Download The Second Day at Gettysburg: Culp`s Hill and Cemetary Hill

The Second Day at Gettysburg:
Culp’s Hill and Cemetary Hill
On the Second Day at Gettysburg General Robert E. Lee’s plan
called for Lt. Gen. Richard S. Ewell‘s Second Corps to conduct
a series of demonstration attacks against Culp’s Hill and
Cemetary Hill. These were an attempt to draw Union troops from
the left to the right so that Longstreet’s attack on the Union
left could succeed.
Ewell’s objectives were the hook part of the fish hook-shaped
Union defensive line. Cemetary Hill, on the Union left,
overlooks the town of Gettysburg to the north. Maj. Gen.
Oliver O. Howard’s XII Corps had stationed troops there in the
event that he needed a rallying point for retreating troops
from the I and XII Corps. When his and I Corps troops were
forced to retreat through the town, Howard was able to use
these positions as an anchor.
Culp’s Hill, the barb in the
fish hook, was to the right
of Cemetary Hill and set
back from it. It consists of
two rounded peaks, separated
by a narrow saddle. Its
heavily wooded higher peak
is
630
ft
above
sea
level. The lower peak is
about 100 feet shorter than
its companion. It dominated
Cemetery Hill and the
Baltimore Pike. The pike was
critical for keeping the
Union army supplied and for blocking any Confederate advance
on Baltimore or Washington, D.C.
At about 4:00 PM, the Confederates began to bombard the Union
positions on Cemetary Hill. For the next three hours, Ewell
limited his demonstration to an artillery bombardment by four
batteries from Benner’s Hill, about a mile to the northeast.
The Union gunners returned this fire with counterbattery fire
of their own from Cemetary Hill. The Union positions were 50
feet higher than the Confederate ones and this height
difference gave the Union gunners a decided advantage. The
Confederate position was exposed and they suffered greatly
while attempted to move to a less exposed position. It was
during this attempt the Major Joseph W. Latimer, the 19-year
old battalion commander was mortally wounded. Latimer had been
a VMI student and a student of Lt. Gen, Thomas J. “Stonewall”
Jackson.
As the Confederate attacks on the Union left were petering out
at about 7:00 PM, Ewell chose to send his initial infantry
attacks forward. Ewell sent three brigades from the division
of Maj. Gen. Edward “Allegheny” Johnson across Rock Creek and
up the eastern slope of Culp’s Hill against a line of
breastworks manned by the
Gen. George S. Greene.
XII
Corps
brigade
of
Brig.
Greene’s troops were able to hold of the Confederate attackers
for hours. The Confederates did establish a foothold on the
hill by using abandoned Union rifle pits. The fighting on
Culp’s Hill would resume the following day.
At about 7:30 PM, Ewell ordered two brigades from the division
of Maj. Gen. Jubal A. Early against East Cemetery Hill from
the east, and he alerted the division of Maj. Gen. Robert E.
Rodes to prepare a follow-up assault against Cemetery Hill
proper from the northwest. Early’s brigades were commanded
by Brig. Gen. Harry T. Hays and Col. Isaac E. Avery. Hays,
with five regiments, commanded 1,200 men while Avery’s three
regiments numbered about 900 men.
Defending East Cemetery Hill were the two brigades, commanded
by Cols. Andrew L. Harris and Leopold von Gilsa, of Brig.
Gen.
Francis
C.
Barlow‘s
division which was now commanded
by Brig. Gen. Adelbert Ames of
the XI Corps, after Barlow’s
wounding. Both brigades had been
heavily involved in the previous
day’s fighting and their numbers
had been reduced to a total of
1,150 men.
Click image to enlarge.
Harris’ men were positioned behind a stone wall at the
northern end of their position and wrapped around at a right
angle. Von Gilsa’s men extended this line south along
Brickyard Lane. Two regiments, the 41st New York and the 33rd
Massachusetts, were stationed in Culp’s Meadow beyond
Brickyard Lane in expectation of an attack by Johnson’s
division.
To the west of this position were the divisions of Maj.
Gens. Adolph von Steinwehr and Carl Schurz.
Artillery
positions were located in a number of locations throughout the
defensive area. The relatively steep slope of East Cemetery
Hill made artillery fire difficult to direct against infantry
because the gun barrels could not be depressed sufficiently,
but they did their best with canister and double canister
fire.
The Confederates attacked the stone wall position at about
7:300 PM, exploiting a gap in the Union line. They leaped the
wall and rushed to the top of the hill. The fighting in the
dark was desperate and the Union gunners engaged the
Confederate gunners in hand-to-hand combat.
Major Samuel Tate of the 6th North Carolina wrote later in his
official report, “75 North Carolinians of the Sixth Regiment
and 12 Louisianians of Hays’s brigade scaled the walls and
planted the colors of the Sixth North Carolina and Ninth
Louisiana on the guns. It was now fully dark. The enemy stood
with tenacity never before displayed by them, but with
bayonet, clubbed musket, sword, pistol, and rocks from the
wall, we cleared the heights and silenced the guns.
Samuel Tate is best known for taking his friend
Isaac Avery’s note to Avery’s father. Unable to
speak the mortally wounded Avery, wrote this
poignant note to his father, “Major, tell my
father I died with my face to the enemy. I. E.
Avery.” Col. Avery died the following day.
Howard and Schurz responded to the Confederate attack by
dispatching the 58th and 119th New York regiments
of Col. Włodzimierz Krzyżanowski‘s brigade reinforced
Wiedrich’s battery from West Cemetery Hill, as did a II
Corps brigade under Col. Samuel S. Carroll arriving in the
dark double-quick from Cemetery Ridge.
Carroll’s men secured Ricketts’s battery and swept the North
Carolinians down the hill. Over at Wiedrich’s battery,
Krzyżanowski led his men to sweep the Louisiana attackers down
the hill until they reached the base and “flopped down” for
Wiedrich’s guns to fire canister at the retreating
Confederates.
Meanwhile, Maj. Gen. Robert Rodes’ Division had been ordered
to attack from the northwest. By the time that they were
positioned it was full dark. Brig. Gen. Dodson Ramseur, the
leading brigade commander, saw the futility of a night assault
against two lines of Union troops behind stone walls, backed
up by significant artillery. The adjoining division from A.P.
Hill’s Corps was under Brig. Gen. James H. Lane who had
replaced Maj. Gen. William Dorsey Pender. Pender would die
from his wound two weeks later.
New to division command Lane hesitated to attack in the dark.
When Ewell sent a staff officer to request his assistance,
Lane explained that his orders were to attack if a “favorable
opportunity presented.” When Ewell informed Lane that his
attack was starting and requested cooperation, Lane sent back
no reply.
The casualties for the Second Day at Gettysburg were heavy for
both sides. A number of officers were killed or wounded,
besides troops on both sides. Both flanks of the Army of the
Potomac had been attacked and both flanks had held. In a
Council of War at his headquarters, General Meade asked
his senior staff officers and corps commanders their opinions.
All recommended that the army stay in this position and await
Lee’s next attack.
As the meeting broke up, Meade took aside Brig. Gen.John
Gibbon, in command of the II Corps since Hancock was in
command of the Union left, and predicted, “If Lee attacks
tomorrow, it will be in your front. … he has made attacks on
both our flanks and failed and if he concludes to try it
again, it will be on our centre.”