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BATTLE ON SEMINARY RIDGE.

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force to attack Davis's flank, and save Hall's battery. These consisted tler's two regiments, on the left of the road, which, with the Sixth onsin, changed front and, led by Lieutenant Daws, charged upon

who also changed front, and made a stand at the railway cutting. not only saved the battery, but surrounded and captured Davis and Lississippians, with their battle-flag. Meanwhile Cutler's other regi-, which had lost heavily in killed and wounded, had re-formed, and 1 in the attack; and now, with his brigade unbroken, he took position er to the right to meet the extension of the Confederate lines in that cion.

was now meridian. The whole of the First Corps, under General leday, was well posted on Seminary Ridge, and the remainder of Hill's rapidly approaching. At the same time Rodes, with the advance on of Ewell's corps, had hastened forward from Heidlersburg, and, ging round, took a commanding position on the ridge north of the town, ecting with Hill on his right, and seriously menacing the National right, by Cutler. Doubleday sent Robinson's division to Cutler's aid, the ades of Generals Baxter and Paul taking position on his right at the amasburg road. There a severe contest was sustained for some time,

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three North Carolina regiments, under General Iverson, were cap

The battle soon assumed far grander proportions. Thus far only the t Corps of the Nationals and the advance divisions of Hill's and Ewell's s had been engaged. Howard's corps, animated by the sounds of battle in ront, pressed forward rapidly, and reached the field at a little past noon. der's division had been added to the strength of Hill's already in the ggle, and Early's division now joined that of Rodes. Howard, who had ved in advance of his corps, had left General Steinwehr's division on metery Hill, placed General Schurz, whose division was intrusted to eral Schimmelpfennig, in temporary charge of the corps, and, ranking ableday, took the chief command

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ll the troops on the field of action. placed the divisions of Barlow Schurz to the right of the First ps, to confront Early, and so, m the necessity of meeting an exted simultaneous attack from the th and west, the National line s lengthened and attenuated along urve for about three miles. This s an unfortunate necessity that ald not be avoided, for Howard d perceived the value of a posin for the army on the series of ges of which Cemetery Hill med the apex of a redan, and

OLIVER O. HOWARD.

d determined to secure it, at all hazards, if his inferior numbers should pressed back from the battle-line on the north and west of the town, which w seemed probable.

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DEFEAT OF THE NATIONALS.

At this juncture, Rodes, near the northern extremity of Seminary Ridge, occupied the key-point of the entire field; and when, at about three o'clock in the afternoon, Early had pressed Barlow back, and there was a general advance of the Confederates, Rodes dashed through the weak center of the National line, and, aided by an enfilading battery, threw into confusion the right of the First and the left of the Eleventh Corps. Then the Nationals fell back in some confusion upon the village, in which they became entangled, when Early, dashing forward, captured about three thousand men, chiefly of the Eleventh Corps. The First Corps, whose left had been held firmly by Doubleday, now fell back. It brought away the artillery and ambulances from Seminary Ridge, and took position on Steinwehr's left and rear on Cemetery Hill, while the Eleventh

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halted in its retreat on Steinwehr's right and front. Buford's cavalry had well covered the retreat, and when, toward sunset, Ewell's corps quietly occupied Gettysburg, and Hill's lay on Seminary Ridge, the sorely smitten Nationals were in a strong position on Cemetery Hill, anxiously awaiting

the arrival of re-enforcements from the scattered corps of the Army of the Potomac, then on the way. So ended, in the defeat of the Unionists, the severe engagement preliminary to the great Battle of Gettysburg, for the cautious Lee, ignorant of the number of the

July 1, 1868.

PREPARATIONS FOR RENEWING THE STRUGGLE.

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ps of his adversary present or near at hand, prudently awaited the val of the rest of his army.1

When General Meade, at Taneytown, thirteen miles distant, heard of the h of Reynolds, he ordered General Hancock, the junior of Howard in , to leave his corps with General Gibbons, hasten to Gettysburg, and me the chief command, at the same time giving him discretionary power ffer battle where the advance of the army then was, or to withdraw the ps to the line of Pipe Creek. Hancock arrived just as the beaten forces hurrying toward Cemetery Hill. He was satisfied with the new posichosen by General Howard, and so reported to General Meade. After sting in forming a new battle-line with the troops then present, and turnover the command to General Slocum, who arrived with his corps elfth) from Littlestown at sunset, Hancock returned to head-quarters in the evening.

Fortunately for the cause, Howard had called early upon Sickles and um for aid, and both had promptly responded by moving forward. The her, with his corps (Third), was near Emmettsburg, where he had been ed in the morning by a circular letter from General Meade, ordering the ance to fall back, and the whole army to form a line of battle along the eral direction of Pipe Creek, between Middleburg and Manchester.2 vard informed Sickles of the death of Reynolds, and the peril of the ps. Sickles was perplexed for a moment. It was full three o'clock in afternoon when the astounding news reached him. He could not comnicate with Meade, ten miles distant, without a delay that might be fatal he National advance, so he took the responsibility of pressing forward. t as Howard had gained position on Cemetery Hill, Sickles's van came up formed on the left, ere it was joined by whole corps before rning. Hancock, on way back, met his a corps under Gib1s, which Meade had t forward, and postit a mile and a half the rear of Cemetery 1. When he reached d-quarters, at nine he evening, he found

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MEADE'S HEAD-QUARTERS.

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July, 1863.

ade determined to make a stand at Gettysburg. He had given orders for whole army to concentrate there, and was about leaving for the front. th officers rode rapidly forward, and at one o'clock on the morning of the *Meade made his head-quarters at the house of Mrs. Lydia ister, on the Taneytown road, a short distance in the rear of metery Hill. Only the corps of Sykes and Sedgwick were then absent. 1 See Lee's Report of the Battle of Gettysburg, July 31, 1863. In that report he says he had not intended ght a general battle so far away from his base, but being "unexpectedly confronted by the Federal army, it ume a matter of difficulty to withdraw through the mountains with the large trains." 2 Meade was satisfied that the main object of his forward movement, namely, the arrest of the invasion, accomplished, and proposed to take a defensive position and await further developments of Lee's plans.

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POSITIONS OF THE OPPOSING ARMIES.

The former, by a forced night march, arrived early in the morning, and the latter at two o'clock in the afternoon.1

Lee, too, had been bringing forward his troops as rapidly as possible. He made his head-quarters on Seminary Ridge, at the house of the venerable Mary Marshall, where the Chambersburg road crosses the eminence, and on the morning of the 2d of July, a greater portion of the two armies con

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fronted each other, both in a strong position, with the little village of Gettysburg, and a valley not a mile in width, between them. Meade's army lay along rocky heights, forming two sides of a triangle, with its apex at Cemetery Hill, near the town, its shorter line bending back south

pair easterly over Culp's Hill to Rocky Creek, and its longer line Howard's shattered corps,

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bending back south-southwest to Round Top. re-enforced by two thousand Vermont troops under General Stannard, occupied Cemetery Hill, supported by the divisions of Robinson and Doubleday, of the First, with Wadsworth's, of the same corps, on the right. This division joined Slocum's corps on Culp's Hill, which formed the right wing of the army. On the left of Howard, the corps of Hancock and Sickles occupied the irregular ridge from Zeigler's Grove, on Cemetery Hill, to Round Top, the latter forming the extreme of the left wing. Sykes's corps was held in reserve. Slocum's corps, re-enforced by Lockwood's Marylanders, twenty-five hundred strong, comprised about ten thousand men. Sedgwick, with over fifteen thousand men, was yet many miles away.

Lee's army then present occupied Seminary Ridge and the high ground to the left of Rock Creek, making an irregular curve along a line about five miles in length. His right, facing Sickles and Hancock, was composed of the divisions of Hood and McLaws, of Longstreet's corps. Hill's three divisions stretched from their left, so as to confront Howard on Cemetery Hill; and Ewell's, forming the left wing, occupied the village and its vicinity, the divisions of Early and Johnson extending so as to menace Wadsworth and Slocum on Culp's Hill. Stuart's cavalry had not yet arrived from Carlisle, and Buford's so roughly handled the day before, was recruiting its strength in the National rear. Such was the general disposition • 1868. of the two armies on the morning of the 2d of July, each having a large number of cannon in position.

1 Sykes was not far from Hanover, twenty-three miles distant, when ordered to advance, and Sedgwick was at Manchester, more than thirty miles distant.

2 This was the appearance of Lee's head-quarters when the writer sketched it. from the Chambersburg road. late in September, 1866. It was a substantial old stone house. Mrs. Marshall yet occupied it, and was then seventy-eight years of age. 3 See note 1, page 59.

PERILOUS SITUATION OF THE NATIONAL LEFT.

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th commanders were averse to taking the initiative of battle. Lee ved the decided advantage in position which Howard had secured for ational army, it projecting like a wedge toward his center, with rocky ties along its front. Meade, feeling secure, had determined to leave the perilous movement of attack, if possible; and yet, early in the ng, observing Ewell stretching his line along the base of Culp's Hill, Datteries on heights in his rear, as if intending to attack, he was coned to propose an offensive movement by Slocum with his own and the of Sykes, when Sedgwick should arrive. He finally sent orders for a to attack without Sedgwick, but that officer considered it not advisad was supported in that opinion by General Warren, the Engineeref. So the hours passed by with only a little skirmishing and now and shot from a battery, until late in the afternoon.

e, meanwhile, encouraged by the success of the previous day, and "in of the valuable results that would ensue from the defeat of the army General Meade,"1 resolved to attack Sickles, who was holding the lar ridge between Hancock and Round Top. Satisfied that a movement n was in preparation, he had thrown a considerable portion of his corps d to a slight elevation along the Emmettsburg road, his right, under al Humphreys, being several hundred yards in front of Hancock's left, he line prolonged to the left by Graham's brigade of Birney's division, arge peach-orchard belonging to John Scherfey, who lived near. From oint Birney's line, formed by the les of De Trobriand and Ward, 3 division, bent back obliquely d Round Top, with a stony ale behind it, and having some chusetts batteries on the extreme

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In this position Meade found es between three and four o'clock e afternoon. Sedgwick had arafter a march of thirty-five miles meteen hours, and been placed in re, and Meade had gone forward perintend the posting of Sykes's troops on the left of Sickles, when he vered the Third Corps well up toward the heaviest columns of the y, without flank supports. He deplored the perilous movement, and 1 probably have ordered Sickles back, had not the opening of the batof Lee and the pressing forward of his heavy columns to attack es put an end to all deliberations. Meade could now do nothing better

SCHERFEY'S HOUSE.

ee's Report.

eneral Birney sent out a regiment of sharpshooters, under Colonel Berdan, who advanced to a wood a yond the Emmettsburg road, reconnoitering the Confederates. Berdan reported that the foe was moving columns, under cover of the woods, with the evident intention of turning the National left. It was this report which caused Sickles to advance his corps. The peach-orchard mentioned in the text was at an rmed by the Emmettsburg road, and a cross lane from the Taneytown road, which entered it and ended

cherfey's was a brick house, on the west side of the Emmettsburg road, and, during the battle, was alterin the possession of the National and Confederate troops. The family left the house when it was it that a battle was impending. The engraving is from a sketch made by the author in the autumn of The house, notwithstanding its exposed position, was very little injured.

VOL. III.-5

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