 
 
 Buford to Reynolds, June 30, 10.30 p.m. "I am satisfied that A. 
 P. Hill's corps is massed just back of Cash town, about nine miles 
 from this place. Pender's division of this (Hill's) corps came up to- 
 day, of which I advised you, saying ' the enemy in my front was in- 
 creased.' The enemy's pickets, infantry and artillery, are within four 
 miles of this place, at the Cashtown Road. My parties have returned 
 that went north, south, west, and northeast, after crossing the road from 
 Cashtown to Oxford in several places. They heard nothing of any 
 force having passed over it lately. The road, however, is terribly in- 
 fested with prowling cavalry parties. Near Heidlersburg, to-day, one 
 of my parties captured a courier of Lee's; nothing was found on him. 
 He says Ewell's corps is crossing the mountains from Carlisle, Rodes's 
 division being at Petersburg, in advance. Longstreet, from all I can 
 learn, is still behind Hill. I have many rumors and reports of the 
 enemy advancing upon me from towards York. I have to pay atten- 
 tion to some of them, which causes me to overwork my horses and men. 
 I can get no forage or rations; am out of both. The people give and 
 sell the men something to eat, but I can't stand that way of subsisting. 
 It causes dreadful straggling. Should I have to fall back, advise me 
 by what route." 
 
 Mr. James Beale, formerly of the Twelfth Massachusetts (First 
 Brigade, First Division, First Corps), a diligent student of the military 
 history of the Rebellion, has made some important contributions 
 from unpublished letters in his collection as to the exact details of the 
 opening of the battle. G. B. Garrison, who was employed by General 
 Buford as a scout, writes that "I find in my old note-book that 
 Reynolds came on the field twenty-five minutes before nine, in advance 
 of his corps ; the first infantry came on the field fifteen minutes after 
 nine." 
 
 General Weld, then a captain and aide-de-camp on Reynolds's 
 staff, finds in his diary that "at eight o'clock Reynolds and his staff 
 started for the front. . . . On the crest of the hills beyond we could see 
 the enemy's guns going into position ; . . . a few hurried words from 
 General Buford showed the condition of affairs. . . . General Reynolds 
 turning to me [Weld] said, ' Ride at once at your utmost speed to 
 
30 BETNOLDS MEMORIAL. 
 
 General Meade, tell him the enemy are advancing in strong force, and 
 that I fear they will get to the heights beyond the town before I can. 
 I will fight them inch by inch, and if driven into the town I will 
 barricade the streets and hold them back as long as possible.' " 
 
 General James A. Hall, who commanded the Second Maine Battery, 
 writes, " As to the selection of the position, Reynolds was the man. . . . 
 Early on July 1st I lieard Buford say, ' Reynolds, I have run upon 
 some regiments of infantry near Gettysburg, — they are in the woods ; 
 lam unable to dislodge them.' Reynolds at once dictated a message to 
 General Meade in my hearing, something like this : ' Buford just now 
 reports that he finds a small force of the enemy's infantry in a point 
 of woods near Gettysburg, which he is unable to dislodge, and while I 
 am aware that it is not your desire to force an engagement at that point, 
 still I feel at liberty to advance and develop the strength of the 
 enemy.' I was at Reynolds's side for some little time at Seminary 
 Ridge, having gone ahead of my battery at his request, and I rode 
 from Seminary Ridge out to the position taken by my guns, some half- 
 mile beyond the ridge, by his side, and all his remarks and appearance 
 gave me the impression that he had gone there to stay." 
 
 General Hall says, " My battery was charged by the enemy's infan- 
 try. I lost twenty-four men killed and wounded, had thirty-eight horses 
 killed, six of them, all on one gun, being bayonetted by the enemy." 
 
 Reynolds's death was felt at once on the field, and while it is not 
 possible to see how even his enthusiastic and inspiring gallantry could 
 have overcome the immense numerical majority of the enemy, there 
 can be little doubt that his skill and courage would have done much 
 to lend strength to the forces in hand, and that his fiery impatience 
 would have quickened the arrival of the rest of his command. As it 
 was, the first day's battle at Gettysburg gave time for the concentration 
 of the rest of the army on the hills back of Gettysburg, the heights 
 which Hancock at once strengthened, and Meade afterwards defended, 
 with such admirable appreciation of the vantage-ground that Reynolds 
 had secured, by sending Buford to seize the hills in front of the town, 
 and by bravely putting his slender infantry force against the over- 
 whelming strength of the enemy. Such is the record of a life spent 
 in the service of his country and sacrificed in the defense of the Union. 
 His whole career is marked at every point by indefatigable zeal and 
 distinguished ability, by the hearty approval of his superiors in com- 
 mand, the affection of his fellow-officers, the confidence of his men, 
 the perfect trust of all who knew him. 
 
 In reply to the address accompanying the presentation of a sword 
 
MR. BOSENOARTEN'S ADDRESS. 31 
 
 of honor to General Meade by the Pennsylvania Reserves, after Rey- 
 nolds's death, Meade said, " Reynolds was the noblest as well as the 
 bravest gentleman in the army ; when he fell at Gettysburg the army 
 lost its right arm." Professor Kendrick, an instructor at the Military 
 Academy when Reynolds was a cadet at West Point, and still actively 
 engaged there, his dear friend through life and still full of tender 
 sorrow for his loss, thus sums up in the eloquence of truth the lead- 
 ing characteristics of his pupil, — " Although Reynolds entered the 
 Military Academy as one of its youngest members, he quickly took 
 a very prominent place in the confidence and esteem of his class- 
 mates, many of whom have since loyally written their names high in 
 the military annals of the country, while his frank and manly bear- 
 ing gained him the respect of the corps of instructors. Independent 
 in thought and action, of clear and definite perceptions, his opinions, 
 on all subjects within the range of a young man's discussion, were 
 well formed and well maintained, and yet so calmly and courteously 
 as to leave no sting in the breast of an opponent, but rather higher 
 respect and greater friendship. He worshipped truth and duty in the 
 highest acceptance of those words; with all these great qualities he 
 went forth from the Academy to the wider field of army service, 
 and as word came back again and again of his enviable progress, it was 
 recognized as the expected fulfillment of his early promise. It was 
 his good fortune to serve in the beginning of his military career in 
 intimate connection with that other great man and soldier, George H. 
 Thomas. Together and in the same battery they served in the gallant 
 defense of Fort Brown, at the commencement of the Mexican War ; 
 together they fought successfully at Monterey, and together they 
 struggled in the desperate and important battle of Buena Vista, which 
 largely aided in the capture of Vera Cruz and the victory of Cerro 
 Gordo. In all these conflicts on General Taylor's line, Reynolds was 
 greatly distinguished for his calm courage, his modest self-reliance, and 
 his military conduct. Of him General Taylor's accomplished chief of 
 staff. Colonel Bliss, wrote, ' Your young friend has the general's high 
 regard, and he is the idol of his men.' In his great and varied service 
 in Florida, in Texas, in Mexico, California, Oregon, Utah, Reynolds 
 always showed himself without fear, without reproach, and without an 
 enemy. When he yielded up his life, still so full of promise, in the 
 defense of his native State and of his country in the turning victory 
 of the war at Gettysburg, it was but the fitting termination of his 
 whole life. England 'almost regretted the victory of Trafalgar,' 
 since it cost her the death of Nelson ; our army and ' thinking men' 
 
32 BETNOLDS MEMORIAL. 
 
 throughout the North, who knew his high worth and high prospects, 
 regretted that Gettysburg could not be won without the loss of General 
 John F. Reynolds." 
 
 General Devens, in his oration on General Meade and the battle of 
 Gettysburg, said, " Reynolds was known to the whole army as a soldier 
 in whose bravery and skill the most implicit confidence might be placed. 
 Modest and simple in manner, with no trace of affectation or boasting, 
 reliable as steel, a true soldier, he died a soldier's death, grandly con- 
 tributing to the triumph he was never to share. Where could man better 
 meet the inevitable hour than in defense of his native State, waiting 
 with eager zeal and dauntless heart the advance of the coming foe ?" 
 
 General Heth spoke, in his address at Bunker Hill, of the respect 
 and admiration felt on his, the Southern, side towards Reynolds, " at 
 whose death the nation well might mourn, and in doing so honor herself." 
 
 General Meade himself never ceased to bear witness to his sense of 
 personal loss in the death of Reynolds, the fellow-soldier with whom 
 he had gained his first distinction in the division of Pennsylvania Re- 
 serves, under whose orders he had earned his success at Fredericksburg, 
 and who had opened the road for his crowning triumph at Gettysburg. 
 
 The "History of the Pennsylvania Reserves," almost an official 
 record of the brave men who served in that splendid body, is full of the 
 gallant deeds of Reynolds in his successive steps as brigade, division, and 
 corps commander. It tells in detail the story of the eventful 30th of 
 June, 1862, when " the Reserves, greatly outnumbered, were only able 
 to hold the enemy in check by rapid and unceasing firing; their left was 
 pressed back, and to the consternation of their mounted officers, who 
 from their position had a view of the field, the troops on the right of 
 the Reserves gave way in utter confusion. At this critical moment 
 the gallant Reynolds, observing that the flag-staff of the Second Regiment 
 had been pierced by a bullet and broken, seized the flag from the color- 
 bearer, and dashing to the right, rode twice up and down his entire 
 division line, waving the flag about his head and cheering on his men. 
 The effect upon the division was electrical ; the men, inspired by the 
 intrepidity of their leader, rent the air with cheers, plied their tremen- 
 dous musketry fire with renewed energy and vigor, and in a few moments 
 the thinned ranks of the rebel regiments gave way before the steady 
 and unrelenting volleys poured upon them." Gordon, in his " Army 
 of Virginia," says that " Reynolds's division like a rock withstood the 
 advance of the victorious enemy and saved the Union army from rout." 
 The sword of honor voted to General Reynolds by the enlisted men 
 of the Division of Pennsylvania Reserves, at the close of the Peninsula 
 
MR. EOSENGABTEK'S ADDRESS. 33 
 
 campaign, was a natural expression of the affection and confidence with 
 which his men always honored him. 
 
 The men of the First Corps, emulating the example of the division 
 of Pennsylvania Reserves, soon after the death of Reynolds, set on 
 foot the plan of a heroic statue on the field of Gettysburg ; and now a 
 bronze figure of Reynolds by Ward, one of the first artists of the 
 country, fitly marks the part taken by Reynolds in that decisive battle. 
 This noble monument now looks out over the field where he gave up 
 his life, and thus emphasizes the pre-eminent services of Reynolds in 
 securing the ultimate victory, by seizing the position commanded by the 
 vantage-ground on which Meade placed and fought the Army of the 
 Potomac. At a later day, the First Corps placed in the library at 
 West Point, a portrait of Reynolds by Alexander Laurie, who, besides 
 being an able artist, had served under Reynolds, and therefore was 
 especially well fitted to portray his features. They may recall to 
 future students of the Military Academy the example of one whose 
 life and death are alike among the most sacred traditions and the 
 most instructive lessons of West Point. Reynolds's was a face and 
 figure worthy the sculptor's chisel and the painter's brush, — fully 
 six feet in height, he was so well proportioned that he did not seem 
 to be beyond the average ; his dark hair and eyes, his ruddy cheeks, 
 tanned by constant exposure, his pearly teeth, shining through his 
 tawny moustache, his high cheek-bones that gave him almost the 
 look of an Indian, his long, lithe figure, his almost perfect horseman- 
 ship, his quickness in motion, his simplicity in dress and demeanor, 
 his watchfulness and incessant activity, — these live in the memory of 
 the thousands who are proud to recall their gallant leader. General 
 Reynolds was a true hero in life and in death, — his one purpose was to 
 do his duty, and he did it without regard to cost or consequences. The 
 affectionate confidence of all under whom he served and of all who 
 served under him, and the honors freely conferred on him, are the best 
 evidences of the well-founded reliance on his soldierly qualities. Rising 
 steadily to the demands made upon his skill and military genius, he 
 was as perfectly master of himself and all his faculties when he was 
 in charge of a section of artillery in his first engagement in the Mexi- 
 can War as when he commanded the left wing of the Army of the 
 Potomac in his last battle. What he was as a boy he was to his 
 last hour, — bright, cheerful, hopeful, earnest, zealous, enthusiastic, 
 courageous, modest, and unassuming. These are all homely virtues, 
 but their perfect union made and marked General Reynolds as a man 
 fitted for the highest honors, yet seeking none. In the long roll of the 
 
 3 
 
34 REYNOLDS MEMORIAL. 
 
 sons of Pennsylvania who have won honor for the State and for the 
 Union, none served with more unselfish devotion and a higher aim; 
 and coming as he did of a purely Pennsylvania stock, commanding 
 largely Pennsylvania troops, and falling on Pennsylvania soil in defense 
 of his State from invasion, it must be borne in mind that he was a 
 soldier of the army of the United States, with no tincture of ultra 
 State loyalty, and with no hesitation in doing his duty, wherever his 
 lot was cast, in defense of the flag of the Union. 
 
 It is especially gratifying to those who are nearest to these gallant 
 brothers in blood and name that Admiral Reynolds's bequest of the 
 portrait of General Reynolds to the Historical Society is accepted 
 with such fitting solemnities. Henceforth the visitor looking upon 
 the worthies of the Commonwealth, whose portraits adorn its hall, will 
 turn with reverent eye 
 
 " To him -whose loyal, hrave, and gentle heart 
 Pulfilled the hero's and the patriot's part. 
 
 To puhlio duty true, 
 Mild in reproof, sagacious in command. 
 He spread fraternal zeal throughout his band, 
 And led each arm to act, each heart to feel. 
 These were his public virtues ; but to trace 
 His private life's fair purity and grace. 
 To paint the traits that drew affection strong 
 From friends, an ample and an ardent throng, 
 And more, to speak his memory's grateful claim 
 On those who mourn him most and hear his name, 
 O'ercomes the trembling hand, 
 O'ercomes the heart, unconscious of relief. 
 Save placing this memorial o'er his dust." 
 
 Gettysburg has his heroic statue. West Point his portrait, and now 
 the Historical Society has enshrined him in a place of honor, to keep 
 successive generations mindful of the noble life and the heroic death 
 of John Fulton Reynolds. 
 
 I fear I have transgressed my time and your patience, and yet I 
 have but imperfectly executed the task assigned me, of showing how 
 well General Reynolds deserves the tribute you are now paying his 
 name, by giving his portrait a fitting place upon your walls, and by 
 enrolling the addresses made in his honor, on this occasion, among the 
 records of the Society. On the part of the representatives of the late 
 Admiral Reynolds, I now carry out his pious fraternal bequest, and 
 hand over to you and ask you to accept and take in your keeping this 
 portrait of Major-General John Fulton Reynolds. 
 
RUMAEKS OF GOVERNOR HOYT. 35 
 
 At the conclusion of Mr. Rosengarten's address, Senator Ho- 
 ratio Gates Jones offered the following 
 
 EESOLUTIONS. 
 
 Resolved, That the Historical Society of Pennsylvania regards with admiration 
 and gratitude those hrave men, in whatever grade and rank in the army and navy, 
 and from the highest to the lowest, who, during the late Eebellion, ventured their 
 lives for the preservation of our country, and of that unity of government which 
 constitutes us one people. 
 
 Resolved, That, herein repeating and approving the recorded declaration of its 
 Executive Council, this Society entertains a profound affection and respect for the 
 name and memory of JOHN PULTON EETNOLDS, late a citizen of Pennsyl- 
 vania, colonel in the army of the United States, and major-general of volunteers, 
 whose bravery and military skill, as exhibited on the field of Gettysburg, assisted 
 in the highest degree in the preservation of this city from capture by the enemy in 
 July, 1863, and in the overthrow of the rebellion against the Constitution, laws, and 
 liberties of the United States of America. 
 
 Resolved, That the portrait of Major-General Eeynolds, bequeathed to this 
 Society by his gallant brother, the late Eear-Admiral William Eeynolds, and now 
 presented by the testamentary executors of the latter, is gratefully accepted by the 
 Society, and will be preserved with honor among its most precious memorials. 
 
 These resolutions were seconded by His Excellency the Governor 
 of the Commonwealth, Hon. Henry M. Hoyt, as follows : 
 
 EEMAEKS op GOVEENOE HOYT. 
 
 Mr. President : — I rise to second the resolutions just read, not as 
 a mere matter of form. It is not a common fortune that an individual 
 life has its confluence with the stream of national life in such time and 
 mode, that the volume of the one is manifestly greater and stronger by 
 reason of the other. It is not given to every one that his individual 
 life finds its culmination in a national climax. Such was the happy 
 and auspicious fate of that human soul which we call John F. Reynolds. 
 Up to the years of his prime manhood he had gone along, an honorable, 
 scholarly gentleman. Men of his name, his lineage, and community, 
 had achieved honorable success in their various walks. A day was to 
 come when this man — this plain citizen of Pennsylvania — was to become 
 a vital factor in the highest problem the century was to solve. Two 
 years of dreadful strain and tension had been upon the sinews and 
 heart-strings of the American people. 
 
 Upon an early morning in July, General John F. Reynolds with 
 his battalions streamed up the landscape lying between Cemetery Hill 
 and Seminary Ridge. Behind *he fringe of woods skirting the latter, 
 and in and beyond the South Mountain looming up in the west, before 
 
36 REYNOLDS MEMORIAL. 
 
 him were gathering and crystallizing the defiant forces of a mortal enemy 
 of his country and himself. Closing up behind him were the brave 
 and hardy veterans of another army under another inspiration. Under 
 these conditions General Reynolds was borne out upon the crest of the 
 first wave of that tide of battle which was soon to overtop Gettysburg, 
 — ay, all America. 
 
 This man was then and there to stand for us all. "Whatever there 
 was in his culture, — whatever fruit in a busy and conscientious life, — 
 whatever heroism was in his fibre, — whatever potency was in his gar- 
 nered powers, — he held for the weal or woe of us all. 
 
 The great event found its great man. Up that smiling valley he 
 had laid well the warp, across which, for three days, the woof of blood 
 and death and victory was being woven in upon it by the awful shuttles 
 of fire and shot and shell, and living men pressed into the deadly 
 meshes. To-day, with the smoke and grime and agony wiped away, 
 we may happily read the glowing tapestry which has come off that 
 loom, — wonderful, but mocking humanity with the inscrutable plans 
 by which a nation is to have life by the death of its citizens. 
 
 Is it not an auspicious fate that has left General John F. Reynolds 
 the central figure in this human tragedy, which time is softening down 
 for us into a grand epic ? 
 
 Pennsylvania has a special ownership in the glories of Gettysburg, 
 — not exclusive, for the sons of all the Commonwealths stood side by 
 side there. But in whatever was critical, in whatever was decisive, her 
 sons bore a conspicuous and honorable share. Upon the right flank, 
 Gregg with his ubiquitous and conquering squadrons ; at Gulp's Hill, 
 Geary and Kane ; and then young Ricketts, who with his battery-men 
 beating back all assailants with summer-heads, must always stand in 
 the flashing foreground of all pictures of Gettysburg. 
 
 Hancock and his brilliant subordinates, holding in their hands the 
 long lines of his corps, upon whose front fell and were ground to atoms 
 the most sublime enginery devised by the diabolism of war; Birney, 
 wedging in away off at the Peach Orchard ; Crawford and McCandless 
 and Woodward surging about the "Devil's Den"; "Vincent upon the 
 Round Top; and over all the masterful powers of George G. Meade, 
 ' — some living, some dead, — a dreadful alternation of life and death. 
 Surely, even to-night and here, brave women and strong men might 
 weep at the sorrowing burdens borne by our brothers during those 
 fateful days. 
 
 And, Mr. President, occasion of congratulation as this is for the 
 Historical Society of Pennsylvania, rich as you are made in the posses- 
 
REMARKS OF GENERAL HOFMANN. 37 
 
 sion of the sacred eflSgy which to-night you place upon your walls, 
 sympathetic and grateful as are this audience and the great constituency 
 behind you, it will be well for ourselves and our citizenship to stop 
 often in our busy traffic and count the motives, the cost, and the uses of 
 the work and the sacrifice of John F. Reynolds, and the other thousands 
 who died with him at Gettysburg. 
 
 In our day, Mr. President, no occasion of this kind can be a mere 
 formality. 
 
 The resolutions were thereupon unanimously adopted. 
 
 The Peesidekt then said : 
 
 I now have the pleasure of introducing to you a gallant son of 
 Pennsylvania whose name is inseparably connected with the history of 
 the battle of Gettysburg, — General John William Hofmann, — 
 who had the honor of opening the engagement on the part of the in- 
 fantry of the Army of the Potomac. He will give us a short account 
 of the early movements of the first day's fight, as a preliminary to the 
 principal address of the evening. 
 
 eemaeks of general hoemann. 
 
 Mk. President and Members of the Historical Society of 
 Pennsylvania, Ladies and Gentlemen : — In complying with the 
 request to make a few remarks upon the operations of the battle of 
 Gettysburg, I am quite conscious that I shall have to ask you to accom- 
 pany me over a field that has been traversed by many writers who have 
 published the result of their labors. Therefore, if I shall fail to present 
 anything that will be new to you, my plea must be my desire to add 
 interest to the occasion, when we have assembled to do honor to the 
 memory of one under whom I feel proud to have served ; one who 
 had gained the respect and love of his officers and men to so eminent a 
 degree as had General Reynolds. 
 
 I shall confine my remarks to the operations of Wadsworth's division 
 of General Reynolds's own corps, but then commanded by General 
 Doubleday, — General Reynolds being in command of the left wing of 
 the army, — ^but more particularly to what concerned General Cutler's 
 brigade, of which my regiment formed part, and to that which came 
 under my own personal observation. 
 
 Come with me to the banks of Marsh Creek, where it is crossed by 
 the Emmettsburg-Gettysburg Road. Here our division bivouacked on 
 the morning of June 30, 1863. Excepting the bi-monthly "muster for 
 
38 REYNOLDS MEMORIAL. 
 
 pay," and standing to arms to resist an expected attack, the day and 
 following night were quiet. Next morning, at about eight o'clock, the 
 brigade — consisting of the Seventy-Sixth New York, Fifty-Sixth Penn- 
 sylvania, One Hundred and Forty-Seventh New York, Fourteenth 
 Brooklyn, Ninety-Fifth New York, and Seventh Indiana, — the latter, 
 however, detached for special duty, — moved out in the order named 
 towards Gettysburg, distant about four and a half miles. When about 
 two miles from the town, the column was halted for a short time. I 
 then noticed General Reynolds dismounted at the side of the road, 
 examining what appeared to be a large county map. It was the last 
 time that I saw him ; ere another hour passed he had sacrificed his life 
 Upon the altar of his country. 
 
 As we neared the town, shells bursting in the air indicated that our 
 cavalry, under the gallant Buford, was checking the enemy on the 
 road coming east through the gap in the mountain at Cashtown. When 
 within about three-fourths of a mile of Gettysburg, our column left the 
 road, bore off to the west, and crossed the ridge which at about half a mile 
 west of the town stretches along north and south for several miles, and 
 is now known as Seminary Ridge; we crossed just south of the seminary 
 building, then moved down the western slope, and at the foot of it met 
 our cavalry that had rendered such valuable service and was now clear- 
 ing the field for the infantry conflict which was soon to take place. In 
 conformity with his instructions, General Cutler moved his leading 
 three regiments north across the Cashtown Road and the railroad grading, 
 which at this point is about one hundred and fifty yards north of the 
 road and parallel with it, then moved some two hundred yards farther 
 north. We here formed in line of battle, and moved a few yards west- 
 ward, to near the crest of a swell, one of a great number that break the 
 otherwise smooth surface of the land between Gettysburg and the South 
 Mountain, some seven miles west of it. We now observed the enemy 
 advancing in a line of battle extending far to our right, and just rising 
 to the crest of the swell west of the one we were on. We immediately 
 opened fire by regiment, and brought down a number of his men; 
 our fire was almost instantly returned, killing a number of officers and 
 men and wounding many more. General Cutler and two of his staff 
 were unhorsed. Among the killed was Major Young, commanding the 
 Seventy-Sixth New York, an estimable gentleman and a gallant soldier, 
 one who had laid aside the cassock to gird on the sword in defense of 
 his country's flag. He was, without doubt, the first of the long list of 
 heroic officers who sealed their devotion to their country with their lives 
 on the sanguinary field of Gettysburg. In my own regiment, Lieuten- 
 
REMARKS OF GENERAL EOFMANN. 39 
 
 ant Gordon, whose commission was the reward for brave service on 
 many fields, fell early in the fight, and now, with his fallen comrades, 
 sleeps in the National Cemetery. Colonel Miller, of the One Hundred 
 and Forty-Seventh New York, was carried to the rear severely wounded ; 
 he was succeeded by Major Harney, who was also wounded, but con- 
 tinued in command of the regiment. The two lines continued thus 
 firing upon each other for some fifteen minutes, while on the south side 
 of the Cashtown Road General Wadsworth had moved Cutler's two 
 rear regiments forward to support Hall's battery, which he had placed 
 upon an advanced ridge near the road. 
 
 Meredith's brigade arriving, its regiments, the Second, Sixth, and 
 Seventh Wisconsin, Nineteenth Indiana, and Twenty-Fourth Michigan, 
 constituting the remainder of our division, were soon, under the per- 
 sonal supervision of General Reynolds, deployed in a line extending 
 south from the Cashtown Road, and were by his direction moving for- 
 ward when he met his death, as supposed, from the hand of a rebel 
 sharpshooter. The love borne for General Reynolds by his officers and 
 men I have before alluded to. In the National Cemetery, close by, they 
 have recorded it in granite and bronze for future generations to read. 
 
 The small force of Wadsworth's division, numbering not over 
 three thousand eight hundred, with one battery, was all that at this hour 
 could be interposed between Gettysburg and a whole corps of the enemy, 
 present or fast approaching. An hour and a half to two hours must 
 elapse ere the other two divisions of our corps could arrive. It would 
 seem to be a correct conclusion that General Reynolds intended that 
 General Wadsworth's division should keep the enemy at bay, west of 
 Seminary Ridge, until the whole corps could be assembled at that 
 place ; and faithfully the division performed this duty. True, when 
 an overwhelming force of the enemy was moved against General 
 Cutler's three small regiments on the right, General Wadsworth di- 
 rected them to retire to Seminary Ridge, and ordered the battery to 
 withdraw from its advanced position ; but when the enemy, mistaking 
 the nature of the movement, attempted to rush impetuously forward, 
 they were signally checked, first by a volley from one of these three 
 regiments, and then by the capture of two of their entire regiments by 
 the Fourteenth Brooklyn, Colonel Fowler, and the Ninety-Fifth New 
 York, Colonel George H. Biddle, which formed the left of Cutler's 
 brigade, aided by the Sixth Wisconsin, Lieutenant-Colonel Dawes, of 
 Meredith's brigade. Thereupon Cutler's three right regiments imme- 
 diately resumed the line they had occupied when the battle opened, and 
 held it well on to one o'clock. Meredith's brigade in moving forward 
 
40 BETNOLDS MEMORIAL. 
 
 had captured some three hundred prisoners, including two brigadier- 
 generals. 
 
 The enemy now received large reinforcements by the Carlisle Road, 
 coming in on our right ; this necessitated a change of front. General 
 Cutler accordingly formed his line facing north at the north end of the 
 •wood upon Seminary Ridge. "We again became speedily engaged with 
 the enemy; but our ammunition was mostly expended in the first 
 onset ; what was then left was now soon exhausted ; we could no more 
 than hold the ground. 
 
 By this time, however, the Second Division of our own corps, under 
 General Robinson, had arrived ; one of his brigades, commanded by 
 General Baxter, he of Michigan, who had won his star for gallantry in 
 leading the "forlorn hope" across the Rappahannock at the first battle 
 of Fredericksburg, and who had among his regimental commanders 
 Colonel (now General) Coulter, of the Eleventh Pennsylvania, who 
 had crossed the Cerro Gordo with Scott, aiding in the capture of Cha- 
 pultepec and the city of Mexico, and our late townsman. Colonel Lyle, 
 of the Ninetieth Pennsylvania, now known as the Second Regiment 
 National Guards of Pennsylvania, came to our relief. General Baxter, 
 leading with the same spirit that had distinguished him at Fredericks- 
 burg, soon sent some four hundred prisoners to the rear. Then came 
 a brigade under General Paul, a major in the i-egular service, dis- 
 tinguished at South Mountain and at Antietam, a gentleman whose 
 estimable qualities did much to bring about pleasant relations between 
 regular and volunteer officers, gallantly leading his brigade over the 
 crest of the ridge, to be carried back soon after to linger in a world 
 of physical darkness. Two divisions of the Eleventh Corps which had 
 arrived were sent to support the right of the First Corps, but the dis- 
 position failed to accomplish its object. The right of the First Corps 
 still rested in air. It became evident that, when the avalanche that the 
 enemy was preparing on the height beyond our right should be rolled 
 down, it would be impracticable to hold our line. A little before four 
 o'clock we received orders to retire. "Wadsworth's division moved to 
 the rear by the way of the railroad embankment at the northwest 
 angle of the town, and, while crossing it, suffered considerably from the 
 fire of the enemy now on Seminary Ridge. While passing through 
 the town our progress was necessarily slow : the streets were full of 
 wounded men. When the head of the column reached the Baltimore 
 Road, it came in contact with the troops of the Eleventh Corps, and our 
 progress was checked : this check, although but momentary, caused a 
 large loss of prisoners at the rear of tlie column' which was intercepted. 
 
REMARKS OF GENERAL EOFMANN. 41 
 
 Soon the two columns surged together, and all organization was for the 
 moment gone. The current moved south over the Baltimore Eoad to 
 the foot of the northern slope of Cemetery Ridge, which comes north 
 in a broken line from the Round Top Mountain, some three miles south 
 of Gettysburg, to within half a mile of the town, then curves to the 
 east and ends in the elevation known as Gulp's Hill. It became evident, 
 as we moved up the slope, that we were approaching a point where the 
 topographical features of the ground would in some measure compen- 
 sate for the absent corps. But where each individual brigade or regi- 
 mental commander should reform his men, whether upon the right 
 or upon the left, seemed to be a difficult subject to decide ; the orders 
 received were constantly conflicting. Under these circumstances we 
 moved up the slope, and at the crest met a group of mounted officers ; 
 among them, one whose qualities were such as eminently fitted him for 
 the critical hour. He saw before him a commingled mass of troops, 
 troops of the army whose fortunes he had shared from its birth. He 
 knew that the discipline that had been instilled by him who had organ- 
 ized them into an army — that grand, undaunted, indestructible Army 
 of the Potomac — was still within them. Directing this division to 
 reform upon the right, that one upon the left, it was but a short time 
 till he had wrought order from chaos. This accomplished, he directed 
 the occupation of Gulp's Hill. The hill was soon occupied, but not a 
 moment too soon. The Seventh Indiana, of our brigade, detached in 
 the morning for special duty as I have stated, and not engaged in con- 
 flict with the enemy, rejoined us as we were forming in the cemetery, 
 and, being a compact organization, it was sent at once to form a line on 
 Gulp's Hill. Major Grover, its commanding officer, established a line 
 from the pinnacle down to the foot of the eastern slope, and on his way 
 back to his centre encountered and captured a scout of the enemy, who 
 had crossed the hill before the line was established, and was on his way 
 back, with the report that the hill was not occupied by our troops. 
 Grover's line of pickets was soon reinforced into a line of battle, which, 
 on the following evening, successfully repulsed the desperate assault 
 made by the enemy to capture the hill. It has always seemed to me 
 that the merit for restoring order, and the foresight in directing the 
 occupation of Gulp's Hill, have failed to be fully appreciated by those 
 who have written upon the subject. Without Gulp's Hill in our pos- 
 session we could never have held our line on Gemetery Ridge on the 
 second and third day of the battle. That line on Gulp's Hill became 
 the high- water line of the tidal wave of the Rebellion; that far north 
 had human slavery again carried her shackles, and from that line it 
 
42 REYNOLDS MEMORIAL. 
 
 ebbed back, back to Appomattox. Mr. President and members of the 
 Historical Society, whose special province it is to collate and make record 
 of all that concerns the history of our great State, the events that occur 
 within her borders, the deeds of her sons, I desire to place myself 
 upon record with you as saying that the officer to whom I have alluded 
 as having rendered such inestimable service on that memorable evening 
 is a son of Pennsylvania, and that his name is Winfleld Scott Hancock. 
 
 The Peesident : 
 
 The next speaker whom we shall have the pleasure of listening to 
 is one whom we all know, and whom we all honor, a citizen of Phila- 
 delphia who rendered us " yeoman's service" indeed on the first of those 
 three trying days of Gettysburg. You will confirm every word that I 
 say when I pronounce the name of Colonel Chapman Biddle. 
 
 ADDKESS OP COIiONEL CHAPMAN BIDDLE. 
 
 THE FIRST DAY OP THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG. 
 
 The failure of Hooker in the early part of the month of May of 
 the year 1863 at Chancellorsville, following within a few short months 
 the repulse of the Army of the Potomac at Fredericksburg, produced 
 a profoundly painful impression on the public mind in the Northern 
 States. For a second time it became necessary for the Army of the 
 Potomac to recross the Rappahannock, and to seek security on the com- 
 manding heights of Stafford, while it prepared itself for a renewal of 
 the contest which every lover of the Union most earnestly hoped might 
 lead to favorable results. Notwithstanding his recent and signal suc- 
 cess, Lee fully realized the fact that it had been achieved, to use the 
 language of Longstreet, " at such a terrible sacrifice that half a dozen 
 such victories would have ruined" him ; or as Lee himself subsequently 
 stated in conversation to Major Seddon, "At Chancellorsville we gained 
 another victory ; our people were wild with delight. I, on the contrary, 
 was more depressed than after Fredericksburg; our loss was severe, 
 and again we had gained not an inch of ground, and the enemy could 
 not be pursued." ..." I considered the problem in every possible 
 phase, and to my mind it resolved itself into the choice of one of two 
 things, — either to retire on Richmond and stand a siege, which must 
 ultimately have ended in surrender, or to invade Pennsylvania. I 
 chose the latter." For in his judgment sound military policy required 
 that he should not only assume the aggressive, but that he should trans- 
 fer the theatre of the war to the north of the Potomac, where the country 
 had been almost entirely exempt from its devastation and horrors. 
 
ADDRESS OF COLONEL CHAPMAN BIDDLE. 43 
 
 Other considerations, too, of even greater importance were intimately 
 connected with the military ones. The material resources of the South 
 had already suffered greatly, and were scarcely adequate to the uninter- 
 mittent demands which had been, and which were still likely to be, 
 made upon them if the struggle were much longer protracted, and a 
 successful termination of the war on their part seemed to the reflecting 
 portion of the Southern people to be somewhat problematical without 
 either the support or the countenance of England and France. For 
 this latter object the recognition of the independence of the Confederacy 
 was vital, but it had from one cause or other, however, been postponed 
 from time to time, chiefly, as was commonly supposed, by the appre- 
 hension of the governments of those countries of rashly committing 
 themselves to an act which might in the future involve them in inter- 
 national complications with the United States of a serious nature. A 
 successful invasion of the North, however, would be succeeded by con- 
 sequences which the Cabinet of Richmond not unreasonably believed 
 would lead to the realization of their earnest desires. Hence under 
 these combined political and military considerations a plan of campaign 
 was prepared without delay and speedily put in execution. In his first 
 or preliminary official report of the battle of Gettysburg, General Lee 
 thus outlines his views upon the subject : " The corresponding move- 
 ments on the part of the enemy, to which those contemplated by us 
 would probably give rise, might offer a fair opportunity to strike a blow 
 at the army" of General Hooker, — that in any event that army would 
 be compelled to leave Virginia, that the enemy's plan of campaign 
 be broken up, and that " in addition to these advantages it was hoped 
 that other valuable results might be attained by military success." As 
 one of these other results it has been stated with a certain degree of 
 positiveness in some of the Southern newspapers that it was part of 
 Lee's purpose to fire and in this manner destroy the anthracite mines of 
 Pennsylvania. But be this as it may, Lee in his final report, of Jan- 
 uary, 1864, of the Pennsylvania campaign, etc., makes no allusion to 
 any anticipated additional valuable results. General Early, who has 
 since, with a number of others, discussed the subject of the propriety of 
 the invasion, considers that it was, at the time it was undertaken, " a wise 
 and judicious movement, notwithstanding the fate that attended it."^ 
 
 The first step towards the execution of the new plan was the reor- 
 ganization of the Army of Northern Virginia, which was then formed 
 into three corps d'armSe, each under the command of a lieutenant-gen- 
 
 1 Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. iv. p. 66. 
 
44 REYNOLDS MEMORIAL. 
 
 eral. Longstreet was assigned to the first corps, composed of the di- 
 visions of McLaws, Pickett, and Hood; the second, comprising the 
 divisions of Early, Rodes, and Johnson, was placed under the command 
 of Ewell, in accordance with a request made by Stonewall Jackson, on 
 his death-bed, out of solicitude for the welfare of his veterans ; ^ and 
 the third, whose divisions were under Anderson, Heth, and Pender, 
 was assigned to A. P. Hill. The cavalry, which had also been strength- 
 ened by several new brigades from the South, was formed into a separate 
 corps of three divisions, commanded by Hampton, Fitz-Hugh Lee, and 
 William H. F. Lee.^ Major Von Borcke, a Prussian officer, who was 
 the assistant adjutant and inspector-general of General J. E. B. Stuart, 
 in referring to this body of cavalry, remarks that "the magnificent 
 spectacle of so many thousand troopers splendidly mounted made the 
 heart swell with pride, and impressed one with the conviction that 
 nothing could resist the attack of such a body of troops."* In the 
 opinion of General Lee's military secretary, the recent victories of the 
 Confederate army, " with the care bestowed on its reorganization, equip- 
 ment, and discipline," rendered " its spirit and efficiency unsurpassed 
 by any army of modern times."* 
 
 Longstreet, one of Lee's best lieutenants, and on whom great re- 
 liance was placed, doubted, however, from the first the wisdom of the 
 proposed invasion from a military point of view, and urged upon his 
 chief that the campaign could only be brought to a successful issue pro- 
 vided it were made " offensive in strategy, but defensive in tactics." 
 Indeed, he went so far as to present, as a substitute, an entirely different 
 plan, one which contemplated "the idea of a Western forward move- 
 ment." However just or otherwise Longstreet's views may have been, 
 it is not important now to discuss them, though it may be mentioned 
 that Early has declared Longstreet's plan of a tactical defense to be " a 
 simple absurdity."* At all events, Lee remained fixed in and acted 
 upon his opinion, and when recurring to the subject a short time before 
 Grant crossed the Rapidan, in the spring of 1864, said to General 
 Heth, in the course of conversation, " If I could do so, — unfortunately 
 I cannot, — I would again cross the Potomac and invade Pennsylvania. 
 I believe it to be our true policy notwithstanding the failure of last 
 year. An invasion of the enemy's country breaks up all of his pre- 
 conceived plans, relieves our country of his presence, and we subsist 
 
 1 Von Borcke, p. 899. » Idem, p. 399. » Idem, p. 402. 
 
 * Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. iv. p. 119. 
 ' Idem, vol. iv. p. 281, note. 
 
ADDRESS OF COLONEL CSAPMAN BIDDLE. 45 
 
 ■while there on his resources. The question of food for this army gives 
 me more trouble and uneasiness than everything else combined; the ab- 
 sence of the army from Virginia gives our people an opportunity to 
 collect supplies ahead. The legitimate fruits of a victory if gained in 
 Pennsylvania could be more readily reaped than on our own soil. We 
 would have been in a few days' march of Philadelphia, and the occu- 
 pation of that city would have given us peace."' 
 
 When the reorganization of the army and other preliminaries had 
 been completed, Lee, on the 3d of June, commenced his Northern 
 movement. The division of McLaws marching out of Fredericksburg 
 for Culpepper Court-House, followed by Ewell's corps on the 4th and 
 5th ; Hood's division and Stuart's cavalry moving at the same time. 
 So that by the 8th of that month two of the corps and Stuart's cavalry 
 had concentrated at Culpepper Court-House. 
 
 Early in June, Hooker had obtained information that Lee was grad- 
 ually withdrawing his forces from Fredericksburg in the direction of 
 Culpepper Court-House. To test the accuracy of this intelligence, 
 which, if true, was most important in its relation to the campaign then 
 about opening, he directed a reconnoissance in force to be made by the 
 cavalry, supported by two small brigades of infantry. The result of 
 this reconnoissance, which, if its objects are kept in view, was altogether 
 favorable, has not only been magnified into a severe repulse on the part 
 of the Union forces by General Lee, but Longstreet has even censured 
 Lee for failing to pursue his advantage by hurling the heavy Confed- 
 erate corps then at Culpepper Court-House upon the Federal detach- 
 ment. Assuredly the cavalry of the Army of the Potomac have no 
 reason to regret the issue of the engagement at Beverly Ford, or, as it 
 is sometimes termed, that of Brandy Station. It was the first occasion 
 when as a body it went into action, and whilst perhaps, if the divisions 
 of Buford and Gregg had been connected from the first, instead of 
 having been separated by an interval of five or six miles, when crossing 
 the Rappahannock on the 9th of June at Beverly and Kelly's Fords, 
 still greater results might have been achieved, yet their work was both 
 faithfully and well done. Stuart's headquarters were captured, and from 
 them was supplied information which enabled Hooker to keep pace 
 with the invading army; Stuart's march was thereby delayed; the 
 direction of Lee's army was changed and prevented from attempting 
 to cross the Potomac near Washington, and Stuart held in check by the 
 subsequent brilliant engagements of Aldie, Middleburg, and Upperville, 
 
 ' Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. iv. p. 153. 
 
46 REYNOLDS MEMORIAL. 
 
 on the 17th, 19th, and 21st days of June, until the Union army had 
 moved into Maryland. At Upperville, "very many charges were made 
 and the sabre used freely, but always with great advantage to"* the 
 Federal troops. The valuable services rendered by the cavalry will 
 again appear when the events connected with the great battle of Gettys- 
 burg are brought to notice. 
 
 Quick to comprehend the significance of the intelligence thus im- 
 parted to him by the reconnoissance. Hooker became at once convinced 
 that the movement northward on the part of Lee was the commence- 
 ment of a real campaign, and, as a preparatory measure, placed General 
 Reynolds, on the 12th of June, in command of the right wing of the 
 army, consisting of his own (the First), the Third, and the Eleventh 
 Corps, which, after it faced about and commenced its northward march, 
 became the left wing, together with the cavalry, directing him to pro- 
 ceed along the line of the Orange and Alexandria Railroad to Manassas. 
 The remaining four corps of the Federal army followed on the succeed- 
 ing day. As soon as it was known to Hill that Hooker had withdrawn 
 his forces from the heights in front of Fredericksburg, the former com- 
 menced his march in the direction of Ewell, who, under his instructions, 
 had proceeded down the Valley of Virginia. Before Ewell reached 
 the Potomac, Lee notified Stuart that the former would cross that river 
 on a certain day and at a certain point, that Hill was to follow, and 
 that Longstreet would hold the gaps in the mountains and protect the 
 crossing of those two corps. After Hill had crossed Longstreet was to 
 vacate the gaps and follow Hill. When this had been accomplished 
 Stuart was to seize the gaps and protect Longstreet's crossing ; later he 
 was to throw himself on the right flank of the army, watch the enemy, 
 furnish information, and collect supplies. To cover the two corps in 
 their march through the valley, Longstreet left Culpepper Court-House 
 on the 15th, pursuing the route along the easterly side of the Blue 
 Ridge, occupying the gaps as occasion required, whilst Stuart, under 
 his discretionary powers from Lee, moved in front and on the right 
 flank of Longstreet. Meanwhile, Hooker, closely watching the move- 
 ments of his adversary, skillfully manoeuvred so as to guard the ap- 
 proaches to Washington, keeping himself at the same time in a position 
 instantly to assail Lee whenever a fitting opportunity might offer. The 
 intended act of invasion, however, in a dispatch of the 15th to the 
 President, Hooker characterized as one of desperation on the part of 
 Lee, "no matter in what force he moves." 
 
 ' Report on the Conduct of the War, Part I., p. 280. 
 
ADDBESS OF COLONEL CHAPMAN BIDDLE. 47 
 
 After one or two affairs in the valley, by which Milroy was brushed 
 away, the First and Third Corps of the Confederate army, on reaching 
 the Potomac, crossed it, the former at Williamsport and the latter at 
 Shepherdstown, and uniting at Hagerstown, from there marched up 
 the Cumberland Valley to Chambersburg, arriving at the latter place on 
 the evening of the 27th. Ewell had entered Pennsylvania on the 22d 
 with two of his divisions, preceded by Jenkins's cavalry, which num- 
 bered, according to General Stuart's estimate, about three thousand eight 
 hundred^ (but which number Fitz-Hugh Lee regards as a misprint for 
 sixteen hundred^), and from Chambersburg had sent one of his divisions, 
 that under the command of General Early, through Gettysburg to York, 
 and the other to Carlisle. On the 26th of June, Early entered Gettys- 
 burg with five thousand infantry and a squadron of cavalry, and whilst 
 there endeavored, in execution of one of Lee's general objects, to levy 
 contributions on the town. His requisition for supplies, including shoes, 
 amounted in the aggregate to about six thousand dollars. To this, how- 
 ever, the town was altogether unable to respond, and being satisfied 
 that such was the fact he made no effort to enforce his demand. The 
 next day he resumed his march to Hanover Junction and York, intend- 
 ing to advance from the latter place upon Harrisburg, in obedience to 
 orders which had been issued upon the supposition that Hooker was 
 still on the other side of the Potomac. Early's advance upon Hartisburg 
 was, however, arrested in consequence of intelligence having been re- 
 ceived by General Lee on the night of the 28th, from a scout, to the 
 effect that the Federal army had not only crossed the Potomac, but that 
 the head of the column was then at Frederick City. The communica- 
 tions of the Confederate forces being thus threatened, it became, in Lee's 
 opinion, absolutely necessary — and it may be in consequence of a sug- 
 gestion from Longstreet that the order was given — to concentrate the 
 army to the east of the mountains, and thereby check any farther 
 movement on the part of Hooker to the west. 
 
 Throughout his entire march the vigilance of Hooker had been 
 unceasing, so that at the moment he became convinced that his adver- 
 sary had either crossed or was about to cross the Potomac he commenced 
 the passage of the river some thirty-five or forty miles below Shep- 
 herdstown, on the 26th and 26th, at Edward's Ferry. Without at all 
 intending to enter into a discussion of Hooker's plan of campaign after 
 his army reached Maryland, it is nevertheless proper to refer briefly to 
 its leading features, which contemplated confining the enemy to a single 
 
 ' Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. ii. p. 76. = Idem, vol. v. p. 165. 
 
48 REYNOLDS MEMORIAL. 
 
 line of invasion by seizing Turner's and Crampton's Passes of the 
 South Mountain ; the cutting of their communication at Williamsport, 
 and abandoning the indefensible post at Harper's Ferry, together with 
 Maryland Heights opposite, which was at that time a strategic point of 
 no consequence, which defended no ford in the river, and which was 
 not a defense to the Cumberland Valley.^ To secure the first object 
 General Reynolds was directed to send detachments to seize those passes 
 in the mountain near Boonsboro', and to take position in the valley at 
 Middletown with the left wing.^ In connection with the second, the 
 left wing at Middletown would be available for an attack upon Lee, in 
 flank, in case he should attempt to turn upon the corps sent by Hooker 
 from below to operate against the Confederate rear. * Captain Chesney, 
 of the Royal Engineers, professor of military history, Sandhurst Col- 
 lege, a military critic of some reputation, in referring to this plan, says, 
 " We may search the history of modern campaigns in vain to find a 
 more striking example of the eficet produced by operating on the 
 enemy's communications than that of this movement of Hooker's." 
 . . . "A glance at the map will show why the little town of Gettys- 
 burg" was chosen by Lee, "as the most convenient point whereon to 
 assemble his scattered divisions ; lying, as it does, nearly equidistant 
 from the stations they occupied at Hagerstown, Chambersburg, Carlisle, 
 and York."* General Halleck, however, then general-in-chief of the 
 Union army, declined to approve the abandonment of Harper's Ferry 
 and Maryland Heights, although in less than two days thereafter he 
 reversed his decision on this point at the request of General Meade, 
 who, in the mean time, had been appointed to the command of the 
 Army of the Potomac. Hooker felt, and by no means unnaturally, 
 that to have his plans thus interfered with on the eve of the important 
 operations about to commence was calling in question his military ca- 
 pacity in such a manner as to leave him no alternative but to request to 
 be at once relieved from his command. Accordingly, on the afternoon 
 of the 27th he telegraphed to Washington his desire, and on the fol- 
 lowing morning, Sunday, he received by the hands of a special mes- 
 senger official notification of his having been relieved, together with an 
 order directing him to turn over the command to General Meade, then 
 in charge of the Fifth Corps, "a brave and accomplished officer, who," 
 
 ' Keport on the Conduct of the "War, Part I., p. 174. 
 « Idem, Part I., p. 169. » Idem, Part I., p. 174. 
 
 ' Campaigns in Virginia, Maryland, etc., by Captain Chesney, K.E., vol. ii. 
 p. 31. 
 
ADDRESS OF COLONEL CHAPMAN BIDDLE. 49 
 
 as Hooker, in his farewell order to the army, adds, " had nobly earned 
 the confidence and esteem of this army on many a well-fought field,"' 
 Thus was terminated the connection of General Hooker with the Army 
 of the Potomac. Whatever opinions in regard to his ability as a chief 
 on the field of battle may be entertained in consequence of the unfor- 
 tunate issue of Chancellorsville, he is nevertheless justly entitled to 
 high commendation for strategic skill, zeal, and vigilance while con- 
 ducting that portion of the campaign of 1863 commencing on the re- 
 turn of the army to the heights of Stafford, and terminating upon his 
 withdrawal from that army at Frederick City. 
 
 On assuming his most responsible trust, General Meade, in a short 
 and manly order to his army, gave expression to the almost universal 
 sentiment of the people of the North by declaring that " the country 
 looks to this army to relieve it from the devastation and disgrace of a 
 hostile invasion." In ignorance of the exact condition of his own 
 forces, as well as of the position of the enemy, he could only at the 
 moment indicate a general purpose of at once moving in the direction 
 of the Susquehanna, " keeping Washington and Baltimore well covered; 
 and if the enemy is checked in his attempt to cross the Susquehanna, or 
 if he turns towards Baltimore, to give him battle." Late in the even- 
 ing of the same day he communicated to Halleck his intention of moving 
 on the following day on three lines to Emmetsburg and Westminster. 
 His headquarters at 4 p.m. on the 30th were at Taneytown, about 
 eighteen miles in a southeasterly direction from Gettysburg, the left 
 wing of his army, again under the command of Reynolds, in advance, 
 in a northwesterly course from general headquarters, and considerably 
 nearer to Gettysburg, whilst his right wing was to his east, two of its 
 corps to the south, and the remaining two to the north of Pipe Creek, — 
 his entire force consisting of seven corps d'armie of infantry and one of 
 cavalry. Buford, with the First Division of the cavalry, was covering 
 the left flank of the army, having been ordered for the purpose to move 
 from Middletown by the way of Emmetsburg to Gettysburg, and, as 
 appears from one authority, to hold Gettysburg " at all hazards until 
 the army could support him." 
 
 The strategic value of Gettysburg had evidently neither been over- 
 looked by Lee and some of his lieutenants, nor by some of the Union 
 commanders, although Major Daniel, of Early's staff, believes that Lee 
 himself had no idea of the great strategic importance of the place.'' It 
 
 •■ Conduct of the War, Part I., p. 294. 
 
 ' Address of Major Daniel before the Virginia Division of the Army of North- 
 ern Virginia, Octoher, 1875, p. 17. 
 
 4 
 
50 REYNOLDS MEMORIAL. 
 
 certainly offered to Lee far greater advantages for concentrating his 
 troops than Chambersburg, which, under the idea of a certain immunity 
 from attack, he had first selected, as supposed by some, in pursuance of 
 his defensive tactical policy. General Long, Lee's military secretary, 
 reports the following as the substance of his chief's remarks when the 
 subject of the Northern invasion was under consideration : " Should we 
 defeat General Hooker in a general engagement south of the Potomac, 
 anywhere in the vicinity of Washington, his shattered army would find 
 refuge within the defenses of that city, as two Federal armies have pre- 
 viously done, and the fruits of victory would again be lost. But should 
 we draw him far away from the defenses of his capital, and defeat him 
 on a field of our own choosing, his army would be irretrievably lost, and 
 the victory would be attended with results of the utmost importance. 
 Gettysburg and York were designated as points suitable for such a 
 battle."^ Gettysburg was, moreover, a position of vast natural strength 
 for defensive operations in the opinion of General Meade,^ his assistant 
 adjutant-general. General Williams,^ of General Fitz-Hugh Lee,* and 
 of many other officers both of experience and ability, whilst at the same 
 time it afforded ready access not only to Chambersburg, but also to 
 Hagerstown, Frederick, Taneytown, Baltimore, Hanover, York, Har- 
 risburg, Carlisle, and Shippensburg, thus seeming to fulfill all the con- 
 ditions which the Confederate chief needed for the realization of his 
 general plan of campaign. Eleven roads, several of them well mac- 
 adamized, centre at Gettysburg, so that by means of some one or more 
 of them he might have maintained a direct communication with his 
 base at Williamsport far more easily than from Chambersburg, whilst 
 for defensive battle the line from and including Wolf Hill, situate to 
 the southeast of the town, and separated from Gulp's Hill by Eock 
 Creek, thence pursuing a northerly direction across the depression made 
 by the creek to and along the summit of Gulp's Hill to its junction with 
 Cemetery Hill, thence following the crest of the latter for a short dis- 
 tance in a westerly course, and from thence in a southerly direction, so 
 as to embrace a part of Cemetery Ridge, and include Little Round Top 
 as well as Round Top itself, is one rarely equaled and not often ex- 
 celled. Hence it may readily be inferred that when, on the night of 
 the 28th, Lee was first informed in regard to the position of the Federal 
 army his whole plan of campaign was suddenly changed, and in the 
 
 1 Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. iv. p. 120. 
 
 » Conduct of the War, Part I., p. 438. " Idem, Part I., p. 465. 
 
 • Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. iv. p. 73. 
 
ADDRESS OF COLONEL CHAPMAN BIDDLE. 51 
 
 language of his final report " it was determined to concentrate the army 
 east of the mountains, as" had been stated in his preliminary report, 
 "our communications with the Potomac were thus menaced." . . . 
 "Accordingly, Longstreet and Hill were directed to proceed from 
 Chambersburg to Gettysburg, to which point General Ewell was also 
 instructed to march from Carlisle." In mentioning the 28th as the date 
 when Lee first obtained information in reference to the Union army, it 
 is not to be lost sight of that in his first report he states that the intelli- 
 gence was received from a scout " on the night of the 29th," and that in 
 this Longstreet concurs,' — the latter adding that early on the morning 
 of the succeeding day he had sought his chief for the purpose of sug- 
 gesting, if necessary, whether this report ought not to produce a change 
 of direction of the head of their column to the right. But Lee was in 
 error as to its being the 29th, and in his final report he so admits by 
 declaring that " the advance against Harrisburg was arrested by intelli- 
 gence received from a scout on the night of the 28th," and in the same 
 connection remarking that " Hill's corps was accordingly ordered to 
 move towards Cash town on the 29th, and Longstreet to follow the next 
 day, leaving Pickett's division at Chambersburg to guard the rear until 
 relieved by Imboden. General Ewell was recalled from Carlisle and 
 directed to join the army at Cashtown or Gettysburg, as circumstances 
 might require." And again, " Heth's division reached Cashtown on 
 the 29th." As to the earlier date Lee is corroborated first by Heth, 
 who says, " On the 29th of June, 1863, General Lee's army was dis- 
 posed as follows : Longstreet's corps at or near Chambersburg ; Ewell's 
 corps, which had been pushed east as far as York, had received orders 
 to countermarch and concentrate on Hill's corps, which lay on and at 
 the base of South Mountain ; the leading division (Heth's) occupying 
 Cashtown, at the base of the mountain."^ Secondly, by General Fitz- 
 Hugh Lee, who, when mentioning in his "reply to General Long- 
 street" the date upon which the Federal army crossed the Potomac, is 
 careful to add, " General Lee heard it on the night of the 28th from a 
 scout, and not from his cavalry commander."* Thirdly, by General 
 "Wilcox;^ and, fourthly, by General Early, who distinctly says that 
 " Lee received information on the night of the 28th of June that the 
 Federal army, then under Hooker, had crossed the Potomac;"* and 
 more pointedly still in his supplement or further " reply to General 
 
 1 Annals of the War, p. 419. 
 
 » Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. iv. p. 157. 
 
 ' Idem, Tol. V. p. 166 ; see idem, vol. iv. p. 74. « Idem, vol. iv. p. 112. 
 
 = Idem, vol. iv. p. 242, and also p. 288 ; Major Daniel's Address, p. 13. 
 
52 REYNOLDS MEMORIAL. 
 
 Longstreet," in which he says that the statement of Longstreet, " that 
 the information of the crossing of the Potomac by the Federal army 
 was received from a scout on the night of the 29th of June, is errone- 
 ous. General Longstreet's own report, as well as General Lee's detailed 
 one, show that the information was received on the night of the 28th. 
 If it had not been received until the night of the 29th it would have 
 been impossible for the order to return to reach me at York by the 
 way of Carlisle in time for me to begin my march back early enough 
 on the 30th to reach Gettysburg in time for the fight on the 1st of July. 
 The fact was that I received the order on the morning of the 29th, at 
 York, with the information that the enemy had crossed the Potomac 
 and was moving north." Longstreet has rather recently admitted, in a 
 second article on " The Mistakes of Gettysburg,'' that " there were two 
 or three trifling inaccuracies in his first account of this battle which need 
 correction," and in regard to the important date adds, " The scout upon 
 whose information the head of our column was turned to the right 
 reported at Chambersburg on the night of the 28th of June. It is 
 printed the 29th."* 
 
 The suggestion on the part of Longstreet was received by Lee with 
 a ready acquiescence, as at the time the Confederate army was well in 
 hand, with the exception of Stuart's cavalry. A movement towards 
 Meade's army was commenced immediately. Hill's corps, then lying 
 between Chambersburg and Cashtown, west of the mountain, was ad- 
 vanced without delay ; the divisions of McLaws and Hood, of Long- 
 street's corps, following, while the division of Pickett, of the latter 
 corps, remained by order of Lee at Chambersburg as a rear-guard. 
 Eodes and Johnson's divisions, of Swell's corps, were recalled from 
 Carlisle, and directed to unite with the remainder of the army at or 
 near Cashtown, notwithstanding they had, according to Rodes, "con- 
 templated with eagerness" an advance upon Harrisburg, which was to 
 have been executed on the 30th. These last divisions bivouacked on the 
 night of the 30th at Heidlersburg, a small village, distant some ten or 
 twelve miles to the north and east of Gettysburg. Longstreet's two 
 divisions were, however, only able to march as far as the village of 
 Greenwood, ten miles east of Chambersburg, on the Cashtown Road, 
 in consequence of the wagon-trains of Ewell and Hill's corps blocking 
 the road, and there encamped on the 30th. Hill's corps, consisting of 
 the divisions of Anderson, Heth, and Pender, and five battalions of 
 artillery, was encamped on the morning of the 29th near Fayetteville, 
 
 ' Annals of the War, p. 632. 
 
ADDRESS OF COLONEL CHAPMAN BIDDLE. 53 
 
 on the road from Chambersburg to Gettysburg. Hill had been directed 
 to move on this road in the direction of York, to cross the Susquehanna, 
 and thus threaten the communications of Harrisburg with Philadelphia, 
 and further to co-operate with Ewell according to circumstances. In 
 consequence, Heth's division was moved on the same day to Cashtown, 
 the division of Pender following on the morning of the 30th, and 
 Anderson ordered to march in the same direction on the morning of 
 the 1st of July. On arriving at Cashtown, Heth sent forward Petti- 
 grew's brigade to Gettysburg, which there encountered Buford's cav- 
 alry. Intelligence of this was at once dispatched by a courier to 
 Lee, and Anderson directed to make an early start; Ewell at the 
 same time was notified by Hill that he " intended to advance the next 
 morning and discover what -was in his front." ^ The statement pub- 
 lished by Heth of the encounter with Buford's cavalry is interesting 
 in this connection ; ^ he says, " Hearing that a supply of shoes was to 
 be obtained in Gettysburg," . . . "and greatly needing shoes for my 
 men, I directed General Pettigrew to go to Gettysburg and get these sup- 
 plies. General Pettigrew, on the 30th of June, with his brigade, went 
 near Gettysburg, but did not enter the town, returning the same evening 
 to Cashtown, reporting that he had not carried out my orders, as Gettys- 
 burg was occupied by the enemy's cavalry, and that some of his officers 
 reported hearing drums beating on the farther side of the town ; that 
 under these circumstances he did not deem it advisable to enter Gettys- 
 burg. About this time General Hill rode up, and this information was 
 given him. He remarked, ' The only force at Gettysburg is cavalry, 
 probably a detachment of observation. I am just from General Lee, 
 and the information he has from his scouts corroborates that I have re- 
 ceived from mine, — that is, the enemy are still at Middleburg, and have 
 not yet struck their tents.' I then said, ' If there is no objection, I will 
 take my division to-morrow and go to Gettysburg and get those shoes I' 
 Hill replied, ' None in the world.' " General Long (Lee's military sec- 
 retary) states, however, that the first intelligence which his chief received 
 of the movements of the enemy was his arrival at Emmetsburg, which 
 is several miles northwest of Middleburg.' Such in brief was the gen- 
 eral military situation of the Confederate forces on the night of the 
 30th of June, as has been gathered from the various official reports of 
 their principal generals and from other sources. As has already been 
 mentioned, Hill was aware on the 30th that Gettysburg was occupied 
 
 ' Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. ii. p. 222. 
 
 ' Idem, vol. iv. p. 157. ' Idem, vol. iv. p. 122. 
 
54 REYNOLDS MEMORIAL. 
 
 by a cavalry force of the Federal army, and had not only promptly 
 reported the fact to his commander-in-chief, but had also notified Ewell, 
 who had been recalled from Carlisle, of his intention to advance the 
 next morning to ascertain what was in his front. The main, perhaps 
 the only, object he had in view in thus communicating with Ewell, 
 was to obtain the latter's assistance in his contemplated movement upon 
 Gettysburg. In thus seeking to consolidate the strength of the two 
 corps of the Confederate army at that point, it is not unreasonable to 
 suppose that Hill anticipated something more than the resistance which 
 a mere cavalry detachment was capable of offering, and that conse- 
 quently he did not implicitly rely upon the reports of his scouts that 
 the enemy were still stationed at Middleburg. But be this as it may, 
 the purpose of Lee, as disclosed in his first report, was to concentrate 
 his army east of the mountg,ins at Gettysburg. His language is : "Ac- 
 cordingly, Longstreet and Hill were directed to proceed from Cham- 
 bersburg to Gettysburg, to which point General Ewell was also instructed 
 to march from Carlisle," and which seems to admit of no other interpre- 
 tation. It is nevertheless true that in his detailed report of January, 
 1864, prepared six months after the battle, the order to Ewell is put 
 quite diiferently, and that officer is there given the alternative of join- 
 ing the army either at Cashtown or Gettysburg, as circumstances might 
 require.^ But, at all events, it can hardly be denied that concentration 
 meant and could mean but one of three things, that is, either an offer 
 of battle, or the acceptance of battle, or a retreat. In the opinion of 
 General Alexander, the chief of artillery of Longstreet's corps, "the 
 concentration which was ordered at Gettysburg was intended as an offer of 
 battle."^ General Early goes farther, and says expressly that when Meade 
 moved his army near enough to Lee's to render concentration necessary, 
 " the only alternative left the latter was a battle or a retreat." * General 
 Fitz-Hugh Lee, in considering this subject, remarks, "The truth is. Gen- 
 eral Lee and his army were full of fight, their ' objective-point' was 
 the Federal army of the Potomac, and ' those people' the Confederate 
 chief had resolved to strike whenever and wherever the best opportu- 
 nity occurred, ' strategically offensive and tactically defensive' to the 
 contrary notwithstanding. An army of invasion is naturally an oifen- 
 sive one in strategy and tactics, and history rarely points to an instance 
 where it has been concentrated on a given point to patiently await an 
 attack. The distance from its base making supplies a difScult matter 
 
 ' Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. ii. p. 39. 
 
 ' Idem, vol. iv. p. 99. ' Idem, vol. iv. p. 281, note. 
 
ADDEESS OF COLONEL CHAPMAN BIDDLE. 55 
 
 to procure, in itself regulates the whole question. An army so situated 
 must move or fight." ^ Heth fully concurs with Fitz-Hugh Lee as to 
 the fighting qualities of their chief, saying that " Lee, not even ex- 
 cepting Jackson, was the most aggressive man in his army," and that 
 " had he seen fit could have assumed a defensive position, and popular 
 opinion in the Northern States would have forced the commander of 
 the Federal army to attack."^ "Whilst Heth, as has already been men- 
 tioned, regards the battle of Gettysburg as " the result purely of an 
 accident, for which he was probably more than any one else accountable," 
 yet as he is sometimes in error upon important points, as, for example, 
 in reporting a conversation of General Lee respecting the fight at Get- 
 tysburg on the third day, the general is made to say, " I shall ever 
 believe if General Pender had remained on his horse half an hour 
 longer we would have carried the enemy's position,"' whereas if 
 General Lane, of North Carolina, is to be relied on, — " Pender was 
 mortally wounded on the right of his line by an artillery shot on the 
 afternoon of the 2d of July, and was taken to the rear, where he wa^ on 
 the 3d of July, and could not even mount his horse," ^ — care must be 
 exercised in accepting his narrative in all its particulars. Finally, in 
 his detailed report, Lee admits that he was " unable to M'ait an attack," 
 and that a battle had therefore become "in a measure unavoidable," 
 although it had not been intended to deliver one " so far from his base 
 unless attacked." 
 
 A careful comparison between the Union and Confederate accounts 
 of some of the occurrences in the respective armies shortly prior to the 
 night of the 30th of June will, as might be expected, disclose points of 
 difference more or less material to be considered. Buford, as previously 
 mentioned, had been directed to move with his division of cavalry from 
 Middletown, by the way of Emmetsburg, to Gettysburg. In obedience 
 to his order, but pursuing a more westerly course than the direct road 
 between Middletown and Emmetsburg, he had reached Fountain Dale, 
 a village on the South Mountain, a few miles northwest of Emmets- 
 burg, on the night of the 29th, when from there observing the camp- 
 fires of some of Heth's division near Fairfield in the valley below, got 
 his men in the saddle early the next morning and surprised the Con- 
 federate detachment, which hastily fell back towards Cashtown. He 
 declined, however, to press them, for the reason that the noise of the en- 
 gagement might be heard at army headquarters, where "it might cause 
 
 1 Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. v. p. 178. = idem, yol. iv. p. 156. 
 ' Idem, vol. iv. p. 154. * Idem, vol. v. p. 887. 
 
56 REYNOLDS MEMORIAL. 
 
 delay, uncertaiuty, and derangement of plans." There had also been a 
 slight skirmish at Fairfield on the 28th between the Confederates and 
 the Union cavalry/ information respecting both of which had no doubt 
 been immediately reported to Lee at Chambersburg. After his dash 
 Buford at once countermarched to Fountain Dale, and then resumed his 
 way through Emmetsburg to Gettysburg, entering the latter town to- 
 wards noon,^ as, according to one version, two of Hill's brigades were 
 about to occupy Seminary Ridge;' but according to another and probably 
 the more accurate one,^ about an hour after the Confederates had with- 
 drawn to Marsh Creek in consequence of their learning of the near ap- 
 proach of the Federal cavalry. That afternoon Buford encamped on high 
 ground, a mile and a half northwest from the town, between Seminary 
 Ridge and Willoughby Run, and there placed his artillery in position ; 
 Gamble's brigade of his division going to the Chambersburg Pike, and 
 Devin's brigade to the east, on the Mummasburg Road, covering the ap- 
 proaches from those directions. From prisoners captured by scouting par- 
 ties sent from those brigades towards Cashtown and Hunterstown, as 
 well as from other sources, it became evident that an almost immediate 
 movement on the part of the Confederates towards Gettysburg was in con- 
 templation. During the day Buford had informed General Reynolds 
 that " the enemy in his front was increased," and on that night, between 
 ten and eleven o'clock, he further notified the latter that he was "satisfied 
 that A. P. Hill's corps" was "massed just back of Cashtown, about nine 
 miles from this place. Pender's division of this corps came up to-day, 
 of which I advised you." ..." The enemy's pickets (infantry and 
 artillery) are within four miles of this place, at the Cashtown Road." 
 ... "A captured scout says, 'Ewell's corps is crossing the moun- 
 tains from Carlisle, Roach's division being at Petersburg, in advance. 
 Longstreet, from all I can learn, is still behind Hill." . . . "Should 
 I have to fall back, advise me by what route." ° In reporting to General 
 Halleck at Washington, between four and five o'clock in the afternoon 
 of the 30th, General Meade states that "information seems to place 
 Longstreet at Chambersburg, and A. P. Hill moving between Cham- 
 bersburg and York," and that " our cavalry drove a regiment out of 
 Gettysburg this A.M.* 
 
 • Notes on the Kebel Invasion of Maryland and Pennsylvania, etc., by Jacobs, 
 p. 19. 
 
 s Idem, p. 22. 
 
 ' The Decisive Conflicts of the late Civil War, by De Peyster, p. 27. 
 
 * Notes on the Eebel Invasion, by Jacobs, p. 22. 
 
 » Conduct of the War, Part I., p. 352. « Idem, Part I., p. 483. 
 
ADDRESS OF COLONEL CHAPMAN BIDDLE. 57 
 
 In his circular of June 30th to his corps commanders, General 
 Meade announces that he " has received information that the enemy are 
 advancing, probably in strong force, on Gettysburg." ..." Three 
 corps, First, Third, and Eleventh, are under the command of Major-Gen- 
 eral Reynolds in the vicinity of Emmetsburg, the Third Corps being 
 ordered up to that point." And in his order, issued the same day, for the 
 march of the army on the 1st of July, whilst directing the First Corps 
 to move to Gettysburg, the Eleventh to Gettysburg (or supporting dis- 
 tance), and the Third to Emmetsburg, Meade repeats that " from present 
 information Longstreet and Hill are at Chambersburg, partly towards 
 Gettysburg ; Ewell at Carlisle and York. Movements indicate a dis- 
 position to advance from Chambersburg to Gettysburg," and being 
 satisfied that he has relieved Harrisburg and Philadelphia, he " desires 
 to look to his own army and assume position for offensive or defensive 
 as occasion requires." ^ In consequence of Buford's report from Gettys- 
 burg of "the appearance of the enemy on the Cashtown Road in some 
 force, General Reynolds was directed to occupy Gettysburg,"^ whither 
 the enemy were moving, " and where it was not improbable they would 
 reach before the command of Reynolds," ..." then on its way, could 
 arrive." General Reynolds had, moreover, been instructed, " in the event 
 of finding himself confronted by a superior force," to hold it "in check, 
 if he was able, and to fall slowly back."' On the judgment of no 
 other officer did Meade rest greater dependence than on that of Rey- 
 nolds ; he was the officer upon whom he " had relied under his instruc- 
 tions." * Indeed, Reynolds was to him as he, affectionately as well as 
 eloquently, expressed himself of his comrade, " not only a lieutenant of 
 the utmost importance," but a friend, a brother, and " the noblest as 
 well as the bravest gentleman in the army." ° Amidst the confusion 
 of the reports which crowded upon him respecting the position and the 
 objects of the enemy, the commander-in-chief sought from this able 
 lieutenant and trusted friend advice to determine whether it was " his 
 best policy to move to attack," for as he states in his communication of 
 the 1st of July to Reynolds, "If the enemy is concentrated to the 
 right of Gettysburg, that point would not at first glance seem to be a 
 proper strategic point of concentration for this army. If the enemy is 
 concentrating in front of Gettysburg or to the left of it, the general is 
 
 > Conduct of the "War, Part I., p. 421. 
 
 * Meade's official report, Battle of Gettysburg, by Bates, p. 237. 
 » Conduct of the War, Part I., p. 356. * Idem, Part I., p. 348. 
 
 "• Meade's address to the Pennsylvania Reserves, History of the Pennsylvania 
 Keserves, by Sypher, p. 493. 
 
58 REYNOLDS MEMORIAL. 
 
 not sufficiently well informed of the nature of the country to judge of 
 its character either for an offensive or defensive position." ..." The 
 general having just assumed command in obedience to orders," . . . 
 " would gladly receive from you any suggestions as to the points laid 
 down in this note. He feels that you know more of the condition of 
 the troops in your vicinity and the country than he does." ..." You 
 have all the information which the general has received, and the gen- 
 eral would like to have your views. The movement of your corps to 
 Gettysburg was ordered before the positive knowledge of the enemy's 
 withdrawal from Harrisburg and concentration was received."' 
 
 On his route to Gettysburg Reynolds had on the afternoon of the 
 30th encamped in the vicinity of a tavern near Marsh Creek, about 
 five miles south and west of the town. At the same time the Eleventh 
 Corps was to the left of Emmetsburg, and the Third between that place 
 and Taneytown. At night, General Howard, the commander of the 
 Eleventh Corps, was requested to report at Reynolds's headquarters, 
 where immediately on his arrival Reynolds showed him Meade's " Con- 
 fidential address, just issued, in which he required the officers in com- 
 mand fitly to address the troops," and to appeal " to every patriotic 
 sentiment to stimulate his command on the approach of a great battle." 
 He also showed him " in a bundle of dispatches — the information brought 
 to him during the day — evidence of the nearness, position, and designs 
 of the enemy. He sat down with" Howard " to study the maps of 
 the country, and consulted" with him " upon these matters till eleven 
 o'clock at night, the last night of his life."^ The notice of this inter- 
 esting interview is altogether too slight and incomplete on the part of 
 General Howard, for it is highly important to be able to determine 
 what bearing it had on the operations of the succeeding day. A pro- 
 tracted discussion of the probable designs of the enemy from the evi- 
 dence before them must have led to some conclusion, for so accomplished 
 a soldier as Reynolds was evidently during that night's study and con- 
 ference considering the possibilities of the morrow, and most probably 
 was preparing himself to carry into successful execution the discretionary 
 powers with which he had been invested by his commander-in-chief. 
 He had been made aware by Buford that the enemy had increased in 
 numbers ; that Hill's corps was massed immediately behind Cashtown ; 
 that Ewell was crossing the mountains from Carlisle, and that their 
 
 1 Conduct of the "War, Part I., p. 355. 
 
 ' Campaign and Battle of Gettysburg, by 0. O. Howard, Atlantic Monthly, 
 July, 1876, p. 52. 
 
ADDRESS OF COLONEL CHAPMAN BIDDLE. 59 
 
 infanhy and artillery pickets were within four miles of Gettysburg. 
 His views besides had been freely expressed, and it was known that he 
 favored offering the enemy battle at the earliest suitable moment. Gen- 
 eral Doubleday mentions a conversation on this subject with Eeynolds, 
 which took place just after the Union army had crossed the Potomac, 
 in which the latter urged as a reason that if we gave the enemy " time 
 by dilatory measures or by taking up defensive positions they would 
 strip" Pennsylvania " of everything. Hence he wa^ in favor of striking 
 them as soon as possible. He was really eager to get at them."* On 
 the same night, close by Gettysburg, Buford was also considering with 
 one of his brigade commanders the chances of the next day ; his opinion 
 was clear that the battle would be fought at that point, but he was 
 apprehensive that "it would be commenced in the morning before the 
 infantry would get up. These," adds the officer who made the state- 
 ment, "are his own words." ^ Buford further remarked that "the 
 enemy must know the importance of this position, and will strain every 
 nerve to secure it, and if we are able to hold it we will do well." 
 Reynolds was perfectly well aware that the enemy was concentrating to 
 the left of Gettysburg, and that a collision was imminent ; his corps 
 had been ordered to occupy the town which Buford had been instructed 
 to hold, and beyond doubt, in answer to the inquiry of the latter by 
 what route, in case of necessity, he should fall back, he readily prom- 
 ised prompt support so that he might strike the enemy without delay. 
 
 There were encamped on the night of the 30th within a radius of 
 eight miles from Gettysburg four of the nine divisions of the Confed- 
 erate army, numbering with the cavalry and artillery not less than 
 thirty-five thousand men, and one corps of the left wing of the Fed- 
 eral army, besides two of the three brigades of Buford's division of 
 cavalry (the other brigade being at Mechanicstown with the trains), 
 aggregating about ten thousand four hundred ; most of the remaining 
 corps of the Union army being at a greater distance, namely, two near 
 Emmetsburg, one at Taneytown, one at Hanover, and one at Manches- 
 ter. As to the estimate here made of the opposing forces in close prox- 
 imity to Gettysburg at this time, it seems scarcely necessary to remark 
 that wi'iters on both sides have given not only the actual but the rela- 
 tive numbers widely different from those now presented. In his letter 
 on the relative strength of the two armies, Early insists that as there 
 
 ' Battle of Gettysburg, by Bates, p. 84, and Conduct of tbe "War, Part I., p. 
 305. 
 
 ^Statement of Buford's signal-officer, De Peyster, p. 151. 
 
60 REYNOLDS MEMORIAL. 
 
 were no regular monthly returns for June, 1863, on account of Lee's 
 army being engaged on the 1st, 2d, and 3d of July at Gettysburg, the 
 estimates made of the Confederate force at the commencement of the 
 battle are unreliable.^ Lee's military secretary says, "Shortly after 
 the battle of Chancellorsville the Army of Northern Virginia had, by 
 the return of absentees and the divisions of Longstreet, been increased 
 to sixty-five thousand men."^ The statement made by Colonel Allan 
 is that "frequently the Confederate reports included more than the 
 effective fighting men. Thus Rodes's ' return' at Carlisle, a few days 
 before Gettysburg, makes his total strength of ofScers and enlisted 
 men ' eight thousand and fifty-two.' Now Rodes had about six thou- 
 sand muskets, or less than seven thousand effectives."* Heth says his 
 division " numbered some seven thousand muskets."* Hooker testified 
 before the Committee on the Conduct of the War that " with regard to 
 the enemy's force I had reliable information. Two Union men had 
 counted them as they passed through Hagerstown, and in order that 
 there might be no mistake they compared notes every night, and if their 
 counts differed they were satisfactorily adjusted by compromise. In 
 round numbers Lee had ninety-one thousand infantry and two hundred 
 and eighty pieces of artillery ; marching with that column were about 
 six thousand cavalry. It will be remembered that a portion of the 
 enemy's cavalry crossed the Potomac below Edwards's Ferry, and went 
 into Maryland to join Ewell, between me and Washington ; this column 
 numbered about five thousand men."' The Comte de Paris in giving 
 his conclusions as to the numerical strength of both armies at Gettys- 
 burg expresses himself thus : " I reckon, therefore, the whole strength 
 of the Army of Northern Virginia in Pennsylvania at about seventy- 
 six thousand present, out of which at least sixty-six thousand were 
 present for duty, and two hundred and sixty-eight guns." ' Colonel 
 Taylor, of Lee's staff, in reply to the count, admits that " the three arms 
 of service then numbered as follows : infantry, fifty-three thousand five 
 hundred ; cavalry, nine thousand ; artillery, four thousand five hundred. 
 Total effectives of all arms, sixty-seven thousand." ' So that the estimate 
 of the Confederate force encamped within a radius of eight miles from 
 Gettysburg at not less than thirty-five thousand, on the night of the 30th, 
 may be regarded as being substantially correct. 
 
 ' Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. ii. p. 17. ^ Idem, vol. iv. p. 119. 
 
 ' Idem, vol. iv. p. 39. * Idem, vol. iv. p. 158. 
 5 Conduct of the War, Part I., p. 173. 
 
 « Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. v. p. 205. ' Idem, vol. v. p. 245. 
 
ADDRESS OF COLONEL CHAPMAN BIDDLE. 61 
 
 The duration of the action which was ushered in on the morning 
 of the 1st of July — an action of such momentous consequences to civil 
 liberty, and in some aspects the most important of the series of the con- 
 flicts comprehended under the general designation of the battle of Gettys- 
 burg — was altogether less than seven hours, during the greater part of 
 which time the struggle was waged on both sides with unusual tenacity 
 and severity. From a military point of view the operations of that 
 day may be divided into four parts, — first, the engagement between 
 Heth and Buford; second, that between the divisions of Heth and 
 Pender on the one side and the First Corps on the other ; third, that 
 between the divisions of Heth, Pender, Rodes, and Early and the 
 First and Eleventh Corps ; and, fourth, from the repulse of the Federal 
 forces to their occupation of Cemetery Hill. 
 
 With the dawn of Wednesday, July the 1st, or even later,^ Heth 
 and Pender advanced with their divisions from Cashtown to attack the 
 Federal force in their front ; at about the same time the divisions of 
 Rodes and Early started from Heidlersburg, where they had encamped 
 the night before, for Cashtown. Two divisions of Longstreet's corps, 
 near Chambersburg, followed after Hill. Pickett in obedience to an 
 order remained at Chambersburg as a rear-guard. Longstreet's two 
 divisions did not arrive on the field during the first day's battle, whilst 
 the remaining divisions of Anderson and Johnson, of the other two 
 corps, reached it when the action was over. Some of the Confederate 
 cavalry were observed at an early hour reconnoitring Buford's force 
 from the Chambersburg Pike, and towards nine o'clock Heth's division 
 of Hill's corps, consisting of four brigades of infantry and five bat- 
 teries of artillery,^ reached the ridge just west of Willoughby Run, a 
 mile or more from Gettysburg. Several of these batteries were at once 
 placed in position near the turnpike, Marye firing the opening gun in 
 shelling the woods in his front. Two brigades of infantry were then 
 deployed to the right and left of the unfinished railroad, part of which 
 was embankment and part deep cut, immediately north of the turn- 
 pike, and with this railroad for their line of direction were afterwards 
 ordered to advance and occupy the town. Between half after nine and 
 ten o'clock^ skirmishing commenced, — the first discharge, — a musket- 
 shot, having been fired against some of Gamble's brigade, of Buford's 
 dismounted cavalry. Such was the commencement of the great conflict 
 
 1 Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. ii. p. 223, and vol. iv. p. 113. 
 
 2 Idem, Confederate Koster, vol. iii. p. 119; vol. v. p. 196, and vol. ii. p. 223. 
 » Betel Invasion, etc., by Jacobs, p. 23, andDe Peyster, p. 34. 
 
62 REYNOLDS MEMORIAL. 
 
 which the troops on both sides had been eager to wage. Almost at once 
 the artillery fire was replied to by Buford's light batteries, one of which 
 was admirably directed by Lieutenant Calif, and the engagement be- 
 came quite severe. When Buford's men were nearly overpowered, the 
 signal-officer observed from the seminary steeple, in sweeping his glass 
 over the field, the flag of the First Corps, and upon reporting the fact, 
 Buford exclaimed, " Now we can hold the place !" 
 
 Leaving his camp near Marsh Creek, some five miles distant from 
 Gettysburg, in a southwesterly direction, early on the same morning, 
 Reynolds hastened along the Emmetsburg Road with Wadsworth's 
 division, of the First Corps, and Hall's battery, directing General Dou- 
 bleday to bring up the other divisions and the remaining batteries, ex- 
 cept the First Brigade, of the Third Division, which had been detailed 
 for picket duty, on the previous afternoon, from Marsh Creek in a 
 westerly direction to Middle Creek, and Cooper's battery of four pieces, 
 which brigade and battery followed independently^ under my command, 
 from the cross-roads at Ross White's along a road between the Emmets- 
 burg and Hagerstown Roads, commonly known as the Gettysburg and 
 Nunemaker's Mill Road. Before starting to Buford's assistance Rey- 
 nolds read to Doubleday his telegrams showing the position of the 
 Federal troops and what they were doing.' From various casualties 
 the total efiective strength of the First Corps had at the end of June 
 shrunk to a number not exceeding eight thousand two hundred. Rey- 
 nolds, from recent information, had most probably anticipated an early 
 collision, and being thoroughly self-reliant as well as fall of dash, did 
 not in the emergency await additional instructions. Usually riding 
 some distance beyond his corps, he was on this day with his staff con- 
 siderably in advance of the troops. Whilst thus reconnoitring the 
 difierent positions which might soon become the theatre of a conflict, a 
 dispatch from Buford was handed to him, when less than three miles 
 from the town, announcing that the enemy were then sorely pressing 
 the cavalry. On the instant Reynolds sent an aide to Wadsworth with 
 a characteristic order "to close up and come on," and dispatched other 
 staff-officers to Howard and Sickles, who were then not far from 
 Emmetsburg, to hasten the movements of the former and to direct the 
 latter to advance without delay. A few minutes later Reynolds, on 
 meeting and inquiring of Buford if he "could hold out until his corps 
 came up?" received from him a brief assurance in the words "I reckon 
 I can."^ Hall gives a different account of the interview between Rey- 
 
 1 Conduct of the "War, Part I., p. 805. 
 
 ' Statement of Buford's signal-officer, De Peyster, 158. 
 
ADDBESS OF COLONEL CHAPMAN BIDDLE. 63 
 
 nolds and Buford, as follows : " Reynolds and staff were dismounted 
 and sitting near my guns before we hitched up for marching, when 
 Buford, with a small escort of cavalry, came along, and I heard Buford 
 say to Reynolds, ' I have run upon a couple of regiments of infantry 
 near Gettysburg, which, owing to their being in the woods, I am unable 
 to dislodge, and I think you had better move up and feel them.' Rey- 
 nolds, in my hearing, dictated a message to Meade something like this: 
 'Buford just now reports that he finds a small force of the enemy's 
 infantry in a point of woods near Gettysburg, which he is unable to 
 dislodge ; and while I am aware that it is not your desire to force an 
 engagement at that point, still, from the scope of instructions I have 
 all the time had from you since commanding this wing of the army, I 
 feel at liberty to advance to Gettysburg and develop the strength of the 
 enemy at that point.' " * 
 
 Howard had been ordered by Reynolds, early on the morning of the 
 1st of July, to advance from Emmetsburg with the Eleventh Corps. 
 This order was received at 8.30 a.m., and having been expected in con- 
 sequence of Meade's order of march for the 1st of July, Howard at 
 once commenced to move in two columns; Barlow's division, with a 
 battery, being put on the direct road to Gettysburg, and the other two 
 divisions, with the remaining four batteries, on a road leading across to 
 the Taney town Road, and thence by that road to the town. The direct 
 road being obstructed by artillery carriages and trains, Howard supposed 
 that Barlow's division would not reach Gettysburg until shortly after 
 1 P.M., and that the other divisions would be there about the same hour. 
 As soon as the columns were started Howard, accompanied by his staff, 
 taking the shortest route, and riding rapidly, occasionally in the woods 
 and fields, reached, as he states, the vicinity of Gettysburg about 10.30 
 A.M.,^ but as to this being the hour of his arrival he is most probably 
 in error, for the evidence on the subject almost certainly fixes it from a 
 half to three-quarters of an hour earlier. Indeed, he himself admits 
 noticing variations in the time that "different officers have recorded the 
 same event," of from a half to three-quarters of an hour from that of 
 his own watch. His chief of artillery, moreover, remarks in his nar- 
 rative that "at 10 A.M. General Howard received notice from General 
 Reynolds that he had engaged the enemy, and was met by largely 
 superior numbers, and urged General Howard to hurry his corps for- 
 
 1 Brookline Chronicle, February 16, 1878. 
 
 » Campaign of Gettysburg, by O. 0. Howard, Atlantic Monthly, July, 1876, 
 p. 53. 
 
64 REYNOLDS MEMORIAL. 
 
 ward as rapidly as possible." ... "I was with General Howard when he 
 received this notice from General Eeynolds, but the batteries were back." 
 . . . "General Howard directing me to bring the batteries forward as 
 rapidly as possible rode to the front." ^ Before this, however, when 
 near Gettysburg, one of General Howard's aides reported to Reynolds 
 the expected early arrival of the Eleventh Corps, upon which, and 
 before leaving for the front, Reynolds desired the aide to return to his 
 commanding officer " with orders to move on rapidly to Cemetery Hill, 
 where he would be put in position."^ After Reynolds had reached 
 Seminary Ridge and observed the cTitical situation of his troops, he 
 sent word to Howard to urge his corps forward, which was the message 
 referred to by Howard as well as by his chief of artillery. Subse- 
 quently to the receipt of the order to hasten forward his corps Howard 
 entered the town, and from Fahnestock's observatory had a partial 
 view of what was passing on the field to the north and west in the dis- 
 tance. He there got glimpses, as he says, of "Wadsworth's division of 
 infantry fighting near the railroad cut at Seminary Ridge. "Success," 
 he adds, " was then attending him, and prisoners in gray were being 
 conducted into the town." A few minutes later (by his watch about 
 11.30 A.M.) intelligence was received by him of the death of Reynolds, 
 and that the command of the troops had, in consequence, devolved upon 
 him. As he had previously sent the earnest request from Reynolds 
 back to the columns of Schurz and Barlow, he then, with a full knowl- 
 edge of what was transpiring and what had transpired at the front, 
 "rode slowly" to the rear, near the cemetery gate, where he soon met 
 Schurz, who had hastened on to see him.^ 
 
 The area of the field upon which the most important operations of 
 the 1st of July took place scarcely exceeds two square miles. This 
 small parallelogram embraces part of Willoughby Run, which flows in 
 a southerly course, of a ridge between Seminary Ridge and the run, of 
 Seminary Ridge, as well as parts of the Hagerstown, Chambersburg, 
 and Mummasburg Roads, all converging to the town. The two ridges 
 extend nearly north and south. The Hagerstown Road runs in a west- 
 southwesterly direction from Gettysburg, the Chambersburg Pike a 
 little north of west-northwest, and the Mummasburg Road about north- 
 west. The line of the First Corps, extending on its left to near the 
 
 ' Philadelphia Weekly Times, May 81, 1879. 
 2 Battle of Gettysburg, by Bates, p. 68. 
 
 ' Campaign of Gettysburg, by O. O. Howard, Atlantic Monthly, July, 1876, 
 p. 54. 
 
ADDRESS OF COLONEL CHAPMAN BIDDLE. 65 
 
 Hagerstown Road and on its right to the Mummasburg Road, did not 
 greatly, if at all, exceed a mile and a half in length. 
 
 Leaving the Emmetsburg Road not far from Codori's house, near 
 the town, and dashing across the fields to the west at a double-quick. 
 Cutler's brigade (with the exception of the Seventh Indiana, which had 
 been detached for special duty), of Wadsworth's division, reached the 
 crest of Seminary Ridge just as Buford's men were beginning to yield to 
 the severe pressure of the enemy. Buford had, however, faithfully dis- 
 charged his whole duty in the face of heavy odds. He had tenaciously 
 kept his position, and thus rendered it possible for the Union, in its hour 
 of peril, to find its deliverance through the Army of the Potomac. To 
 the boldness, persistence, and gallantry of John Buford, on this and other 
 fields, his country owes his memory a vast debt of gratitude. Hardly 
 had the first regiment of Cutler's brigade arrived on the ground, and 
 taken position to the right of the Chambersburg Pike, before the Confed- 
 erates advanced in strong force along and upon both sides of that road, 
 and became engaged with the Federal line. The last instructions which 
 General Doubleday had from Reynolds in reference to the battle were, 
 "I will hold on to this road," the Chambersburg Pike, "and you hold 
 on to the other," or the Mummasburg Road.^ In defending this main 
 highway, leading from Chambersburg to Baltimore through Gettysburg, 
 Reynolds directed the troops of Meredith's brigade, of the First Di- 
 vision, which immediately reached the ridge after Cutler, as they were 
 deploying to the left of the pike, to hurry forward to the parallel ridge 
 in front, and there attack the enemy as they came up its western slope. 
 Meredith's regiments, rapidly forming line of battle as they came suc- 
 cessively on the ground, charged the enemy, and drove them precipi- 
 tately down the slope, back to and across Willoughby Run. Reynolds, 
 who, with the instinct of a soldier, had from the first grasped the im- 
 portant features of the entire field, and who by his prompt and resolute 
 course of action had fixed the site for the greater battle yet to be 
 fought, observed whilst near these troops an advance to the left of a 
 portion of the enemy through the wood : one of Meredith's regiments, 
 the Nineteenth Indiana, just then appearing, he ordered it to charge, — 
 leading the charge in person.^ Almost immediately after, and shortly 
 before 11 a.m., a mini6-ball, from one of Archer's sharpshooters, enter- 
 ing the back of his neck as he turned to look in the direction of the 
 seminary, caused him to fall from his horse apparently lifeless. Pollard, 
 in his "Southern History of the War," gives an altogether different 
 
 1 Conduct of the War, Part I., p. 306. ' De Peyster, p. 37. 
 
 5 
 
66 REYNOLDS MEMORIAL. 
 
 version of the occurrence, stating that "the Confederates, distinguishing 
 him from his uniform to be an officer of high rank, opened upon him 
 with heavy volleys of infantry fire. He was struck by several balls, 
 and died instantly without uttering a word."^ In the vigor of his 
 manhood, and in the fullness of a well-earned military fame, perished 
 this hero upon a field which his genius had fixed for the determination 
 of one of the great and decisive conflicts of the world. " Yet," in the 
 language of another, "where could man meet better the inevitable hour 
 than in defense of his native State, his life-blood mingling with the 
 soil on which he first drew breath?"^ 
 
 The Twenty-fourth Michigan and the Nineteenth Indiana, two 
 regiments of Meredith's brigade, pursuing the enemy across the run, 
 enfiladed Archer's brigade, and succeeded in capturing Archer, together 
 with the greater part of his troops. Cutler's brigade, which had- gone 
 to the right of the Chambersburg Pike, and which was extended in 
 prolongation of the line of Meredith's brigade, became engaged with 
 the enemy a little earlier, the opening infantry fire on the Federal side 
 having come from the Fifty-Sixth Pennsylvania Regiment of Volun- 
 teers. This brigade, however, meeting with a force greatly superior 
 to its own numerically, had been compelled to fall back at first on the 
 right, and then along its whole line to a position nearly perpendicular 
 to the one which it had originally assumed, thus not only exposing 
 itself greatly, but also the right flank and rear of the other brigade. 
 The Sixth Wisconsin, Meredith's brigade, which had been held in re- 
 serve at the time of the charge against Archer's troops, was at once 
 sent to the assistance of Cutler. Promptly changing front to the north, 
 it, together with the. Ninety-Fifth New York and the Fourteenth Brook- 
 lyn, of Cutler's brigade, impetuously charged the advancing and vic- 
 torious line of Davis's Mississippi brigade, forced it back at the point 
 of the bayonet to the railroad cut, and there, after a short but sharp 
 resistance, captured the Second Mississippi Regiment, and portions of 
 the Forty-Second Mississippi and another regiment of the same brigade. 
 This brilliant achievement on the part of the Union arms held the 
 enemy in check for a time. Shortly before 11 a.m. Doubleday's 
 division arrived on the ground, and a little after Robinson's division, 
 of the First Corps, — Robinson's division being at first "kept in reserve 
 behind the seminary;"^ Baxter's, one of its two brigades, going into 
 
 1 Southern History of the "War, Third Year, hy Pollard, p. 24. 
 ' Oration on General Meade and the battle of Gettysburg before the Society of 
 the Army of the Potomac, May, 1873, p. 13. 
 » Conduct of the War, Part I,, p. 307. 
 
ADDRESS OF COLONEL CHAPMAN BIDDLE. 67 
 
 position later on Seminary Ridge to the right of the Chambersburg Pike, 
 north of the railroad cut, and extending as far as the Mummasburg 
 Road, — the Eleventh Pennsylvania forming on the immediate right of 
 Cutler ; the Ninety-Seventh New York, the Eighty-Third New York, 
 the Eighty-Eighth Pennsylvania, and the Twelfth Massachusetts success- 
 ively to the right, all facing west, and the Ninetieth Pennsylvania, the 
 extreme right of the line, being refused, facing to the north, and 
 stretching along the Mummasburg Road. Towards half after twelve 
 o'clock a general firing was renewed, and some of the enemy ad- 
 vancing against Baxter were driven back by a portion of his brigade, 
 including the Eleventh Pennsylvania, in the face of a heavy fire, across 
 an open field, with the loss, notwithstanding repeated reinforcements, of 
 about five hundred prisoners from Iverson's North Carolina brigade, of 
 Rodes's division, of Ewell's corps, the Eighty-Eighth Pennsylvania 
 capturing the colors of the Twenty-Third North Carolina Regiment. 
 General Rodes, describing in his report this part of his engagement, 
 says, "Iverson's left being exposed thus, heavy loss was inflicted upon 
 his brigade. His men fought and died like heroes. His dead lay in 
 a distinctly-marked line of battle. His left was overpowered, and 
 many of his men being surrounded were captured." ^ Pollard states 
 that Rodes, in " riding along behind where their line had been, thought 
 he observed a regiment lying down as if to escape the Yankee fire. On 
 going up, however, to force them into the fight he found they were all 
 corpses."^ A heavy skirmish line of the enemy then appearing, sup- 
 ported by lines of battle, caused the Federal brigade, its ammunition 
 being nearly exhausted, to fall back to its original position. Paul's, 
 the other brigade of the division, was moved from the rear of the semi- 
 nary, where it had been massed, across the railroad cut towards 2 p.m., 
 the troops loading as they advanced, and when they had reached the foot 
 of the ridge pushed up the next slope at the double-quick, encountering 
 at the summit of that ridge the first line of the enemy, who at once 
 threw down their arms and surrendered. But the second line coming 
 up quickly to the support of the first, and reinforcements being also 
 steadily poured in, caused a desperate struggle to ensue, in which the 
 slaughter was not only terrible, but the Union forces, suffering severely, 
 were driven back. Paul's brigade consisted of the Sixteenth Maine, 
 the Thirteenth Massachusetts, the Ninety-Fourth New York, the One 
 Hundred and Fourth New York, and the One Hundred and Seventh 
 Pennsylvania Volunteers. 
 
 1 Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. ii. p. 147. 
 
 2 Southern History of the War, Third Year, by Pollard, p. 25. 
 
68 REYNOLDS MEMORIAL. 
 
 Stone's brigade, of Doubleday's division, composed of three Penn- 
 sylvania regiments, namely, the One Hundred and Forty-Third, the 
 One Hundred and Forty-Ninth, and the One Hundred and Fiftieth, 
 after it came upon the field took position at a little before noon on the 
 ridge immediately beyond Seminary Ridge, under a heavy fire, with 
 the right resting on the Chambersburg Pike, and the left almost reach- 
 ing the wood occupied by Meredith's brigade, — its skirmishers thrown 
 forward down the next slope, the pike being held by a number of sharp- 
 shooters. This disposition continued unchanged until between twelve 
 and one o'clock, when an enfilading fire from a Confederate battery 
 compelled its right regiment (the One Hundred and Forty-Third) to 
 fall back to Seminary Ridge. Immediately the One Hundred and 
 Forty-Ninth was faced to the north, and thrown out on the pike, and 
 between half after one and two o'clock, as the enemy's infantry moved 
 forward in force, the One Hundred and Forty-Third was ordered to 
 take position on the pike to the right of the former regiment, thus dis- 
 playing these two regiments at right angles with the One Hundred and 
 Fiftieth, which remained to the right of and near Meredith's brigade, 
 facing west. It was to one of the officers of the One Hundred and 
 Fiftieth Pennsylvania Volunteers that John Burns, of Gettysburg, 
 then an old man of seventy years of age, first applied for permission to 
 fight with the Union troops, and obtaining that permission, fought 
 chiefly with the Seventh Wisconsin until the Federal forces were driven 
 back in the afternoon. As he was falling back with the rest, having 
 already received three wounds, one of them through the arm, a final 
 wound in the leg disabled him. Helpless, and almost bleeding to death, 
 he lay upon the field until early the next morning, when his wounds were 
 dressed by a Confederate surgeon. His heroic conduct met with a suitable 
 recognition both by the United States Congress and the Legislature of 
 Pennsylvania, and the pensions which his valor won him lie lived to 
 enjoy until the month of February, 1872. An instance of the bravery 
 of an Emmetsburg lad, akin to that of Burns, is recorded by one of 
 the soldiers of the Twelfth Massachusetts Volunteers. As Baxter's 
 brigade was marching through Emmetsburg it was followed by the 
 village boys, one of whom continued to the camp at Marsh Creek, 
 where he offered to enlist. His offer, however, was ridiculed, and he 
 was sent away. On the morning of the 1st of July he reappeared, 
 and so earnestly entreated the colonel of the Twelfth Massachusetts to 
 be allowed to join his regiment, that a captain of one of the companies 
 was instructed to take him on trial for a day or two. When the regi- 
 ment halted near the seminary, the boy was hastily dressed in a suit of 
 
ADDRESS OF COLONEL CHAPMAN BIDDLE. 69 
 
 blue. Afterwards, during the action, he fought bravely until a bullet 
 striking his musket split it in two pieces, one of which lodged in his 
 hand and the other in his thigh. The unknown boy was taken to the 
 brick church in the town to be cared for, but nothing was afterwards 
 seen or heard of him.* As the enemy pressed forward to attack, the 
 One Hundred and Forty-Third and the One Hundred and Forty- 
 Ninth Pennsylvania Volunteers, on the pike, were sent to occupy the 
 railroad cut, about one hundred yards distant to the north. The ad- 
 vance of the enemy from the north having, after a spirited contest, been 
 repulsed, the attack was resumed in force from the west, which was also 
 successfully resisted, — a vigorous bayonet charge driving them back. 
 After retreating a short distance, however, they moved by their right 
 flank and occupied, towards a quarter to three P.M., a wood in front of 
 Meredith's brigade. Not long after three o'clock, Meredith's troops 
 having retired to the crest of the next ridge, the brigade, then under 
 the command of Colonel Langhorne Wister, in danger of being sur- 
 rounded, gradually fell back to Seminary Ridge, where a new position 
 was taken, and for a time stubbornly maintained. But finally being 
 outflanked by vastly superior numbers, it fell back through the town 
 to Cemetery Hill, where it was reformed, and rested in line during the 
 night. 
 
 The First Brigade, of Doubleday's division, was under my com- 
 mand, and consisted of the One Hundred and Twenty-First, One 
 Hundred and Forty-Second, and One Hundred and Fifty-First Regi- 
 ments of Pennsylvania Volunteers, and the Twentieth New York State 
 Militia. Cooper's Battery B, First Pennsylvania Artillery, had on the 
 morning of the 1st of July been attached to the brigade. On that 
 morning, as soon as the pickets of the One Hundred and Twenty-First 
 could be withdrawn, the infantry and artillery were marched from the 
 cross-roads at Ross White's, which lie between Marsh and Middle 
 Creeks, along the Nunemaker Mill Road to Gettysburg, a distance of 
 about seven miles. 
 
 When within a mile of the town the sound of heavy firing to the 
 northwest indicated that a sharp engagement was already in progress. 
 The brigade was in consequence rapidly pushed across the fields to open 
 ground, a short distance north of the Hagerstown Road, and about a 
 third of a mile west of the seminary, and there formed, a little before 
 11 A.M., on the extreme left of the general line of battle. The battery 
 was immediately placed in position, and its fire directed towards the 
 
 ■ Brookline Chronicle, February 16, 1878. 
 
70 REYNOLDS MEMORIAL. 
 
 northwest, to the left of the woods in which the First Division was 
 then engaged. Upwards of three-quarters of a mile in front were 
 woods nearly parallel with the line of battle and between, somewhat to 
 the left, a house and large stone barn, the latter of which was after-r 
 wards used as a cover for the enemy's sharpshooters. To protect the 
 battery from the annoyance which the sharpshooters occasioned a, 
 company of skirmishers was sent from the Twentieth New York, 
 who, readily driving the men off, occupied their shelter. Later in 
 the day, towards 3 p.m., Pettigrew's brigade of North Carolina troops, 
 Heth's division, Hill's corps, advancing in two lines and in perfect 
 order, commenced a vigorous attack on the extreme left of the 
 Federal line held by the First Brigade. Of the four small regi- 
 ments composing the latter brigade, one — the One Hundred and 
 Fifty-First — had been detached about half after two o'clock to be 
 held in reserve, and was posted near the seminary grove until it 
 was subsequently sent forward to occupy the gap between Mere- 
 dith's and my brigade. Notwithstanding the great disparity in 
 numbers between the contending forces, and that the left of the 
 Federal line was greatly outflanked, the position was maintained 
 with spirit for a considerable time under a severe direct and oblique 
 fire, and until, being without support, the fragments of the four 
 regiments were compelled to retire — towards 4 P.M. — to a partial 
 cover on the edge of the town, close to and west of the seminary, 
 where they continued to resist the progress of the enemy until the bat- 
 teries and most of the Union troops had withdrawn to Cemetery Hill ; 
 then, as the enemy were swarming in on the left, they fell back to the 
 same point, reforming in the rear of its crest. The admirable behavior 
 of the men and officers of the brigade may to some extent be inferred 
 from the fact that out of twelve hundred and eighty-seven officers and 
 men who went into action as the First Brigade of the Third Division, 
 of the First Corps, four hundred and forty were either killed or 
 wounded and four hundred and fifty-seven missing, leaving as its effec- 
 tive strength at the close of the first day's battle three hundred and 
 ninety officers and men. 
 
 The various official reports and unofficial published statements of 
 prominent Confederate generals respecting the occurrences on the first 
 day between the contending forces of the corps of Reynolds and Hill 
 are in many respects so essentially different from that which has been 
 here detailed, that it seems but proper to present the material portions 
 of those statements, without, however, undertaking to reconcile the 
 many points of difference between the two accounts. General Hill 
 
ADDBESS OF COLONEL CHAPMAN BIDDLE. 71 
 
 reports officially ^ that " about three miles from Gettysburg his advance 
 brigade, Archer's, encountered the advance of the enemy. Archer and 
 Davis were thrown into line, and with some pieces of artillery from 
 Pegram, the enemy were steadily driven back to the wooded hills this 
 side of Gettysburg, where their principal force (since ascertained to be 
 the First and Eleventh Corps) was disposed to dispute our farther 
 advance. Heth's whole division was now thrown into line ; Davis on 
 the left of the road ; Archer, Pettigrew, and Brokenbrough on the right, 
 and Pender formed in his rear ; Thomas on the left, and Lane, Scales, 
 and Perrin on the right. Pegram's and Mcintosh's battalions of 
 artillery were put in position on the crest of a hill overlooking the 
 town of Gettysburg. Heth's division drove the enemy, encountering 
 a determined resistance. About half-past two o'clock the right wing of 
 Ewell's corps made its appearance on my left, and thus formed a right 
 angle with my line. Pender's division was then ordered forward, 
 Thomas's brigade being retained in reserve, and the rout of the enemy 
 was complete, Perrin's brigade taking position after position of the 
 enemy and driving him through the town of Gettysburg. The want 
 of cavalry had been and was again seriously felt. Under the impres- 
 sion that the enemy were entirely routed, — my own two divisions ex- 
 hausted by some six hours' hard fighting, — ^prudence led me to be content 
 with what had been gained, and not push forward troops exhausted and 
 necessarily disordered, probably to encounter fresh troops of the enemy." 
 . . . "Brigadier-General Archer was taken prisoner by the enemy." 
 ..." Pettigrew's brigade, under its gallant leader, fought most admi- 
 rably and sustained heavy loss." Three things in this report will not 
 escape observation. First, that the Federal forces offered a "deter- 
 mined resistance;" second, that the want of cavalry "was again ser- 
 iously felt ;" and, third, that no mention is made either of the capture 
 of Archer's or of the larger part of Davis's brigades. In connection 
 with the first point, it may be well to consider the comparatively recent 
 account of General Heth, in which, after mentioning that upon his 
 first advance, meeting with no opposition, when within a mile or so of 
 the town two of his brigades (Archer's and Davis's) were then deployed 
 to the right and left of the railroad leading into Gettysburg, and with 
 the railroad as a point of direction were ordered to advance and occupy 
 Gettysburg. "These brigades on moving forward soon struck the 
 enemy, which proved to be Eeynolds's corps of the Federal army, and 
 were driven back with some loss." ..." My division was then formed 
 
 1 Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. ii. p. 223. 
 
72 REYNOLDS MEMORIAL. 
 
 in a wooded ravine to the right of the railroad, the ground rising in 
 front and rear. The enemy was evidently in force in my front. General 
 Rodes, commanding a division of Ewell's corps, en route to Cashtown, 
 was following a road running north of Gettysburg. Rodes hearing the 
 firing at Gettysburg, faced by the left flank and approached the town. 
 He soon became heavily engaged, and seeing this I sought for and 
 found General Lee, saying to the general, ' Rodes is very heavily en- 
 gaged ; had I not better attack ?' General Lee replied, 'No ; I am not 
 prepared to bring on a general engagement to-day ; Longstreet is not 
 up.' Returning to my division, I soon discovered that the enemy were 
 moving troops from my front and pushing them against Rodes. I re- 
 ported this fact to General Lee, and again requested to be permitted to 
 attack. Permission was given. My division numbered some seven 
 thousand muskets. I found in my front a heavy skirmish line and two 
 lines of battle. My division swept over these without halting. My 
 loss was severe. In twenty-five minutes I lost two thousand seven hun- 
 dred men killed and wounded." Certainly no idea of a "determined 
 resistance," such as is spoken of by Hill, is conveyed by the language 
 of Heth ; in fact, the reverse is fairly inferrible from it, and yet Hill's 
 version is altogether the more likely to be accurate, as it is not only 
 confirmed by the testimony of Federal officers, but, moreover, appears 
 to be corroborated by the fact mentioned by Heth himself, that he lost 
 two thousand seven hundred men killed and wounded, out of a division 
 of seven thousand, in twenty-five minutes ; a loss of over one-third in so 
 short a space of time is quite calculated to check the ardor of even the 
 most dashing troops. And lastly. General Lee, in his final report on 
 the campaign in Pennsylvania, puts it thus : General Heth, when 
 within a mile of the town, sent two. brigades forward to reconnoitre. 
 " They drove in the advance of the enemy very gallantly, but subse- 
 quently encountered largely superior numbers, and were compelled to 
 retire with loss, Brigadier-General Archer, commanding one of the 
 brigades, being taken prisoner. General Heth then prepared for action, 
 and as soon as Pender arrived to support him, was ordered by General 
 Hill to advance. The artillery was placed in position, and the engage- 
 ment opened with vigor. General Heth pressed the enemy steadily 
 back, breaking his first and second lines and attacking his third 
 with great resolution. About 2J p.m. the advance of Ewell's corps, 
 consisting of Rodes's division, with Carter's battalion of artillery, ar- 
 rived by the Middletown Road, and forming on Heth's left, nearly at 
 right angles with his line, became warmly engaged with fresh numbers 
 of the enemy. Heth's troops having sufiered heavily in their pro- 
 
ADDBESS OF COLONEL CHAPMAN BIDDLE. 73 
 
 tracted contest with a superior force, were relieved by Pender's, and 
 Early coming up by the Heidlersburg Road soon afterwards, took 
 position on the left of Rodes, when a general advance was made. The 
 enemy gave way on all sides, and were driven through Gettysburg 
 with great loss. Major-General Reynolds, who was in command, was 
 killed." ' This final report, it should be borne in mind, was written in 
 January, 1864, six months after the battle. It is consequently a matter 
 of surprise that General Lee should display such a want of accuracy in 
 an important official document respecting a fact, then of such general 
 notoriety, as that of the time of the death of Reynolds. The general 
 advance of the Confederate troops is stated to have been subsequent to 
 2| P.M., and after that hour that "Major-General Reynolds" . . . 
 " was killed," as it would appear from the report, in Gettysburg. But 
 passing this over, what becomes of Heth's account if Lee is right, 
 when the latter asserts that Heth's troops were relieved by Pender's 
 before the general advance was made ? 
 
 General Lee, as well as a large number of Confederate officers of 
 high rank, attribute in a measure their want of success at Gettysburg 
 to the absence of cavalry. The only reference on the part of Lee to 
 the subject is that in his final report, in which the embarrassment, con- 
 sidered to be due to such cause, is limited to the movements of his 
 army "preceding the battle of Gettysburg."^ General Hill goes fur- 
 ther, saying that " the want of cavalry was again seriously felt." Col- 
 onel Taylor, of Lee's stafi^, remarks, "Now as to the battle itself. The 
 first great disadvantage experienced by General Lee was the unexpected 
 absence of his cavalry."^ General Alexander, chief of artillery of 
 Longstreet's corps, declares that their "information of the enemy's 
 movements was incomplete on account of the absence of all of the cav- 
 alry, or nearly all, with General Stuart, who, instead of being between 
 us and the enemy, was on a raid around him."* General Wilcox, of 
 Hill's corps, expresses himself to the same effect, observing that a scout 
 reported that Hooker had crossed the Potomac and was moving north. 
 " Without his cavalry General Lee could not divine the purpose of the 
 enemy, but he determined, with the view of guarding his communica- 
 tions with Virginia and to check the advance west, to concentrate his 
 forces east of the mountains."* General Long, military secretary to 
 General Lee, says, "When, however," Lee "had crossed the Potomac, 
 the absence of his cavalry, caused by the fatal blunder of Stuart, which 
 
 1 Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. ii. p. 40. ' Idem, vol. ii. p. 44. 
 * Idem, vol. iv. p. 82. * Idem, vol. iv. p. 99. ^ Mem, vol. iv. p. 112. 
 
74 REYNOLDS MEMORIAL. 
 
 separated it from the army at the most critical time, obliged him to 
 grope his way in the dark, and precipitated him, by the want of timely 
 notice, into a premature engagement with the enemy." ^ General Heth 
 is the most emphatic, saying, " The failure to crush the Federal army 
 in Pennsylvania in 1863, in the opinion of almost all the officers of 
 the Army of Northern Virginia, can be expressed in five words, — the 
 absence of our cavalry."^ These extracts suf&ciently indicate the pre- 
 vailing impression among a very numerous class of Confederate officers, 
 namely, that the cavalry arm of the service was actually wanting to the 
 Confederate chief. And yet on this point the statements of Generals 
 J. E. B. Stuart and Fitz-Hugh Lee are diametrically in opposition to 
 those which have just been cited. Stuart, in the draft of his report on 
 the Gettysburg campaign, refers to this subject, and replies to the un- 
 favorable criticism of his fellow-officers in the following manner : " It 
 was thought by many that my command could have rendered more 
 service had it been in advance of the army the first day at Gettysburg, 
 and the commanding general complains of a want of cavalry on that 
 occasion ; but it must be remembered that the cavalry (Jenkins's bri- 
 gade) specially selected for advance-guard to the army by the com- 
 manding general on account of its geographical location at the time was 
 available for this purpose, and had two batteries of horse artillery 
 serving with it. If, therefore, the peculiar functions of cavalry with 
 the army were not satisfactorily performed in the absence of my com- 
 mand, it should rather be attributed to the fact that Jenkins's brigade 
 was not as efficient as it ought to have been, and as its numbers (three 
 thousand eight hundred) on leaving Virginia warranted us in expecting. 
 Even at that time, by its reduction incident to the campaign, it numbered 
 far more than the cavalry which successfully covered Jackson's flank 
 movement at Chancellorsville, turned back Stoneman from the James, 
 and drove three thousand five hundred cavalry, under Averill, across the 
 Rappahannock. Properly handled, such a command should have done 
 everything requisite, and left nothing to detract by the remotest impli- 
 cation from the brilliant exploits of their comrades achieved under cir- 
 cumstances of great hardship and danger." ' General Fitz-Hugh Lee, 
 in his review of the first two days' operations at Gettysburg, is quite as 
 emphatic. "The much-abused cavalry," he says, "is lifted into great 
 prominence, and is constrained to feel complimented by the statement 
 of many of these critics, that the failure to crush the Federal army in 
 
 ' Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. iv. p. 122. 
 
 ' Idem, vol. iv. p. 155. ' Idem, vol. ii. p. 76. 
 
ADI>Iii:SS OF COLONEL CHAPMAN BIDDLE. 75 
 
 Pennsylvania in 1863 can be expressed 'in five words,' viz., 'the ab- 
 sence of our cavalry' ; but such language implies an accusation against 
 General J. E. B. Stuart, its commander, who has been charged with a 
 neglect of duty in not reporting the passage of the Potomac by Hooker's 
 army (afterwards Meade's), and with disobedience of orders, which re- 
 sulted in placing the Federal army between his command and the force 
 of General Lee, thereby putting out the eyes of his own ' giant.' "... 
 " From the 25th of June to July 2, General Lee deplored Stuart's 
 absence, and almost hourly wished for him, and yet it was by his per- 
 mission his daring chief of cavalry was away. General Stuart cannot, 
 therefore, be charged with the responsibility of the failure at Gettys- 
 burg." ^ And elsewhere Fitz-Hugh Lee remarks, " In justice to Stuart, 
 it may be said that he had calculated upon the brigade of Jenkins, and 
 White's battalion of cavalry, which accompanied Generals Ewell and 
 Early, and Jones's and Robertson's brigades, which were left to guard 
 the passes of the Blue Ridge, and were to rejoin General Lee as soon 
 as the enemy crossed the river, to do all that was necessary."^ On the 
 other hand, General Early, in reviewing the causes of Lee's defeat, ex- 
 presses his opinion in the following manner : " I have never thought 
 that our failure at Gettysburg was due to the absence of Stuart's cav- 
 alry, though I can well understand the perplexity and annoyance it 
 caused General Lee before the enemy was found. He was found, how- 
 ever, without the aid of cavalry, and when found, though by accident, 
 he furnished us the opportunity to strike him a fatal blow." ..." It 
 is difficult" ..." to perceive of what more avail in ascertaining and 
 reporting the movements of the Federal army Stuart's cavalry could 
 have been if it had moved on the west of South Mountain than indi- 
 vidual scouts employed for that purpose, while it is very certain that 
 his movement on the other flank greatly perplexed and bewildered the 
 Federal commanders, and compelled them to move slower. It is not 
 improbable, however, that it would have been better for him to hurry 
 on and not meddle with the wagon-train he captured; but then the 
 temptation was so great to a poor Confederate."* Lieutenant-Colonel 
 Fremantle, of the Coldstream Guards, who was present with Lee's 
 army at Gettysburg, and who has expressed great admiration for the 
 gallantry and determination of the Southern people in his "Three 
 Months in the Southern States," writes, under date of June 30, as fol- 
 lows : " I had a long talk with many officers about the approaching 
 
 1 Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. v. p. 162. 
 
 * Idem, vol. iv. p. 75. ' Idem, vol. iv. p. 269. 
 
76 REYNOLDS MEMORIAL. 
 
 battle, which evidently cannot now be delayed long, and will take place 
 on this road" (the one towards Gettysburg) " instead of in the direction 
 of Harrisburg, as M'e had supposed. Ewell, who has laid York as 
 well as Carlisle under contribution, has been ordered to reunite. Every 
 one, of course, speaks with confidence. I remarked that it would be a 
 good thing for them if on this occasion they had cavalry to follow up 
 the broken infantry in the event of their succeeding in beating them. 
 But to my surprise they all spoke of their cavalry as not efficient for 
 that purpose. In fact, Stuart's men, though excellent at making raids, 
 capturing wagons and stores, and cutting off communications, seem to 
 have no idea of charging infantry under any circumstances. Unlike 
 the cavalry with Bragg's army, they wear swords, but seem to have 
 little idea of using them ; they hanker after their carbines and revolvers. 
 They constantly ride with their swords between their left leg and the 
 saddle, which has a very funny appearance ; but their horses are gen- 
 erally good, and they ride well. The infantry and artillery of this 
 army do not seem to respect the cavalry very much, and often jeer at 
 them.'" In his account of the operations of General Gregg's division 
 of Federal cavalry, on the right flank of the army at Gettysburg, Col- 
 onel Brooke-Rawle notices this disinclination of Stuart's cavalry to make 
 use of the sabre. His description of Gregg's brilliant charge on the af- 
 ternoon of the 3d of July, which foiled Stuart's attempt to surprise the 
 rear of our main line of battle, which was to have been executed simul- 
 taneously with Pickett's assault in front, is so much in point that an 
 extract from it is here given : " As Town ordered sabres to be drawn 
 and the column to advance, Custer dashed up with similar orders, and 
 placed himself at its head. The two columns drew nearer and nearer, 
 the Confederates outnumbering their opponents as three or four to one. 
 The gait increased, — first the trot, then the gallop. Hampton's battle- 
 flag floated in the van of the brigade. The orders of the Confederate 
 officers could be heard by those in the woods on their left, — ' Keep to 
 your sabres, men ! Keep to your sabres !' for the lessons they had 
 learned at Brandy Station and at Aldie had been severe. There the 
 cry had been, ' Put up your sabres ! Draw your pistols and fight like 
 gentlemen !' But the sabre was never a favorite weapon with the Con- 
 federate cavalry, and now, in spite of the lessons of the past, the warn- 
 ings of the present were not heeded by all."^ . . . "The successful re- 
 
 ' Three Months in the Southern States, hy Lieutenant-Colonel Fremantle, Am. 
 Ed., p. 250. 
 
 ^ Annals cf the "War, p. 481, and note to p. 483. 
 
ADDRESS OF COLONEL CHAPMAN BIDDLE. 77 
 
 suit of this magnificent cavalry charge was attributed by the victors to 
 the steadiness and efBciency with which they used the sabre, en masse, 
 against greatly superior numbers of the enemy, many of whom had 
 exchanged that weapon for the revolver." 
 
 The main features of the determined resistance offered by the First 
 Corps having thus at some length been presented, the part taken in the 
 battle of the 1st of July by the Eleventh Corps remains to be described. 
 Shortly after the death of Reynolds, General Schurz, who had assumed 
 the command of the Eleventh Corps, met the Third Division, the head 
 of that part of his column which had moved by the Taneytown Koad, 
 near Cemetery Hill. This was probably a little after 1 p.m., although 
 General Howard suggests that it may have been as early as 12.45 p.m.,' 
 whilst his chief of artillery states that at 10 a.m. " the head of the 
 Eleventh Corps had" . . . "just come in sight of Gettysburg."^ The 
 narrative of this last-mentioned officer does not, however, agree in 
 several important particulars with the reports of other officers. For 
 instance, both Howard and Schurz speak of Barlow's division (the 
 First) as marching on the direct road from Emmetsburg, and the other 
 two by cross-roads leading into the Taneytown Road, Howard adding 
 that one battery was with the First Division and the remaining four 
 batteries with the other two divisions ; whereas the chief of artillery 
 represents it that one battery was marching with Schurz's division (the 
 Third) and one with Stein wehr's (the Second), and that " the remaining 
 three were together between the two rear divisions." ^ It would cer- 
 tainly have been quite easy to arrange these five batteries so that one 
 should have been at the head of the Third, one at the rear of the Second, 
 and the remaining three between those two divisions, but such an 
 arrangement would not have allowed a battery to the First Division, of 
 which Schurz speaks. Be this as it may, however, his statement as to 
 the time when the batteries reached the town, and which is of far more 
 consequence, is by no means clear. After mentioning that Howard had 
 intelligence of the death of Reynolds at 11.30 a.m., he remarks, "I 
 reached Gettysburg in an hour after receiving General Howard's order 
 with the batteries, and as the infantry moved through the town to the 
 front I sent with them four batteries, — Wheeler and Heckman to the 
 left, on the Seminary Road, and Dilger and "Wilkinson to the right, 
 with Gen. Barlow's division. The remaining battery. Captain Wei- 
 
 1 Campaign of Gettysburg, by O. 0. Howard, Atlantic Monthly, July, 1876, 
 p. 55. 
 
 2 Philadelphia "Weekly Times, May 31, 1879. » Idem, May 31, 1879. 
 
78 BETNOLVS MEMORIAL. 
 
 drich, I left at Cemetery Hill, with General Steinwehr." Schurz ad- 
 vanced the Third, now become Schimmelpfennig's division, directing it 
 to be deployed on the right of the First Corps in two lines. Shortly 
 afterwards Barlow's division, arriving by the Emjnetsburg Road, passed 
 through the town to the north at half after one o'clock, and, halting at 
 the Almshouse, on the Harrisburg Eoad, to remove knapsacks, was 
 then ordered to form at the double-quick on the right of the Third 
 Division, in order to dislodge the enemy from a piece of woods to the 
 right of the Eleventh Corps. Meanwhile, says Howard, as Schurz 
 " was conducting his Third Division to battle I left orders for Stein- 
 wehr and Osborne" (his chief of artillery) "to halt and form upon 
 Cemetery Ridge." Accompanying Barlow's division, Howard, upon 
 reaching the right of the Eleventh Corps, turned and rode along the 
 line to Doubleday's division on the left, and there seeing General 
 Wadsworth, about two o'clock gave him orders to hold the position as 
 long as he could and then retire. The rest of Howard's description, 
 nauiely, that part of it respecting the disposition of the troops on the 
 left of the line, differs so radically from all the other accounts and from 
 the fact, that it seems to be a creation of the imagination. He says, " The 
 left of Doubleday's line, resting on a small stream, called Willoughby's 
 Run, extended to an elevation north of the Chambersburg Road, and 
 was then refused. Then there was an interval occupied after 1 p.m. by 
 Wheeler's and Dilger's batteries, belonging to the Eleventh Corps. 
 From this place to !Rock Creek, almost at right angles with the First 
 Corps line, were the two divisions of the Eleventh Corps,-^Barlow's 
 and Schimmelpfennig's. Such was the position of the troops." ^ The 
 account of the disposition of the troops on the right is also very inac- 
 curate, for it will be remembered that the Ninetieth Pennsylvania, of 
 Baxter's brigade, which was the flanking regiment at the right of the 
 line when Robinson's division took position on Seminary Ridge, was 
 refused and stretched along the Mummasburg Road. Schimmelpfen- 
 nig's division went to the right of the Ninetieth Pennsylvania in pro- 
 longation of its line, but, not connecting with it, left a dangerous break 
 between. The Second Brigade, of Schimmelpfennig's division, was in 
 a field farther to the right, near to and east of the Carlisle Road. Schurz 
 was directed to move forward and seize a wooded height in front of his 
 left, but before he had advanced any distance, information having been 
 brought shortly before three o'clock that part of Ewell's corps was 
 
 ' Campaign of Gettysburg, by 0. 0. Howard, Atlantic Monthly, July, 1876, 
 p. 56. 
 
ADDBBSS OF COLONEL CHAPMAN BIDDLE. 79 
 
 coming in towards the right of the Federal line, between the Harris- 
 burg and York Roads, the order was countermanded by Howard. The 
 enemy was, thus enabled to occupy this important height in force with- 
 out material opposition. Hill fixes the time that the right M'ing of 
 Swell's corps (Rodes's division) made its appearance on his left, and 
 was formed at right angles with his line, at about half after two o'clock.' 
 The correct time was probably sooner, for Early states that Rodes 
 " came down on the road from Mummasburg about 2 o'clock p.m., and 
 became engaged on Heth's left," and that he " arrived about an hour 
 after Rodes got up,"^ or at 3 p.m. Pleth, on seeing Rodes thus engaged, 
 " sought for and found General Lee, saying," as he narrates, " to the 
 general, 'Rodes is very heavily engaged; had I not better attack?' 
 General Lee replied, ' No ; I am not prepared to bring on a general 
 engagement to-day ; Longstreet is not up.' Returning to my division, 
 I soon discovered that the enemy were moving troops from my front 
 and pushing them against Rodes. I reported this fact to General Lee, 
 and again requested to be permitted to attack. Permission was given."' 
 Whilst Rodes was thus engaged Early's division had been brought into 
 action on his left with great success. The movements of his brigades 
 had been very prompt and rapid, which brought his troops in the rear 
 and flank of the force then confronting Rodes.* Early's batteries, 
 posted on a slope between the Carlisle and Harrisburg Roads, were 
 replied to by three of the batteries of the Eleventh Corps at the front, 
 and by Weidrich's 3-inch rifled guns on Cemetery Hill. The shot from 
 the latter, howeyer, only reaching the line of the cavalry, Buford com- 
 plained of the firing ; but, as Howard naively remarks, " fortunately 
 nobody on our side was killed by this fire." The attack of the enemy 
 was at this time proceeding simultaneously along the whole line. 
 Schimmelpfennig's division speedily gave way, falling back most prob- 
 ably before three o'clock. Wadsworth, in his report, says about half- 
 past two;' and according to the testimony of some, retreating "before 
 the enemy's skirmishers."* Barlow's division, on the extreme right, 
 forming behind Rock Creek to meet a charge from Gordon's, Hays's, and 
 Avery's brigades, of Early's division, was next struck. In a moment 
 the open fields beyond were filled with the disordered troops of Howard's 
 corps flying in confusion. " AVhere Barlow was aligned lay a line of 
 wounded and dead men who had fallen as they stood, and in their midst 
 
 ' Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. ii. p. 223. ' Idem, vol. iv. p. 253. 
 » Idem, vol. iv. p. 158. • Idem, vol. iv. p. 254. 
 
 6 Conduct of the War, Part I., p. 307. « Idem, Part I., p. 308. 
 
80 REYNOLDS MEMORIAL. 
 
 lay Barlow himself, sorely stricken."^ Major Brady, of the Seven- 
 teenth Connecticut, Barlow's division, speaks of " the rush to the rear 
 of troops directly in advance" of part of his regiment.'' " The Federal 
 flank," according to Major Daniel, of Early's staff, " had been shriveled 
 up as a scroll, and the whole force gave way."* The troops from 
 Rodes's front moved towards the town, followed by Early's division ; 
 Hays's brigade, of the latter division, alone entering it.^ Howard 
 himself corroborates the general features of the foregoing account by 
 stating that " soon the division of the Eleventh Corps nearest Double- 
 day was flying to the shelter of the town, widening the gap there, and 
 the enemy in line pressed rapidly through the interval. Of course Rob- 
 inson and Wadsworth had to give way."* After the Eleventh Corps 
 had been driven from the field but one alternative remained to the 
 First. It had been successfully resisting the heavy shocks directed 
 against its front by a force twofold greater than its own, but now there 
 were superadded the blows on its flank from another force at least 
 numerically equal to the first. The limit of human endurance had 
 been reached, and it fell back, fighting as it went. 
 
 Howard was already on Cemetery Hill when Von Amsburg's regi- 
 ment, of his corps, the first to arrive, reached there. Leading the way 
 with his corps flag, he placed the regiment on the right of Steinwehr's 
 line. General Ames, who succeeded Barlow after the latter had been 
 severely wounded, came to him about the same time and said, " ' I have 
 no division ; it is all cut to pieces,' to which Howard replied, ' Do what 
 you can, Ames, to gather the fragments and extend the line to the 
 right.' He did so, and succeeded better than he had feared." ° Yet it 
 has been asserted that about fifteen hundred men of this corps were 
 collected some miles in the rear of the field by the provost guard of 
 the Twelfth Corps. The First Corps, compelled to yield to the severe 
 pressure on their front and flanks, were still maintaining a position near 
 the seminary, as they had received no orders to withdraw altogether, "al- 
 though the enemy were marching on the town, and something had to 
 be done immediately."' The line of the Second Brigade, of the Third 
 Division, had begun to give way not long after 3 P.M., and had fallen 
 
 ' Address by Major Daniel, p. 20. ' Eebellion Eecord, vol. x. p. 181. 
 
 ' Address by Majo» Daniel, p. 20. 
 * Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. iv. p. 254. 
 
 5 Campaign of Gettysburg, by O. 0. Howard, Atlantic Monthly, July, 1876, 
 58. 
 " Idem, p. 58. 
 ' Conduct of the War, Part I., p. 810. 
 
ADDRESS OF COLONEL CHAPMAN BIDDLE. 81 
 
 back slowly under a severe fire to a position which Meredith's brigade 
 had taken shortly before, but the new line having been forced to give 
 way on all sides, the whole of it shortly after withdrew to Cemetery 
 Hill. The First Brigade, of the Third Division, forming the left 
 of the corps line, was in like manner obliged, about 4 p.m., to retire 
 from the field to the slight cover immediately west of the seminary, 
 where it remained for a short time, until the batteries and most of 
 the troops had moved through the town, when it retreated to Cemetery 
 Hill. 
 
 In reference to the time when the first troops reached Cemetery Hill 
 there is again a conflict of statement. Howard asserting that, according 
 to the time which he " had gone by all day," it was half after four 
 o'clock when General Hancock first met him there.^ This Hancock 
 contradicts, saying that he arrived upon the field about 3 p.m., or be- 
 tween that and 3.30, when he found the fighting about over, and when 
 "there had been an attempt to reform some of the Eleventh Corps 
 as they passed over Cemetery Hill, but it had not been very success- 
 ful;" . . . "there may have been one thousand to twelve hundred at 
 most organized troops of that corps in position on the hill,"^ . . . 
 "and these were a portion of Steinwehr's division, which, with the 
 artillery of the corps, was left there by Howard when he marched up in 
 the morning."* In the spirited account of the battle by Bates it is 
 stated* that Stein wehr saw that " however powerful and effective his own 
 guns might prove while unassailed," . . . "they would be unable to live 
 long when attacked unless protected." ..." He accordingly threw up 
 lunettes around each gun;" ..." not mere heaps of stubble and turf, 
 but solid works, of such height and thickness as to defy the most power- 
 ful bolts which the enemy could throw against them, with smooth and 
 perfectly level platforms on which the guns could be worked." Upon 
 whose authority this statement is based does not appear, but Hancock" 
 characterizes it as "a great error ; there were no works of the kind above 
 described on that field when" he "arrived there, and all that" he "saw in 
 the way of 'works' were some holes (not deep) dug to sink the wheels and 
 trains of the pieces." Three regiments of the First Brigade, of Stein- 
 wehr's division, under the command of Colonel Costar, which had been 
 
 1 Campaign of Gettysburg, by O. O. Howard, Atlantic Monthly, July, 1876, 
 p. 58. 
 
 ^ Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. v. p. 169. 
 ' Idem, vol. t. p. 171. 
 ^ Battle of Gettysburg, by Bates, p. 76. 
 ' Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. v. p. 172. 
 
 6 
 
82 REYNOLDS MEMORIAL. 
 
 ordered forward to the support of Schimmelpfennig's and Barlow's di- 
 visions, and were posted on the right of the Harrisburg Road, just north 
 of the town, were borne down by Early's advancing troops, and most of 
 them taken prisoners. The remaining regiment of that brigade, as the 
 Federal soldiers were retiring through the town, occupied the houses on 
 either side of the Baltimore Pike, near its junction with the Emmets- 
 burg Road and a stone wall just below the cemetery. From their cover 
 they checked the advance of the enemy and protected the cannoniers 
 on the heights above.^ The retreat, while trying to the troops of the 
 First Corps, in consequence of their becoming entangled with the 
 Eleventh in the streets of the town, was yet conducted by the former 
 with some regard to order, the men frequently making a stand, until 
 they finally reached the heights. Early's troops, flushed with success, 
 " exclaimed as their officers passed along their lines, ' Let us go on !' "^ 
 Lee, too, then shared the enthusiasm of his men, although afterwards, 
 in his first report, he alleges that " the attack was not pressed that after- 
 noon, the enemy's force being unknown, and it being considered advis- 
 able to await the arrival of the rest of our troops." " General Lee," 
 says Colonel Taylor, of his staff, ^ " witnessed the flight of the Federals 
 through Gettysburg and up the hills beyond. He then directed me to 
 go to General Ewell and to say to him that from the position which he 
 occupied he could see the enemy retreating over those hills without or- 
 ganization and in great confusion ; that it was only necessary to press 
 ' those people' in order to secure possession of the heights, and that if 
 possible he wished him to do this. In obedience to these instructions 
 I proceeded immediately to General Ewell and delivered the order of 
 General Lee, and after receiving from him some message for the com- 
 manding general in regard to the prisoners captured, returned to the 
 latter and reported that his order had been delivered. General Ewell 
 did not express any objection or indicate the existence of any impedi- 
 ment to the execution of the order conveyed to him, but left the im- 
 pression on my mind that it would be executed." ..." The troops 
 were not moved forward, and the enemy proceeded to occupy and fortify 
 the position which it was designed that General Ewell should seize. 
 Major-General Edward Johnson, whose division reached the field after 
 the engagement and formed on the left of Early, in a conversation had 
 with me since the war about this circumstance, in which I sought an 
 explanation of our inaction at that time, assured me that there was no 
 
 1 History of the Pennsylvania Volunteers, vol. ii. pp. 865-66. 
 
 ' Address by Major Daniel, p. 20. ' Annals of the War, p. 308. 
 
ADDRESS OF COLONEL CHAPMAN BIDDLE. 83 
 
 hindrance to his moving forward, but that after getting his comraatid 
 in line of battle, and before it became seriously engaged or had advanced 
 any great distance, for some unexplained reason he had received orders 
 to halt. This was after General Lee's message was delivered to General 
 Ewell." Lee and staff had reached the field in the afternoon, near the 
 close of the battle. Soon after Anderson's division arrived, but being 
 too late to participate in the action was halted on the ground held by 
 Pender when the battle began,' and at about the same time Longstreet 
 came in person, his troops being a few miles behind.'' 
 
 Thus practically terminated the first day's battle ; but what were 
 the fruits of the victory to General Lee? Defeated by overwhelming 
 numbers, the men of the First Corps, who had borne the brunt of the 
 fight, were again in position, and determined to contest the ground they 
 now occupied. Buford was near by to assist. But why did the victors 
 pause in their pursuit ? A pause which was to prove fatal to their 
 anticipations of a favorable issue to their appeal to arms. Ewell had 
 been ordered to seize the heights, and the belief was that the order 
 could and would have been obeyed, as, in the opinion of General John- 
 son, there was no hindrance to his moving forward. Indeed, there 
 would appear to be no justification for his disobedience if Colonel Fre- 
 mantle, of the Guards, is correct in his report of the " universal feeling 
 in the Confederate army," which "was one of profound contempt for an 
 enemy whom they had beaten so constantly and under so many disad- 
 vantages."^ Naturally, the question whether the Confederates should 
 have followed up their success on the afternoon of the first day has 
 been the occasion of much animated discussion both among military 
 men and civilians. South and North. As the legitimate result of these 
 discussions, making due allowance for the considerable element of per- 
 sonal feeling exhibited by many of the Southern officers and civilians, 
 it may be stated that the failure to pursue was fatal to Lee's army. On 
 this point of controversy Longstreet is most emphatic in the expression 
 of his views : ^ " The crushing defeat inflicted on the advance of the 
 Federal army in the casual encounter of the 1st at Willoughby's Run 
 should have been pushed to extremities, that occasion furnishing one 
 of the few opportunities ever furnished for ' pursuit pell-mell.' " Ewell, 
 as has already been mentioned, not only received the order to pursue, 
 but expressed no objection to, or diificulty in the way of, its execution. 
 
 1 Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. iv. p. 113. ' Idem, vol. iv. p. 66. 
 
 » Three Months in the Southern States, hy Lieutenant-Colonel Premantle, p. 
 256. 
 
 « Annals of the War, p. 620. 
 
84 BETNOLDS MEMORIAL. 
 
 The " hunt was up," and in the language of Lee, as applied to the 
 third day, some of "his people" seemed simply to desire to be "turned 
 loose" at their enemy. EwelP assigns as reasons, however, in his re- 
 port, for not carrying out the order, that he could not bring artillery to 
 bear on the hill, and that the troops with him " were jaded by twelve 
 hours' marching and fighting." ..." Cemetery Hill was not assailable 
 from the town," and in consequence he determined with Johnson's di- 
 vision to take possession of a wooded hill which commanded Cemetery 
 Hill, but before Johnson got up the enemy was reported to be moving 
 on his left flank, and by the time that report could be investigated and 
 " Johnson placed in position the night was far advanced."^ The report 
 of Ewell, and the memorandum of Colonel Taylor, need only to be 
 compared in order that a conclusion may be drawn. The other corps 
 commander. Hill, being " under the impression that the enemy were 
 entirely routed, — his own two divisions exhausted by some six hours' 
 hard fighting, — ^prudence led him to be content with what had been 
 gained, and not push forward troops exhausted and necessarily disor- 
 dered, probably to encounter fresh troops of the enemy." ^ In review- 
 ing the operations of the first two days. General Fitz-Hugh Lee con- 
 siders that the Confederates were ' within a stone's throw of peace' at 
 Gettysburg;" and although in numbers as sixty -two thousand is to one 
 hundred and five thousand (which latter, however, he thinks is an over- 
 estimate) before any portion of either army had become engaged, yet 
 the advantages were so mainifestly on General Lee's side, in consequence 
 of the more rapid concentration of his troops upon a common point, 
 that the heart of every Southern soldier beat with the lofty confidence 
 of certain victory."^ ... In referring to the first day, he puts the 
 question," "Did such failure at Gettysburg arise from Ewell and Hill 
 not pushing their success on the 1st of July?" And he answers it 
 thus : " I have always been one of those who regarded it a great mis- 
 fortune that these two corps commanders did not continue to force the 
 fighting upon that day. Each had two divisions of their corps engaged, 
 thus leaving one division to each corps, viz., Johnson, of Evvell's, and 
 Anderson, of Hill's, at their service for further work, — something over 
 ten thousand men." . . . "Estimating those four divisions at the 
 close of the action at an average of four thousand five hundred men 
 a piece, we had eighteen thousand men ; add the ten thousand of the 
 
 ' Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. iv. p. 261. 
 
 2 Idem, vol. iv. p. 262. ' Idem, vol. ii. p. 223. 
 
 * Idem, vol. v. p. 163. ^ Idem, vol. v. p. 167. 
 
ADDRESS OF COLONEL CHAPMAN BIDDLE. 85 
 
 two divisions not engaged, and there will be found twenty-eight thou- 
 sand men ready to move on, flushed with victory and confident of suc- 
 cess." In March, 1877, he had expressed the opinion in writing' that 
 " a little more marching, perhaps a little more fighting, would have 
 given us the coveted position, and that in such an event the battle of 
 Gettysburg would have had another name, and possibly another result, 
 — who knows ?" In April, 1878,'' he asserts, after fairly presenting the 
 evidence before him, " I am authorized in reaffirming that ' a little more 
 marching, perhaps a little more fighting,' would have gained for us the 
 possession of the heights on the evening of the 1st of July." General 
 Heth, in his published account, already referred to, makes no allusion 
 to this subject ; regarding the fight on the 1st as being without order 
 or system on their part, — at the same time considering a systematic 
 plan of battle impossible from the fact that they had "accidentally 
 stumbled into the fight."^ General Rodes contents himself by remark- 
 ing that his troops were "greatly exhausted by their march, and some- 
 what disorganized by the hot engagement and rapid pursuit," but that 
 though they " were halted and prepared for further action," yet the 
 attack was not ordered for two reasons : first, because Ewell, in the 
 midst of the engagement which had then just taken place, had informed 
 him through one of his officers that General Lee did not wish a gen- 
 eral engagement brought on ; and, second, because, " before the comple- 
 tion of his defeat," ..." the enemy had begun to establish a line of 
 battle on the heights back of the town, and seeing no Confederate troops 
 on his right, and that Early, who was on his left, was awaiting orders, 
 although his superiors were upon the ground, he concluded that the order 
 not to bring on a general engagement was still in force." * How do these 
 reasons harmonize with Colonel Taylor's statement that he delivered 
 the order of General Lee to Ewell to press " tliose people," in order to 
 secure possession of the heights ? Moreover, the opinion of Colonel 
 Allan, of Ewell's staff, is, that* " the Confederates would probably have 
 been successful, first, had Ewell and Hill pushed Howard's broken troops 
 over the top of Cemetery Hill on the first day." Early, however, takes 
 issue, in a well-prepared defense, with those of his brother officers who 
 have thus criticised the failure of the Confederate commanders to follow 
 up their success on that day, and arrives at the conclusion that "it was 
 not, therefore, a mere question of a little more marching, nor of a little 
 
 » Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. iv. p. 75. 
 
 2 Idem, vol. v. p. 175. ' Idem, vol. iv. p. 159. 
 
 * Idem, vol. ii. p. 149. ' Idem, vol. iv. p. 80. 
 
86 REYNOLDS MEMORIAL. 
 
 more fighting, either, which was involved. If we had made an assault 
 on Cemetery Hill and occupied it, it would have involved a bloody 
 struggle." . . . "Before Johnson arrived all thought of moving on 
 Cemetery Hill that afternoon had been abandoned, as it was then evi- 
 dent that the enemy had rallied from the dismay of his defeat."' Gen- 
 eral Hancock has expressed the opinion that " if the Confederates had 
 continued the pursuit of General Howard on the afternoon of the 1st 
 of July at Gettysburg, they would have driven him over and beyond 
 Cemetery Hill."^ But after he had made his dispositions for defend- 
 ing it, he did not think " the Confederate force then present could have 
 carried it." It was the remnant of the First Corps, however, that at 
 once gave stability to the new line. "Wadsworth's division, with a bat- 
 tery of artillery, was posted on Gulp's Hill, and the remainder of the 
 corps on the right and left of the Taneytown Eoad connecting with 
 the left of the Eleventh Corps. "When these dispositions had about 
 been completed, one division of the Twelfth Corps came up, and later 
 another division of the same corps arrived. Sickles, it seems, had re- 
 ceived word at Emmetsburg, between two and three o'clock in the 
 afternoon,* from Howard, that the First and Eleventh Corps were en- 
 gaged with a superior force; that Reynolds had fallen, and urging him 
 to come to their relief. In consequence he made a forced march with 
 a part of his corps, and arrived, with about a division, shortly after the 
 troops had been posted on Cemetery Hill. But whilst it nowhere dis- 
 tinctly appears that Sickles had received the earlier order of Reynolds, 
 yet Bates declares that he was " morally culpable for not going to the 
 assistance of the forces engaged at Gettysburg on the first day," . . . 
 " he having early in the day been ordered up by Reynolds and having 
 no valid excuse for disregarding the summons." * 
 
 The extracts from the various reports and narratives which have 
 been made use of are perhaps too copious ; but, at all events, it is 
 unnecessary to multiply the opinions of military men on the subject. 
 Public sentiment, with almost unanimity, has become settled in the 
 conviction that the Confederates surrendered their " golden opportunity" 
 when they abandoned the immediate pursuit of the Federal forces on 
 the afternoon of the 1st of July. The view of the Southern people 
 may be gathered from Pollard's " History of the War" : ^ " The result 
 
 ' Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. iv. p. 260. 
 
 2 Idem, vol. v. p. 168. » Conduct of the "War, Part I., p. 296. 
 
 < Battle of Gettysburg, by Bates, p. 186. 
 
 5 Southern History of the "War, Third Year, by Pollard, p. 26. 
 
ADDRESS OF COLONEL CHAPMAN BIDDLE. 87 
 
 of the day's fight may be summed up thus : we had attacked a consider- 
 able force, had driven it over three miles, captured five thousand pris- 
 oners, and killed and wounded many thousands. Our own loss was 
 not heavy, though a few brigades suffered severely. If the attack had 
 been pressed in the afternoon of that day there is little doubt that our 
 forces could have got the heights and captured this entire detachmerjt 
 of Meade's army." Colonel Bachelder, whose " long study of the 
 field" of Gettysburg has given him, as has justly been remarked by 
 General Hancock,^ "a fund of accurate information in great detail, 
 which" ..." is not possessed by any one else," in a letter to General 
 Fitz-Hugh Lee presents the prevailing Union conviction in the following 
 words : ^ " There is no question but what a combined attack on Cemetery 
 Hill, made within an hour, would have been successful." ..." Un- 
 questionably the great mistake of the battle was the failure to follow the 
 Union forces through the town and attack them before they could re- 
 form on Cemetery Hill. Lane's and Thomas's brigades, of Pender's 
 division, and Smith's, of Early's division, were at hand for such a pur- 
 pose and had fired scarcely a shot. Dole's, Hoke's, and Hays's bri- 
 gades were in good fighting condition, and several others would have 
 done good service. The artillery was up and in an admirable position 
 to have covered an assault, which could have been pushed, under cover 
 of the houses, to within a few rods of the Union position." Finally 
 Swinton says,^ " Never was pause at the door of victory more fatal to 
 the hopes of a commander. Had the enemy followed up his advantage 
 by seizing the crest of Cemetery Hill or Gulp's Hill there would have 
 been no Gettysburg, and indeed it is difScult to forecast what in this 
 case they might not have done, for the Union corps were much scattered 
 and no place of concentration had been secured." 
 
 In view of all the evidence which has been presented, is not the 
 conclusion fairly warranted that to the stubborn resistance of the First 
 Corps of the Army of the Potomac on the first day of July, 1863, the 
 ultimate defeat of Lee's invading army is, in a very large measure, to 
 be attributed ? A defeat which carried with it the utter destruction of 
 the high hopes formed at the moment Lee commenced the execution of 
 his plan. So terminates the story of the first day's conflict, — a struggle 
 marked with more than ordinary bravery, coolness, and endurance on 
 the part of a large number of the troops engaged, and whose valor 
 rendered possible the splendid victory which finally crowned the Union 
 arms. An achievement, the moral effect of which was instantaneous; 
 
 ' Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. v. p. 168. ' Idem, toI. v. p. 172. 
 
 ' The Twelve Decisive Battles of the "War, by Swinton, p. 332. 
 
88 REYNOLDS MEMORIAL. 
 
 for men at once realized that at length a decisive victory had been won, 
 and that thenceforth the days of the Confederacy were numbered. 
 
 Impartial critics of the operations of the succeeding days consider 
 that several grave mistakes were committed by the Confederates both 
 as to a portion of their plan and to much of its execution. These 
 errors have been the subject of acrimonious discussion on the part of 
 some of the officers of high rank in the late Confederate service. The 
 mistakes may be summed up as follows : want of co-operation or har- 
 mony of action on the 2d of July, it being asserted by Early and others 
 that Longstreet was to commence the attack on the right at an early 
 hour in the morning, and that he failed to make it until late in the 
 afternoon. That on the 3d the attack was to have been renewed at an 
 early hour by Pickett and the other two divisions of Longstreet's corps, 
 while a simultaneous assault was to have been made from the left by 
 Ewell. That Longstreet again delayed until the afternoon, although 
 the advance on the left had been begun at the proper time. Again, 
 that the Federal position should have been turned by the South on the 
 third day by extending the Confederate right so as to endanger Meade's 
 communications with Washington. Again, that the tactical offensive 
 course of Lee on the 2d of July was at variance with the plan of cam- 
 paign settled upon before leaving Fredericksburg.' And again, that 
 the assault of Pickett on the third day should not have been attempted, 
 "the hopelessness" of which had been foreseen by Longstreet.^ The 
 repulse of this "hopeless" assault is thus graphically described by 
 Longstreet :' Pickett " swept past our artillery in splendid style, and 
 the men marched steadily and compactly down the slope. As they 
 started up the ridge over one hundred cannon from the breastworks of 
 the Federals hurled a rain of canister, grape, and shell down upon 
 them ; still they pressed on until half-way up the slope, when the crest 
 of the hill was lit with a solid sheet of flame as the masses of infantry 
 rose and fired. When the smoke cleared away, Pickett's division was 
 gone. Nearly two-thirds of his men lay dead on the field, and the 
 survivors were sullenly retreating down the hill. Mortal man could 
 not have stood that fire. In half an hour the contested field was cleared 
 and the battle of Gettysburg was over." The grand part which the 
 Union artillery took " in this death-struggle with the Confederacy" is 
 here recognized. Hunt, its chief, and Tyler, his able assistant, opened 
 upon Pickett's magnificent assaulting column with their guns from 
 Cemetery Hill to the Round Tops, " tearing vast gaps in the advancing 
 
 1 Annals Of the War, p. 421. ' Idem, p. 429. » Idem, p. 431. 
 
REMARKS OF EX-GOVERNOR OUR TIN: 89 
 
 ranks and almost annihilating that proud array of eighteen thousand 
 of the best Southern infantry." ^ Whilst Pickett's men were falling 
 back within the Confederate lines Lee rode towards them, and upon 
 meeting General "Wilcox, who was almost in tears at the condition of 
 his brigade, said, " Never mind, general, all this has been my fault, — it 
 is /that have lost this fight, and you must help me out of it the best 
 way you can." ^ 
 
 Thus the great battle was ended. Brilliant success had rewarded 
 the valor of the men of the Army of the Potomac, directed by the 
 heroism and skill of its chief. Then when the loud cheers of the vic- 
 torious troops proclaimed the work accomplished, the good and gallant 
 Meade, reverently uncovering his head, gave utterance in the solemn 
 words " Thank God !" to the profound gratitude which filled his heart. 
 
 The President: 
 
 Although our usual hour for adjournment has arrived, I feel that 
 you would hardly forgive me — and I could hardly forgive myself — if 
 seeing, as I do, a gentleman present to whose energy, and to whose fore- 
 cast equally, we were so greatly indebted during the war, in the high, 
 responsible, and arduous office of governor of this great Commonwealth 
 which he then held, I should not ask him to say a few words to us. 
 [Addressing Governor Curtin.] You have not come here this evening, 
 I am aware, Governor Curtin, expecting to speak, but certainly you will 
 not deny us the pleasure of listening for a few moments to you. 
 
 Ex-GoVEENOR AiTOEEW G. CuETiN then rose amidst great ap- 
 plause, and said : 
 
 KEMARKS OF EX-GOVEENOK CUETIIT. 
 
 « 
 
 Me. President and Membees op the Histoeical Society : — 
 The call of the President upon me to speak takes me by surprise, and 
 I have scarcely the temerity to say anything that might add interest to 
 this occasion. The paper prepared and read by Captain Rosengarten 
 was so accurate in his history of the life and services of General 
 Reynolds, and so truly eloquent in the tribute he pays to his memory, 
 that until the admirable papers of General Hofmaun and Colonel Biddle 
 were read, the subject seemed exhausted ; but having known General 
 Reynolds well, in obedience to the call the President of the Society 
 
 1 Memoir of General Robert O. Tyler, p. 15. 
 
 ' Three Months in the Southern States, by Lieut.-Col. Premantle, p. 269. See 
 also Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. iv. p. 109. 
 
90 REYNOLDS MEMORIAL. 
 
 has made upon me, anything I may say, in your kindness I am quite 
 sure you will not consider inappropriate. In the wonderful struggle to 
 maintain the supremacy of the government of the republic against the 
 assaults of the most causeless and insane rebellion of history, there 
 were few men indeed in civil or military life, in council or in the 
 field, who gave to the country more important or useful service than 
 the man whose memory this occasion is Intended to commemorate. 
 General Reynolds seemed to be designed by nature for a soldier. 
 Modest in his deportment, submissive in his obedience to orders, rigid 
 in his exaction of obedience from those he commanded, always found 
 the perfect master of his commands, courteous and amiable in his in- 
 tercourse, sterling in his integrity, and moved by the most exalted 
 patriotism and love of country, the great victory in which he was one 
 of the chief actors was hardly a compensation to the government for his 
 untimely death. 
 
 It is eminently proper that by such ceremonies as these we should 
 revive the memories of the illustrious dead, and that there should per- 
 petually well up from the hearts of the American people gratitude to 
 the soldiers who still live, and who gave to their suifering country the 
 highest measure of heroic service. Whilst it is eminently proper to 
 remember the dead and to honor the living, we must not forget that our 
 form of government was intended and designed for advancement, for 
 increase in material power, for individual happiness and prosperity in 
 peace. We open wide the doors of our liberty, and on our dead level 
 of social equality invite all people of other nations to its full enjoy- 
 ment who come in peaceful approach. We set apart a day of each 
 coming year to pay fitting tribute to the memory of the dead soldiers 
 of the republic. The living soldier, when the earth smiles in flowers to 
 the coming warmth of summer, gathers and strews them on the graves 
 of his dead comrades. It is a union of the living and the dead ; it is 
 making one family of all humanity ; and if the blessings of his com- 
 rades were flowers, the grave of the great soldier whose memory we 
 now commemorate would be clothed in perpetual bloom. And not 
 many years will pass before the last soldier will pay the tribute to his 
 comrades, and when he, too, has paid the debt of nature, who then 
 will take his place ? 
 
 In this hall where our history and traditions are so carefully col- 
 lected and garnered, and in such a presence as that in which I stand 
 and have the honor to be heard, it is proper, eminently proper, that it 
 should be remembered that whilst we pay due honors to the soldier, w? 
 should not be forgetful that we only engage in war from necessity, 
 
REMARKS OF EX-GOVERNOR CURTIN. 91 
 
 and that of all the people of all the States of this great country, the 
 Commonwealth of Pennsylvania finds her most exalted glory in peaceful 
 pursuits. Not far from where we are now assembled the great man who 
 established the colony of Pennsylvania, and who proclaimed its funda- 
 mental laws for government, met in council the savages who then 
 owned and inhabited it. The scene marked an era in our history, — it has 
 been perpetuated by the historian, by the poet, and the artist. William 
 Penn standing in the forest unarmed, surrounded by thousands of sav- 
 age tribes and in the presence of their sachems, declaring that he came 
 unarmed, and only protected by the great God who ruled the universe, 
 and asked for lands for his people by treaty and purchase, was an event 
 that should not be forgotten. He made no conquests, he used no force, 
 but step by step the savages fell back before the approaches of the civil- 
 ization which he and his followers brought with them to this distant, and 
 then almost unknown land. He founded a republican colony, and pro- 
 claimed to his people equality and the virtue of obedience to law. No 
 guard of soldiers surrounded his government, and for seventy-five 
 years the constable's staff was the only symbol of power known in the 
 colony of Penn, founded in 1682 in deeds of peace. 
 
 I was much pained to read in a lecture delivered by a distinguished 
 soldier, a few weeks since, a tribute to officers who, he said, selected the 
 place and opened the great battle of Gettysburg, and noticed with great 
 satisfaction that the names of these officers do not occur in the papers 
 read by Colonel Blddle or General Hofmann, or Captain Eosengarten, 
 who were all there, and bore an active part in the battle. The battle 
 of the 1st of July belonged to General Reynolds ; it was opened by a 
 Pennsylvania regiment; it was the advance of the army then com- 
 manded by General Meade, a Pennsylvanian, who fills an honored grave, 
 and who will ever be remembered as one of the great soldiers of the 
 republic ; and we must not forget, as Pennsylvanians, that in the great 
 battle of the 3d of July we had eighty regiments, and that Hancock, 
 who still lives, commanded the left centre, and inspired by his courage, 
 and sustained himself by the confidence of the men he commanded, 
 repelled in successive attempts the most persistent and violent attacks 
 known in any battle of modern times ; not strange, indeed, that that 
 great battle should be the constant subject of discussion and comment, 
 for there the power of the Eebellion culminated and was broken. It 
 was there the first national cemetery was founded, and there a monu- 
 ment is erected, the most beautiful work of art in America ; and there 
 stands the bronze statue of General Reynolds, raised by the contribu- 
 tions of the rank and file of his command. There are the granite 
 
92 REYNOLDS MEMORIAL. 
 
 headstones marKing the graves of the dead, and the vicissitudes and 
 horrors of war can be read, recorded on that historic field in the twelve 
 hundred graves of the unknown dead. It was at the dedication of the 
 cemetery there that Lincoln, the martyred President, delivered the 
 wonderful speech which, separating him from all his great life, would 
 of itself have made his name immortal. And it was at Gettysburg 
 that the blood of the peoples of eighteen loyal States sunk into the 
 ground, making all a kindred and brotherhood, and sealing in the red 
 covenant an offering to heaven that for the men who died there, and 
 who survived, this great government and its broad liberty and equality 
 will survive in peace or in war, and give to future generations its 
 benefactions and blessings. 
 
 The President : 
 
 We had expected to have with us this evening one of the most 
 distinguished of the heroes of Gettysburg, Major-General Winfield S. 
 Hancock, another soldier whom Pennsylvania is proud to call her son, 
 who unavoidably has been called away on duty. He has, however, 
 written us a letter, which I will ask the Secretary to read. 
 
 LETTER OE GENERAL HANCOCK. 
 
 GoTBRNOR's Island, Naw York Harbor, 
 
 March 4, 1880. 
 
 My dear Sir, — In January last I accepted the invitation of the 
 Council of the " Historical Society of Pennsylvania" to be present on 
 the 8th instant, at the presentation of a portrait of Major-General John 
 F. Reynolds, deceased, to that Society, and at the same time stated that 
 if enabled to attend I should be happy to " second the motion" on that 
 occasion. Within the last few days, however, it has become apparent 
 that I cannot be present, and I am obliged to leave for the West to- 
 morrow, to be absent for the next ten or twenty days. I should have 
 been pleased to have seen the painting in question, for I knew General 
 Eeynolds intimately through a long course of years (since 1840), and saw 
 him last only a day or two before his heroic death on the battle-field 
 of Gettysburg ; I therefore well knew his lineaments and the expression 
 of his features. 
 
 In 1868, while on duty in the East (in New York), having a general 
 determination in my own mind as to the qualities and characteristics of 
 the men, and believing that Reynolds, Sedgwick, Thomas, Meade, and 
 some others of like type, as well represented the model soldier resulting 
 
LETTER OF GENEBAL HANCOCK. 93 
 
 from the instruction of our Military Academy at West Point, as any 
 that were known to me, I had procured a portrait of Sedgwick and 
 sent it to that Academy, where it now is. I ordered one of Keynolds 
 too, and it was not sent to "West Point, according to the original inten- 
 tion, only because I was transferred to the West before that matter was 
 disposed of. Subsequently, I gave to the artist my assent that he might 
 dispose of the portrait to the friends of the family, who had expressed 
 a desire to possess it, but upon the condition that a copy might be 
 taken in the future, to be placed at the Military Academy, and it was 
 thus transferred by the artist to Mr. Landis, a brother-in-law of General 
 Reynolds, residing in Philadelphia. 
 
 I found some diificulty in procuring the data for the artist who 
 painted this portrait of General Reynolds, he never having had an im- 
 portant picture of himself taken, and I found nothing available but 
 some photographs (cartes-de-visite) and inferior sketches, taken at dif- 
 ferent periods of his life. The portrait was probably completed, how- 
 ever, under the advice and criticisms of relations and friends who knew 
 him well, and who visited Washington City during its execution. 
 
 I was also instrumental, in 1868-69, in having a portrait of Gen- 
 eral George H. Thomas painted in Washington City, by Mr. Balling, 
 the artist of all these paintings. I was at that time on duty with the 
 General as a member of the " Dyer Court of Inquiry," and sat beside 
 him on that service for a period of five months. 
 
 That I did not endeavor to have a portrait of General Meade painted 
 for a like object was because his friends in Philadelphia, through their 
 sympathy and attachment to him, had completely covered that ground; 
 many successful pictures of him were taken then, some of which I 
 have seen. That no application for a copy of the portrait of General 
 Reynolds, to which I have referred as being in the possession of Mr. 
 Landis, of Philadelphia, was subsequently made (to be placed at West 
 Point) was owing to the fact that the members of the First Army Corps 
 (Reynolds'), having erected a monument to him, finding a balance of 
 funds remaining on hand sufficient for the purpose, concluded, a few 
 years since, to have a portrait of him painted, which was accordingly 
 done from the best sources of information, as to his appearance, etc., 
 then attainable. After its completion, I was invited by General Wain- 
 wright (late chief of artillery. First Army Corps, and chairman of the 
 committee who had charge of the matter) to give my opinion as to its 
 merits. I considered it a good portrait. It was sent to the Military 
 Academy, and thus there seemed to be no occasion for a copy of the 
 portrait in Mr. Landis's hands. I do not recall now the name of the 
 
94 REYNOLDS MEMORIAL. 
 
 artist who painted the picture for the committee of the First Corps, 
 although I knew it at the time, and am personally acquainted with him. 
 
 I may take this occasion to state that, in my opinion, there was no 
 officer in the Array of the Potomac who developed a character for use- 
 fulness and ability, in the highest grades of command, superior to that 
 of General Keynolds, and had he lived to the close of the war he would 
 most probably have attained the highest honors in that army. It is 
 quite well understood, and I believe it is a matter of history, that he 
 could have had command of the Army of the Potomac before the battle 
 of Gettysburg, and that it was conferred upon General Meade after 
 General Reynolds' recommendation or suggestion. They were close 
 friends, — a friendship based not upon personal considerations alone, but 
 upon mutual esteem, and appreciation of character and abilities as well. 
 
 General Reynolds was senior to General Meade in rank, and there- 
 fore it can be well understood that, with his well-known merit, he was 
 first considered when command was in question. 
 I am, dear sir. 
 
 Very truly and respectfully yours, 
 
 WiNFiELD S. Hancock. 
 
 The Hon. John "William Wallace, 
 
 President Historical Society of Pennsylvania. 
 
 Rear- Admiral George F. Emmons, U.S.N., then rose and said : 
 
 KEMARKS OF ADMIRAL EMMONS. 
 
 Mr. President: — Permit me to say that from an intimate acquaint- 
 ance with Rear-Admiral Reynolds — whose name has been mentioned 
 here this evening with great honor — and a friendship lasting over forty 
 years, I have had an opportunity of knowing him well, and have, I 
 hope, appreciated his many noble qualities. The Admiral having spent 
 much of his life out of the country, it is perhaps natural that his name 
 should be less prominent with you than that of his brother, the Gen- 
 eral, who died on the battle-field defending the soil of his native State 
 and country ; but knowing him as he was, and having listened to all 
 that has been so well and I believe truthfully said here of his gallant 
 brother, I conclude that they were equally possessed of those noble 
 traits that constitute the noble man. Admiral Reynolds stood high 
 among his peers, and was an able and accomplished officer. . Loyalty 
 with him was not merely a sentiment, but a principle, a fact. He was, 
 indeed, an honorable member of the Loyal Legion of the United States, 
 
REMARKS OF ADMIRAL EMMONS. 
 
 95 
 
 and I am glad to see present on this occasion so many companions of 
 that order. To some of you Admiral Reynolds was a stranger. It is 
 therefore proper I should have said this much. And now, Mr. Presi' 
 dent, permit me, in behalf of the navy and of the Military Order of the 
 Loyal Legion, to thank you and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania 
 for the significance you have given to this occasion. Life is too short 
 for us to forget such men and such virtues as they possessed, and Penn- 
 sylvania may well be proud of such sons. 
 
 The meeting, after the transaction of some formal business, then 
 adjourned. 
 
77l4^S 
 
 n'/5-