July 1, 1863, the First Day of the Battle of Gettysburg.......John Reynolds Dies, While Keeping the Confederacy From Winning
The Battle of Gettysburg was the greatest clash of arms on American soil, in American History.
On the first day alone, July 1, 1863, Union forces lost 9,000 casualties; the Confederates lost 6,000 casualties, in one day, in the first day of battle.
The Union forces were led by Maj. General George Meade, a steady, unimaginative, and uninspiring general.
He commanded one of the most resilient armies in history, the Army of the Potomac.
The Confederate Army of Northern Virginia was commanded by one of the great generals in American arms, the hero of the Mexican-American War, General Robert E. Lee. It was an army fresh from the greatest feat of arms on American soil, the American Cannae, Chancellorsville, in which Lee had subdivided his inferior force into three parts and defeated the vast army of the North.
General Lee, flushed with victory, had invaded the North, into Pennsylvania, on his way to Philadelphia or New York City; where there was a large pro-Southern community of Irish immigrants. They would make their feelings known during New York City Draft Riots of July, 1863, in which many black Americans were lynched by said immigrants.
Lee lacked only one thing to secure complete victory over the North, his muse, Thomas STONEWALL Jackson. Jackson could read Lee’s mind, and knew instinctively what Lee wanted to be done, and at what pace. But Jackson had been slain after the Chancellorsville victory, killed by his own men, by mistake or, in this Blogger’s opinion, an act of God, a force majeure.
This Blogger believes that just as the gods intervened in the ILIAD, so too God intervened in the American Iliad, by conjuring up the death of Jackson, killed by his own men as he was reviewing the Confederate lines, after the battle had been won. Jackson’s death is too fraught with divine irony to be an accident or a happenstance.
This Blogger believes the Confederacy would have won the Battle of Gettysburg, and the war if Jackson had lived.
By quirk, the Confederate Army was north of the Federal Army; the Rebs made a dash for Gettysburg because they had heard shoes were stored, in volume, there.
The Federals were not expecting the Rebs to be in Gettysburg, but the Rebs were there, suddenly in large numbers. Union cavalry men dismounted and stopped the Reb advance.
Then, on the Union side, one of the great figures of the Civil War got there, Major General John Reynolds. Reynolds was an outstanding general, within Lee’s range and scope; twice he had been offered command of the Army of the Potomac. Twice he had rejected command for he did not want the responsibility of giving the orders which led to so many young men getting killed.
Reynolds held the Rebs by dash and courage, at a horrific cost, “147th New York losing 207 of its 380 officers and men."
Reynolds, the general who would not be king, was killed.
More troops, on both sides arrived.
The Union position was from west to the north.
The Rebs launched a massive assault.
The Federals broke.
The Reb advance was stopped by the arrival of the fearsome IRON BRIGADE, known by their black hats, loggers from Michigan and Wisconsin, farmers from Indiana.
"In the fighting, Confederate Brig. Gen. Archer was captured…. the first general officer in Robert E. Lee's army to suffer that fate. Archer ….was captured by Patrick Moloney of Company G., 2nd Wisconsin, "a brave patriotic and fervent young Irishman." Archer resisted capture, but Moloney overpowered him. Moloney was killed later that day, but he received the MEDAL OF HONOR for his exploit. When Archer was taken to the rear, he encountered his former Army colleague Gen. Doubleday, who greeted him good-naturedly, "Good morning, Archer! How are you? I am glad to see you!" Archer replied, "Well, I am not glad to see you by a damn sight!".
The 14th Brooklyn arrived next.
Brooklyn and the Iron Brigade attacked the Rebs.
“ …..the American flag went down at least three times during the charge. At one point the Commanding Union Colonel Dawes took up the fallen flag before it was seized from him by a corporal of the color guard. As the Union line neared the Confederates, its flanks became folded back and it took on the appearance of an inverted V. ….vicious hand-to-hand and bayonet fighting broke out….The …Union regiments had lost 390–440 of 1,184 engaged, but they had blunted the Rebs.The Confederate losses were about 500 killed and wounded and over 200 prisoners out of 1,707 engaged.”
Rev. Billy Graham’s grandfather was among 1,350 North Carolinians to advance. They were ambushed by Union men hidden in the trees, “ 800 fell….Stories are told about groups of dead bodies lying in almost parade-ground formations, heels of their boots perfectly aligned. (The bodies were later buried on the scene, and this area is today known as "Iverson's Pits", source of many local tales of supernatural phenomena.).”
That spot is where this Blogger saw a Confederate ghost.
At 2:30 PM, Lee arrived on the battlefield.
Lee ordered an immediate attack, attack, attack.
North Carolinians, incensed by the death of so many friends, attacked the Iron Brigade“ North Carolinians,….drove back the Iron Brigade in some of the fiercest fighting of the war. The Iron Brigade was pushed out of the woods, made three temporary stands in the open ground to the east, but then had to fall back….
Casualties were severe that afternoon. The 26 North Carolina started the battle with the Iron Brigade with 839 men, by the time it was over they were down to 212 men…..by the end of the Battle ofGettysburg, the 26th was down to 152 men, …. One of the Union regiments, the 24th Michigan, lost 399 of 496. It had nine color bearers shot down, and its commander…. The 151st Pennsylvania lost 337 of 467.”
Lee had the momentum.
Lee ordered another attack; it broke the Federals.
They started retreating.
The 157th New York tried to hold; it suffered a 75% casualty rate before it broke.
The Union forces had collapsed by 4Pm, after less than an hour.
“……the 16th Maine was ordered to hold its position "at any cost" as a rear guard against the enemy pursuit. …. The 16th Maine started the day with 298 men, but at the end of this holding action there were only 35 survivors…."
Around 5PM, with Union forces in disarray, the finest general in the Union Army arrived, Winfield Scott Hancock, HANCOCK THE SUPERB. He should have been in command of the Army of the Potomac, but since he was a Democrat, Lincoln would not countenance it.
Hancock stopped the retreat and dug in on Cemetery Hill.
“General Lee understood the defensive potential to the Union army if they held the high ground of Cemetery Hill. He sent orders to General Ewell (Jackson’s replacement) to "carry the hill occupied by the enemy, if he found it practicable, but to avoid a general engagement until the arrival of the other divisions of the army."
Ewell thought his troops were too weary to attack, and did not.
This Blogger walked the battlefield of Gettysburg with Southern boys, devotees of THE LOST CAUSE.
It was explained to this Blogger that in Lee speak, Practicable meant attack.
“Lee's order has been criticized because it left too much discretion to Ewell. Numerous historians and proponents of the LOST CAUSE movement (most prominently Jubal Early…have speculated how the more aggressive Jackson would have acted on this order if he had lived to command this wing of Lee's army, and how differently the second day of battle would have proceeded with Confederate artillery on Cemetery Hill, commanding the length of Cemetery Ridge and the Federal lines of communications on the Baltimore Pike…..”
This Blogger concurs with his Southern friends; an alive Stonewall Jackson would have made all the difference at Gettysburg; which is why the Almighty killed him off before Gettysburg.
The LOST CAUSE was lost because the Almighty did not want it to win.
SIDEBAR
Reynolds was a devout Protestant; he fell in love with a devout Catholic, Catherine Hewitt. They had met, in 1860, while sailing on the same ship around the Horn, from San Francisco to New York.
They became secretly engaged; for their families would have opposed the match.
Before his last farewell to arms, Catherine told Reynolds, that if he did not come back, she would never marry; and would join a convent.
Reynolds did not come back; a Reb musket ball hit him in the back of the ear.
Catherine joined the Daughters of Charity and became a nun.
Alas, Catherine had been a soldier's woman; a nun's vows were tough to keep for her. She left the convent two years later, and married a florist. She died in 1902.
CATHERINE and JOHN
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