“On to Cemetery Ridge!”

OVERRUNNING CEMETERY RIDGE on Meade’s left-center was now a classic case of now or never, because it would be too late for Confederate fortunes on July 3 if the capable Meade was allowed time to redeploy troops, reinforce weak spots, and align additional batteries to create an impregnable defensive position across the height. Therefore, with Barksdale gaining additional ground during his relentless push, this was the critical moment of the battle of Gettysburg.418

Indeed, if Barksdale failed to gain the strategic crest of Cemetery Ridge, then the basic formula was already in place to guarantee decisive Union success on July 3, as emphasized by Captain Haskell: “The enemy must advance to the attack up an ascent, and must therefore move slower, and be, before coming upon us, longer under our fire, as well as more exhausted. These, and some other things, rendered our position admirable for a defensive battle.”⁴¹⁹

Consequently, what the surviving Mississippi Brigade soldiers and their hard-hitting commanders now possessed was a narrow window that was the best opportunity to achieve victory during the three days of Gettysburg.⁴²⁰ Indeed, Lee’s greatest desire at Gettysburg was “to end the war in a single afternoon,” and Barksdale was now in hot pursuit of that greatest of Confederate goals, chasing down a dream that lay invitingly atop Cemetery Ridge.⁴²¹ This golden moment would never come again for either Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia, and Barksdale realized as much.⁴²² Before it was too late and before the precious moment faded away forever, the Mississippi Brigade must keep up its attack to exploit its extensive gains, before Meade rushed reinforcements into place to fill the gap.⁴²³ The wide gap that existed between the Second Corps’ left on Cemetery Ridge and the right of the Fifth Corps on Little Round Top was the passage through which the Mississippi Brigade must push to gain Cemetery Ridge’s crest and win a decisive success.424

Thanks to what the Mississippians had already achieved by this time, an increasing number of Federals believed that the day was lost. Sickles’ Third Corps had been overrun not only in the Peach Orchard and along the Emmitsburg Road Ridge, but also in the Wheatfield and the Devil’s Den, from northwest to southeast. More than any other brigade of Longstreet’s Corps, however, the Mississippi Brigade had succeeded in “ripping Sickles’ Third Corps to shreds …” Before his disbelieving eyes, Haskell was shocked by the sight of thousands of defeated Union troops continuing “to pour back to the rear in confusion, the enemy are close upon them—and among them organization is lost to a great degree, guns and caissons are abandoned and in the hands of the enemy; the Third Corps [was] literally swept from the field … ⁴²⁵

Longstreet, who had never wanted to launch the tactical offensive this afternoon, was not only more pessimistic but outright defeatist. He ordered no troops to follow-up behind Barksdale. Historian Noah Andre Trudeau said it best: “Even as Alexander was setting his guns into place [in the Peach Orchard], James Longstreet was making one of the hardest decisions of his life. Carefully evaluating the ebb and flow of the combat [unfortunately except in the Mississippi Brigade’s sector he] concluded that a victory was not possible [and he] now began to bring [the fighting] to an end.”⁴²⁶ Indeed, Longstreet had belatedly and only “directed [his] attacks with a heavy heart,” summarized historian Stephen W. Sears.⁴²⁷ But worst of all, Longstreet took no personal supervision to ensure that support troops, especially Wofford’s Georgia brigade, followed directly behind Barksdale in timely fashion to exploit tactical gains.⁴²⁸ As usual the consummate delegator, Lee also failed to closely supervise and manage the offensive effort, especially in supporting Barksdale’s dramatic breakthrough. Even before Barksdale was unleashed, Lee possessed no strategic reserve to follow-up on Barksdale’s success, or any other that might be achieved that day.⁴²⁹

Meanwhile, not aware of his reluctant, if not defeatist, corps commander’s having given up hope for success, Barksdale and Humphreys continued to wage their own war which brought out the best in both of them, encouraging their men toward Cemetery Ridge looming on the horizon. Before Barksdale and his three fast-moving regiments, the way east was obstacle free, with the land open, dipping down gradually from the Emmitsburg Road Ridge to the low ground of a wooded, brush-covered depression along the upper reaches of Plum Run.

Yet making his own decisions without a single word from Longstreet or McLaws, who remained focused on the sector below the Wheatfield Road, Barksdale was determined to keep his attack moving. Consequently, when regimental commanders Holder, 17th Mississippi, and Griffin, 18th Mississippi, dashed up to Barksdale and requested a few minutes to halt and realign ranks along the open, descending slope east of the Klingel House before descending all the way into Plum Run’s valley, Barksdale recoiled at the thought. He immediately rejected the notion without a moment’s deliberation. Instead he emphasized that now was the time to continue moving at a brisk pace and to keep up the pressure, because the enemy was “on the run.” Most of all, and much like Lee himself since July 1, in Longstreet’s estimation, not only was Barksdale’s “fighting blood up,” but also his well-honed aggressive instincts.430 Barksdale’s battle sense and tactical judgment were correct because time was now indeed of the essence. Most of all, Barksdale understood the urgency of continuing the attack at all costs without any delay. In the past, too many Confederate victories had slipped away at almost the last minute, despite the magnificent fighting of the men in the ranks, from the lack of aggressiveness and killer instinct of top commanders, and Gettysburg was no exception.

Barksdale was determined that no opportunity or time would be wasted this afternoon, because he possessed the long-awaited chance to bring about decisive victory before the day’s end. Yet mounted, General Barksdale merely barked to his two lieutenants, Holder and Griffin, that there would be no halt or rest for the troops, regardless of their condition or escalating losses. In a booming voice, Barksdale yelled his orders that equated to the correct tactical formula for decisive success: “Crowd them—we have them on the run [and] move on your regiments” toward Cemetery Ridge. Both soon to be cut down, Colonels Holder and Griffin returned to their respective regiments and led them onward down the slope toward Plum Run without a break.

Despite that McLaws’ reserve brigade, Wofford’s battle-hardened Georgians, had failed to provide support, and despite having suffered high losses, the Mississippians were not waiting for reinforcements from the rear or on either flank. Kershaw’s South Carolina brigade on Barks-dale’s right was fighting on a battle of its own, in cooperation with other units. And instead of being supported by Wofford, as McLaws appeared to originally intend, the Mississippians had instead lent him a hand. When Wofford finally advanced, his left barely skirting the Peach Or-chard’s southern edge, it had already been swept clean of Federal units— except for the piles of dead and wounded—by Barksdale’s troops, after some of the hardest fighting yet witnessed at Gettysburg.

And neither was the Mississippi Brigade now benefiting from the support of Wilcox’s Alabama brigade to its left, after Barksdale turned his three regiments east to advance down the Emmitsburg Road Ridge. Because of orders to advance in echelon, these Alabama Rebels were also not advancing simultaneously with Barksdale’s onrushing troops, or even within close supporting distance. The extent of the Mississippians’ rapid advance and swift success had taken them far ahead of the troops that should have supported them. Private Bailey George McClelen, 10th Alabama Infantry, Wilcox’s Brigade, wrote that although the Mississippi Brigade attacked to the Alabama brigade’s right, “yet a considerable interval [lay] between us.”

At this critical juncture, consequently, the attacking Mississippi Brigade continued to advance on its own in two separate wings and fight its own private war largely on its own hook. Both rampaging wings of Mississippi Rebels rolled down the long, gradually sloping ground that plunged ever-deeper toward Plum Run’s shallow valley and the lowest point at the creek bottom.431 Looking to the north, one of Wofford’s Georgia boys was astounded by the grisly sight of the havoc caused by the 21st Mississippi’s attack through the Peach Orchard and beyond: “The Yankee dead lay thick around their guns and dead and wounded horses literally cumbered the ground. “⁴³²

The Mississippi Brigade’s self-imposed mission of winning the war before sunset was now to begin in earnest, especially for Colonel Hum -phreys’ hard-hitting regiment. After sweeping over the Peach Orchard, the 21st Mississippi had out-flanked the foremost of General Caldwell’s rightmost units on the north, playing a key role in forcing them to retire from the Wheatfield, after swiftly gaining their exposed right and rear. One infantry unit early smashed by the 21st Mississippi was the 7th New Jersey, which had moved into the Peach Orchard sector from Colonel Burling’s Third Brigade, Humphreys’ Division, north of Trostle Lane to protect the batteries. This regiment had supported Captain Clark’s New Jersey battery in the rear north of the Wheatfield Road. Fighting a delaying action in a desperate, but failed, attempt to save the Federal batteries along the Wheatfield Road from the charging 21st Mississippi, the 7th New Jersey consisted of 275 men from the southern and northernmost counties of the Garden State.

This fine regiment contained a large number of ethnic soldiers from Switzerland, Prussia, and Austria, which contrasted sharply with Mississippi Brigade’s demographics, which contained few such “Aryan” warriors. Such widespread ethnicity was appropriately symbolic because the 7th New Jersey was commanded by twenty-four-year Colonel Louis Raymond Francine. The promising son of a French immigrant, the colonel possessed knowledge of the ways of war gained from not only an American military school but also from France’s most prestigious military academy, the L’Ecole Polytechnique in Paris. Francine and his 7th New Jersey had fought well at Chancellorsville, but the 21st Mississippi presented the regiment with its most formidable challenge to date.

While facing Kershaw’s South Carolinians in front, the New Jersey boys were hit hard on the right flank by Humphreys’ attackers. Colonel Francine was cut down with a mortal wound, along with the regiment’s lieutenant colonel and adjutant. So punishing was Humphreys’ onslaught that the Garden State regiment was nearly “overwhelmed and captured” by the Mississippians, who were destroying anything and everything caught in their path. To escape annihilation and after suffering 34 percent casualties, the battered 7th New Jersey retreated with the yelling Rebels close behind in pursuit.

After pushing aside all Peach Orchard infantry defenders and hurling back the support troops protecting the Wheatfield Road artillery, a new threat suddenly appeared as the 21st Mississippi continued to attack east roughly parallel to the Wheatfield Road. Astride the narrow, dirt road, Colonel Humphreys’ regiment surged onward down the gentle slope that led to Plum Run. At this time, Captain George B. Winslow’s First New York Light Artillery, Battery D, presented the next challenge to Humphreys. On high ground facing south toward the bloody Wheatfield to punish the South Carolinians, these New York guns, manned by seasoned artillerymen who won distinction at Chancellorsville, were aligned just south of the Wheatfield Road and along the Wheatfield’s northern edge. Commanding his battery of 12-pounder Napoleon guns with a good combat record that extended back to the Seven Days, Captain Winslow described his early no-win situation: “The enemy’s advance [Kershaw’s South Carolina troops] being within 25 yards of my left, and covered by woods and rocks, I ordered my left section limbered [but] Before this was accomplished, the enemy had advanced under cover of the woods upon my right, and was cutting down my men and horses. Having no supports in rear, and being exposed to a heavy fire of musketry in front and upon both flanks, I deemed it necessary to withdraw in order to save my guns.” With the 21st Mississippi on the move toward Winslow’s right flank and unleashing a descending flank fire, the desperate artillery captain was not able to get all of his guns out in time.

But first he posed a serious threat to the bulk of Barksdale’s Brigade, which had by now come on a line with him to the north, with the 17th Mississippi closest to the danger. As Private John Saunders Henley, Company A, 17th Mississippi, explained the tactical situation: “We had driven the Yankees about a mile from their first line [but] our ranks had grown so thin that orders had been given to close to the left, which left a space of at least 400 yards between the right of our division and Hood’s left [and now Captain Winslow’s New York battery which] could have destroyed our whole brigade.” This was because the New York guns were now on Barksdale’s flank, and with an enfilade fire could have devastated the brigade. Therefore, Colonel Holder, 17th Mississippi, “quickly saw the dilemma.”

The colonel “rushed to” the right and reached Humphreys on the Mississippi Brigade’s far flank. Holder informed Colonel Humphreys that Barksdale’s regiment, the 13th Mississippi in the line’s center, was about to be enfiladed by a right flank fire if Captain Winslow’s battery was not eliminated as soon as possible. Out of desperation, the colonel then requested of Humphreys, “If you will give me Company A of the 17th (under Capt. Jack Pulliam) I will take that battery before it can fire a gun.” Captain Andrew Jackson (“Jack”) Pulliam, commanding the Chickasaw County boys of the Buena Vista Guards, was a most resourceful officer. He was up for the challenge. While Captain Winslow and his New York artillerymen were occupied with the troublesome South Carolina troops in the Wheatfield sector, Colonel Humphreys now devised yet another one of his patented flank attacks from the west.

Clearly, the threat of the barking New York guns, which could turn to enfilade the right flank of Barksdale’s three regiments, now facing east, to the north, had to be quickly eliminated, if the victorious Mississippi Brigade was to exploit its already extensive gains. Humphreys quickly formulated a tactical plan, while Captain Winslow’s Empire State battery now stood “off to the right some three hundred yards [which meant that they could] enfilade [Barksdale’s] column,” wrote one correctly concerned Confederate officer. Therefore, the powder-stained soldiers of the 21st Mississippi prepared to launch yet another strike to capture additional Federal artillery.

Leading the charge, Humphreys once again continued to play his key role in bringing the Army of Northern Virginia ever-closer to decisive victory. Indeed, “in a flash ‘Right well, charge!’ rang above the roar of battle, and with the rattle of muskets, the clang of bayonets, and the shouts of victory Winslow’s Battery fell a prize to the sons of Mississippi.”

As Private Henley, age twenty-three, described the sweeping attack that captured the New York cannon after his Company A, occupying the 17th Mississippi’s right flank, detached itself from Holder’s regiment and moved south to link with the 21st Mississippi: “The order was given to take my company and Co. A of the 21st. The two companies wheeled into line under a terrible infantry fire and Col. Holder ordered us to take that battery before they could load the guns. The command was obeyed; not a cannon was fired, and not a man or horse was left to tell the tale. We left some of our company dead in the famous charge in which we captured and spiked the enemy’s guns. Col. Holder was critically wounded and rode off holding his protruding entrails in one hand and guiding his horse with the other. Joe Pulliam, of my company, was shot in the charge and lay all night in his own blood [while] my brother [Private Eldridge Newton Henley] was left on another part of the field. We went into the charge with 41 men, and left 22 killed and wounded outside of our lines.” Ironically, the capture of some of Captain Winslow’s New York Battery’s guns has been incorrectly attributed to Kershaw’s South Carolina brigade instead of to Colonel Humphreys.

After capturing the guns of Winslow’s Battery, Colonel Humphreys and his attackers “just then discovered another battery of five guns wheeling into position about 175 or 200 yards up the opposite slope, I at once ordered a charge,” as the colonel wrote of his desperate bid to eliminate another serious threat. Once again, the Mississippians charged southeast with shouts and flashing bayonets in an attempt to capture the next battery, which was caught unlimbering on the open slopes before the Trostle House.

Continuing to perform more like a brigade than a single regiment this afternoon, the 21st Mississippi continued to attack eastward astride the Wheatfield Road. As historian Edwin Coddington wrote, “These men were making it their business to seek out batteries, dash in, brush aside their infantry supports, and catch them on the flanks.” Despite being separated from the right of Barksdale’s three regiments just to the north and without support on either side, Colonel Humphrey’s regiment spearheaded the Mississippi Brigade’s most hard-hitting offensive effort.

Humphreys was at his best, demonstrating that he was a masterful and flexible tactician on a fast-paced battlefield shrouded in smoke and confusion, while leading his elite regiment as shock troops. Again and again in advancing independently as Barksdale’s hard-hitting right wing, the 21st Mississippi was instinctively drawn like a magnet to any Union battery in sight and within striking distance. In a southeast direction, Humphreys and his troops continued to surge ahead without supports, or counting costs, or stopping to fire a volley in textbook fashion, pushing aside all infantry support to strike the vulnerable batteries on their flank. Repeatedly, the Mississippi Rebels charged among any exposed Union guns and subdued Yankee artillerymen in fierce hand-to-hand combat. During some of the best fighting on July 2, Colonel Humphreys’ single regiment continued to push toward the great goal of reaching Cemetery Ridge. By the end of the day the 21st Mississippi was destined to capture “in all 15 guns.”433

And now yet another Union cannon was quickly gobbled-up by the 21st Mississippi. Captain Charles Phillips and his gunners of Company E, 5th Massachusetts Light Artillery, had frantically labored to get their field pieces, positioned along the Wheatfield Road, out of the path of Humphreys’ onslaught under Colonel McGilvery’s frantic orders, before it was too late. After Hart’s 15th New York Battery retired, Phillips’ right was exposed to the 21st Mississippi. However, one field piece remained behind, and the desperate New England artillerymen of McGilvery’s Reserve Artillery, under a long-range fire from Kershaw’s skirmishers to the south, hurriedly brought out a five-horse limber team. But the extra horsepower was quickly eliminated, with the 21st Mississippi Rebels, attacking southeastward, firing on the run, cutting down all five horses and determined officers like Lieutenant Henry D. Scott, who was knocked unconscious when a bullet smashed into his cheek, to ensure the capture of the Massachusetts field piece.⁴³⁴

After reaping one success after another, Humphreys and his victorious 21st Mississippi soldiers could now hardly believe the sight that was now before them to the east. “No other guns, or a solitary soldier could be seen before us—the Federal army was in twain,” wrote the elated colonel of the sight. A gaping hole had been torn in Meade’s left-center and the war’s end seemed in view as never before.⁴³⁵ At long last, it seemed to Humphreys that the moment of decisive victory had come. Like his top lieutenant to the south, Barksdale also possessed an open avenue leading to victory. Private Joseph Charles Lloyd, 13th Mississippi, never forgot the sight that indicated a resounding success: “We cleared the whole of our front from the enemy as far as I could see to the bushes around Plum Run.”436 He also explained how Barksdale’s three regiments had swept everything before them “until no enemy was seen in our front.”⁴³⁷

Colonel Humphreys and his triumphant 21st Mississippi men also now realized that above all else, their hard-won gains had to be exploited to the fullest, if decisive victory was to be won this afternoon. Consequently, he ordered his boys to turn the captured artillery pieces upon fresh lines of Union troops that were pushing toward Barksdale from the northeast. Now this extra firepower from the larger caliber, rifled, and more accurate Union guns could yet inflict damage on any rallied or counterattacking Federal troops opposing Barksdale’s three regiments to the north. However, Humphreys’ best efforts were thwarted. “I endeavored to turn my captured batteries on these lines,” he wrote, “but the Federals had carried off rammers and friction wires.” Consequently, it was now entirely up to the battle-hardened Mississippi infantrymen who would have to win it all for the Confederacy on their own with bayonets, musket-butts, and well-placed shots.⁴³⁸ And with Longstreet and McLaws yet focused on the sector below the Wheatfield Road and Barksdale attacking to the north, Humphreys continued to make his tactical decisions on his own and while on the move without hesitation.⁴³⁹

But boding ill for Humphreys’ fortunes, Sickles was now busily organizing resistance around the Trostle House, the New York City general’s Third Corps headquarters located around a quarter mile north of the Wheatfield. Situated about three-quarters of a mile from where Barks-dale had first launched his assault, this vital sector just west of Plum Run shortly became the vortex of the storm because of its key location: just below, or south, of the house, Trostle’s dirt lane that ran parallel to the Wheatfield Road some 900 feet to the south. From the farmer’s house, Trostle’s lane continued east across the north-south running Plum Run and on to Cemetery Ridge.

With the Mississippians tasting decisive victory as never before, having collapsed his remaining units on the Emmitsburg Road, Sickles was knocked out-of-action by “a freak wounding” to further increase Barksdale’s and Humphreys’ chances of success. While astride his horse on the open, slight knoll just before the Trostle barn, Sickles was hit by a glancing blow from a cannon ball fired from one of Alexander’s guns. The projectile struck the bellicose New Yorker in the right leg, near the knee. Humphreys described how “Sickles lost his leg by a shot from Moody’s battery—over our heads.” But the fire of the Madison Light Artillery also caused losses among the onrushing 21st Mississippi troops, revealing that Humphreys’ men had advanced farther and faster than anticipated by the Louisiana artillerymen blazing away from the Peach Orchard. With regret, Humphreys explained how Captain “Moody also killed some of my men by premature explosions” of shells.440

Meanwhile, fearing that he would fall into the Mississippians’ hands, Sickles “repeatedly urged us not to allow him to be taken,” in the words of the Third Corps artillery commander, Randolph.⁴⁴¹ Clearly, by this time and in an understatement, the Trostle House sector had “become too hot for a corps headquarters.”⁴⁴² Meanwhile, before it was too late, Federal batteries of Lieutenant Colonel Freeman McGilvery’s reserve artillery were in the process of assembling on the western slope of Cemetery Ridge—the future Plum Run Line about 200 yards east of the creek and along the gradual slope just before Cemetery Ridge’s crest—in a last-ditch effort to stop the Mississippians’ onslaught.

At the Peach Orchard, Alexander described how Union “batteries in abundance were showing up & troops too seemed to be marching & fighting everywhere. There was plenty to shoot at. One could take his choice & here my guns stood & fired until it was too dark to see anything more.”⁴⁴³ It wasn’t prudent for Alexander to advance his guns any further in the uncertain situation; therefore, in the bid to capture Cemetery Ridge’s crest, an ever-decreasing number of Mississippi infantrymen had to eliminate resurgent Union batteries on their own. Fortunately for Barksdale, Humphreys’ battle-hardened soldiers were the right men for the crucial job.

But for now, this was fundamentally a race between the Mississippi Rebels and Meade’s sizeable and powerful reserve artillery to see which would arrive first to gain permanent possession of Cemetery Ridge at Meade’s most vulnerable sector. All the while, the Mississippi Rebels of both wings continued surging east toward Cemetery Ridge, going for broke in the late afternoon light. However, the Mississippi Brigade, depleted from escalating losses but not in regard to fighting spirit, continued to attack on its own.

Performing well below what was required to reap a decisive success, neither Lee nor Longstreet ordered any Southern units forward to follow behind the Mississippians to exploit their already significant gains. A frustrated Adjutant Harman described in a letter how “Gen’l Barksdale sent back twice for reinforcements but as Picket’s [sic] division was not up and as the whole of McLaws’ and Hood’s divisions were actively engaged the asked for reinforcements were never sent.”444

With the Army of the Potomac on the ropes as never before on the most decisive day at Gettysburg, therefore, Barksdale remained in front and somehow yet untouched by bullets, encouraging his boys onward through the yellow fields of grain like a thoroughbred hunting hound chasing after a fox. After achieving their greatest success to date, the howling Mississippi Rebels surged onward, following their red battleflags in the relentless push toward Cemetery Ridge. Pennsylvania-born Jesse Bowman Young, who served on Sickles’ staff, described how the “sun was now dropping behind Seminary Ridge. Customarily mellow over these woods and farmlands, the waning rays were unable in many places to penetrate the alien screen of smoke and dust. The entire Union line, from north to south, was in retreat.” Indeed, a large, wide gap continued to exist along Cemetery Ridge, which was devoid of Union infantry regiments and rows of artillery, to the Trostle House’s rear and just north of Little Round Top to the Second Corps’ left.

One Federal wrote of the extent of the ever-growing disaster: “The evening, and our prospects, grew dark together. The 3rd Corps had been driven back, broken and shattered, its commander wounded and carried from the field and every man felt that the situation was grave.” Indeed, both wings of the Mississippi Brigade continued to surge nearer to the low-lying ground of Plum Run. Meanwhile, with battle-flags flying and Humphreys pointing the way, the 21st Mississippi charged through the near ripe grain fields southeastward and parallel to the Wheatfield Road.⁴⁴⁵

To Colonel Humphreys’ north, meanwhile, Barksdale and his three regiments overran additional Union guns, adding to their already impressive tally. Lieutenant John G. Turnbull’s Battery F and K, 3rd United States Artillery, had escaped from Barksdale’s flank attack up, and parallel to, the Emmitsburg Road, thanks to General Humphreys’ urgent orders to retreat. The battery retired nearly 400 yards through the open fields leading down the slope but never reached Plum Run. After some 45 artillery horses were shot down along the open slope, the battery of six Napoleon 12-pounders were trapped when Barksdale’s troops descended upon them with a yell. Another half dozen bronze cannon were captured by the 18th, 13th, and 17th Mississippi.446

At this moment, the golden opportunity for success had never been brighter for both onrushing wings of the Mississippi Brigade. Quite simply, not only “the crisis of the engagement had arrived,” in the words of Colonel McGilvery, but also the most critical moment in the Army of the Potomac’s life, which by this time seemed close to its end.⁴⁴⁷ In the 17th Mississippi’s ranks, an elated Private Abernathy never forgot the dramatic sight as they advanced “on and on until no enemy could be seen in our front.”⁴⁴⁸

Here, on the open slope amid the fields before reaching the dense underbrush along Plum Run, Barksdale’s troops halted near where Turnbull’s artillery pieces were captured, when they encountered a slight tributary of Plum Run that flowed east down the slope directly east of the Klingel House and just before entering the run. Hot, thirsty, and out of water, exhausted Mississippians halted to drink the cold, spring-fed waters, and fill canteens out of absolute necessity on one of the year’s hottest afternoons. Quite possibly, the Civil War might have been lost to the Confederacy at this little, unnamed creek because of precious time lost. Here, Barksdale also might have attempted to organize crews to man the captured guns and to allow his worn men time to catch their breath before continuing onward down the slope toward Plum Run.⁴⁴⁹

Clearly, Basksdale was now on the verge of reaping an unprecedented success. However, additional good soldiers, both officers and enlisted men, had been culled from the Mississippi Brigade’s ranks. The losses continued to steadily pile up, and there were no replacements to bolster the thinned ranks. Some of the Mississippi Brigade’s finest officers had been cut down, including Colonel Carter who commanded the 13th Mississippi. Colonel Holder, the former Mississippi state legislator who represented Pontotoc County and commanded the 17th Mississippi, also suffered a severe wound. Carter was “wounded in the stomach. His entrails were shot out, and he held them in [while] my crippled brother got him on his horse, and led the horse back to the hospital,” lamented Private Henley of the horror.⁴⁵⁰ Despite doubting that he would ever see his farm and family again, Colonel Holder survived his wounds and lived another two decades. However, in the end, the colonel’s injuries suffered at Gettysburg eventually led to his death.⁴⁵¹

During such a lengthy assault over such a wide stretch of open ground, the Mississippi Brigade’s enlisted ranks had also suffered severely. Private John Alemeth Byers, a planter’s son of the Panola Vindicators (Company H), 17th Mississippi, was cut down. Byers, whose black servant was named Gilbert, fell to an exploding shell, taking multiple wounds in the neck, head, and shoulder. A handsome, blond-haired, blueeyed youth who had long made the farm girls of Panola County swoon, Private Byers, age twenty-seven, survived the serious wounds, only to be killed at Cedar Creek in the Shenandoah Valley in October 1864.452

And David H. Williams, Pettus Guards, 13th Mississippi, went down with a fractured skull. As he wrote: “I was shot down in twenty feet of the cannon and reported dead.”⁴⁵³ The Mississippi Brigade was well on its way to losing half of its men on this afternoon: the inevitable price for smashing through the Third Corps, capturing rows of field pieces, and pushing aside one Union regiment after another.⁴⁵⁴ But what continued to loom before them was the best opportunity of the battle: a broad, open stretch of ground for more than “1,500 yards, between [Little] Round Top and the left of the 2nd Corps, the lines were open [and] there were no reserves,” penned one Union officer of the crisis.⁴⁵⁵

While the Mississippians continued to advance, a desperate General Hunt attempted to patch together an ad hoc defensive line of artillery just below Cemetery Ridge’s crest to stop Barksdale’s rampage. Such a new defensive line was urgently needed while what was left of Hum-phreys’ division, under pressure from Barksdale and his three regiments, continued to stream rearward north of the Trostle farm, while the shattered remains of Graham’s brigade continued to fall back across the Trostle farm to the south.

With so many Federal gunners and artillery horses shot down, meanwhile, the battered remains of several Union batteries retired east and also northeast over the open fields below the Trostle House to escape Humphreys’ attackers, who seemingly could not be stopped by either artillery or infantry. Some guns, like Lieutenant Turnbull’s battery to the north where natural growth along the creek was heavier than around the Trostle House, had been unable to retire across Plum Run. Lined with trees and thick underbrush that hampered the Union flight, this creek was not wide but was relatively deep at spots, where silent, clear pools of water formed.

Heavily-whiskered Lieutenant Colonel Freeman McGilvery, a thirty-seven-year-old Maine seaman who had sailed around the world for two decades, was about to rise to the occasion while commanding the First Volunteer Brigade, Artillery Reserve. Carrying a heavy burden, the Scots-Irishman’s greatest challenge was now to make sure that the charging Mississippians would not deliver a death-blow to the reeling Army of the Potomac.

Fortunately for the Union, Lieutenant Colonel McGilvery knew how to inspire his artillerymen to greater exertions during this crisis. He possessed “a tolerable appreciation of the value of discipline in situations” of importance. Most important, McGilvery retained “the coolness and rapidity of thought and action … at critical moments.” As the 6th Maine Battery’s commanding officer, he had won distinction at the battle of Cedar Mountain on August 9, 1862 in Culpeper County, Virginia. During the battery’s baptismal fire, McGilvery and his Maine cannoneers, in one general’s opinion, had “saved the division from being destroyed or taken prisoners.” At Second Manassas, despite being without infantry support, the battery earned distinction as the last Union artillery unit to depart the field. Such a distinguished record of battlefield performances paved the way for McGilvery gaining command of the First Volunteer Brigade, Reserve Artillery, Army of the Potomac in mid-May 1863. Barely a month later, the capable McGilvery won his coveted lieutenant colonel’s rank.

McGilvery, like the army’s artillery chief, General Hunt, was now in the process of having his finest day on July 2. He commanded a large part of the army’s mighty reserve artillery, the crucial last ace in Meade’s ever-weakening hand. Fortunately, Hunt already had made this “powerful” reserve even more formidable by having recently ordered that each battery should carry an additional twenty rounds that exceeded regulation limitations. Most significant, Meade had recently allowed Hunt the all-important command independence that had been denied to him by Hooker, and the energetic Hunt made the most of the opportunity.

In frantic haste, McGilvery attempted to make a last-ditch defensive stand at the Trostle farm to buy precious time for the creation of the Plum Run Line. Here a line of Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and New York guns were turned west in a final desperate bid to slow the Mississippians’ attack. However, Humphreys allowed no time for McGilvery to orchestrate his defensive stand. With charging Rebels closing in on both his right (Barksdale) and left flank (Humphreys), McGilvery wisely ordered his surviving guns rearward to an excellent high ground position that eventually became the hastily patched together line on Cemetery Ridge’s west slope.

While McGilvery’s other batteries along the Wheatfield Road hurriedly pulled out before Humphreys’ charge, six 12-pounders of the lone 9th Massachusetts Battery were threatened below, or south of, the Wheatfield Road by Kershaw’s South Carolinians and Wofford’s Georgians pressuring his left and Humphreys’ Mississippians rapidly descending on his right. By this time, the 9th Massachusetts Battery “alone remained after the 3d Corps had been driven from its position—both infantry and artillery,” wrote Captain John Bigelow of the crisis situation. Before the Massachusetts guns were overwhelmed, Lieutenant Colonel McGilvery shouted to Bigelow, “All of Sickles’ men had withdrawn and I was alone on the field, without supports … limber up and get out” before it was too late.

Bigelow’s Massachusetts gunners were positioned along the Wheatfield Road, roughly halfway between the Peach Orchard and the Wheatfield. Here, the 9th Massachusetts gunners had punished Kershaw’s South Carolina soldiers, especially those troops on the enfiladed left flank, and the Georgians under General Paul J. Semmes. Unfortunately for Humphreys and his 21st Mississippi, one Georgia soldier described the fateful decision that ensured the Mississippi Brigade’s continued lack of support, “We were going toward a Peach Orchard, but were ordered to right oblique.” Therefore, Semmes’ Georgia brigade had attacked the Wheatfield beyond supporting distance of Humphreys, coming under Bigelow’s scorching enfilade fire that ensured that a good many young men and boys would never see the Peach State again. Very likely, General Semmes was mortally wounded on the embattled Rose Farm by the fire from Bigelow’s New England gunners, before they withdrew from the Wheatfield Road sector to escape the 21st Mississippi’s onslaught.

Acting in concert together to thwart Confederate ambitions this afternoon, Generals Meade and Hunt already had made most excellent use of their artillery reserve, thanks not only to its superior strength but also to the advantage of interior lines. They had initially ordered McGilvery’s artillery reserve of four batteries to bolster the left center of Sickles’ line along the Wheatfield Road southeast of the Peach Orchard, filling the wide gap between the Peach Orchard and the Wheatfield. But after the 21st Mississippi smashed and then swept through the salient angle with a tornado’s force, McGilvery had ordered his batteries to retire to the rel-ative safety of Cemetery Ridge. As fate would have it, Captain Bigelow’s 9th Massachusetts Battery was the last unit along the Wheatfield Road to receive orders to retire.

Young Captain Bigelow described his quandary, for his battery’s exposed “position at that moment was indeed critical [because] If [we] stopped firing, Kershaw’s sharpshooters would quickly empty every saddle; while only two hundred yards on [the] right, extending to [our] right and rear, as far as one could see, was Barksdale’s Confederate brigade, flushed with the victory which their stubborn fighting had won at the Peach Orchard, and preparing to cut [us] off.” To Bigelow who knew that limbering up his guns to withdraw would allow Humphreys’ men the opportunity to rush and capture his artillery, therefore the only remaining solution had been to connect “the trail of guns to limbers, with a rope or prolonge, in order to keep alignment correct, with a slow, sullen fire [to allow] the recoil to withdraw guns, keeping the sharpshooters back with canister, and ricocheting solid shot through the ranks of Barksdale’s men. Thus, one thousand yards in advance of our own lines, without infantry support or a single friendly shot from any of our batteries, with the enemy advancing on our front and flank,” the Massachusetts guns retired northeast over the open ground toward the whitewashed Trostle House.

Sergeant Baker recalled how “as we commenced retiring, Barksdale’s brigade emerged from the Peach Orchard about 400 yards on our right, and halted to reform their lines,” before resuming the attack toward the Trostle House defensive position. In a bad fix, Captain Bigelow described how there were “no friendly supports, of any kind, [that] were in sight; but Johnnie Rebs in great numbers. Bullets were coming into our midst from many directions and a Confederate battery added to our difficulties.” While directing his “long arm” unit for the 400 yards northeast across bullet-swept open fields and a scattering of rocks and boulders toward the Trostle House and down through the fields along the open eastern slope of the Emmitsburg Road Ridge, Captain Bigelow’s six smoothbore, bronze 12-pounder Napoleons fired both west toward Barksdale’s attackers and south toward Kershaw’s South Carolinians, inflicting damage on both.

An aristocratic, blue-blood raised in the Boston suburb of Brighton, John Bigelow was only twenty-three, but he looked and acted older than his years. At age sixteen, he had entered Harvard in the autumn of 1857, but then left the classroom as a senior in April 1861 to serve his country. He was the first member of his class at Harvard College to wear the blue. At Malvern Hill, Bigelow had first viewed the potential of Union artillery, and was cited for gallantry. Despite taking a wound, he had ignored the pain and continued to personally serve a gun to inspire his artillerymen.

Bigelow was then given command of the 9th Massachusetts Light Artillery before the Pennsylvania Campaign. He restored the discipline of a unit demoralized by garrison duty at the nation’s capital and too long near the notorious sin binds, bordellos—both black (such as “Misses Seal & Brown” on Marble Alley) and white (such as the one operated by Ann Benton on Tin Can Alley)—and the free-flowing whiskey houses of Washington, D.C. More than anyone else, Captain Bigelow had honed the 9th Massachusetts Battery into a disciplined and highly motivated outfit. Bigelow was just the kind of dynamic officer who would stand firm during a crisis situation, despite the fact that the 9th Massachusetts received its baptism fire on July 2. This fine New England battery had only recently joined the army to become part of McGilvery’s Artillery Reserve during its push north to Pennsylvania.

Bigelow’s privileged upbringing and splendid Harvard education masked a toughness that matched the hardy working class boys who manned his guns. Consequently, the young captain was the right man for facing the day’s most serious crisis. Indeed, in many ways, “the outcome of the battle [now] hinged on the actions of a handful of cannoneers” from the Bay State. Less than one hundred Massachusetts men now stood between Humphreys’ Mississippi Rebels and their lofty objective of penetrating the main battle line of the Army of the Potomac.

Captain Bigelow never forgot the sight of the onslaught of the victorious Mississippians, who “had come through and were forming a line 200 yards distant, extending back, parallel with the Emmitsburg Road.” Indeed, Colonel Humphreys had spied Bigelow’s Massachusetts guns retiring northeast and unlimbering before the home of Abraham and Catherine Trostle just south of east-west running Trostle Lane. As usual, Humphreys wanted to possess these guns as soon as possible, but this meant pushing northeast across open ground to Plum Run and closer to Barksdale, who now approached Plum Run’s environs from the east.

Humphreys now acted on well-honed instincts. Most of all, he knew the necessity of not only keeping his troops on the move but, more important, to immediately exploit any existing opportunity as quickly as possible. The astute Mississippi Delta colonel reasoned correctly that the best way to assist Barksdale was to achieve additional gains to the south. Humphreys now saw Bigelow’s New England battery alone and isolated amid a “natural amphitheater” without infantry support and thus vulnerable: a golden opportunity that needed to be exploited without hesitation. Therefore the 21st Mississippi’s commander dispatched no courier north to Barksdale to request reinforcements or instructions about when and where he should strike. Humphreys knew what he had to do.

As throughout this afternoon, Humphreys wasted no time, with the great goal of Cemetery Ridge yet looming just before his eyes, a tantalizing incentive to keep his troops pushing onward to reap the ultimate gain before the sun went down. In Humphreys’ own words: “I discovered that a federal battery to my right had rallied and was annoying Kershaw to our right and rear, and would soon turn on Barksdale’s brigade as enfilade fire. I immediately wheeled the 21st to the right and headed directly against the battery.” One Mississippi soldier analyzed the tactical wisdom of Humphreys’ bold decision to attack without hesitation, consultation, or orders: “He, guided by soldierly genius, [planned to catch] Bigelow’s gunners unprepared, where had he waited two minutes he would have had their shrapnel and canister pouring into his flank.”

Humphreys later described his decision to eliminate the final Massachusetts Battery under Bigelow, after the withdrawal of Captain Phillips’ 5th Massachusetts Light Artillery: “When we broke Sickles’ line, Barksdale inclined to the left and Kershaw to the right, and when Barksdale emerged from the Peach Orchard, his right flank was on your right flank 200 yards off. I saw at once our peril in leaving you [Bigelow] to enfilade our line. I promptly wheeled the 21st Mississippi Volunteers to the right, and charged down on you [which] afforded infinite relief to Kershaw’s Brigade, with whose sharp-shooters on your left front you were engaged.” However, the onrushing 21st Mississippi yet took fire from Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Michigan troops of Colonel William S. Tilton’s brigade, Fifth Corps, from the Trostle’s Woods. Before those woods just south of the Trostle House, Corporal James J. Donnelly picked off a 21st Mississippi color bearer with a well-placed shot from his carbine.

With the high-pitched “Rebel Yells” of Humphreys’ men growing more audible on the other side of the grassy rise, or swell, that sheltered the 9th Massaschusetts gunners, amid the slight depression, southwest of the Trostle House and about a hundred yards distant, the four Massachusetts guns on the center (guns no. 1 and 2) and right (guns no. 5 and 6) fired solid shot low along the open ground. Bigelow and his gunners could not see the 21st Mississippi but knew its general location from the piercing war-cries. Meanwhile, guns no. 3 and 4 fired at Kershaw’s skirmishers to the south. The cannonballs from the four guns bounced over the swell, or “bowl rim,” before them to strike the onrushing 21st Mississippi boys on the swell’s other side. This unconventional tactic was the deadly game of “bowling solid shot towards Barksdale’s men,” recalled Bigelow. Hurled mostly in a southwest direction, the ricocheting 12-pounder shot bounded along the ground and then bounced up to hit Humphreys’ soldiers, surging northeastward across open ground, in the legs, angles, and thighs. The iron balls crushed bone and ended the lives and promising futures of young men and boys who never saw home again, knocking over Mississippians like ten-pens in a nightmarish bowling alley.

All of Captain Bigelow’s cannon were now poised to meet the Mississippians at the northern edge of a small field or pasture just below, or south, of the two-story Trostle House just on the lane’s north side. The row of six field pieces stood unlimbered almost directly opposite the white colored house and the large red barn just to the west. The Trostle barn, like the Sherfy barn captured earlier by the 18th Mississippi, was located on commanding ground, looming above the farmer’s house to the west. Behind Bigelow’s guns, a lengthy stone wall ran southward from higher to lower ground in the marshy area along Plum Run that flowed in that direction to enter a wide, grassy meadow of grazing land for livestock. Here, in an angle formed by and surrounded by stone walls, amid the rock-strewn corner of a small pasture adjacent to the Trostle barn and house, these hardy New Englanders bravely made their last stand in this fence corner, before the fierce onslaught of the 21st Mississippi attackers.

Bigelow’s Massachusetts artillerymen had first planned to retire to Cemetery Ridge until Lieutenant Colonel McGilvery suddenly dashed up on a blood-streaked horse hit by four bullet holes. He yelled, “Captain Bigelow, there is not an infantryman back of you along the whole line from which Sickles moved out; you must remain where you are and hold your position at all hazards, and sacrifice your battery, if need be, until at least I can find some batteries to put in position and cover you. The enemy are coming down on you now.” Before riding off to gather his hard-hit artillery units in the hope of creating a defensive stand east of the Trostle House on the excellent defensive ground of Cemetery Ridge, McGilvery shouted a final command to the Massachusetts gunners that revealed their precarious situation: “Give them grape and canister!”

Indeed, revealing the golden opportunity yet open to the Mississippi Brigade, McGilvery rode back to Cemetery Ridge in a desperate attempt to form his new defensive line on high ground. McGilvery realized quite correctly that above all else “the crisis of the engagement had now arrived.” Only drastic action could save the day during the most serious crisis ever faced by the Army of the Potomac. Therefore, McGilvery concluded that it was now necessary above all else “to sacrifice his Batteries, if necessary, in an effort to stay the enemy’s advance into the opening in the Lines.”

Here, at the German farmer’s house a mile and a half south of Gettysburg, Bigelow’s 9th Massachusetts Light Artillery made one of the most important last stands at Gettysburg, after all other Union artillery pieces of the Peach Orchard and Wheatfield Road line had been either captured or escaped rearward. Consequently, Bigelow was directed to “hold his position at the Trostle farm, whatever the cost” to buy precious time, or the Mississippi Rebels would overrun Cemetery Ridge’s crest, where no Union infantry or artillery yet stood. Here the New Englanders made their last-ditch stand at the point where the two stone walls met just south of the dusty Trostle Lane and the Trostle house. The New England guns were formed in a tight defensive quarter circle with the stone walls to their rear. Bigelow realized that “the sacrifice of the command was asked in order to save the line.”456

From his vantage point atop the high ground of Cemetery Ridge to the north, Captain Haskell contemplated the unthinkable: the realization that Meade’s Army was now facing decisive defeat. In his letter, Haskell asked the key question upon which the battle’s outcome and the Union’s fate now hung by the narrowest of margins, thanks to Barksdale’s slashing attack: with “That Corps [Sickles] gone, what is there between the Second Corps, and these yelling masses of the enemy?”⁴⁵⁷ The answer to Haskell’s question upon which the fate of two American republics now hinged was: only a mere handful of feisty New England gunners of Big -elow’s 9th Massachusetts Light Artillery.

With its left-center pierced by swarming Mississippians, the hard-hit Army of the Potomac, hovering on the verge of decisive defeat, now faced its supreme moment of crisis and its darkest hour to date, setting the stage for the most important artillery action of the war. Here, the Massachusetts cannon stood firm on its own, after the other mauled Union batteries had retired from the Emmitsburg and Wheatfield Road and toward Cemetery Ridge and safety. These retreating Yankee artillerymen were possessed by a single impulse: to get as far away from the Mississippi Brigade’s relentless attackers as possible. Therefore, the lone Massachusetts battery was in the most important and tightest of spots. As penned Captain Bigelow of his great dilemma, our “retreat under fire was cut off by the stone wall [and our] flanks were exposed and a swell of the ground in front [would allow] Barksdale’s advancing line to approach within fifty yards.”

Indeed, Bigelow most of all now realized that “the task seemed superhuman, for the knoll allowed the enemy to approach as it were under cover within 50 yards of my front, while I was very much cramped for room and my ammunition was greatly reduced” by this time. In addition, the stubborn New England gunners were faint from exertion and the heat, and in overall bad shape after fighting for two hours and suffering heavy casualties. Hence, wrote one cannoneer, in this most disadvantageous and vital of situations, “we were left in a critical position,” as he knew that no Union troops stood atop Cemetery Ridge’s strategic crest to his rear.

Given a directive from their superior who had “literally ordered their destruction,” the stoic, young Massachusetts gunners knew that they had to somehow buy precious time, so that the formation of a new defensive line on high ground to the rear could be cobbled together in time. The sprawling gap left in Meade’s line by the Third Corps’ rout had widened into a great chasm in a defensive line that already stretched for three miles. North of the isolated 9th Massachusetts guns, the Second Corps’ left marked the north end of the gaping hole in the Union lines, while the Fifth Corps’ right on Little Round Top marked the gap’s south end. All the while, hundreds of yards north of the Trostle house, the remains of the battered units of Humphreys’ division continued to retire toward the Second Corps’ left on Cemetery Ridge. Mauled Federal units retired through this gap, but did not yet rally, and no fresh or strong blue lines of troops were now aligned against the onrushing Mississippi tide.

When Lieutenant Colonel McGilvery rode back to Cemetery Ridge, he was stunned to find no infantry support for his cannon because the Third Corps “had left the field.” Indeed, he had expected Birney’s division to rally on Cemetery Ridge, to which he could pull back his guns and continue the fight in support of the infantry [but] Riding up the ridge and looking to his rear, he could see no organized body of troops for many hundreds of yards” along Cemetery Ridge.458 Consequently, the strategic crest behind the Trostle farm was “fearfully unprotected.” The 9th Massachusetts Battery’s last stand at the Trostle farm was in essence now “the pivotal point in the action of the second day” at Gettysburg, because neither Union artillery nor blue soldiers stood in line to the rear to defend Cemetery Ridge’s strategic crest on Meade’s left-center, which lay there for Barksdale’s taking.

Captain Bigelow realized the full extent of the crisis. He described the now undeniable reality that set the stage for one of the most dramatic clashes of the war, because by this time “the way was open for Barksdale’s Confederate Brigade … to enter, unopposed, our lines between Little Round Top and the left of the Second Corps.” Indeed, “the infantry of Graham’s, and the three regiments of [Burling’s] Brigade, in falling back, retreated across the fields north of Trostle’s, leaving a wide gap between the left of Brewster’s Brigade of Humphrey’s Division and the troops down by the Wheatfield—a gap which the 9th Mass. Battery was to hold” at all costs. Whatever Bigelow and his cannoneers might accomplish in slowing down the hard-charging Mississippi Rebels was now absolutely “critical in determining the outcome of the fighting on the second day of the battle.”

Not long after enlistment, the 9th Massachusetts battery’s officers had hired a Frenchman who was a “master of the broadsword” for personal lessons. Hence, the Massachusetts officers were trained for the kind of close-quarter combat that was about to swirl over the Trostle farm. Some of these mostly Protestant New England gunners had clashed with the Italians, mostly Catholics, especially Captain Achille De Vecchi. But these Massachusetts artillerymen, thanks to Captain Bigelow’s efforts, were now united, and ready for their greatest challenge to date. Bigelow was determined to hold firm, because such a “long stretch of our lines was open from the Round Tops to the left of the Second Corps.”459

Assisting Captain Bigelow in this crucial situation was First Lieutenant Christopher Erickson, age twenty-eight, who commanded one section of guns. Born in Norway, Erickson had migrated to the United States in 1854 at age nineteen, and was married with small children. The former cabinet and furniture maker had gained early experience in a prewar state militia artillery unit. Erickson was now Captain Bigelow’s trusty “right arm.” He was popular with the New Englanders, having led the battery with skill before Bigelow took command. Most important for the dramatic showdown with Colonel Humphreys, he had drilled the Massachusetts gunners with a zeal only matched by his burning religious faith. Erickson was the model Christian warrior, who carried the Holy Bible into battle. At this moment, the mounted Erickson was considered “the personification of a Centaur.”

One proud Massachusetts cannoneer wrote that “we have got the best Battery,” thanks in part due to Erickson’s tireless efforts. He had been wounded at the battery’s first position along the Wheatfield Road by a small piece of shrapnel from a shell fired from one of Alexander’s guns. Nevertheless, he gamely remained in action with the battery. Captain Bigelow had ordered Erickson, pierced in the chest, rearward. But this modern-day Viking in blue soon returned and then boldly “sent word to me that he would again take charge of his section.” Bigelow was delighted by the news.

The 9th Massachusetts Light Artillery was destined to earn the distinction as “the battery that save[d] the Union army” and “save[d] the day” by slowing the Mississippi Brigade’s onslaught. “We were all calm and many realized that perhaps it was the last time we should be all together,” wrote Sergeant Baker. In preparation for meeting the fast-approaching storm from Mississippi, Captain Bigelow wisely barked out orders to hurriedly take ammunition from limbers and stack shell and canister piles beside the guns. Indeed, no time could be wasted by the New England artillerymen in loading and firing, when 21st Mississippi attackers were in close range. Then, the young captain screamed above the high-pitched chorus of “Rebel Yells,” for his gunners to “double shot with canister and lay the contents of your limber chests by your guns for quick work.”460

Without either artillery or infantry support on either side or behind, it was up to these New Englanders to somehow “hold that line at all hazards until the Union line could be reformed in his rear.” Indeed, neither the Plum Run Line nor the Cemetery Ridge Line, which would be later formed after the Plum Run Line, east of the Trostle House had yet taken shape, while the battered Third Corps units continued to fall back. Cemetery Ridge’s crest beyond the Trostle farm remained entirely devoid of Union troops.

Meanwhile, the Massachusetts guns made their last stand inside the confining angle of farmer Trostle’s white stone walls and without a quick means to escape the 21st Mississippi’s onslaught. Nevertheless, amid the fence corner, the New England boys stood firm, while Humphreys’ Rebels descended upon them from the southwest with wild yells. Lieutenant Richard S. Milton’s two-gun section on the left roared defiance south at the pesky South Carolina skirmishers and sharpshooters. Meanwhile, the remaining pair of sections under Lieutenants Erickson and Whitaker on the center and right awaited for the moment when Colonel Humphreys’ soldiers charged over the top the open, grass-covered rise that formed a crest line about 50-60 yards distant and southwest of the Trostle House, before they unleashed their fire at close range. With the Mississippi attackers now closing in after Humphreys shifted his ranks to strike more directly from the west and with Kershaw’s South Carolina sharpshooters blasting away from the belt of woods to the south, a desperate Captain Bigelow shouted out a new directive. He ordered the four guns of Erickson’s and Whitaker’s sections to be crammed with double-loads of canister. Then Bigelow directed his men to cut “the fuses of your case shot and shell so that they would explode near the muzzle of your guns.” Bigelow’s timely order ensured that the maximum punishment would be inflicted upon Humphreys’ attackers.

Now the highly-disciplined Massachusetts gunners stood firm amid the bright green, luxurious pasture of farmer Trostle, waiting for the Mississippi Rebels to come pouring over the rise. Doing their duty for God and country, the steady New Englanders remained surprisingly calm while standing in position around their assigned bronze field pieces. All the while, the high-pitched chorus of “Rebel Yells” grew louder from the grass-covered rise’s other side. It seemed as if Hades itself had unleashed these unearthly hellions, who were rapidly descending upon the band of gunners like demons from the underworld. Standing tall beside their quarter circle of Napoleon 12-pounders, the New Englanders felt it their righteous duty to destroy as many of these Deep South soldiers, who were equally determined to destroy the 9th Massachusetts Battery, as possible.

Bigelow, the articulate, polished Harvard man, recalled how “hardly were the four guns double-shotted before the enemy appeared above a swell of the ground about fifty yards on my right and front.” Captain Bigelow finally ordered, “Fire!” when the rising row of Mississippi heads and chests of a brownish-hued mass first became visible beyond the crest. Arranged close together within the angle’s confines, the four Massachusetts cannon on the battery’s center and right fired as one. Lethal blasts sprayed hundreds of canister balls into Humphreys’ ranks, cutting down clumps of Mississippi boys, who were literally blown apart at such close range. One Mississippi attacker was hit by five pieces of canister which exploded from a bronze barrel. Captain Bigelow never forgot the awful destructiveness of that first salvo that unleashed a sheet of flame from his 12-pounders, “waiting till they were breast high, my battery was discharged at them every gun loaded [and] with double shotted canister and solid shot, after which through the smoke [we] caught a glimpse of the enemy, they were torn and broken but still advancing.”

Bigelow described how 21st Mississippi attackers “opened a fearful musketry fire, men and horses were falling like hail.” On the opposite, or south, side of the road from the Trostle house, the six 12-pounder Napoleons were quickly reloaded by the expert New England gunners. Ensuring a most concentrated fire, this compact arrangement of guns formed a mini-salient, with the stone wall situated behind the Massachusetts guns, which faced south and west to defy lofty Mississippi ambitions. The most formidable side of this innovative New England artillery defensive array faced west and northwest toward the attacking 21st Mississippi soldiers, who descended upon the battery’s center and right sections with high-pitched Rebel Yells. Meanwhile, in this symbolic standoff between New England and the Deep South, the remaining Massachusetts guns, faced southwest at an angle to the others.

South of the Trostle Lane, Humphrey’s right poured over the swell, while his left continued to charge down the open, sloping ground leading across the fields to the valley of Plum Run and straight toward the concentrated firepower of the blazing 9th Massachusetts guns from the west. A most inspiring sight, the broad expanse of the open slope of Cemetery Ridge could be seen beyond the Trostle House by the attackers. Contrary to Captain Bigelow’s belief that he was being attacked by a brigade, the number of men still standing in the 21st Mississippi was probably less than 300 by now. With only a relative handful of Kershaw’s South Carolina sharpshooters providing assistance with a light harassing fire from the south, it was once again up to the 21st Mississippi to eliminate yet another Union battery which lay in its path, before the guns could escape to Cemetery Ridge.

Despite facing a row of angry cannon and racing across Trostle’s open fields, the swiftly-advancing 21st Mississippi had been most fortunate in having benefited from the grassy swell which had screened the attack until only about 50-60 yards from the 9th Massachusetts guns. As Sergeant Baker explained the tactical disadvantage which had allowed the Mississippians to close in without paying a higher price while surging across open fields: “The situation was not one an artillery officer would have chosen, as the ground on our front and right was much higher, and we could not see more than fifty or sixty yards in those directions; neither was there room enough to work six guns at usual intervals; and the ground was broken by boulders, with heavy stone walls in our rear and left, with a gateway about in the rear of the second piece from the right.”

With its immediate retreat farther east toward Cemetery Ridge blocked by the stone wall that spanned for considerable length southward behind Bigelow’s guns to the east, and its forward field of fire limited by the swell, the unsupported 9th Massachusetts guns were badly boxed in. Between the Trostle house and barn, only a small gate in the stone wall offered a limited means of withdrawal, a narrow escape hatch entirely unsuitable for a battery’s retreat with an onrushing opponent so close. With all six cannons crammed close together in a narrow corner of the angle, and without an adequate avenue of retreat, it was now do or die for Captain Bigelow’s boys. The stone wall, the narrow gateway, and rocks and boulders ensured that there could be no easy retreat or escape from the Mississippians’ sharpened bayonets, and increased anger at losing so many comrades.

The punishment delivered upon the 21st Mississippi along the swell’s crest was most severe, and a good many more of Humphreys’ boys went down to rise no more. Sergeant Baker described how “as soon as the enemy appeared over the ridge, they were received with a vigorous fire, some of which was with double canister.” Incredibly, when the thick palls of sulfurous smoke finally cleared away, the New Englanders were presented with an unbelievable sight that took their collective breath away: despite the slaughter and clumps of fallen soldiers, piled in dead and wounded in bloody clumps and writhing on the ground in pain all across the swell, the 21st Mississippi’s survivors continued to attack. With red flags waving through the drifting smoke, the Mississippi Rebels rolled onward as if nothing in the world could stop them. Captain Bigelow never forgot the unnerving sight: “They were too near the prize to be stopped, and pressed on and received our fire.”

But now trying to slow the onrushing Mississippians was like attempting to stop a flood. To escape the worst fires and damage from the double loads of canister and to adapt to yet another tactical challenge literally on the run, Humphreys shifted his regiment toward the left, easing toward the Trostle House and the New England battery’s vulnerable right flank. All the while, the sharpshooting Mississippians continued to hurriedly load and shoot, laying down a scorching fire. They systematically shot down the battery’s horses by the dozen, and swept the gunners, caissons, limbers, and cannon with a deadly hail of lead. As ordered by Bigelow, desperate Union artillerymen cut fuses so that shells would explode almost before leaving the bronze muzzles of the 12-pounders. The battery’s red and white battle-flag, decorated with the Massachusetts coat of arms, that had been presented by the patriotic ladies of West Roxbury in Boston’s southwest corner, was riddled with bullets. A precious unit emblem of Bigelow’s gunners, this colorful banner provided a tempting, irresistible target to the onrushing Mississippi Rebels.

Seemingly always in the right spot to inflict the most damage this afternoon, the 21st Mississippi soldiers gained the vulnerable right flank, Lieutenant Alexander H. Whitaker’s section, of the fire-spitting Massa-chusetts cannon. Captain Bigelow was horrified to suddenly see that the Mississippians’ rapidly advancing line now “extended far beyond our right flank, and the 21st Miss swung without opposition and came in from that direction, pouring in a heavy fire all the while.” On the run, the Mississippi soldiers raked the Bay State cannoneers with a deadly fire from the north.

A perfect target while shouting orders before his fast-working cannoneers, Bigelow described how, “I sat on my horse calling the men [as] six sharpshooters on our left [were] taking deliberate aim at” him and his bugler. Captain Bigelow fell when hit in the side with two minie balls. As he described, “I stopped two, and my horse two more of their bullets.” Also mounted and a most conspicuous target was the handsome Norwegian, Lieutenant Erickson. He now battled against the onrushing Mississippi tide like an ancient Norse warrior. Strong and vigorous in his late twenties, he had been earlier jolted in the saddle with a chest wound from a shell fragment. But the lieutenant had somehow remained in the saddle, while a froth of blood from his pierced lung dripped from his mouth and onto his officer’s uniform of blue. Private Bugler R.L. Willis, from North Bridgewater, Massachusetts, never forgot how “I saw Lieut. Erickson, as he passed near me, reeling in his saddle; he was frothing at the mouth; asked me for some water, drank nearly a canteenful,” while the cheering Mississippians drew ever closer.

Despite being mortally wounded, the fearless Norwegian continued to encourage the hard-working gunners of his section in the center of the defiant array of fire-belching Massachusetts guns. But soon a Mississippi marksman took careful aim, after Erickson rode to the endangered gun, no. 5, on the far right, which was now the special target of the 21st Mississippi’s onrushing left. He slowly pulled the trigger, and a bullet struck the Norwegian, whose Holy Bible in his pocket could no longer protect him, square in the head. Bugler Willis described the death of Lieutenant Erickson, the spiritual leader of the 9th Massachusetts Battery, who finally met his Maker far from his native Norway, when he “saw the right gun some distance to the rear and in danger of capture, rode up to it and was shot through the head; fell dead, his horse going into the enemy’s line.” Private John K. Norwood wrote how Private Ralph C. “Blaisdell and I were trying to limber up the gun when Lieutenant Erickson rode up and asked if he could help us. Just then a bullet crashed through his head … “

Appalled by the horror, Captain Bigelow recalled how his top lieutenant was simply “riddled with bullets; fell dead, his horse passing into the midst” of Humphreys’ attackers. Other fine leaders of the hard-hit Massachusetts battery were hit amid the tempest. Shot in the knee while remaining in the saddle, Boston-born Lieutenant Alexander H. Whitaker, “a good French scholar” who had been involved in the commercial Mediterranean trade, was another victim. He was a highly respected officer, only age twenty-two. He now filled the leadership gap left by Lieutenant Erickson’s death. Whitaker was so young at the war’s beginning that his initial efforts to enlist were rebuffed. Mississippi bullets continued to zip around Whitaker, while he gamely inspired the Massachusetts gunners to stand firm, before falling with a mortal wound.

One Massachusetts sergeant was killed and another five were wounded, John Fenton mortally, among the ever-dwindling band of New Englanders. Captain Bigelow described how “Sergeant after Sergt. was struck down, horses were plunging and laying about all around” in the confusing chaos of the hellish angle of the low stone wall, which was becoming a slaughter pen. Now freed from its unfortunate owner who was no more, Lieutenant Erickson’s terrified horse bolted forward, galloping wildly into the Mississippians’ surging ranks. No doubt one of Barks-dale’s men became the proud owner of the Norwegian’s fine horse. Besides officers, quite a few enlisted men of the Massachusetts Battery were fatally cut down, such as Privates James Gillson and Charles Nutting. And Private Austin Packard dropped mortally wounded in the hand-to-hand combat. One lucky survivor of Mississippi lead, musket-butts, and bayonets this afternoon was Sergeant Augustus Hesse, of Weymouth. He described in a letter how by the time “the blood run all over me [and] I was Sweting [sic] … and Smoke blacked my face …”461

But as important as the systematic elimination of the top 9th Massachusetts Battery officers was the shooting down of artillery horses, so that the guns could not withdraw. Many Mississippi veterans continued to target frightened artillery horses huddled around the caissons and limbers, sending a hail of bullets into the harnessed animals. The vulnerable array of guns, cannoneers, and horses exposed on open ground and in a low spot in the fence corner made ideal compact targets. Each recoil of the 9th Massachusetts field pieces had gradually pushed the 12-pounders deeper into the cramped angle of the stone wall: presenting an even more compact mass of desperate men and defenseless horses to expert marksmen.

Trapped not only in a fence corner but also in a twisted tangle of leather harnesses and traces, the panicked horses pitched and reared, whinnying in terror. But the animals could not escape the stream of minie balls. The bodies of dozens of bullet-riddled horses piled up on the south side of the Trostle House, dropping dead in harness in jumbled clumps. Here, on the grass-covered ground in Trostle’s yard just northeast and to the rear of the blazing Massachusetts artillery pieces situated on Trostle Lane’s other side, the mass of dead horses piled together looked eerily almost as if were only resting or asleep. Meanwhile, the perfect flow of Mississippi bullets made the air sing, splintering limbers, wheels and caissons, sending sharp wooden splinters flying. Nevertheless, blue-coated cannoneers continued to load the guns with double-charges of canister as rapidly as possible.

One New England private, Eleazer Cole, a thirty-two year-old machinist from the cobblestone streets of North Bridgewater, recalled that when the 21st Mississippi’s left began to close in on the battery’s vulnerable right “at every discharge they were mowed down in swathes.” But yet Colonel Humphreys and his screaming men continued onward through the deadly blasts of double canister. In the words of one Mississippi Rebel: “We suffered awfully; but were bound to silence [those] damn brass guns.” The tide finally turned when larger numbers of Mis-sissippians surged beyond the battery’s right flank, racing across Trostle Lane to reach the higher ground around the house and barn. From the more elevated terrain that offered a commanding perch that gradually rose higher to the knoll just before the barn, the 21st Mississippians raked the right flank and rear of the hapless Massachusetts battery now caught in a deadly enfilade fire.462

The 9th Massachusetts gunners could not escape the hard-charging Mississippians, who were determined not to be denied this afternoon. A journalist of the Cincinnati Gazette, Whitelaw Reid, witnessed the 21st Mississippi’s fierce attack, describing how “with depressed guns [firing] double charges of grape and canister, he smites and shatters, but cannot break the advancing line. His grape and canister are exhausted, and still, closing grandly up over their slain, on they come. He falls back on spherical case, and pours this in at the shortest range. On, still onward, comes the artillery-defying line, and still [Bigelow] holds his position.463

Rapidly loading and firing their rifles on the run, the Mississippi Confederates shot down additional New England gunners with a lethal swiftness. Faithfully standing beside the battery’s third gun, Private Arthur Murphy of Charlestown was about to pull the lanyard when killed. Then, Private Henry Fen, of North Bridgewater, stepped forward to fire the canister-loaded cannon, but he was also soon hit by a fatal bullet. Next Private John Crosson, of Boston, attempted to jerk the lanyard, when a Mississippi bullet killed him on the spot. With three good men cut down in seconds, Smith survived the torrent of .577 caliber bullets long enough to fire the cannon one last time as the swarming attackers closed in.

Captain Bigelow knew that the demise—a necessary sacrifice to save an army—of his once fine battery was as imminent as it was now inevitable, but he had to hold on because “not an infantryman” in blue stood behind him on Cemetery Ridge. While the blasts of double-shot canister had mowed down the Rebels in front, Humphreys’ onrushing “lines extended far beyond our right flank,” wrote Bigelow of the cresting Mississippi tide. He watched in horror when “the 21st Miss. swung without opposition and came in from that direction, pouring in a heavy fire all the while” to more thoroughly decimate his battery. Therefore, “owing to large stone boulders interfering with my left section, I ordered Lieut. [Richard S.] Milton to take it out and to the rear.” But most artillery horses, yet strapped to harnesses, were shot down by this time. Therefore, “one piece was drawn off by hand, but the right and centre sections remained until overwhelmed by the enemy, who came in on their unprotected flanks.” However, “ninety-two rounds of canister were expended, mostly at close quarters,” making the 21st Mississippi pay a high price. While Lieutenant Milton’s two-gun section, partly drawn by wounded horses, headed rearward as best they could, the guns of Lieutenants Erickson’s and Whitaker’s sections continued to fire as if there was no tomorrow. Indeed, there was no tomorrow for the Army of the Potomac or the Union, if the Mississippi Rebels gained Cemetery Ridge to split Meade’s Army in two.

Before the charging Mississippians reached their prize, one of Milton’s guns overturned at the Trostle gateway, blocking the only avenue of escape. While bullets whizzed around them, New England gunners worked frantically to remove the artillery piece before it was too late.

The 9th Massachusetts Battery’s loss of personnel and the overall reduction of firepower, after two of the six-gun battery pulled away east toward Cemetery Ridge, gave the 21st Mississippi an added impetus to overwhelm the remaining four guns. Soon, in another wild sprint that had become a deadly race to reach the remaining Union artillery pieces before they could unleash one final lethal load, the first long-haired Mississippi Rebels, covered in sweat and smeared with powder, descended upon the four Massachusetts guns with victory cheers. Then, all hell suddenly exploded in their faces. Fiery eruptions of the last remaining double-loads of canister crammed into cannon barrels practically blew the foremost attackers out of southeast Adams County. Sergeant Baker described how members of Humphreys’ regiment “received our fire not six feet from the muzzles of our guns.” One Federal described how Bigelow’s cannoneers “blew them from the muzzles and filled the air with the shattered fragments of human bodies [but] still they came on with demoniacal screams …”

Nevertheless, not even this terrible punishment at point-blank range failed to stop the hard-charging 21st Mississippi Rebels. Even while firing his cannon one last time, Private Brett was amazed by his comrades’ stubborn tenacity. He wrote in a letter how “not a man ran [and] 4 or 5 fell within 15 feet of me [and thirty-three-year-old Private Henry Finn] was one of the number. He was shot throug[h] the head just below the ear [and] the blood flew all about” us. But without infantry support of any kind and with the New England battery’s flanks hanging in the air, Humphreys’ soldiers rushed around both flanks of the 9th Massachusetts Battery to gain its rear.

Unleashing their high-pitched war cries, the Mississippians swarmed among the bronze guns, thrusting with bayonets, clubbing with Enfield rifles, swinging sabers, and firing muskets point-blank at the feisty New Englanders. As he described in a letter, Private Brett never forgot how the Mississippi soldiers “fought like tigers.” During the savage combat, defiant Massachusetts cannoneers fought back with sponge-staffs, handspikes, and shovels, swinging rammers and fists amid the choking cloud of dust and smoke.

An Italian in blue who ironically had migrated to America with high hopes in part to escape the horrors of nonsensical European wars, Private John Ligal smashed one Mississippian’s head with his rammer. And one bluecoat artillerymen cut down another one of Humphreys’ soldiers with a vicious swing of a handspike that caught the unfortunate man fullsquare. Another Massachusetts cannoneer who fell before the Mississippians’ wrath was a former battery cook. He possessed the well-deserved nickname of “Burnt Chowder” for his utter lack of culinary expertise, and perhaps some comrades felt relief at the final end of his disastrous cooking career.

Sergeant Baker was proud of the fact that his boys fought so tenaciously. He described how “our cannoneers were driven at the point of the bayonet, and were shot down from the limbers,” which now served as elevated firing positions for Mississippi Rebels. Despite the Mississip-pians rushing through the guns with ear-piercing war cries, bayoneting, and clubbing down New England artillerymen left and right, some Yankee gunners gamely worked their field pieces until the last moment. Sergeant Baker described the terrifying sight when the Mississippians “came in on our flank … standing on the limbers shooting horses, and men still serving their guns.” The popular Private Aldoph Lipman, a Russian immigrant from West Roxbury whose family yet lived in the port city of Riga, was shot in the head and killed. In total, six of seven 9th Massachusetts Battery sergeants were cut down, along with three of four officers. Kind-hearted Sergeant Charles E. Dodge, who had been a lumberman in Virginia and lived peacefully among Southerners at the war’s be-ginning, died in his gun’s spirited defense.

After killing off the last obstinate Massachusetts gunners with bayonets and musket-butts, the Mississippi victors celebrated their sparkling success in overrunning yet another defensive position and capturing additional artillery pieces. Bigelow saw triumphant Mississippians clamoring atop his caissons, limbers, and guns, “yelling like demons” in the ecstasy of victory.

One Yankee of the 118th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, Tilton’s brigade, witnessed the sight of the 21st Mississippi’s flowing silk battleflag and the daring color-bearer, when he “advanced through the gate of the Trostle House” in triumph. Here, the powder-streaked Rebel “stood gallantly and courageously waving his colors in the midst of the thickest of the melee” around the four captured Massachusetts guns. Meanwhile, Mississippians continued to stand atop captured limbers and caissons, picking out targets and then snapping off shots at fleeing New Englanders from their elevated perches.

Only two of Bigelow’s Massachusetts cannon escaped the pent-up fury of the 21st Mississippi’s onslaught. A shocked Bigelow could hardly believe his eyes when he saw some of the powder-streaked Mississippi Rebels, after “swarming in on our right flank, standing on the limber chests and firing at the gunners, who were still serving their pieces; the horses were all down.” In a tribute to his personal bravery in orchestrating one of the most magnificent last stands during the three days at Gettysburg, Captain Bigelow himself had narrowly escaped almost certain death. Chivalric 21st Mississippi officers somehow restrained their veterans, amid the choking haze of drifting smoke, from unleashing a close-range bullet to end the life of the already wounded battery commander, who had just seen his finest day.

Meanwhile, the last flurry of hand-to-hand fighting continued between the New Englanders and Mississippians just south of the Trostle House. One young artilleryman in blue was clubbed down with a musket while attempting to spike his gun at the last second. Other New England gunners were shot down at point-blank range, after refusing to surrender in a nightmarish struggle amid the body-strewn fence corner. Bigelow’s cannoneers gave as good as they received, however. One Massachusetts artilleryman not only knocked down a Rebel, but also attempted to drag off his stunned prisoner. This bold Yankee could only be thwarted from capturing the dazed, bloodied 21st Mississippi soldier when one of Humphreys’ infantrymen, who had no time to reload, picked up a cannoneer’s hand spike and cut him down with one vicious swipe.

Private Brett made the mistake of attempting to reclaim his hat that had fallen off when hurrying one of the Massachusetts cannon rearward. No doubt saving his life, a comrade dashed forward to retrieve the hat of “Uncle David” Brett, before the flashing bayonets of the Mississippi-ans, who must have marveled at the sight of yet another display of Massachusetts audacity under fire. Therefore, nearby Deep South warriors held their fire, while watching in disbelief as one New England cannoneer saved his comrade, regardless of his own safety. Both Yankees then escaped, slipping away in the smoky haze. Around the four New England cannon, 28 Massachusetts artillerymen were cut down. The slaughter caused Private Brett to lament in a letter that “we … lost so many officers and men it does not sem [sic] like the same Battery. The dead were so thick … you had to pick your way so as not to step on them …” Forty-five dead battery horses were also heaped in piles just below, or south, of the Trostle barn and house.

Private Brett wrote in a letter how the Mississippians “took 4 Guns after they shot the horses.” But, proudly continued the private, “we fought with our guns untill [sic] the rebs could put their hands on the guns.” Nevertheless, the 9th Massachusetts Light Artillery had been virtually destroyed by the 21st Mississippi in a vicious “dock brawl” with men battling hand-to-hand. Bigelow’s battery suffered one of the highest losses of any Union battery in the war. Later, Bigelow wrote to Humphreys of the “gallantry and bravery of the men who so fearlessly faced my guns, double-loaded with canister, though of course it was my exposed flanks and lack of infantry support that caused the destruction of my command.” Bigelow also described how his fine battery, “surrounded, men and horses were shot down and finally overcome, but not until the purpose of sacrifice had been accomplished.” Nevertheless, the 21st Mississippi captured four of the six 9th Massachusetts Light Artillery guns in another remarkable tactical success during one of the most devastating charges of the war. Lucky to have survived the slaughter, Private Brett wrote how “the bullets flew thick as hailstones [and] it was a wonder we were not all killed.”464

Charles Wellington Reed, a twenty-two-year-old bugler, won a Congressional Medal of Honor for his heroics. He rescued Captain Bigelow, who was hit by two bullets, after he fell from his horse in the battery’s rear. A music lover and an independent illustrator of middle-class status, Reed saved his captain at the last minute, despite having recently despised Bigelow as “a regular aristocrat worse than any regular that ever breathed.” Reed and Irishman Private John H. Kelly, the captain’s orderly, came to Bigelow’s rescue with Humphrey’s onrushing men only few yards behind him. Bugler Reed had disobeyed orders by remaining in the fight. Ironically, Reed’s proven penchant for defiance of authority proved an unexpected blessing for Captain Bigelow instead of the usual source of irritation.

Now de-horsed, a bleeding Captain Bigelow was quickly helped onto his orderly’s mount, while Mississippi bullets zipped by. Both Bigelow and Bugler Reed narrowly eased out of harm’s way, despite the foremost Mississippi Rebels attempting to pull them off their horses. Only the lastminute intervention by a sympathetic 21st Mississippi officer prevented his men from shooting down the pair at close range. Bugler Reed described one of the most amazing episodes of the battle of Gettysburg: “We tried to get away [but] some of the Confederates saw us [and] several of them tried to take us prisoners. They did not fire at once, but tried to pull us from the horses’ backs, but were unsuccessful, as the horses kicked and I was able to do some execution with my saber we were still struggling when an officer told them not to murder us in cold blood.”

With multiple wounds and half-stunned by the surreal carnage, Bigelow later described his personal ordeal and close call around the Trostle house after “my horse, when I fell from him, was wounded at the same time, leaped the wall and went back into our lines. Recovering [I saw the] men on my limber chests, shooting my cannoneers, still hard at work, when I gave the order to cease firing and fall back. I was taken over the wall. One of my officers, Whitaker, though mortally wounded, rode up and gave me some whisky. I was then lifted on to my orderly’s horse, and slowly taken back.”

Despite two wounds, Bigelow had orchestrated the withdrawal of his two remaining guns and the survivors east to escape the Mississippi attackers. The two surviving teams, limbers and guns of Lieutenant Milton’s section had gone over the stone wall to the rear and that ran southward from near the Trostle House, after the top stones were pushed off the wall, about half-way between his first defensive position and the Tros-tle House, by the desperate gunners. Only when Captain Bigelow gave the final word to withdraw east toward Cemetery Ridge had the Massachusetts artillerymen finally given up the fight, after holding their ground as long as possible.

After having forsaken rear area duties to man the guns during the day’s supreme crisis, Sergeant Nelson Lowell, of the Puritan-founded town of Malden on the Mystic River, described the withdrawal’s final confused minutes with shouting Mississippians swarming around them: “Near the gateway the other horse was shot, and limber overturned; ammunition gone. I immediately joined the next serviceable gun, which was Gunner Wm. Tucker’s, who was almost alone … Next, the left section was limbered up and were trying to get out to escape [and then] the right gun of the hard-pressed section was partly overturned, and I, with some others, righted it, and prevented the drivers from cutting traces and leaving; the other gun was over the wall and making good time to the rear. I had mounted old Tom to escape, when a Reb presented his musket in my face; ‘Surrender, you damned Yankee.’ Pictures of Libby and Anderson-ville flashed through my mind, as I reached round for my revolver, resolving to fight for it. Before my revolver was drawn, my horse fell, shot dead, and I was under him. I lay still, hoping to save myself.”

Young Lieutenant Whitaker was able to escape, dripping blood. He died of his wound on July 23 in Baltimore before reaching his family in Boston. Later, an embittered Captain Bigelow lamented how the capable lieutenant had “died from bad treatment at the hands of army surgeons.” Meanwhile, the last remaining New England gunners escaped the 21st Mississippi, after close brushes with death. Private Norwood, who took a serious wound, had “his horse shot away by a cannon ball; he freed himself, ‘cut the dead animal loose,’ and then coolly mounted another, which in turn was soon shot, as were all the others attached to his piece.” For masterfully conducting the most important defensive stand made by Union artillery on July 2, the 9th Massachusetts Battery was cut to pieces.

One Federal lieutenant compared the piles of bodies and horses to “a scene of slaughter that surpassed anything recorded of Lodi bridge or Marango [sic] ridge.” Nevertheless, in its first battle, the 9th Massachusetts had played a key role in saving the day. Ironically, had Captain Bigelow’s artillerymen been “old soldiers, [then perhaps they] never could have held together for so long a time, so far in advance of our lines, in an open field, without supports, and suffering such fearful losses.”465

After overrunning the battery, the 21st Mississippi’s color bearer stood atop one captured gun and waved the bullet-tattered banner in triumph as Humphreys’ men cheered yet another remarkable success. An additional group of artillery pieces were captured by a single regiment that continued to out-perform expectations. An elated Colonel Humphreys never forgot the sight when Lieutenant George Kempton stood “astride of a gun waving his sword and exclaiming, ‘Colonel, I claim this gun for Company I[,]’ [while] Lt. W.P. McNeily was astride of another, claiming it for Company E.”⁴⁶⁶