Kiif'''- -¦i 11^ ui-*^ ..,<,] Yale Uiuversity Library 39002015356943 „rturH y*,r«rrwT^./£>t YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Gift of The children of LAURA D. AND D. NEWTON BARNEY THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG Fka^k Aretas Haskell From photograph taken while he was Colonel of the Thirty-sixth Wisconsin Infantry Wisconsin History Commission : Reprints, No. i THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG BY FRANK ARETAS HASKELL Aide-de-camp to General John Gibbon, and Colonel of Thirty- sixth Wisconsin Infantry [Second Edition] WISCONSIN HISTORY COMMISSION APRIL, 1910 TWENTY-FIVE HUNDRED COPIES PRINTED Opinions or errors of fact on the part ot the respective authors of the Commis sion's pubhcations (whether Reprints or Original Narratives) have not been modified or corrected by the Commission. For all statements, ot whatever character, the Au thor is alone responsible First edition, November, 1908; second edition, April, 1910 DEMOCRAT PRINTING CO., STATE PRINTER Contents page Wisconsin History Commission . . . . ix Preface. The Editor ...... ix Tribute to Adjutant Haskell. /. A. Watrous xxiv The Battle of Gettysburg. Frank Aretas Has kell 1 Index 187 [V] Illustrations page Portrait of Author, while Colonel of Thirty-sixth Wisconsin Infantry , . . . Froiitis-piece Another portrait of the Author . . xxiv Map of Battle of Gettysburg, July 2 . .58 Map of Battle of Gettysburg, July 3 . . 130 [vii] Wisconsin History Commission (Organized under the provisions of Chapter 298, Laws of 1905, as amended by Chapter 378, Laws of 1907 and Chapter 445, Laws of 1909) JAMES O. DAVIDSON Governor of Wisconsin FREDERICK J. TURNER Professor of American Historic in the University of Wisconsin REUBEN G. THWAITES Secretary of the State Historical Society of Wis consin MATTHEW S. DUDGEON Secretary of the Wisconsin Library Commission CHARLES E. ESTABROOK Representing Department of Wisconsin, Grand Army of the Republic Chairman, Commissioner Estabrook Secretary and Editor, Commissioner Thwaites Committee on Publications, COMMISSIONERS ThwAITES AND Turner [ix] PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION Frank Aretas Haskell was bom at Tunbridge, Vermont, the son of Aretas and Ann (Folson) Haskell, on the 1 Sth of July, 1 828. Graduating from Dartmouth College with distinguished hon ors, in the class of 1 854, the young man came to Madison in the autumn of that year, and entered the law firm of Orton, Atwood & Orton. His career in this profession was increasingly success ful, until in 1861 it was interrupted by the out break of the War between the States. Commissioned on June 20 of that year as First- Lieutenant of Company I of the Sixth Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, of the Iron Brigade, he served as Adjutant of his regiment until April 1 4, 1 862. Contemporaneous accounts state that "much of the excellent discipline for which this regiment was dislm guished, was due to his soldierly efforts dur ing its organization." He was called from the adjutancy of the Sixth to be aide-de-camp to General John Gibbon, when the latter assumed command of the Iron Brigade, and remained in such service until (February 9, [xi] HASKELL S GETTYSBURG 1864) he was promoted to be Colonel of the Thirty-sixth Wisconsin. While aide to General Gibbon he was temporarily on the staffs of several other generals, including Edwin V. Sumner and G. K. Warren, and won wide repute as a soldier of unusual ability and courage. With the Iron Brigade he participated in the campaigns of the Army of the Potomac, taking part in reconnois- sances at Orange Court House and Stephensburg, in skirmishes at Rappahannock Station and Sul phur Springs, and in the battles of Gainesville, Second Bull Run, South Mountain, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and Gettys burg. Reporting upon the battle of December 1 3, 1 862, at Fredericksburg, General Gibbon alluded to his favorite aide as being "constantly on the field, conveying orders and giving directions amid the heaviest fire." Writing of Gettysburg, which is herein so graphically depicted by Haskell, General Francis A. Walker, in his History of the Second Army Corps^ refers to our author as one who was "brav- ^Sistm-y ofthe Second Ar-my Corps in the Army ofthe Po tomac {Ncv/'YotV, 1886), pp. 512, 513. [xii] PREFACE est of the brave, riding mounted through an interval between the Union battalions, and calling upon the troops to go forward." He further says: "Colonel Frank A. Haskell, of Wisconsin, had been known for his intelligence and courage, for his generosity of character and his exquisite culture, long before the third day of Gettysburg, when, acting as aide to General Gibbon, he rode mounted between the two lines, then swaying backward and forward un der each other's fire, calling upon the men of the Second Division to follow him, and setting an ex ample of valor and self devotion never forgotten by any man of the thousands who witnessed it." General Winfield S. Hancock, officially re porting upon the battle, thus alluded to Haskell's deed: "I desire particularly to refer to the serv ices of a gallant young officer, First-Lieutenant F. A. Haskell, aide-de-camp to Brigadier-Gen eral Gibbon, who, at a critical period oi the battle, when the contending forces were but 50 or 60 yards apart, believing that an example was neces sary, and ready to sacrifice his life, rode between the contending lines with a view of giving encour agement to ours and leading it forward, he being [ xiii ] HASKELL S GETTYSBURG at the moment the only mounted officer in a similar position. He was slightly wounded and his horse was shot in several places." General Gibbon's report said: "I desire to call particular attention to the manner in which several of the subordinate reports mention the services of my gallant aide, Lieutenant F. A. Haskell, Sixth Wisconsin, and to add my testimony of his valu able services. This young officer has been through many batdes, and distinguished himself alike in all by his conspicuous coolness and bravery, and in this one was slightly wounded, but refused to quit the field. It has always been a source of regret to me that our military system offers no plan for re warding his merit and services as they deserve." In later years, the General again publicly alluded to Haskell's heroic conduct on this field: "There was a young man on my staff who had been in every battle with me and who did more than any other one man to repulse Pickett's assault at Get tysburg and he did the part of a general there." General William Harrow spoke of Haskell as having "greatly distinguished himself by his con stant exertion in the most exposed places." [xiv] PREFACE Colonel Norman J. Hall, of the Michigan Sev enth Infantry, and then commanding the Third Brigade, thus referred to the incident: "I cannot omit speaking in the highest terms of the magnifi cent conduct of Lieutenant Haskell, of General Gibbon's staff, in bringing forward regiments and in nerving the troops to their work by word and fearless example." Upon receiving an appointment as Colonel of the Thirty-sixth Wisconsin, Haskell returned at once to this State and recruited and organized that regiment for the field. Although his commission was dated from February 9, he was not mustered into service as Colonel until March 23. The regi ment, which had been assigned to the First Bri gade, Second Division of the Second Army Corps, left Madison May 10, and seven days later was acting as reserve during the battle at Spottsylvania. Its experiences thenceforth were of the most active character. The command went into action at Cold Harbor, Virginia, early in the nioming of June 3. The official account of what followed, is contained in [XV] HASKELL S GETTYSBURG the report of the State Adjutant General:^ "The whole line advanced upon the enemy by brigades, in column closed in mass by regiments, the Thirty- sixth being in rear of the brigade. On advancing about three-fourths of a mile across an open field, under a heavy artillery fire, and when within about twenty-five rods of the rebel works, partially pro tected by the brow of a low hill, the Thirty-sixth was found in the advance, leading the brigade. During the advance. Colonel McKeen,^ command ing the brigade, was killed, when the command devolved upon Colonel Haskell. After a mo ment's rest. Colonel Haskell, by command of Gen eral Gibbon, ordered the brigade forward. The men rose to obey, and were met by a shower of bullets, when the other parts of the line halted. Colonel Haskell surveyed the situation for a mo ment, as if irresolute; he finally gave the order, 'Lie down, men,' which was at once obeyed. An instant afterwards, he was struck in the head by a rebel bullet, and instantly killed. Thus ^Annual Report qf the Adjiitant General of the State of Wisconsi-n for 1865 (Madison, 1866), pp. 510. 51 1. "Colonel Harvey Boyd McKeen, of Pennsylvania, commander of the Third Brigade. [xvi] PREFACE fell one of Wisconsin's most gallant soldiers, a thorough disciplinarian, and an accomplished scholar." Colonel Clement E. Warner, then a Captain in the Thirty-sixth, but later its Major and Lieuten ant-Colonel, has left us this report of the battle of Cold Harbor, so far as concerns Colonel Haskell's participation and death :^ "Frank A. Haskell was in every respect an ideal soldier, according to the highest and best definition of that term. I think he was by educa tion, experience, association, natural ability, and temperament fully as competent to handle a Di vision as a Regiment, and in many respects the higher would seem the more appropriate position for him. "He rejoined the Army of the Potomac with his regiment, the Thirty-sixth Wisconsin, about the middle of May, 1864, at Spottsylvania. The two armies were joined in a death struggle, which was destined to continue almost uninterruptedly until one was effectually wiped from the face of "Columbus (Wis.) Democrat, May 27, 1895. as to occupy the most favorable places, to be cov ered, and still be able to deliver effective fire upon the enemy should he come there. In some places a second line was so posted as to be able to deliver its fire over the heads of the first line behind the [83] HASKELL's GETTYSBURG works; but such formation was not practicable all of the way. But all the force of these two divi sions was in line, in position, without reserves, and in such a manner that every man of them could have fired his piece at the same instant. The division flags, that of the Second Division, being a white trefoil upon a square blue field, and of the Third Division a blue trefoil upon a white rect angular field, waved behind the divisions at the points where the Generals of Division were sup posed to be ; the brigade flags, similar to these but with a triangular field, were behind the brigades ; and the national flags of the regiments were in the lines of their regiments. To the left of the Sec ond Division, and advanced something over a hundred yards, were posted a part of Stannard's Brigade two regiments or more, behind a small bush-crowned crest that ran in a direction oblique to the general line. These were well covered by the crest, and wholly concealed by the bushes, so that an advancing enemy would be close upon them before they could be seen. Other troops of Doubleday's Division were strongly posted in rear of these in the general line. [84] THE THIRD DAY I could not help wishing all the morning that this line of the two divisions of the Second Corps was stronger; it was so far as numbers constitute strength, the weakest part of our whole line of bat tle. What if, I thought, the enemy should make an assault here to-day, with two or three heavy lines — a great overwhelming mass; would he not sweep through that thin six thousand ? But I was not General Meade, who alone had power to send other troops there ; and he was sat isfied with that part of the line as it was. He was early on horseback this morning, and rode along the whole line, looking to it himself, and with glass in hand sweeping the woods and fields in the direction of the enemy, to see if aught of him could be discovered. His manner was calm and serious, but earnest. There was no arrogance of hope, or timidity of fear discernible in his face ; but you would have supposed he would do his duty conscientiously and well, and would be will ing to abide the result. You would have seen this in his face. He was well pleased with the left of the line to-day, it was so strong with good troops. He had no apprehension for the right [85] HASKELL S GETTYSBURG where the fight now was going on, on account of the admirable position of our forces there. He was not of the opinion that the enemy would at tack the center, our artillery had such sweep there, and this was not the favorite point of attack with the Rebel. Besides, should he attack the center, the General thought he could reinforce it in good season. I heard Gen. Meade speak of these matters to Hancock and some others, at about nine o'clock in the morning, while they were up by the line, near the Second Corps. . No further changes of importance except those mentioned, were made in the disposition of the troops this morning, except to replace some of the batteries that were disabled yesterday by others from the artillery reserve, and to brace up the lines well with guns wherever there were eligible places, from the same source. The line is all in good order again, and we are ready for general battle. Save the operations upon the right, the enemy so far as we could see, was very quiet all the morn ing. Occasionally the outposts would fire a little, and then cease. Movements would be dis- [86] IHE THIRD DAV covered which would indicate the attempt on the part of the enemy to post a battery. Our Parrotts would send a few shells to the spot, then silence would follow. At one of these times a painful accident hap pened to us, this morning. First Lieut. Henry Ropes, 20th Mass., in Gen. Gibbon's Division, a most estimable gentleman and officer, intelligent, educated, refined, one of the noble souls that came to the country's defense, while lying at his post with his regiment, in front of one of the Bat teries, which fired over the Infantry, was instantly killed by a badly made shell, which, or some por tion of it, fell but a few yards in front of the muzzle of the gun. The same accident killed or wounded several others. The loss of Ropes would have pained us at any time, and in any manner; in this manner his death was doubly painful. Between ten and eleven o'clock, over in a peach orchard in front of the position of Sickles yesterday, some little show of the enemy's infan try was discovered; a few shells scattered the gray-backs ; they again appeared, and it becoming [87] HASKELL's GETTYSBURG apparent that they were only posting a skirmish line, no further molestation was offered them. A little after this some of the enemy's flags could be discerned over near the same quarter, above the top and behind a small crest of a ridge. There seemed to be two or three of them — possibly they were guidons — and they moved too fast to be carried on foot. Possibly, we thought, the enemy is posting some batteries there. We knew in about two hours from this time better about the matter. Eleven o'clock came. The noise of battle has ceased upon the right ; not a sound of a gun or musket can be heard on all the field; the sky is bright, with only the white fleecy clouds floating over from the West. The July sun streams down its fire upon the bright iron of the muskets in stacks upon the crest, and the dazzling brass of the Napoleons. The army lolls and longs for the shade, of which some get a hand's breadth, from a shelter tent stuck upon a ramrod. The silence and sultriness of a July noon are su preme. Now it so happened that just about this time of day a very original and interesting thought occurred to Gen. Gibbon and several of his staff; [88] THE THIRD DAY that it would be a very good thing, and a very good time, to have something to eat. When I announce to you that I had not tasted a mouthful of food since yesterday noon, and that all I had had to drink since that time, but the most miser able muddy warm water, was a little drink of whiskey that Major Biddle, General Meade's aide-de-camp, gave me last evening, and a cup of strong coffee that I gulped down as I was first mounting this moming, and further, that, save the four or five hours in the night, there was scarcely a moment since that time but that I was in the saddle, you may have some notion of the reason of my assent to this extraordinary proposition. Nor will I mention the doubts I had as to the feasibil ity of the execution of this very novel proposal, except to say that I knew this moming that our larder was low ; not to put too fine a point upon it, that we had nothing but some potatoes and sugar and coffee in the world. And I may as well say here, that of such, in scant proportion, would have been our repast, had it not been for the riding of miles by two persons, one an officer, to procure supplies; and they only succeeded in getting some [89I HASKELL's GETTYSBURG few chickens, some butter, and one huge loaf of bread, which last was bought of a soldier, because he had grown faint in carrying it, and was after wards rescued with much difficulty and after a long race from a four-footed hog, which had got hold of and had actually eaten a part of it. "There is a divinity," etc. Suffice it, this very in genious and unheard of contemplated proceeding, first announced by the General, was accepted and at once undertaken by his staff. Of the absolute quality of what we had to eat, I could not pretend to judge, but I think an unprejudiced person would have said of the bread that it was good ; so of the potatoes before they were boiled. Of the chickens he would have questioned their age, but they were large and in good running order. The toast was good, and the butter. There were those who, when coffee was given them, called for tea, and vice versa, and were so ungracious as to suggest that the water that was used in both might have come from near a barn. Of course it did not. We all came down to the little peach orchard where we had stayed last night, and, wonderful to see and tell, ever mindful of our [90] THE THIRD DAY needs, had it all ready, had our faithful John. There was an enormous pan of stewed chickens, and the potatoes, and toast, all hot, and the bread and the butter, and tea and coffee. There was ^satisfaction derived from just naming them all over. We called John an angel, and he snick ered and said he "knowed" we'd come. Gen eral Hancock is of course invited to partake, and without delay we commence operations. Stools are not very numerous, two in all, and these the two Generals have by common consent. Our table was the top of a mess chest. By this the General sat. The rest of us sat upon the ground, cross-legged, like the picture of a smoking Turk, and held our plates upon our laps. How deli cious was the stewed chicken. I had a cucumber pickle in my saddle bags, the last of a lunch left there two or three days ago, which George brought, and I had half of it. We were just well at it when General Meade rode dovm to us from the line, accompanied by one of his staff, and by General Gibbon's invitation, they dismounted and joined us. For the General commanding the Army of the Potomac George, by an effort [91] HASKELL's GETTYSBURG worthy of the person and the occasion, finds an empty cracker box for a seat. The staff officer must sit upon the ground with the rest of us. Soon Generals Newton and Pleasanton, each with an aide, arrive. By an almost superhuman effort a roll of blankets is found, which, upon a pinch, is long enough to seat these Generals both, and room is made for them. The aides sit with us. And, fortunate to relate, there was enough cooked for us all, and from General Meade to the youngest second lieutenant we all had a most hearty and well relished dinner. Of the "past" we were "secure." The Generals ate, and after, lighted cigars, and under the flickering shade of a very small tree, discoursed of the incidents of yester day's battle and of the probabilities of today. General Newton humorously spoke of General Gibbon as "this young North Carolinian," and how he was becoming arrogant and above his position, because he commanded a corps. Gen eral Gibbon retorted by saying that General New ton had not been long enough in such a command, only since yesterday, to enable him to judge of such things. General Meade still thought that [92] THE THIRD DAY the enemy would attack his left again to-day to wards evening; but he was ready for them. Gen eral Hancock thought that the attack would be upon the position of the Second Corps. It was mentioned that General Hancock would again as sume command of the Second Corps from that time, so that General Gibbon would again return to the Second Division. General Meade spoke of the Provost Guards, that they were good men, and that it would be better to-day to have them in the works than to stop stragglers and skulkers, as these latter would be good for but little even in the works ; and so he gave the order that all the Provost Guards should at once temporarily rejoin their regiments. Then General Gibbon called up Captain Farrel, First Minnesota, who commanded the provost guard of his division, and directed him for that day to join the regiment. "Very well, sir," said the Cap tain, as he touched his hat and turned away. He was a quiet, excellent gentleman and thorough soldier. I knew him well and esteemed him. I never saw him again. He was killed in two or [93] HASKELL's GETTYSBURG three hours from that time, and over half of his splendid company were either killed or wounded. And so the time passed on, each General now and then dispatching some order or message by an officer or orderly, until about half-past twelve, when all the Generals, one by one, first General Meade, rode off their several ways, and General Gibbon and his staff alone remained. We dozed in the heat, and lolled upon the ground, with half open eyes. Our horses were hitched to the trees munching some oats. A great lull rests upon all the field. Time was heavy, and for want of something better to do, I yawned, and looked at my watch. It was five minutes be fore one o'clock. I returned my watch to its pocket, and thought possibly that I might go to sleep, and stretched myself upon the ground ac cordingly. Ex uno disce omnes. My attitude and purpose were those of the General and the rest of the staff. What sound was that? There was no mistak ing it. The distinct sharp sound of one of the enemy's guns, square over to the front, caused us to open our eyes and turn them in that direction, [94] THE THIRD DAY when we saw directly above the crest the smoke of the bursting shell, and heard its noise. In an instant, before a word was spoken, as if that was the signal gun for general work, loud, startling, booming, the report of gun after gun in rapid suc cession smote our ears and their shells plunged down and exploded all around us. We sprang to our feet. In briefest time the whole Rebel line to the West was pouring out its thunder and its iron upon our devoted crest. The wildest confu sion for a few moments obtained sway among us. The shells came bursting all about. The serv ants ran terror-stricken for dear life and disap peared. The horses, hitched to the trees or held by the slack hands of orderlies, neighed out in fright, and broke away and plunged riderless through the fields. The General at the first had snatched his sword, and started on foot for the front. I called for my horse; nobody responded. I found him tied to a tree, near by, eating oats, with an air of the greatest composure, which un der the circumstances, even then struck me as ex ceedingly ridiculous. He alone, of all beasts or men near was cool. I am not sure but that I [95] HASKELL's GETTYSBURG learned a lesson then from a horse. Anxious alone for his oats, while I put on the bridle and ad justed the halter, he delayed me by keeping his head down, so I had time to see one of the horses of our mess wagon struck and torn by a shell. The pair plunge — the driver has lost the reins — horses, driver and wagon go into a heap by a tree. Two mules close at hand, packed with boxes of ammunition, are knocked all to pieces by a shell. General Gibbon's groom has just mounted his horse and is starting to take the General's horse to him, when the flying iron meets him and tears open his breast. He drops dead and the horses gallop away. No more than a minute since the first shot was fired, and I am mounted and riding after the General. The mighty din that now rises to heaven and shakes the earth is not all of it the voice of the rebellion ; for our guns, the guard ian lions of the crest, quick to awake when danger comes, have opened their fiery jaws and begun to roar — the great hoarse roar of battle. I overtake the General half way up to the line. Before we reach the crest his horse is brought by an orderly. Leaving our horses just behind a sharp declivity [96] THE THIRD DAY of the ridge, on foot we go up among the batteries. How the long streams of fire spout from the guns, how the rifled shells hiss, how the smoke deepens and rolls. But where is the infanlry? Has it vanished in smoke? Is this a nightmare or a juggler's devilish trick? All too real. The men of the infantry have seized their arms, and behind their works, behind every rock, in every ditch, wherever there is any shelter, they hug the ground, silent, quiet, unterrified, little harmed. The enemy's guns now in action are in position at their front of the woods along the second ridge that I have before mentioned and towards their right, behind a small crest in the open field, where we saw the flags this morning. Their line is some two miles long, concave on the side towards us, and their range is from one thousand to eighteen hundred yards. A hundred and twenty- five rebel guns, we estimate, are now active, firing twenty-four pound, twenty, twelve and ten-pound projectiles, solid shot and shells, spherical, coni cal, spiral. The enemy's fire is chiefly concen trated upon the position of the Second Corps. From the Cemetery to Round Top, with over a * "^ [97] HASKELL's GETTYSBURG hundred guns, and to all parts of the enemy's line, our batteries reply, of twenty and ten-pound Par rotts, ten-pound rifled ordnance, and twelve- pound Napoleons, using projectiles as various in shape and name as those of the enemy. Captain Hazard commanding the artillery brigade of the Second Corps was vigilant among the batteries of his command, and they were all doing well. All was going on satisfactorily. We had nothing to do, therefore, but to be observers of the grand spectacle of battle. Captain Wessels, Judge Ad vocate of the Division, now joined us, and we sat down behind the crest, close to the left of Cush ing's Battery, to bide our time, to see, to be ready to act when the time should come, which might be at any moment. Who can describe such a con flict as is raging around us? To say that it was like a summer storm, with the crash of thunder, the glare of lightning, the shrieking of the wind, and the clatter of hailstones, would be weak. The thunder and lightning of these two hundred and fifty guns and their shells, whose smoke dark ens the sky, are incessant, all pervading, in the air above our heads, on the ground at our feet, re- [98] THE THIRD DAY mote, near, deafening, ear-piercing, astoundmg; and these hailstones are massy iron, charged with exploding fire. And there is little of human in terest in a storm ; it is an absorbing element of this. You may see flame and smoke, and hurrying men, and human p>assion at a great conflagration; but they are all earthly and nothing more. These guns are great infuriate demons, not of the earth, whose mouths blaze with smoky tongues of living fire, and whose murky breath, sulphur-laden, rolls around them and along the ground, the smoke of Hades. These gnmy men, mshmg, shouting, their souls in frenzy, plying the dusky globes and the igniting spark, are in their league, and but their willing ministers. We thought that at the second Bull Run, at the Antietam and at Fredericksburg; on the 1 1 th of December, we had heard heavy cannonading; they were but holiday salutes com pared with this. Besides the great ceaseless roar of the guns, which was but the background of the others, a million various minor sounds engaged the ear. The projectiles shriek long and sharp. They hiss, they scream, they growl, they sputter; all sounds of life and rage; and each has its dif- [99] HASKELL's GETTYSBURG ferent note, and all are discordant. Was ever such a chorus of sound before? We note the effect of the enemies' fire among the batteries and along the crest. We see the solid shot strike axle, or pole, or wheel, and the tough iron and heart of oak snap and fly like straws. The great oaks there by Woodmff's guns heave down their massy branches with a crash, as if the lightning smote them. The shells swoop down among the bat tery horses standing there apart. A half a dozen horses start, they tumble, their legs stiffen, their vitals and blood smear the ground. And these shot and shells have no respect for men either. We see the poor fellows hobbling back from the crest, or unable to do so, pale and weak, lying on "the ground with the mangled stump of an arm or leg, dripping their life-blood away; or with a fcheeli torn open, or a shoulder mashed. And many, alas! hear not the roar as they stretch upon the ground with upturned faces and open eyes, though a shell should burst at their very ears. Their ears and their bodies this instant are only mud. We saw them but a moment since there among the flame, with brawny arms and muscles [lOO] THE THIRD DAY of iron wielding the rammer and pushing home the cannon's plethoric load. Strange freaks these round shot play ! We saw a man coming up from the rear with his full knap sack on, and some canteens of water held by the straps in his hands. He was walking slowly and with apparent unconcern, though the iron hailed around him. A shot struck the knapsack, and it, and its contents flew thirty yards in every direc tion, the knapsack disappearing like an egg, thrown spitefully against a rock. The soldier stopped and turned about in puzzled surprise, put up one hand to his back to assure himself that the knapsack was not there, and then walked slowly on again unharmed, with not even his coat torn. Near us was a man crouching behind a small dis integrated stone, which was about the size of a common water bucket. He was bent up, with his face to the ground, in the attitude of a Pagan worshipper before his idol. It looked so absurd to see him thus, that I went and said to him, "Do not lie there like a toad. Why not go to your regiment and be a man ? " He tumed up his face with a stupid, terrified look upon me, and then [IOI] HASKELL's GETTYSBURG without a word turned his nose again to the ground. An orderly that was with me at the time, told me a few moments later, that a shot stmck the stone, smashing it in a thousand frag ments, but did not touch the man, though his head was not six inches from the stone. All the projectiles that came near us were not so harmless. Not ten yards away from us a shell burst among some small bushes, where sat three or four orderlies holding horses. Two of the men and one horse were killed. Only a few yards off a shell exploded over an open limber box in Cushing's battery, and at the same instant, another shell over a neighboring box. In both the boxes the ammunition blew up with an explo sion that shook the ground, throwing fire land splinters and shells far into the air and all around, and destroying several men. We watched the shells bursting in the air, as they came hissing in all directions. Their flash was a bright gleam of lightning radiating from a point, giving place in the thousandth part of a second to a small, white, puffy cloud, like a fleece of the lightest, whitest wool. These clouds were very numerous. We [102] THE THIRD DAY could not often see the shell before it burst; but sometimes, as we faced towards the enemy, and looked above our heads, the approach would be heralded by a prolonged hiss, which always seemed to me to be a line of something tangible, terminating in a black globe, distinct to the eye, as the sound had been to the ear. The shell would seem to stop, and hang suspended in the air an in stant, and then vanish in fire and smoke and noise. We saw the missiles tear and plow the ground. All in rear of the crest for a thousand yards, as well as among the batteries, was the field of their blind fury. Ambulances, passing down the Taneytown road with wounded men, were struck. The hospitals near this road were riddled. The house which was General Meade's headquarters was shot through several times, and a great many horses of officers and or derlies were lying dead around it. Riderless horses, galloping madly through the fields, were brought up, or down rather, by these invisible horse-tamers, and they would not mn any more. Mules with ammunition, pigs wallowing about, cows in the pastures, whatever was animate or in- [103] HASKELL S GETTYSBURG animate, in all this broad range, were no exception to their blind havoc. The percussion shells would strike, and thunder, and scatter the earth and their whistling fragments; the Whitworth bolts would pound and ricochet, and bowl far away sputtering, with the sound of a mass of hot iron plunged in water; and the great solid shot would smite the unresisting ground with a sound ing "thud," as the strong boxer crashes his iron fist into the jaws of his unguarded adversary. Such were some of the sights and sounds of this great iron battle of missiles. Our artillerymen upon the crest budged not an inch, nor intermitted, but, though caisson and limber were smashed, and guns dismantled, and men and horses killed, there amidst smoke and sweat, they gave back, without grudge, or loss of time in the sending, in kind whatever the enemy sent, globe, and cone, and bolt, hollow or solid, an iron greeting to the rebellion, the compliments of the wrathful Re public. An hour has droned its flight since first the war began. There is no sign of weariness or abatement on either side. So long it seemed, that the din and crashing around began to appear the [104] THE THIRD DAY normal condition of nature there, and fighting man's element. The General proposed to go among the men and over to the front of the bat teries, so at about two o'clock he and I started. We went along the lines of the infantry as they lay there flat upon the earth, a little to the front of the batteries. They were suffering little, and were quiet and cool. How glad we were that the enemy were no better gunners, and that they cut the shell fuses too long. To the question asked the men, "What do you tljink of this?" the replies would be, "O, this is bully, " "We are get ting to like it," "O, we don't mind this. " And so they lay under the heaviest cannonade that ever shook the continent, and among them a thousand times more jokes thari heads were cracked. We went down in front of the line some two hundred yards, and as the smoke had a tendency to settle upon a higher plain than where we were, we could see near the ground distinctly all over the fields, as well back to the crest where were our own guns as to the opposite ridge where were those of the enemy. No infantry was in sight, save the skirmishers, and they stood silent and mo- [105] HASKELL's GETTYSBURG tionless — a row of gray posts through the field on one side confronted by another of blue. Under the grateful shade of some elm trees, where we could see much of the field, we made seats of the ground and sat down. Here all the more repul sive features of the fight were unseen, by reason of the smoke. Man had arranged the scenes, and for a time had taken part in the great drama ; but at last, as the plot thickened, conscious of his little ness and inadequacy to the mighty part, he had stepped aside and given place to more powerful actors. So it seemed; for we could see no men about the batteries. On either crest we could see the great flaky streams of fire, and they seemed numberless, of the opposing guns, and their white banks of swift, convolving smoke; but the sound of the discharges was drowned in the universal ocean of sound. Over all the valley the smoke, a sulphury arch, stretched its lurid span; and through it always, shrieking on their unseen courses, thickly flew a myriad iron deaths. With our grim horizon on all sides round toothed thick with battery flame, under that dissonant canopy of warring shells, we sat and heard in silence. What [io6] THE THIRD DAY other expression had we that was not mean, for such an awful universe of battle? A shell struck our breastwork of rails up in sight of us, and a moment afterwards we saw the men bearing some of their wounded companions away from the same spot; and directly two men came from there down toward where we were and sought to get shelter in an excavation near by, where many dead horses, killed in yesterday's fight, had been thrown. General Gibbon said to these men, more in a tone of kindly expostulation than of command: "My men, do not leave your ranks to try to get shelter here. All these matters are in the hands of God, and nothing that you can do will make you safer in one place than in an other." The men went quietly back to the line at once. The General then said to me: "I am not a member of any church, but I have always had a strong religious feeling; and so in all these battles I have always believed that I was in the liands of God, and that I should be unharmed or not, according to his will. For this reason, I think it is, I am always ready to go where duty calls, no matter how great the danger." Half- [107] HASKELL's GETTYSBURG past two o'clock, an hour and a half since the commencement, and still the cannonade did not in the least abate; but soon thereafter some signs of weariness and a little slacking of fire began to be apparent upon both sides. First we saw Brown's battery retire from the line, too feeble for further battle. Its position was a little to the front of the line. Its commander was wounded, and many of its men were so, or worse ; some of its guns had been disabled, many of its horses killed; its am munition was nearly expended. Other batteries in similar case had been withdrawn before to be replaced by fresh ones, and some were withdrawn afterwards. Soon after the battery named had gone the General and I started to retum, passing towards the left of the division, and crossing the ground where the guns had stood. The stricken horses were numerous, and the dead and wounded men lay about, and as we passed these latter, their low, piteous call for water would invariably come to us, if they had yet any voice left. I found can teens of water near — no difficult matter where a battle has been — and held them to livid lips, and even in the faintness of death the eagerness to [io8] THE THIRD DAY eedy death met him who should raise his body to cross it again. At this point little could be seen of the enemy, by reason of his cover and the smoke, ex cept the flash of his muskets and his waving flags. These red flags were accumulating at the wall every moment, and they maddened us as the same color does the bull. Webb's men are falling fast, and he is among them to direct and encourage; but, however well they may now do, with that walled enemy in front, with more than a dozen [121] HASKELL's GETTYSBURG flags to Webb's three, it soon becomes apparent that in not many minutes they will be overpow ered, or that there will be none alive for the enemy to overpower. Webb, has but three regiments, all small, the 69th, 71st and 72d Pennsylvania — the 1 06th Pennsylvania, except two companies, is not here to-day — and he must have speedy assist ance, or this crest will be lost. Oh, where is Gibbon? where is Hancock? — some general — anybody with the power and the will to support that wasting, melting line? No general came, and no succor! I thought of Hayes upon the right, but from the smoke and war along his front, it was evident that he had enough upon his hands, if he stayed the in-rolling tide of the Rebels there. Doubleday upon the left was too far off and too slow, and on another occasion I had begged him to send his idle regiments to support another line battling with thrice its numbers, and this "Old Sumpter Hero" had declined. As a last resort I resolved to see if Hall and Harrow could not send some of their commands to reinforce Webb. I galloped to the left in the execution of my pur pose, and as I attained the rear of Hall's line, [I22] THE THIRD DAY from the nature of the ground and the position of the enemy it was easy to discover the reason and the manner of this gathering of Rebel flags in front of Webb. The enemy, emboldened by his suc cess in gaining our line by the group of trees and the angle of the wall, was concentrating all his right against and was further pressing that point. There was the stress of his assault; there would he drive his fiery wedge to split our line. In front of Harrow's and Hall's Brigades he had been able to advance no nearer than when he first halted to deliver fire, and these commands had not yielded an inch. To effect the concentration before Webb, the enemy would march the regi ment on his extreme right of each of his lines by the left flank to the rear of the troops, still halted and facing to the front, and so continuing to draw in his right, when they were all massed in the posi tion desired, he would again face them to the front, and advance to the storming. This was the way he made the wall before Webb's line blaze red with his battle flags, and such was the purpose there of his thick-crowding battalions. Not a mo ment must be lost. Colonel Hall I found just in [123] HASKELL's GETTYSBURG rear of his line, sword in hand, cool, vigilant, not ing all that passed and directing the battle of his brigade. The fire was constantly diminishing now in his front, in the manner and by the move ment of the enemy that I have mentioned, drifting to the right. "How is it going?" Colonel Hall asked me, as I rode up. "Well, but Webb is hotly pressed and must have support, or he will be overpowered. Can you assist him?" "Yes.' "You cannot be too quick." "I will move my brigade at once." "Good. " He gave the order, and in briefest time I saw five friendly colors hurrying to the aid of the imperilled three; and each color represented true, battle-tried men, that had not tumed back from Rebel fire that day nor yesterday, though their ranks were sadly thinned, to Webb's brigade, pressed back as it had been from the wall, the distance was not great from Hall's right. The regiments marched by the right flank. Col. Hall superintended the move ment in person. Col. Devereux coolly com manded the 19th Massachusetts. His major. Rice, had already been wounded and carried off. Lieut. Col. Macy, of the 20th Mass., had just [124] THE THIRD DAY liad his left hand shot off, and so Capt. Abbott gallantly led over this fine regiment. The 42d New York followed their excellent Colonel Mal- lon. Lieut. Col. Steele, 7th Mich., had just been killed, and his regiment, and the handful of the 59th N. Y., followed their colors. The move ment, as it did, attracting the enemy's fire, and executed in haste, as it must be, was difficult; but in reasonable time, and in order that is serviceable, if not regular. Hall's men are fighting gallantly side by side with Webb's before the all important point. I did not stop to see all this movement of Hall's, but from him I went at once further to the left, to the 1 st brigade. Gen'l Harrow I did not see, but his fighting men would answer my pur pose as well. The 1 9th Me., the 1 5th Mass., the 32d N. Y. and the shattered old thunderbolt, the 1st Minn. — poor Farrell was dying then upon the ground where he had fallen, — all men that I could find I took over to the right at the double quick- As we were moving to, and near the other bri gade of the division, from my position on horse back I could see that the enemy's right, under [125] HASKELL's GETTYSBURG Hall's fire, was beginning to stagger and to break. "See, " I said to the men, "See the chivalry! See the gray-backs mn!" The men saw, and as they swept to their places by the side of Hall and opened fire, they roared, and this in a manner that said more plainly than words — for the deaf could have seen it in their faces, and the blind could have heard it in their voices — the crest is safe! .The whole Division concentrated, and changes of position, and new phases, as well on our part as on that of the enemy, having as indicated oc curred, for the purpose of showing the exact pres ent posture of affairs, some further description is necessary. Before the 2d Division the enemy is massed, the main bulk of his force covered by the ground that slopes to his rear, with his front at the stone wall. Between his front and us extends the very apex of the crest. All there are left of the White Trefoil Division — ^yesterday morning there were three thousand eight hundred, this moming there were less than three thousand — at this moment there are somewhat over two thou sand; — twelve regiments in three brigades are below or behind the crest, in such a position that [126] THE THIRD DAY by the exposure of the head and upper part of the body above the crest they can deliver their fire in the enemy's faces along the top of the wall. By reason of the disorganization incidental in Webb's brigade to his men's having broken and fallen back, as mentioned, in the two other brigades to their rapid and difficult change of position under fire, and in all the division in part to severe and continuous battle, formation of companies and regiments in regular ranks is lost; but commands, companies, regiments and brigades are blended and intermixed — an irregular extended mass — men enough, if in order, to form a line of four or five ranks along the whole front of the division. The twelve flags of the regiments wave defiantly at intervals along the front; at the stone wall, at unequal distances from ours of forty, fifty or sixty yards, stream nearly double this number of the battle flags of the enemy. These changes accom plished on either side, and the concentration com plete, although no cessation or abatement in the general din of conflict since the commencement had at any time been appreciable, now it was as if a new battle, deadlier, stormier than before, had [127] HASKELL's GETTYSBURG spmng from the body of the old — a young Phoe nix of combat, whose eyes stream lightning, shak ing his arrov^y wings over the yet glowing ashes of his progenitor. The jostling, swaying lines on either side boil, and roar, and dash their flamy spray, two hostile billows of a fiery ocean. Thick flashes stream from the wall, thick volleys answer from the crest. No threats or expostulation now, only example and encouragement. All depths of passion are stirred, and all combatives fire, down to their deep foundations. Individuality is drowned in a sea of clamor, and timid men, breathing the breath of the multitude, are brave. The frequent dead and wounded lie where they stagger and fall — there is no humanity for them now, and none can be spared to care for them. The men do not cheer or shout; they growl, and over that uneasy sea, heard with the roar of mus ketry, sweeps the muttered thunder of a storm of growls. Webb, Hall, Devereux, Mallon, Ab bott among the men where all are heroes, are do ing deeds of note. Now the loyal wave rolls up as if it would overleap its barrier, the crest. Pis tols flash with the muskets. My "Forward to the [128] THE THIRD DAY wall" is answered by the Rebel counter-com mand, "Steady, men!" and the wave swings back. Again it surges, and again it sinks. These men of Pennsylvania, on the soil of their own home steads, the first and only to flee the wall, must be the first to storm it. "Major — , lead your men over the crest, they will follow. " "By the tactics I understand my place is in rear of the men." "Your pardon, sir; I see your place is in rear of the men. I thought you were fit to lead." "Capt. Sapler, come on with your men. " "Let me first stop this fire in the rear, or we shall be hit by our own men." "Never mind the fire in the rear; let us take care of this in front first." "Sergeant, forward with your color. Let the Rebels see it close to their eyes once before they die." The color sergeant of the 72d Pa., grasping the stump of the severed lance in both his hands, waved the flag above his head and rushed towards the walL "Will you see your color storm the wall alone?'* One man only starts to follow. Almost half way to the wall, down go color bearer and color to the ground — the gallant sergeant is dead. The line springs — the crest of the solid ground with a •8 [129] HASKELL's GETTYSBURG great roar, heaves forward its maddened load, men, arms, smoke, fire, a fighting mass. It rolls to the wall — flash meets flash, the wall is crossed — a moment ensues of thrusts, yells, blows, shots, and undistinguishable conflict, followed by a shout universal that makes the welkin ring again, and the last and bloodiest fight of the great battle of Gettysburg is ended and won. Many things cannot be described by pen or pen cil — such a fight is one. Some hints and inci dents may be given, but a description or picture never. From what is told the imagination may for itself construct the scene; otherwise he who never saw can have no adequate idea of what such a battle is. When the vortex of battle passion had sub sided, hopes, fears, rage, joy, of which the mad dest and the noisiest was the last, and we were calm enough to look about us, we saw that, as with us, the fight with the Third Division was ended, and that in that division was a repetition of the scenes immediately about us. In that mo ment the judgment almost refused to credit the senses. Are these abject wretches about us, [130] ,\. .\. 1 .1. 1 .l. .1. ,l. GETTYSBURG mt'lf'""" rir A\MI//////,„ CEMETERY HILL «.^^,,-,„ .. ^^'%CULPS iHILL 'I' ¦!' t 'I' i|. i|i .|. Ill RESERVE . . ARTILLERV ¦I' ¦!¦ t ¦!¦ LONG€ «»1.PATR,CM I 5T" CORPS ^ LfTTLE '"/, ^ ^ ROUND TOP h3i 5TM CORPS 5 • ~ ROUND TOP UNION FORCES Battle of Gettysburg — Final Attack, July 3 Compiled by C. B. Bstabrook THE THIRD DAY whom our men are now disarming and driving to gether in flocks, the jaunty men of Pickett's Divi sion, whose steady lines and flashing arms but a few moments since came sweeping up the slope to destroy us? Are these red cloths that our men toss about in derision the "fiery Southern crosses," thrice ardent, the battle flags of the rebellion that waved defiance at the wall? We know., but so sudden has been the transition, we yet can scarce believe. Just as the fight was over, and the first outburst of victory had a little subsided, when all in front of the crest was noise and confusion — prisoners being collected, small parties in pursuit of them far down into the fields, flags waving, officers giv ing quick, sharp commands to their men — I stood apart for a few moments upon the crest, by that group of trees which ought to be historic forever, a spectator of the thrilling scene around. Some few musket shots were still heard in the Third Di' vision; and the enemy's guns, almost silent since the advance of his infantry until the moment of his defeat, were dropping a few' sullen shells among friend and foe upon the crest. Rebellion [131] HASKELL's GETTYSBURG fosters such humanity. Near me, saddest sight of the many of such a field and not in keeping with all this noise, were mingled alone the thick dead of Maine and Minnesota, and Michigan and Massachusetts, and the Empire and Keystone States, who, not yet cold, with the blood still ooz ing from their death-wounds, had given their lives to the country upon that stormy field. So mingled upon that crest let their honored graves be. Look with me about us. These dead have been avenged already. Where the long lines of the enemy's thousands so proudly advanced, see how thick the silent men of gray are scattered. It is not an hour since these legions were sweeping along so grandly; now sixteen hundred of that fiery mass are strewn among the trampled grass, dead as the clods they load ; more than seven thou sand, probably eight thousand, are wounded, some there with the dead, in our hands, some fugitive far towards the woods, among them Generals Pet- tigrew, Garnett, ICemper and Armstead, the last three mortally, and the last one in our hands. "Tell General Hancock," he said to Lieutenant Mitchell, Hancock's aide-de-camp, to whom he [1.32] THE THIRD DAY handed his watch, "that I know I did my country a great wrong when I took up arms against her, for which I am sorry, but for which I cannot live to atone." Four thousand, not wounded, are prisoners of war. More in num ber of the captured than the captors. Our men are still "gathering them in." Some hold up their hands or a handkerchief m sign of submis sion ; some have hugged the ground to escape our bullets and so are taken ; few made resistance after the first moment of our crossing the wall; some yield submissively with good grace, some with grim, dogged aspect, showing that but for the other alternative they could not submit to this. Colonels, and all less grades of officers in the usual proportion are among them, and all are be ing stripped of their arms. Such of them as es caped wounds and capture are fleeing routed and panic stricken, and disappearing^ in the woods. Small arms, more thousands than we can count, are in our hands, scattered over the field. And these defiant battle-flags, some inscribed with "First Manassas," the numerous battles of the Peninsula, "Second Manassas," "South Moun- [133] HASKELL's GETTYSBURG tain," "Sharpsburg," (our Antietam), "Freder icksburg," "Chancellorsville," and many more names, our men have, and are showing about, over thirty of them. Such was really the closing scene of the grand drama of Gettysburg. After repeated assaults upon the right and the left, where, and in all of which repulse had been his only success, this per sistent and presuming enemy forms his chosen troops, the flower of his army, for a grand assault upon our center. The manner and result of such assault have been told — a loss to the enemy of from twelve thousand to fourteen thousand, killed, wounded and prisoners, and of over thirty battle-flags. This was accomplished by not over six thousand men, with a loss on our part of not over two thousand five hundred killed and wounded. Would to Heaven General Hancock and Gib bon could have stood there where I did, and have looked upon that field ! It would have done two men, to whom the country owes much, good to have been with their men in that moment of vic tory — to have seen the result of those dispositions [134] THE THIRD DAY which they had made, and of that splendid fight ing which men schooled by their discipline, had executed. But they are both severely wounded and have been carried from the field. One per son did come then that I was glad to see there, and that was no less than Major General Meade, whom the Army of the Potomac was fortunate enough to have at that time to command it. See how a great General looked upon the field, and what he said and did at the moment, and when he leaned of his great victory. To appreciate the incident I give, it should be borne in mind that one coming up from the rear of the line, as did Gen eral Meade, could have seen very little of our own men, who had now crossed the crest, and although he could have heard the noise, he could not have told its occasion, or by whom made, until he had actually attained the crest. One who did not know results, so coming, would have been quite as likely to have supposed that our line there had been carried and captured by the enemy — so many gray Rebels were on the crest — as to have discovered the real tmth. Such mistake was really made by one of our officers, as I shall relate. [135] HASKELL's GETTYSBURG General Meade rode up, accompanied alone by his son, who is his aide-de-camp, an escort, if select, not large for a commander of such an army. The principal horseman was no bedizened hero of some holiday review, but he was a plain man, dressed in a serviceable summer suit of dark blue cloth, without badge or ornament, save the shoul der-straps of his grade, and a light, straight sword of a General or General staff officer. He wore heavy, high-top boots and buff gauntlets, and his soft black felt hat was slouched down over his eyes. His face was very white, not pale, and the lines were marked and earnest and full of care. As he arrived near me, coming up the hill, he asked, in a sharp, eager voice: "How is it going here?" "I believe. General, the enemy's attack is repulsed," I answered. Still approaching, and a new light began to come in his face, of gratified surprise, with a touch of incredulity, of which his voice was also the medium, he further asked: "What! Is the assault already repulsed?" his voice quicker and more eager than before. "It is, sir," I replied. By this time he was on the crest, and when his eye had for an instant swept over [136] THE THIRD DAY the field, taking in just a glance of the whole — the masses of prisoners, the numerous captured flags which the men were derisively flaunting about, the fugitives of the routed enemy, disap pearing with the speed of terror in the woods — partly at what I had told him, partly at what he saw, he said, impressively, and his face lighted: "Thank God." And then his right hand moved as if it would have caught off his hat and waved it; but this gesture he suppressed, and instead he waved his hand, and said "Hurrah!" The son, with more youth in his blood and less rank upon his shoulders, snatched off his cap, and roared out his three "hurrahs" right heartily. The General then surveyed the field, some minutes, in silence. He at length asked who was in command — he had heard that Hancock and Gibbon were wounded — and I told him that General Cald well was the senior officer of the Corps and Gen eral Harrow of the Division. He asked where they were, but before I had time to answer that I did not know, he resumed: "No matter; I will give my orders to you and you will see them exe cuted." He then gave direction that the troops [137] HASKELL's GETTYSBURG should be reformed as soon as practicable, and kept in their places, as the enemy might be mad enough to attack again. He also gave directions concerning the posting of some reinforcements which he said would soon be there, adding: "If the enemy does attack, charge him in the flank and sweep him from the field; do you understand. " The General then, a gratified man, galloped in the direction of his headquarters. Then the work of the field went on. First, the prisoners were collected and sent to the rear. "There go the men," the Rebels were heard to say, by some of our surgeons who were in Gettys burg, at the time Pickett's Division marched out to take position — "There go the men that will go through your d — d Yankee lines, for you." A good many of them did "go through our lines for us," but in a very different way from the one they intended — not impetuous victors, sweeping away our thin lines with ball and bayonet, but crestfal len captives, without arms, guarded by the true bayonets of the Union, with the cheers of their conquerors ringing in their ears. There was a grim truth after all in this Rebel remark. Col- [138] THE THIRD DAY lected, the prisoners began their dreary march, a miserable, melancholy stream of dirty gray, to pour over the crest to our rear. Many of the offi cers were well dressed, fine, proud gentlemen, such men as it would be a pleasure to meet, when the war is over. I had no desire to exult over them, and pity and sympathy were the general feelings of us all upon the occasion. The cheer ing of our men, and the unceremonious handling of the captured flags was probably not gratifying to the prisoners, but not intended for taunt or in sult to the men; they could take no exception to such practices. When the prisoners were turned to the rear and were crossing the crest, Lieut. Col. Morgan, General Hancock's Chief of Staff, was conducting a battery from the artillery reserve, to wards the Second Corps. As he saw the men in gray coming over the hill, he said to the officer in command of the battery: "See up there! The enemy has carried the crest. See them come pouring over! The old Second Corps is gone, and you had better get your battery away from here as quickly as possible, or it will be captured." The officer was actually giving the order to his [139] HASKELL's GETTYSBURG men to move back, when close observation discov ered that the gray-backs that were coming had no arms, and then the tmth flashed upon the minds of the observers. The same mistake was made by others. In view of the results of that day — the suc cesses of the arms of the country, would not the people of the whole country, standing there upon the crest with General Meade, have said, with him: "Thank God?" I have no knowledge and little notion of how long a time elapsed from the moment the fire of the infantry commenced, until the enemy was en tirely repulsed, in this his grand assault. I judge, from the amount of fighting and the changes of position that occurred, that probably the fight was of nearly an hour's duration, but I cannot tell, and I have seen none who knew. The time seemed but a very few minutes, when the battle was over. When the prisoners were cleared away and or der was again established upon our crest, where the conflict had impaired it, until between five and six o'clock, I remained upon the field, directing some troops to their position, in conformity to the [r4o( RESULTS OF THE BATTLE orders of General Meade. The enemy appeared no more in front of the Second Corps; but while I was engaged as I have mentioned, farther to our left some considerable force of the enemy moved out and made show of attack. Our artillery, now in good order again, in due time opened fire, and the shells scattered the "Butternuts," as clubs do the gray snow-birds of winter, before they came within range of our infantry. This, save unim portant outpost firing, was the last of the battle. Of the pursuit of the enemy and the movements of the army subsequent to the battle, until the crossing of the Potomac by Lee and the closing of the campaign, it is not my purpose to write. Suffice it that on the night of the 3d of July the enemy withdrew his left, Ewell's Corps, from our front, and on the morning of the 4th we again occupied the village of Gettysburg, and on that national day victory was proclaimed to the country; that floods of rain on that day prevented army move ments of any considerable magnitude, the day be ing passed by our army in position upon the field, in burying our dead, and some of those of the [141] HASKELL's GETTYSBURG enemy, and in making the movements already in dicated ; that on the 5th the pursuit of the enemy was commenced — his dead were buried by us — and the corps of our army, upon various roads, moved from the battlefield. With a statement of some of the results of the battle, as to losses aind captures, and of what I saw in riding over the field, when the enemy was gone, my account is done. Our own losses in killed, wounded and missing I estimate at twenty-three thousand. Of the "missing" the larger proportion were prisoners, lost on the 1st of July. Our loss in prisoners, not wounded, probably was four thousand. The losses were distributed among the different army corps about as follows: In the Second Corps, which sustained the heaviest loss of any corps, a little over four thousand five hundred, of whom the missing were a mere nominal number; in the First Corps a little over four thousand, of whom a great many were missing; in the Third Corps four thousand, of whom some were missing; in the Eleventh Corps nearly four thousand, of whom the most were missing; and the rest of the loss, to [142] RESULTS OF THE BATTLE make the aggregate mentioned, was shared by the Fifth, Sixth and Twelfth Corps and the cavalry. Among these the missing were few ; and the losses of the Sixth Corps and of the cavalry were light. I do not think the official reports will show my es timate of our losses to be far from correct, for I have taken great pains to question staff officers upon the subject, and have learned approximate numbers from them. We lost no gun or flag that I have heard of in all the battle. Some small arms, I suppose, were lost on the 1 st of July. The enemy's loss in killed, wounded and pris oners I estimate at forty thousand, and from the following data and for the following reasons: So far as I can leam we took ten thousand prison ers, who were not wounded — many more than these were captured, but several thousands of them were wounded. I have so far as practicable as certained the number of dead the enemy left upon the field, approximately, by getting the reports of different burying parties. I think his dead upon the field were five thousand, almost all of whom, save those killed on the first of July, were buried by us — the enemy not having them in their pos- [143] HASKELL's GETTYSBURG session. In looking at a great number of tables of killed and wounded in battles I have found that the proportion of the killed to the wounded is as one to five, or more than five, rarely less than five. So with the killed at the number stated, twenty- five thousand mentioned. I think fourteen thou sand of the enemy, wounded and unwounded, fell into our hands. Great numbers of his small arms, two or three guns, and forty or more — was there ever such bannered harvest? — of his regimental battle-flags, were captured by us. Some day pos sibly we may learn the enemy's loss, but I doubt if he will ever tell truly how many flags he did not take home with him. I have great confidence however in my estimates, for they have been care fully made, and after much inquiry, and with no desire or motive to overestimate the enemy's loss. The magnitude of the armies engaged, the number of the casualties, the object sought by the Rebel, the result, will all contribute to give Gettysburg a place among the great historic bat tles of the world. That General Meade's con centration was rapid — over thirty miles a day was marched by some of the Corps — that his [144] DEDUCTIONS position was skillfully selected and his dispositions good; that he fought the battle hard and well; that his victory was brilliant and complete, I think all should admit. I cannot but regard it as highly fortunate to us and commendable in General Meade, that the enemy was allowed the initiative, the offensive, in the main battle ; that it was much better to allow the Rebel, for his own destruction, to come up and smash his lines and columns upon the defensive solidity of our position, than it would have been to hunt him, for the same pur pose, m the woods, or to unearth him from his rifle-pits. In this manner our losses were lighter, and his heavier, than if the case had been re versed. And whatever the books may say of troops fighting the better who make the attack, I am satisfied that in this war, Americans, the Rebels, as well as ourselves, are best on the defen sive. The proposition is deducible from the bat tles of the war, I think, and my own observation confirms it. But men there are who think that nothing was gained or done well in this battle, because some other general did not have the command, or be- •10. [145] HASKELL's GETTYSBURG cause any portion of the army of the enemy was permitted to escape capture or destruction. As if one army of a hundred thousand men could en counter another of the same number of as good troops and annihilate it! Military men do not claim or expect this; but the McClellan destroy ers do, the doughty knights of purchasable news paper quills; the formidable warriors from the brothels of politics, men of much warlike experi ence against honesty and honor, of profound at tainments in ignorance, who have the maxims of Napoleon, whose spirit they as little understand as they do most things, to quote, to prove all things; but who, unfortunately, have much influence in the country and with the Govemment, and so over the army. It is very pleasant for these people, no doubt, at safe distances from guns, in the enjoy ment of a lucrative office, or of a fraudulently ob tained govemment contract, surrounded by the luxuries of their own firesides, where mud and flooding storms, and utter weariness never pene trate, to discourse of battles and how campaigns should be conducted and armies of the enemy de stroyed. But it should be enough, perhaps, to [146I VINDICATION OF MEADE say that men here, or elsewhere, who have knowl edge enough of military affairs to entitle them to express an opinion on such matters, and accurate information enough to realize the nature and the means of this desired destruction of Lee's army be fore it crossed the Potomac into Virginia, will be most likely to vindicate the Pennsylvania cam paign of Gen. Meade, and to see that he accom plished all that could have been reasonably ex pected of any general of any army. Complaint has been, and is, made specially against Meade, that he did not attack Lee near Williamsport be fore he had time to withdraw across the river. These were the facts concerning this matter: The 13th of July was the earliest day when such an attack, if practicable at all, could have been made. The time before this, since the bat tle, had been spent in moving the army from the: vicinity of the field, finding something of the enemy and concentrating before him. On that day the army was concentrated and in order of battle near the turnpike that leads from Sharps burg to Hagerstown, Md., the right resting at or near the latter place, the left near Jones cros§- [147] HASKELL S GETTYSBURG roads, some six miles in the direction of Sharps burg, and in the following order from left to right: the 1 2th corps, the 2d, the 5th, the 6th, the 1 st, the 1 1 th ; the 3d being in reserve behind the 2d. The mean distance to the Potomac was some six miles, and the enemy was between Meade and the river. The Potomac, swelled by the recent rain, was boiling and swift and deep, a magnificent place to have drowned all the Rebel crew. I have not the least doubt but that Gen. Meade would have liked to drown them all, if he could, but they were unwilling to be drowned, and would fight first. To drive them into the river, then, they must be routed. Gen. Meade, I be lieve, favored an attack upon the enemy at that lime, and he summoned his corps commanders to a council upon the subject. The 1 st corps was rep resented by William Hayes, the 3d by French, the 5th by Sykes, the 6th by Sedgwick, the 1 1 th by Howard, the 12th by Slocum, and the Cav alry by Pleasanton. Of the eight generals there, Wadsworth, Howard and Pleasanton were in favor of immediate attack, and five, Hayes, French, Sykes, Sedgwick and Slocum were not [148] A COUNCIL OF WAR in favor of attack until better information was ob tained of the position and situation of the enemy. Of the pros Wadsworth only temporarily repre sented the 1 st corps in the brief absence of New ton, who, had a battle occurred, would have com manded. Pleasanton, with his horses, would have been a spectator only, and Howard, with the brilliant Nth corps, would have been trusted no where but a safe distance from the enemy — not by Gen. Howard's fault, however, for he is a good and brave man. Such was the position of those who felt sanguinarily inclined. Of the cons were all of the fighting generals of the fight ing corps, save the 1 st. This, then, was the feel ing of these generals — all who would have had no responsibility or part in all probability, han kered for a fight — those who would have had both part and responsibility, did not. The attack was not made. At daylight on the morning of the 1 4th, strong reconnoissances from the 1 2th, 2d and 5th corps were the means of discovering that between the enemy, except a thousand or fifteen hundred of his rear guard, who fell into our hands, and the Ariuy of the Potomac, rolled the fi49] HASKELL's GETTYSBURG rapid, unbridged river. The Rebel General, Pettigrew, was here killed. The enemy had constmcted bridges, had crossed during all the preceding night, but so close were our cavalry and infantry upon him in the moming, that the bridges were destroyed before his rear guard had all crossed. Among the considerations influencing these generals against the propriety of attack at that time, were probably the following: The army was wearied and worn down by four weeks of constant forced marching or battle, in the midst of heat, mud and drenching showers, burdened with arms, accoutrements, blankets, sixty to a hundred cartridges, and five to eight days' rations. What such weariness means few save soldiers know. Since the battle the army had been constantly diminished by sickness or prostration and by more straggling than I ever saw before. Poor fellows — they could not help it. The men were near the point when further efficient physical exertion was quite impossible. Even the sound of the skir mishing, which was almost constant, and the ex citement of impending battle, had no effect to [150] A COUNCIL OF WAR arouse for an hour the exhibition of their wonted former vigor. The enemy's loss in battle, it is true, had been far heavier than ours ; but his army was less weary than ours, for in a given time since the first of the campaign, it had marched far less and with lighter loads. These Rebels are accus tomed to hunger and nakedness, customs to which our men do not take readily. And the enemy had straggled less, for the men were going away from battle and towards home, and for them to straggle was to go into captivity, whose end they could not conjecture. The enemy was some where in position in a ridgy, wooded country, abounding in strong defensive positions, his main bodies concealed, protected by rifle-pits and epaulements, acting strictly on the defensive. His dispositions, his position even, with any con siderable degree of accuracy was unknown, nor could they be known except by reconnoisances in such force, and carried to such extent, as would have constituted them attacks liable to bring on at any moment a general engagement, and at places where we were least prepared and least likely to be successful. To have had a battle there then, [151] HASKELL S GETTYSBURG Gen. Meade would have had to attack a cunning enemy in the dark, where surprises, undiscovered rifle-pits and batteries, and unseen bodies of men might have met his forces at every point. With his not greatly superior numbers, under such cir cumstances had Gen. Meade attacked, would he have been victorious? The vote of these generals at the council shows their opinion — my own is that he would have been repulsed with heavy loss with little damage to the enemy. Such a result might have satisfied the bloody politicians better than the end of the campaign as it was ; but I think the country did not need that sacrifice of the Army of the Potomac at that time — that enough odor of sacrifice came up to its nostrils from the 1st Fredericksburg field, to stop their snuffing for some time. I felt the probability of defeat strongly at the time, when we all supposed that a conflict would certainly ensue ; for always before a battle — at least it so happens to me — some dim presentiment of results, some unaccountable fore shadowing pervades the army. I never knew the result to prove it untrue, which rests with the weight of a conviction. Whether such shadows [152] A COUNCIL OF WAR are cause or consequence, I shall not pretend to de termine; but when, as they often are, they are gen eral, I think they should not be wholly disregarded by the commander. I believe the Army of the Potomac is always willing, often eager, to fight the enemy, whenever, as it thinks, there is a fair chance for victory; that it always will fight, let come victory or defeat whenever it is ordered so to do. Of course the army, both officers and men, had very great disappointment and very great sor row that the Rebels escaped — so it was called — across the river; the disappointment was genuine, at least to the extent that disappointment is like surprise; but the sorrow to judge by looks, tones and actions, rather than by words, was not of that deep, sable character for which there is no balm. Would it be an imputation upon the courage or patriotism of this army if it was not rampant for fight at this particular time and under the existing circumstances? Had the enemy stayed upon the left bank of the Potomac twelve hours longer, there would have been a great battle there near Williamsport on the 1 4th of July. [153] HASKELL's GETTYSBURG After such digression, if such it is, I retum to Gettysburg. As good generalship is claimed for Gen. Meade in the battle, so was the conduct of his subordinate commanders good. I know, and have heard, of no bad conduct or blundering on the part of any officer, save that of Sickles, on the 2d of July, and that was so gross, and came so near being the cause of irreparable disaster that I cannot discuss it with moderation. I hope the man may never retum to the Army of the Potomac, or elsewhere, to a position where his in capacity, or something worse, may bring fruitless destruction to thousands again. The conduct of officers and men was good. The 1 1 th corps be haved badly ; but I have yet to learn the occasion when, in the opinion of any save their own officers and themselves, the men of this corps have be haved well on the march or before the enemy, either under Siegel or any other commander. With this exception, and some minor cases of very little consequence in the general result, our troops whenever and wherever the enemy came, stood against them storms of impassable fire. Such was [I.S4] AN ESTIMATE the infantry, such the artillery — the cavalry did less but it did all that was required. The enemy, too, showed a determination and valor worthy of a better cause. Their conduct in this battle even makes me proud of them as Americans. They would have been victorious over any but the best of soldiers. Lee and his generals presumed too much upon some past suc cesses, and did not estimate how much they were due on their part to position, as at Fredericksburg, or on our part to bad generalship, as at the 2d Bull Run and Chancellorsville. The fight of the 1st of July we do not, of course, claim as a victory ; but even that probably would have resulted differently had Reynolds not been struck. The success of the enemy in the battle ended with the 1 st of July. The Rebels were joyous and jubilant — so said our men in their hands, and the citizens of Gettysburg — at their achievements on that day. Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville were remembered by them. They saw victory already won, or only to be snatched from the streaming coat-tails of the 1 1 th corps, or the "raw Pennsylvania militia" as they [155] HASKELL's GETTYSBURG thought they were, when they saw them run ; and already the spires of Baltimore and the dome of the National Capitol were forecast upon their glad vision — only two or three days march away through the beautiful valleys of Pennsylvania and "my" Maryland. Was there ever anything so fine before? How splendid it would be to enjoy the poultry and the fruit, the meats, the cakes, the beds, the clothing, the Whiskey, without price in this rich land of the Yankee ! It would, indeed ! But on the 2d of July something of a change came over the spirit of these dreams. They were sur prised at results and talked less and thought more as they prepared supper that night. After the fight of the 3d they talked only of the means of their own safety from destruction. Pickett's splendid division had been almost annihilated, they said, and they talked not of how many were lost, but of who had escaped. They talked of these "Yanks " that had clubs on their flags and caps, the trefoils of the 2d corps that are like clubs in cards. The battle of Gettysburg is distinguished in this war, not only as by far the greatest and severest [1 56] AN ESTIMATE conflict that has occurred, but for some other things that I may mention. The fight of the 2d of July, on the left, which was almost a separate and com plete battle, is, so far as I know, alone in the fol lowing particulars: the numbers of men actually engaged at one time, and the enormous losses that occurred in killed and wounded in the space of about two hours. If the truth could be obtained, it would probably show a much larger number of casualties in this than my estimate in a former part of these sheets. Few battles of the war that have had so many casualties altogether as those of the two hours on the 2d of July. The 3d of July is distinguished. Then occurred the "great can nonade" — so we call it, and so it would be called in any war, and in almost any battle. And be sides this, the main operations that followed have few parallels in history, none in this war, of the magnitude and magnificence of the assault, single and simultaneous, the disparity of the numbers en gaged, and the brilliancy, completeness and over whelming character of the result in favor of the side numerically the weaker. I think I have not, in giving the results of this encounter, overesti- [157] HASKELL's GETTYSBURG mated the numbers or the losses of the enemy. We learned on all hands, by prisoners and by the newspapers, that over two divisions moved up to the assault — Pickett's and Pettigrew's — that this was the first engagement of Pickett's in the battle, and the first of Pettigrew's save a light par ticipation on the 1st of July. The Rebel divi sions usually number nine or ten thousand, or did at that time, as we understood. Then I have seen something of troops and think I can estimate their numbers somewhat. The number of the Rebels killed here I have estimated in this way: the 2d and 3d divisions of the 2d corps buried the Rebel dead in their own front, and where they fought upon their own grounds, by count they buried over one thousand eight hundred. I think no more than about two hundred of these were killed on the 2d of July in front of the 2d division, and the rest must have fallen upon the 3d. My estimates that depend upon this contingency may be errone ous, but to no great extent. The rest of the par ticulars of the assault, our own losses and our cap tures, I know are approximately accurate. Yet [158] AN ESTIMATE the whole sounds like romance, a grand stage piece of blood. Of all the corps d'armie, for hard fighting, se vere losses and brilliant results, the palm should be, as by the army it is, awarded to the "Old Sec ond." It did more fighting than any other corps, inflicted severer losses upon the enemy in killed and wounded, and sustained a heavier like loss, and captured more flags than all the rest of the army, and almost as many prisoners as the rest of the army. The loss of the 2d corps in killed and wounded in this battle — there is no other test of hard fighting — was almost as great as that of all Gen. Grant's forces in the battle that preceded and in the siege of Vicksburg. Three-eighths of the whole corps were killed and wounded. Wh}' does the Westem Army suppose that the Army of the Potomac does not fight? Was ever a more absurd supposition? The Army of the Potomac is grand ! Give it good leadership — let it alone — and it will not fail to accomplish all that reason able men desire. Of Gibbon's white trefoil division, if I am not cautious, I shall speak too enthusiastically. This [I59l HASKELL's GETTYSBURG division has been accustomed to distinguished leadership. Sumner, Sedgwick and Howard have honored, and been honored by, its command. It was repulsed under Sedgwick at Antietam and under Howard at Fredericksburg; it was victori ous under Gibbon at the 2d Fredericksburg and at Gettysburg. At Gettysburg its loss in killed and wounded was over one thousand seven hundred, near one-half of all engaged; it captured seven teen battle-flags and two thousand three hundred prisoners. Its bullets hailed on Pickett's division, and killed or mortally wounded four Rebel gen erals, Barksdale on the 2d of July, with the three on the 3d, Armstead, Garnett and Kemper. In losses in killed and wounded, and in captures from the enemy of prisoners and flags, it stood pre-emi nent among all the divisions at Gettysburg. Under such generals as Hancock and Gibbon brilliant results may be expected. Will the coun try remember them? It is understood in the army that the President thanked the slayer of Barton Key for saving the day at Gettysburg. Does the country know any better than the President that Meade, Hancock [i6o] TRIBUTE TO HIS HORSE and Gibbon were entitled to some little share of such credit? At about six o'clock on the afternoon of the 3d of July, my duties done upon the field, I quitted it to go to the General. My brave horse Dick — poor creature, his good conduct in the battle that afternoon had been complimented by a Briga dier — was a sight to see. He was literally cov ered with blood. Struck rep>eatedly, his right thigh had been ripped open in a ghastly manner by a piece of shell, and three bullets were lodged deep in his body, and from his wounds the blood oozed and ran down his sides and legs and with the sweat formed a bloody foam. Dick's was no mean part in that battle. Good conduct in men under such circumstances as he was placed in might result from a sense of duty — his was the result of his bravery. Most horses would have been unmanageable with the flash and roar of arms about and the shouting. Dick was utterly cool, and would have obeyed the rein had it been a straw. To Dick belongs the honor of first mount ing that stormy crest before the enemy, not forty yards away, whose bullets smote him, and of be- *ii [i6i] HASKELL S GETTYSBURG ing the only horse there during the heat of the bat tle. Even the enemy noticed Dick, and one of their reports of the battle mentions the "solitary horseman" who rallied our wavering line. He enabled me to do twelve times as much as I could have done on foot. It would not be dignified for an officer on foot to run ; it is entirely so, mounted, to gallop. I do not approve of officers dismount ing in battle, which is the time of all when they most need to be mounted, for thereby they have so much greater facilities for being everywhere pres ent. Most officers, however, in close action, dis mount. Dick deserves well of his country, and one day should have a horse-monument. If there be "ut sapientibus placit," and equine elysium, I will send to Charon the brass coin, the fee for Dick's passage over, and on the other side of the Styx in those shadowy clover-fields he may nibble the blossoms forever. I had been struck upon the thigh by a bullet which I think must have glanced and partially spent its force upon my saddle. It had pierced the thick cloth of my trowsers and two thicknesses of underclothing, but had not broken the skin, [162] TRIBUTE TO HIS HORSE leaving me with an enormous bruise that for a time benumbed the entire leg. At the time of re ceiving it, I heard the thump, and noticed it and the hole in the cloth into which I thrust my finger, and I experienced a feeling of relief I am sure, when I found that my leg was not pierced. I think when I dismounted my horse after that fight that I was no very comely specimen of humanity. Drenched with sweat, the white of battle, by the reaction, now turned to burning red. I felt like a boiled man ; and had it not been for the exhilira- tion at results I should have been miserable. This kept me up, however, and having found a man to transfer the saddle from poor Dick, who was novr disposed to lie down by loss of blood and exhaus-- tion, to another horse, I hobbled on among the. hospitals in search of Gen. Gibbon. The skulkers were about, and they were as loudl as any in their rejoicings at the victory, and I took a malicious pleasure as I went along and met them, in taunting the sneaks with their cowardice and telling them — it was not true — that Gen. Meade had just given the order to the Provost Guard to arrest and shoot all men they could find away [163] HASKELL's GETTYSBURG from their regiments who could not prove a good account of themselves. To find the General was no easy matter. I inquired for both Generals Hancock and Gibbon — I knew well enough that they would be together — and for the hospitals of the 2d corps. My search wteis atten4ed with many incidents that were provokingly humorous. The stupidity of most men is amazing. I would ask of a man I met, "Do you know, sir, where the 2d corps hospitals are?" "The 12th corps hos pital is there!" Then I would ask sharply, "Did you understand me to ask for the 1 2th corps hos pital?" "No!" "Then why tell me what I do iiot ask or care to know?" Then stupidity would stare or mutter about the ingratitude of some people for kindness. Did I ask for the Generals I was looking for, they would announce the inter esting fact, in reply, that they had seen some other generals. Some were sure that Gen. Hancock or Gibbon was dead. They had seen his dead body. This was a falsehood, and they knew it. Then it was Gen. Longstreet. This was also, as they knew, a falsehood. Oh, sorrowful was the sight to see so many [164] AMONG THE WOUNDED wounded! The whole neighborhood in rear of the field became one vast hospital of miles in ex tent. Some could walk to the hospitals ; such as could not were taken upon stretchers from the places where they fell to selected points and thence the ambulance bore them, a miserable load, to their destination. Many were brought to the building, along the Taneytown road, and too badly wounded to be carried further, died and were buried there. Union and Rebel soldiers to gether. At every house, and barn, and shed the wounded were ; by many a cooling brook, or many a shady slope or grassy glade, the red flags beckoned them to their tented asylums, and there they gathered, in numbers a great army, a mu tilated, bruised mass of humanity. Men with gray hair and furrowed cheeks and soft-lipped, beardless boys were there, for these bullets have made no distinction between age and youth. Every conceivable wound that iron and lead can make, blunt or sharp, bullet, ball and shell, pierc ing, bruising, tearing, was there; sometimes so light that a bandage and cold water would restore the soldier to the ranks again; sometimes so severe [165] HASKELL's GETTYSBURG that the poor victim in his hopeless pain, remedy- less save by the only panacea for all mortal suffer ing, invoked that. The men are generally cheer ful, and even those with frightful wounds, often are talking with animated faces of nothing but the battle and the victory. But some are downcast, their faces distorted with pain. Some have un dergone the surgeon's work; some, like men at a ticket office, await impatiently their turn to have an arm or a leg cut off. Some walk about with an arm in a sling; some sit idly upon the ground; some lie at full length upon a little straw, or a blanket, with their brawny, now blood-stained, limbs bare, and you may see where the minie bul let has struck or the shell has tom. From a small round hole upon many a manly breast, the red blood trickles, but the pallid cheek, the hard- drawn breath and dim closed eyes tell how near the source of life it has gone. The surgeons, with coats off and sleeves rolled up, and the hospital attendants with green bands upon their caps, are about their work; and their faces and clothes are spattered with blood ; and though they look weary and tired, their work goes systematically and [i66] AMONG THE WOUNDED steadily on. How much and how long they have worked, the piles of legs, arms, feet, hands, and fingers about partially tell. Such sounds are heard sometimes — ^you would not have heard them upon the field — as convince that bodies, bones, sinews and muscles are not made of insen sible stone. Near by appear a row of small fresh mounds, placed side by side. They were not there day before yesterday. They will become more numerous every day. Such things I saw as I rode along. At last I found the Generals. Gen. Gibbon was sitting on a chair that had been borrowed somewhere, with his wounded shoulder bare, and an attendant was bathing it with cold water. Gen. Hancock was near by in an ambulance. They were at the tents of the Second Corps hospitals, which were on Rock Run. As I approached Gen. Gibbon, when he saw me, he began to hurrah and wave his right hand. He had heard the result. I said: "O, General, long and well may you wave" — and he shook me warmly by the hand. Gen. Gibbon was stmck by a bullet in the left shoulder, which had passed from the front through the flesh and [167] HASKELL S GETTYSBURG out behind, fracturing the shoulder blade and in flicting a severe but not dangerous wound. He thinks he was the mark of a sharpshooter of the enemy hid in the bushes, near where he and I had sat so long during the cannonade; and he was wounded and taken off the field before the fire of the main lines of infantry had commenced, he be ing at the time he was hit near the left of his divi sion. Gen. Hancock was struck a little later near the same part of the field by a bullet, piercing and almost going through his thigh, without touching the bone, however. His wound was severe, also. He was carried back out of range, but before he would be carried off the field, he lay upon the ground in sight of the crest, where he could see something of the fight, until he knew what would be the result. And then, at Gen. Gibbon's request, I had to tell him and a large voluntary crowd of the wounded who pressed around now, for the wounds they showed not rebuked for closing up to the Generals, the story of the fight. I was noth ing loth; and I must say though I used sometimes before the war to make speeches, that I never had [i68] WHERE THE BATTLE HAD BEEN so enthusiastic an audience before. Cries of "good," "glorious," frequently interrupted me, and the storming of the wall was applauded by enthusiastic tears and the waving of battered, bloody hands. By the custom of the service the General had the right to have me along with him, while away with his wound ; but duty and inclination attracted me still to the field, and I obtained the General's consent to stay. Accompanying Gen. Gibbon to Westminster, the nearest point to which railroad trains then ran, and seeing him transferred from an ambulance to the cars for Baltimore on the 4th, the next day I returned to the field to his division, since his wounding in the command of Gen. Har row. On the 6th of July, while my bullet bmise was yet too inflamed and sensitive for me to be good for much in the way of duty — the division was then halted for the day some four miles from the field on the Baltimore turnpike — I could not re press the desire or omit the opportunity to see again where the battle had been. With the right stir rup strap shortened in a manner to favor the bruised [169] HASKELL's GETTYSBURG leg, I could ride my horse at a walk without seri ous discomfort. It seemed very strange upon ap proaching the horse-shoe crest again, not to see it covered with the thousands of troops and horses and guns, but they were all gone — the armies, to my seeming, had vanished — and on that lovely summer morning the stillness and silence of death pervaded the localities where so recently the shouts and the cannon had thundered. The recent rains had washed out many an unsightly spot, and smoothed many a harrowed trace of the conflict; but one still needed no guide save the eyes, to fol low the track of that storm, which the storms of heaven were powerless soon to entirely efface. The spade and shovel, so far as a little earth for the human bodies would render their task done, had completed their work — a great labor, that. But still might see under some concealing bush, or sheltering rock, what had once been a man, and the thousands of stricken horses still lay scattered as they had died. The scattered small arms and the accoutrements had been collected and carried away, almost all that were of any value ; but great numbers of bent and splintered muskets, rent knap- [170] GHOULS sacks and haversacks, bruised canteens, shreds of caps, coats, trowsers, of blue or gray cloth, worth less belts and cartridge boxes, torn blankets, am munition boxes, broken wheels, smashed limbers, shattered gun carriages, parts of harness, of all that men or horses wear or use in battle, were scattered broadcast over miles of the field. From these one could tell where the fight had been hottest. The rifle-pits and epaulements and the trampled grass told where the lines had stood, and the batteries — the former being thicker where the enemy had been than those of our own constmction. No sol dier was to be seen, but numbers of civilians and boys, and some girls even, were curiously loitering about the field, and their faces showed not sadness or horror, but only staring wonder or smirking curiosity. They looked for mementoes of the battle to keep, they said ; but their furtive attempts to conceal an uninjured musket or an untorn blanket — they had been told that all property left here belonged to the Govemment — showed that the love of gain was an ingredient at least of their motive for coming here. Of course there was not the slightest objection to their taking anything they [171] HASKELL's GETTYSBURG could find now; but their manner of doing it was the objectionable thing. I could now understand why soldiers had been asked a dollar for a small strip of old linen to bind their own wound, and not be compelled to go off to the hospitals. Never elsewhere upon any field have I seen such abundant evidences of a terrific fire of cannon and musketry as upon this. Along the enemy's position, where our shells and shot had struck dur ing the cannonade of the third, the trees had cast their trunks and branches as if they had been icicles shaken by a blast. And graves of the Rebel's making, and dead horses and scattered accoutrements, showed that other things besides trees had been struck by our projectiles. I must say that, having seen the work of their guns upon the same occasion, I was gratified to see these things. Along the slope of Gulp's Hill, in front of the position of the 1 2th, and the 1 st Division of the 1st Corps, the trees were almost literally peeled, from the ground up some fifteen or twenty feet, so thick upon them were the scars the bullets had made. Upon a single tree, not over a foot and a half in diameter, I actually counted as many [172] BURYING THE DEAD as two hundred and fifty bullet marks. The ground was covered by the little twigs that had been cut off by the hailstorm of lead. Such were the evidences of the storm under which Ewell's bold Rebels assaulted our breastworks on the night of the 2d and the moming of the 3d of July. And those works looked formidable, zig-zaging eJong these rocky crests, even now when not a musket was behind them. What madness on the part of the enemy to have attacked them! All along through these bullet-stormed woods were interspersed little patches of fresh earth, raised a foot or so above the surrounding ground. Some were very near the front of the works; and near by, upon a tree whose bark had been smoothed by an axe, written in red chalk would be the words, not in fine handwriting, "75 Rebels buried here. " 13^ 54 Rebs. there." And so on. Such was the burial and such the epitaph of many of those famous men, once led by the mighty Stone wall Jackson. Oh, this damned rebellion will make bmtes of us all, if it is not soon quelled! Our own men were buried in graves, not trenches; and upon a piece of board, or stave of a barrel, [173] HASKELL's GETTYSBURG or bit of cracker box, placed at the head, were neatly cut or penciled the name and regiment of the one buried in such. This practice was gen eral, but of course there must be some exceptions, for sometimes the cannon's load had not left enough of a man to recognize or name. The rea sons here for the more careful interment of our own dead than such as Was given to the dead of the enemy are obvious and I think satisfactory. Our own dead were usually buried not long after they fell, and without any general order to that effect. It was a work that the men's hearts were in as soon as the fight was over and opportunity offered, to hunt out their dead companions, to make them a grave in some convenient spot, and decently com posed with their blankets wrapped about them, to cover them tenderly with earth and mark their rest ing place. Such burials were not without as scalding tears as ever fell upon the face of coffined mortality. The dead of the enemy could not be buried until after the close of the whole battle. The army was about to move — some of it was al ready upon the march, before such burial com menced. Tools, save those carried by the [174] BURYING THE DEAD pioneers, were many miles away with the train, and the burying parties were required to make all haste in their work, in order to be ready to move with their regiments. To make long shallow trenches, to collect the Rebel dead, often hun dreds in one place, and to cover them hastily with a little earth, without name, number, or mark, save the shallow mound above them — their names of course they did not know — ^was the best that could be done. I should have been glad to have seen more formal burial, even of these men of the rebellion, both because hostilities should cease with death, and of the respect I have for them as my brave, though deluded, countrymen. I found fault with such burial at the time, though I knew that the best was done that could be under the cir cumstances; but it may perhaps soften somewhat the rising feelings upon this subject, of any who may be disposed to share mine, to remember that under similar circumstances — had the issue of the battle been reversed — our own dead would have had no burial at all, at the hands of the enemy, but, stripped of their clothing, their naked bodies would have been left to rot, and their bones to [175] HASKELL's GETTYSBURG whiten upon the top of the ground where they fell. Plenty of such examples of Rebel magnanimity are not wanting, and one occurred on this field, too. Our dead that fell into the hands of the enemy on the 1 st of July had been plundered of all their clothing, but they were left unburied un til our own men buried them after the Rebels had retreated at the end of the battle. All was bustle and noise in the little town of Gettysburg as I entered it on my tour of the field. From the afternoon of the 1 st to the moming of the 4th of July, the enemy was in possession. Very many of the inhabitants had, upon the first ap proach of the enemy, or upon the retirement of our troops, fled their homes and the town not to retum until after the battle. Now the town was a hos pital where gray and blue mingled in about equal proportion. The public buildings, the court house, the churches and many private dwellings were full of wounded. There had been in some of the streets a good deal of fighting, and bullets had thickly spattered the fences and walls, and shells had riddled the houses from side to side. And the Rebels had done their work of pillage [176] THE LOOTED VILLAGE there, too, in spite of the smooth-sounding general order of the Rebel commander enjoining a sacred regard for private property — the order was really good and would sound marvelously well abroad or in history. All stores of drugs and medicines, of clothing, tin-ware and all groceries had been rifled and emptied without pay or offer of recom pense. Libraries, public and private, had been entered and the books scattered about the yards or destroyed. Great numbers of private dwellings had been entered and occupied without ceremony and whatever was liked had been appropriated or wantonly destroyed. Furniture had been smashed and beds ripped open, and apparently unlicensed pillage had reigned. Citizens and women who had remained had been kindly relieved of their money, their jewelry and their watches — all this by the high-toned chivalry, the army of the mag nanimous Lee! Put these things by the side of the acts of the "vandal Yankees" in Virginia, and then let mad Rebeldom prate of honor! But the people, the women and children that had fled, were returning, or had returned to their homes — such homes — and amid the general havoc were •12 [177] HASKELL's GETTYSBURG restoring as they could order to the desecrated fire sides. And the faces of them all plainly told that, with all they had lo.st and bad as was the condition of all things they found, they were bet ter pleased with such homes than with wandering houseless in the fields with the Rebels there. All had treasures of incidents of the battle and of the occupation of the enemy — wonderful sights, es capes, witnessed encounters, wounds, the marvel ous passage of shells or bullets which, upon the asking, or even without, they were willing to share with the stranger. I heard of no more than one or two cases of any personal injury received by any of the inhabitants. One woman was said to have been killed while at her wash-tub, sometime during the battle; but probably by a stray bullet coming a very long distance from our own men. For the next hundred years Gettysburg will be rich in legends and traditions of the battle. I rode through the Cemetery on "Cemetery Hill." How these quiet sleepers must have been astounded in their graves when the twenty pound Parrott guns thundered above them and the solid shot crushed their gravestones! The flowers, roses fi78] THE MARKS OF BATTLE and creeping vines that pious hands had planted to bloom and shed their odors over the ashes of dead ones gone, were trampled upon the ground and black with the cannon's soot. A dead horse lay by the marble shaft, and over it the marble finger pointed to the sky. The marble lamb that had slept its white sleep on the grave of a child, now lies blackened upon a broken gun-carriage. Such are the incongmities and jumblings of battle. I looked away to the group of trees — the Rebel gunners know what ones I mean, and so do the survivors of Pickett's division — and a strange fas cination led me thither. How thick are the marks of battle as I approach — the graves of the men of the 3d division of the 2d corps; the splintered oaks, the scattered horses — seventy-one dead horses were on a spot some fifty yards square near the-. position of Woodruff's battery, and where he fell. ^i I stood solitary upon the crest by "the frees" where, less than three days ago, I had stood be fore ; but now how changed is all the eye beholds. Do these thick mounds cover the fiery hearts that in the battle rage swept the crest and stormed the [179] HASKELL's GETTYSBURG wall? I read their names — them, alas, I do not know — but I see the regiments marked on their frail monuments — "20th Mass. Vols.," "69 P. v.," "1st Minn. Vols.," and the rest — they are all represented, and as they fought commingled here. So I am not alone. These, my brethren of the fight, are with me. Sleep, noble brave! The foe shall not desecrate your sleep. Yonder thick trenches will hold them. As long as patri otism is a virtue, and treason a crime your deeds have made this crest, your resting place, hallowed ground ! But I have seen and said enough of this battle. The unfortunate wounding of my General so early in the action of the 3d of July, leaving important duties which, in the unreasoning excitement of the moment I in part assumed, enabled me to do for the successful issue, something which under other circumstances would not have fallen to my rank or place. Deploring the occasion for taking away from the division in that moment of its need its sol dierly, appropriaate head, so cool, so clear, I am yet glad, as that was to be, that his example and [i8o] A PERSONAL NARRATIVE his tuition have not been entirely in vain to me, and that my impulses then prompted me to do somewhat as he might have done had he been on the field. The encomiums of officers, so numer ous and some of so high rank, generously accorded me for my conduct upon that occasion— I am not without vanity — were gratifying. My position as a staff officer gave me an opportunity to see much, perhaps as much as any one person, of that conflict. My observations were not so particular as if I had been attached to a smaller command; not so general as may have been those of a staff officer to the General commanding the army; but of such as they were, my heart was there, and I could do no less than to write something of them, in the intervals between marches and during the subsequent repose of the army at the close of the campaign. I have put somewhat upon these pages — I make no apology for the egotism, if such there is, of this account — it is not designed to be a history, but simply my account of the battle. It should not be assumed, if I have told of some oc currences, that there were not other important ones. I would not have it supposed that I have attempted [i8i] HASKELL's GETTYSBURG to do full justice to the good conduct of the fallen, or the survivors of the 1st and 12th Corps. Others must tell of them. I did not see their work. A full account of the battle as it was will never, can never be made. Who could sketch the changes, the constant shifting of the bloody pan orama? It is not possible. The official reports may give results as to losses, with statements of at tacks and repulses; they may also note the means by which results were attained, which is a state ment of the number and kind of the forces em ployed, but the connection between means and re sults, the mode, the battle proper, these reports touch lightly. Two prominent reasons at least exist which go far to account for the general in adequacy of these official reports, or to account for their giving no true idea of what they assume to describe — the literary infirmity of the reporters and their not seeing themselves and their com mands as others would have seen them. And fac tions, and parties, and politics, the curses of this Republic, are already putting in their unreason able demands for the foremost honors of the field. "Gen. Hooker won Gettysburg." How? Not [182] GREATER THAN WATERLOO with the army in person or by infinitesimal influ ence — leaving it almost four days before the bat tle when both armies were scattered and fifty miles apart! Was ever claim so absurd? Hooker, and he alone, won the result at Chancellorsville. "Gen. Howard won Gettysburg!" "Sickles saved the day!" Just Heaven, save the poor Army of the Potomac from its friends! It has more to dread and less to hope from them than from the red bannered hosts of the rebellion. The states prefer each her claim for the sole brunt and winning of the fight. "Pennsylvania won it!" "New York won it!" "Did not Old Greece, or some tribe from about the sources of the Nile win it?" For modem Greeks — from Cork — and African Hannibals were there. Those inter mingled graves along the crest bearing the names of every loyal state, save one or two, should ad monish these geese to cease to cackle. One of the armies of the country won the battle, and that army supposes that Gen. Meade led it upon that occasion. If it be not one of the lessons that this war teaches, that we have a country paramount and supreme over faction, and party, and state, [183] HASKELL's GETTYSBURG then was the blood of fifty thousand citizens shed on this field in vain. For the reasons mentioned, of this battle, greater than that of Waterloo, a his tory, just, comprehensive, complete will never be written. By-and-by, out of the chaos of trash and falsehood that the newspapers hold, out of the disjointed mass of reports, out of the traditions and tales that come down from the field, some eye that never saw the battle will select, and some pen will write what will be named the history. With that the world will be and, if we are alive, we must be, content. Already, as I rode down from the heights, na ture's mysterious loom was at work, joining and weaving on her ceaseless web the shells had broken there. Another spring shall green these trampled slopes, and flowers, planted by unseen hands, shall bloom upon these graves; another autumn and the yellow harvest shall ripen there — all not in less, but in higher perfection for this poured out blood. In another decade of years, in another century, or age, we hope that the Union, by the same means, may repose in a securer peace and bloom in a higher civilization. Then [184] A HOPE what matter it if lame Tradition glean on this field and hand down her garbled sheaf — if deft story with furtive fingers plait her ballad wreaths, deeds of her heroes here? or if stately history fill as she list her arbitrary tablet, the sounding record of this fight. Tradition, story, history — all will not efface the true, grand epic of Gettysburg. Frank A. Haskell. To H. M. Haskell. [185] INDEX Abbott, Capt. Henry L., 125, 128. Adams, Lieut. Col. Charles P., 56. Anderson, Maj. Gen. Richard H., 36. Aquia (Va.), 5. Armistead, Brig. Gen. Lewis A., 132, 160. Arnold, Capt. William A., 53; battery of, 34, 116. Baltimore (Md.), 4, 156, 169. Pike, 17, 21, 22, 25, 26, 43. Barksdale, Brig. Gen. William, 160. Barlow, Brig. Gen. Francis 0., 9. Batteries: Arnold's, 24, 116. Brown's, 58, 108. Cushing's, 24, 98, 102, 116, 121. Rorty's, 24. Woodrufl:'s, 24, 100, 113, 116, 118, 179. Battle-flags captured, 134, 144. Battles: Antietam (Md.), xii, 74, 99, 160. Ball's Bluflf (Va.), 54. Chancellorsville (Va.), xii, 3, 6, 155; Confederate flag cap tured, 134, 183. Cold Harbor (Va.), xv-xx, xxvii. "First Manassas" (Va.), Confederate flag captured, 133. Freder icksburg (Va.), xii, 14, 74, 82, 99, 152, 155, 160; Confederate flag captured, 134. Gainesville (Va.), xii. Gettysburg (Penn.), xii, xiii, xviii, xxi, 7, 8, 12, 13, 15, 16, 19, 21, 111, 115, 138, 141, 144, 154, 156, 160, 182, 185; map of battle, 58, 130; John Burns in fight, 11; carnage at, 61; council of war, 67-72; Haskell rallies Webb's division, 119, 120, 180, 181; end of battle, 130, 134; village pillaged, 176-178. Orange Court House (Va.), xii. Perryville (Md.), xxv. Rappahannock Sta tion (Va.), xii. Richmond (Va.), xviii, xx. Saratoga(N. Y.), 114. Second Bull Run (Va.), xii, 74, 99, 155. Second Freder icksburg (Va.), 160. "Second Manassas" (Va.), Confederate flag captured, 133. Sharpsburg (Antietam, Md.), 147, 148; Confederate flag captured, 134. South Mountain (Md.), xii; Confederate flag captured, 133. Spottsylvania (Va.), xv, xvii. Stephensburg (Va.), xii. Sulphur Springs (Va.), xii. Vicksburg (Miss.), 159. [i86] index Biddle, Maj. Alexander, 89. "Billy," Haskell's horse, 73, 74. Birney, Gen. David E., 48. Bragg, Gen. Edward S., xxv. Brown, Lieut. T. Fred., 24, 53, 55; battery of, 58, 108. Buford, Brig. Gen. John, 8. Burns, John, at battle, 11. Caldwell, Gen. John 0., 23, 43, 49, 137. Callis, Lieut. Col. John B., 11. Camp Randall (Madison, Wis.), xxiv, xxvi. Cemetery, at Gettysburg, 17, 20-22, 53, 82, 97. Ridge, 22, 36, 38, 34, 178. Centerville (Va.X 5. Chambersburg (Penn.), 7. Clough, Mrs. W. G., aid acknowledged, xxiii. Columbus (Wis.), Democrat cited, xx. Colville, Col. William, 56. Colwell, Col. , 81. Correll, Col. , 65. Cross, Col. Edward E., 55. Gulp's Hill (Gettysburg), 21, 22, 38, 62, 172. Cushing, Alonzo H., 53, 118, 120; battery of, 24, 98, 102, 116, 121. Cutler, Col. Lysander, xxiv. Dane County (Wis.), Bar Association's tribute to Haskell, xxi. Dartmouth College, xi; class of 1854 reprints Haskell's Oettyt- burg, xxi. Dawes, Col. Rufus R., xxv. Devereux, Col. Arthur P., 124, 128. "Dick," Haskell's horse, 161-163. Dill, Col. Daniel J., xxv. Doubleday, Maj. Gen. Abner, 8, 51, 81, 84, 122. Downie, Major Mark W., 56. Dudley, Lieut. Col. William W., 11. Dumfries (Va.), 5. Early, Maj. Gen. Jubal A., 36. Edward's Ferry (Md.), 5. Eleventh Corps, Army of Potomac, 9, 10, 12, 16, 17, 22, 23, 27, 33, 34, 38, 62-64, 143, 148, 149, 154, 155. Emmetsburg Road, 13, 17, 21, 22, 26, 27, 40, 42, 47, 57. Ewell, Lieut. Gen. Richard S., 36, 38, 62, 63, 77, 141, 173. Fairchild, Col. 'Lucuis 10, Falmouth (Va.), 5. [187] INDEX Farrell, Capt. Wilson B., 93, 125. Fifth Corp's, Army of Potomac, 25, 43, 48-50, 53, 57, 58, 83, 143, 148, 149. First Corps, Army of Potomac, 8-10, 13, 14, 16, 17, 22, 28, 33, 38, 58, 142, 148, 149, 172, 183; flrst division, 63, 78; third, 51, 81. Ford, Capt. C. H., xxv. , Orderly John N., xx. Frederick (Md.), 5. French, Gen. William, 148. Gainesville (Va.), xii, 5, 36. Garnett, Brig. Gen. Richard B., 132, 160. Geary, Brig. Gen. John W., 51, 75, 76. Gibbon, Gen. John, xi-xvi, xx, 1, 7, 13-16, 19, 33, 36, 40, 47, 50, 51, 55, 67, 71, 73, 74, 87, 88, 91-94, 96, 105, 107, 108, 111, 114, 116, 119, 122, 134, 137, 159-161, 163, 164, 167, 169; described, 70. Grant, Gen. U. S., xviii, 159. Gum Spring (Va.), 5. Hagerstown (Md.), 7, 147. Hall, Capt Daniel, xxi, xxii. , Col. Norman J., xv, 117, 123-126, 128. Hancock, Gen. Winfield S., xiii, xix, 13, 13, 16, 18, 39, 40, 50, 51, 55, 56, 67, 73, 81, 86, 91, 93, 132, 132, 134, 137, 139, 160, 164, 167, 168; described, 69. Harrow, Gen. William, xiv, 33, 117, 133, 123, 125, 137, 169. Haskell, Ann Folsom, xi. — — , Aretas, xi. , Frank Aretas, born, xi; Dartmouth graduate, xi; at Madison, xi, xv; lieutenant's commission in Sixth Wiscon sin, xi; aide-de-camp to Gen. Gibbon, xi; Sumner, xii; War ren, xii; with Iron Brigade, xii; at Gettysburg, xii-xv; pro moted, xii, XV, 13; Spottsylvania, xv; Cold Harbor, xv-xx; killed, xvi, xix; buried at Portage, xxi; Battle of Gettysburg, mentioned, xxi-xxiii, xxvii; map of battle lost, 30; tribute, by Gibbon, xii, xiv, xx; Walker, xii, xiii; Hancock, xiii, xx; Harrow, xiv; Hall, xv; Wis. Adj. Gen., xvi; Warner, xvii- xix; Turner, xx; Watrous, xxiv-xxviii; poTtr&its, fro-ntispiece, xxiv. Hayes, Gen. William, 122, 148. Haymarket (Va.), 5. Hays, Gen. Alexander, 23, 36. [i88] INDEX Hazard, Capt. John G., 34, 98. Heath, Ool. Francis E., 43. Heth, Maj. Gen. Henry, 36. Hill, Lieut. Gen. A. P., 36, 38, 45. Hood, Maj. Gen. John B., 36. Hooker, Gen. Joseph, 3, 183, 183. Howard, Gen. Oliver O., x.xi, 9, 16,32, 65, 67, 70, 148, 149, 160, 183; described. 68. Horton, Lieut Col. , 47, 55. Houser, Maj. John. F., xxv. Hunt, Capt. Charles, xxii. , Brig. Gen. Henry J., 112. Huston (given in text as Horton), Lieut. Col. J. W., 47, 55. Iron Brigade, xi, xii, xxv, 10, 11. Jackson, Gen. Stonewall. 60, 77, 173. Johnson, Maj . Gen. Edward, 36. Jones's crossroads, 147. Kellogg, Ool. John I., xxv. Kemper, Brig. Gen. James L., 132, 160. Kerr, Capt. Thomas, xxv. Key, Barton, slayer of, 160. Lee, Gen. Fitzhugh, 36. , Gen. Robert E., xviii, 7, 110, 141, 147, 155, 177. Liberty (Md.), 5. Longstreet, Lieut. Gen. James, 36, 38, 45, 164. Lincoln, President Abraham, 160. Little Round Top, 21, 35, 36. McClellan, Gen. George B., 146. McKeen, Col. Harvey Boyd, xvi, xix. McLaws, Maj. Gen. Lafayette, 36. Macy, Lieut. Col. George N., 124. Madison (Wis.), xi, xv, xxiv; city council's tribute to Haskell, xxi. Maine, represented at Gettysburg, 135. Mallon, Col. James E., 125, 128. Maloy, Ool. A. G., xxv. Mansfield, Maj. John, 10. Marsh, Capt. John F., xxv. Massachusetts, represented at Gettysburg, 7, 47, 53, 60, 87, 134, 125, 180. Commandery, Loyal Legion, reprints Haskell's Gettyebtirg, xxii. [189] INDEX Meade, Gen. George G., 6-8, 12, 14-16, 18, 19, 29, 40, 66, 68,:70,i76, 81, 85, 86, 89, 91-94, 116, 118, 135-138, 140, 141, 144, 145, 147, 148, 152, 154, 160, 163, 183; described, 67. Michigan, represented at Gettysburg, 125. Miller, Lieut. W. D. W., 56. Minnesota, represented at Gettysburg, 69, 93, 135, 180. Mitchell, Lieut. W. G., 132. Morgan, Lieut. Col. 0. H., 139. New York, represented at Gettysburg, 47, 53, 55, 125. Newton, Maj. Gen. John, 33, 67, 92, 149; described, 70. Noyes; Capt. D. K.. xxv. Orton, Atwood & Orton, xi. Pennsylvania, represented at Gettysburg, 65, 122, 139, 180. Pettigrew, Brig. Gen. J. Johnston, 113, 132, 150, 158. Pender, Maj. Gen. William D., 36. Philadelphia, enemy rumored to be in, 9. Pickett, Gen. George E., xiv, xviii, 36, 113, 131, 13.8, 156, 158, 160, 179. Pleasonton, Maj. Gen. Alfred, 67, 71, 93-149; described, 70. Plumer, Capt. Phil., xxv. Poolesville (Md.), 5. Potomac, Army of, xii, xvii, xx, 1-4, 6, 7, 16, 19, 31, 67, 72, 91, 115, 135, 149, 152-154, 159, 183. Portage (Wis.), xx, xxi, xxiii; Public Library, xxiii, 1; State Register, xx, 1. Provost Guards, 31, 93, 163. Revere, Ool. Paul J., 55. , Paul, 55. Reynolds, Maj. Gen. John F., 8, 13, 14, 22, 29, 155. Rhodes, Maj. Gen. Robert E., 36. Rice, Major Edmund, 134. ; Rivers: Chickahominy, xx. Potomac, 5, 81, 141, 147, 148, 153. Robinson, Brig. Gen. John C, 8. Rock Run, 23, 167. Ropes, Lieut. Henry, 87. Rorty (Rhorty), Capt. James McK, 53, 118; battery, 34. Round Top, 15, 21, 23, 25-27, 29, 36, 42, 43, 48, 49, 52, 53, 57, 82, 97. Sapler, Capt. , 129. Schumacher, Capt. Frederick, xxv. Schurz, Gen. Carl, 9. [190] INDEX Second Corps, Army of Potomac, 5, 11-13, 15, 18-20, 33-35, 27, 29, 32, 34, 42, 43, 47-50, 53, 58, 65, 67, 73, 74, 75, 79, 81, 83, 85, 86, 93, 97, 98, 110, 139, 141, 142, 148, 149, 156, 159, 164, 167; first division of, 15, 23, 34, 43, 43, 48, 49, 173; second, 15, 23, 24, 27, 43, 53, 65, 81-84, 93, 118, 119, 126, 158; third, 15, 23, 24, 35, 48, 65, 81, 82, 84, 130, 158, 179. Sedgwick, Gen. John, 25, 26, 67, 148, 160; described, 68. Seminary Ridge, 10, 34. Sickles, Gen. Daniel E., xxii, 6, 17, 24, 40-44, 46, 47, 52, 67, 81, 87, 154, 183. Siegel, Gen. Franz, 154. Signal Corps, 36, llfl. Sixth Corps, Army of Potomac, 35, 43, 50, 58, 82, 143, 148. Slocum, Gen. , 17, 67, 70, 148; described, 68. South Carolina, represented at Gettysburg, 60. Stannard, Col. George J., 81, 84, 117. Steele, Lieut. Col. Amos A., 135. Steinwehr, Brigade Gen. Adolph von, 119. Stevens, Lieut. Ool. George H., 10. Stewart, Gen. J. E. B., 36. Sumner, Gen. Edwin V., xii, 160. Sweet, Maj. Benjamin J., xxiv. Sykes, Maj. Gen. George, 25, 67, 70, 71, 148; described, 69. Taneytown (Penn.), 11, 12; Road, 15-18, 20-33, 35, 29, 52, 103, 165. Third Corps, Army of Potomac, 12, 17, 24, 25, 27, 32, 35, 36, 40- 42, 45-53, 58, 67, 79, 81, 82, 142, 148. Thoman, Lieut. Ool. Max, 55. Thoroughfare Gap (Va.), 5. Tunbridge (Tt.), xi. Turner, A. J., xx, xxi; prints Haskell's Gettysburg, xxi, 1. Twelfth Corps, Army of Potomac, 17, 22, 38, 33, 38, 51, 58, 62, 63, 76, 78, 82, 142, 148, 149, 164, 172, 182; second division of, 75. Tyler, Brig Gen. Robert O., xix. Union Town (Md.), 5. Vermont, represented at Gettysburg, 117. Wadsworth, Brig. Gen. James S., 8, 78, 148, 149. Walker, Gen. Francis A., History of Second Ar-my Corps, xii. Ward, Col. George H., 47, 55. Warner, Ool. Clement E., xvii. Warren, Gen. G. K., xii. [191] INDEX Watrous, Lieut. Ool. J. *A., tribute to Haskell, xxiv-xxviii. Webb, Brig. Gen. Alexander S., 117, 119-125, 127, 128. Wessels, Capt. Francis, 98, 113. Westminster (Md.), 169. Williams, Gen. Alpheus S., 51. Williamsport (Md.), 147, 153. Wisconsin, report of adjutant general on Cold Harbor, xvi; rep resented at Gettysburg, xi, xii, xv-xvii, xxiv-xxvi, xxviii, 10, 63; History Commission, xxii, xxiii. Wolf Run Shoales (Va.), 5. Woodruff, Lieut. George A., battery, 24, 100, 112, 116, 118, 179. Worth, Gen. 113. Zook, Brig. Gen. Samuel K., 54. [192] H 1 4ul*j( {; flfl "I 11 , WW' »,»¦ ''^.sf.-«iS3WTr"'"'"r'iif''i, t f , , ^ — ' 1^? - — ¦ - - - - t (I ^ggsffi fl IS, 1- ;4^fr - i.rt 1 - -^ f^ E (..rfiii., -1- ¦" ifMw a ta,«- „ ^ .^ue .... '^^ ¦Mh^mrt otHJCtiTSnT-i- ^fl^Jr^^ -M-ij-fa^r^ S-nHn'f;' T. ,^^^ "T r -^ -.- ^"., ''^^ — 1 _jl iibS^ =^ ¦v-rfrrSir* ij^^^uii^ "^J^2u4^