“It seemed as if nothing could live an instant”

EVEN WHILE HIS ecstatic boys were celebrating around the captured Massachusetts artillery pieces, Colonel Humphreys busily surveyed the field through the drifting smoke, hunting for additional targets of opportunity in the sudden sultry calm. And he soon found one before attempt-ing to shift his troops north and up the west side of Plum Run to link with Barksdale and his three regiments, which continued to fight their own war. In the words of the ever-opportunistic colonel from the Mississippi Delta: “Just then another battery was seen in position three hundred yards off, beyond the ravine. The order was given to charge it.”467

With bullet-tattered battle-flags flying in the fading light of this hellish afternoon with no cooling breeze, the 21st Mississippi once again surged forward, embarking upon another formidable challenge in their desperate effort to gain the great prize of Cemetery Ridge’s crest. Relying without hesitation on the aggressive instincts of a natural fighter with a keen eye for exploiting tactical weaknesses before the arrival of reinforcements in blue, Humphreys led his troops across Plum Run and then up the grassy western slope of Cemetery Ridge to exploit the tactical advantage won by additional hard fighting. Most of all, Humphreys and his 21st Mississippi were going for broke on the bloodiest afternoon of the war, while the golden vision of securing the strategic crest of Cemetery Ridge stood before them like a marvelous gift bestowed by a Confederate God.⁴⁶⁸

Confident after reaping so much significant success, including smashing through one Union regiment after another and capturing clumps of artillery pieces, Barksdale, leading the brigade’s northern wing, and Colonel Humphreys, leading the brigade’s southern wing, encouraged their elated soldiers ever-eastward in a desperate bid to drive an even deeper wedge into Meade’s left-center and split the Army of the Potomac in half. All the while, battered Third Corps units continued to head rearward, after having taken a brutal mauling. It now seemed as if nothing in the world could stop the rampaging Mississippians, who continued east on the double with cheers that split the air. All the while, they pushed deeper into the gap before Cemetery Ridge, hoping to win the race through the wide open breach. With no blue formations defending Cemetery Ridge at this point, one Yankee wrote how “our fate was hanging in the balance,” and the Army of the Potomac hovered closer to extinction than ever before.

However, much precious time had ticked away, and victory had been most costly for the Mississippi Brigade that had left a bloody path behind them in two separate sectors. Ironically, its success in smashing so many Yankee units and gobbling up one battery after another was about to play a role in Barksdale’s and Humphreys’ undoing. East of Plum Run at what would become the so-called Plum Run Line some 1,200 feet northeast of the Trostle house, Generals Meade and Hunt and Lieutenant Colonel McGilvery were hurriedly attempting to patch together a desperate defense at the last minute. This final Union line of unsupported artillery pieces situated just before Cemetery Ridge’s crest was being pieced together from McGilvery’s battered Reserve Artillery units which had been hurled back by Barksdale from the Emmitsburg Road sector, as well as any other guns he could find.

On the spot, McGilvery frantically rushed any available “long arm” unit into his last-ditch line, while hoping that beaten Third Corps formations might rally or that reinforcements from some other sector of the line would arrive. As Captain Bigelow described the critical situation just east of the Trostle House in a postwar letter to Colonel Humphreys: “My command suffered but you were delayed long enough to get the 6th Maine and part of the 5th Massachusetts Batteries in position [and] for half an hour or more they filled the long gap on the rising ground, front of the wood, opening on you when I stopped firing.” However, because these Union guns were yet without infantry protection or support, the Mississippi Brigade yet possessed the golden opportunity to win the battle, the day, and the war.

By any measure, this was Humphreys’ finest day in which “Old Ben, ‘the old stem-winder,’ went in the fight with elegant impudence and out of it … with sublime magnanimity [and he] rode at the head of the old 21st with the same nonchalance that he offered ‘to go the gal’s security’,” wrote one Mississippian of the unforgettable moment when decisive victory appeared well within the Magnolia State soldier’s grasp.

However, the precious time won by self-sacrificing units such as the 9th Massachusetts Light Battery was crucial in buying time for the final creation of the Plum Run Line on the western slope of Cemetery Ridge. Four veteran Union batteries of McGilvery’s First Volunteer Brigade, Reserve Artillery, consisting of six Ordnance Rifles of Captain Charles A. Phillips’ 5th Massachusetts, and the six Ordnance Rifles of Captain James Thompson’s 1st Pennsylvania Light Artillery [Batteries C and F combined], Lieutenant Edwin B. Dow’s 6th Maine Light Artillery, and Battery I, 5th United States Artillery batteries, which had been withdrawn by hand from the Peach Orchard sector before the surging 21st Mississippi troops, were shortly aligned along the Plum Run Line. Sparkling in the sunlight along open ground just below the tree-line, these guns stood, from south to north, along the rise situated on open ground just before Cemetery Ridge’s crest. Unfortunately for the Mississippi Brigade, the Army of the Potomac now immensely benefitted from the availability of a powerful artillery reserve, unlike Lee’s Army, which had made the fatal error of abolishing its artillery reserve corps just before invading the North.

Battery I, 5th United States Artillery anchored the ad hoc line’s left, closest to Trostle Lane to the south on lower ground. Soon the energetic McGilvery had perhaps as many as fifteen guns of four batteries aligned along the ridge’s western slope. These batteries stood along commanding high ground overlooking the pastoral settings of the brushy bottoms of Plum Run and the Trostle House from left to right or south to north. Without infantry support, this elevated position was now the only Federal defensive line remaining before the onrushing Mississippi Brigade. Fortunately, Porter Alexander’s fast-working Rebel guns now came to the Mississippians’ assistance, taking on the Union cannon they could now see on the high ground position.

Like Captain Bigelow’s heroic band at the Trostle farm, the lengthy row of Union cannon was vulnerable, standing alone without infantry support, which had yet to arrive. By this time Captain Bigelow, wounded in the hand and side, was still retiring up the open slope before McGil -very’s new line of artillery. Bluecoat gunners yelled for the slow-moving Bigelow, with both himself and horse wounded, to hurry in order to get past the 6th Maine cannon, because the howling Mississippi Rebels were close behind. Bigelow yelled, “I could not, and told them to fire away, which they did.” Luckily, Bugler Reed again came to the rescue. He guided Bigelow out of harm’s way and safely between two cannon. Bigelow had accomplished his vital mission: “to sacrifice his battery to give the others time to form a new line” to defend the most vulnerable point of Cemetery Ridge

Indeed, with the Mississippians having crossed Plum Run to surge up the slope, McGilvery screamed “Fire!” and the row of artillery roared as one, firing straight ahead at targets framed against the background of the dark-hued thickets along the creek. Near the left flank, Lieutenant Dow, commanding the four 6th Maine guns that were turned northwest to fire on Barksdale’s three regiments, described how “a battle line of the enemy coming through the woods distant … with a design to drive through and take position of the road to Taneytown, directly in my rear. I immediately opened upon them with spherical case and canister … “ Barksdale’s men could see the line of guns aligned across the open slope that dominated the immediate horizon. One bluecoat remembered how the point-blank fire of “our batteries plowed lanes through the living masses in front of them,” blowing holes in the gray and butternut swarm and inflicting terrible damage. With the weight of cartridge-boxes, bouncing off their hips, now lighter from expending so many rounds, Barksdale’s troops just kept coming with the Rebel Yell, heading up the open slope toward Cemetery Ridge, determined to smash through any new line of blue formed before them.469 And now McGilvery’s isolated, unsupported guns along the slope were “the only line of defense for this portion of Cemetery Ridge.”⁴⁷⁰

Meanwhile, several hundred yards to the south, the 21st Mississippi was yet intent on turning the exposed left flank of this last line of cannon, securing the high ground, gaining the Taneytown Road, and planting their tattered red battle-flags on Cemetery Ridge. Therefore, wrote Hum -phreys, “on the brave regiment moved, yelling and firing.” Such a success, still well within reach, meant splitting the mighty Army of the Potomac in two, and perhaps ending its existence. Waving his saber and shouting encouragement, Humphreys continued to inspire his surviving Mississippi men onward.

Union commanders also saw the crisis, however. General Winfield Scott Hancock had already sent his leftmost Second Corps division, Caldwell’s, into the Wheatfield, where it had been uterrly wrecked. Now he was flinging units forward to meet the oncoming brigades of Richard Anderson’s Division, A.P. Hill’s Third Corps, who were advancing off to the left of the Mississippians. The 19th Maine was dispatched to confront David Lang’s small Florida Brigade. Alexander Webb’s Brigade confronted the charging Rebel brigade of Rans Wright. The 19th Massachusetts and 42nd New York, also of Gibbon’s Division, were sent forward to intercept Wilcox’s Alabamians, but could only do so for a few minutes. They fell back while Wilcox kept coming on. In desperation, Hancock seized upon the 1st Minnesota and flung it at the Alabama Brigade. The Minnesotans were practically wiped out, losing 80 percent of their number, but their courageous effort managed to halt Wilcox.

But to Hancock’s left was still the yawning gap on Cemetery Ridge toward which Barksdale was advancing. He may have expected the retiring Third Corps to take position on the ridge, but for the moment they were too shattered to rally. Hancock now commanded what was left of the Third Corps after Sickles’ fall, and was horrified by the realization that “there was nothing left of [Humphreys’ Second] division.” He looked around and found one more unused brigade of his own corps, the Third Brigade of Alexander Hays’ Division, under Colonel George Lamb Willard. He immediately ordered it to the left to face Barksdale’s oncoming Mississippians.

Willard’s brigade had been the last Second Corps unit to reach the field, but the command was in overall good shape after a cozy stint in the capital’s defenses. Known derisively within the corps as the “Harpers Ferry Brigade,” for having surrendered there practically without a fight the previous September, it had something to prove to its Second Corps comrades. And now as the day’s light was fading away, Willard’s brigade was called upon to face its supreme challenge. It now advanced toward Barksdale’s three regiments, moving all the way from Cemetery Ridge’s northern end to meet their old antagonists from the Antietam Campaign. As if knowing of the slaughter to come, a New York chaplain had already said words of faith before the New Yorkers moved out to confront the Mississippians.

But even worse for the irrepressible Barksdale, fresh units of the Twelfth Corps were also arriving in the sector to help plug the gap at the last moment. They had been pulled from Culp’s Hill on the Federal far right, where Ewell’s Corps had remained silent, and dispatched to Meade’s left to help deal with the crisis. The Mississippians had already mauled some of the Army of the Potomac’s best regiments, but more were now arriving.471 That the situation of Meade’s collapsed left-center “had become exceedingly critical” was evident when Willard’s men found so many broken Third Corps troops, including General Birney, streaming rearward.472 Indeed, a badly-shaken Birney, whose troops had been mauled by the Confederates’ onslaught, had declared to Hancock how “the 3d Corps had gone to pieces and fallen to the rear.”⁴⁷³ However, Barksdale’s three regiments had taken quite a beating themselves in having achieved so much for so long. Private John Saunders Henley, 17th Mississippi, described how, “we had driven the Yankees about a mile from their first line; our ranks had grown so thin.”⁴⁷⁴

Hancock described the crucial situation and what he accomplished in the face of the day’s greatest challenge: “I established Willard’s brigade at the point through which General Birney’s division had retired, and fronting the approach of the enemy, who were pressing vigorously on. There were no other troops on its right or left.” Willard’s vital mission was now to plug the wide breach in Meade’s left-center that now lay before the onslaught of Barksdale’s three regiments. The brigade deployed with the 125th and 126th New York, left to right, in its front line, supported respectively by the 39th and 111th New York. Here Lieutenant Colonel Levin Crandell, leading the 125th New York, described in his diary the punishment inflicted by Colonel Alexander’s guns, which provided timely assistance to the Mississippians: “We deployed under a heavy fire of shot & shell.” A soldier in the regiment described how there were “shells screaming and cannon balls tearing in the air … now bursting above and around us.”⁴⁷⁵

Having heretofore escaped the initial carnage of Gettysburg, Willard’s brigade had already won a key advantage without so much as firing a shot, holding elevated terrain before Cemetery Ridge’s crest, while Barksdale’s three regiments surged up the slope east of Plum Run.

Colonel Willard was a promising officer well qualified to smash the most vivid dreams of Barksdale and his Mississippi Rebels. He was a dark-haired, no-nonsense martinet from New York City who had made a career in the regular army despite his family’s objections. A veteran of the Mexican War, he had been part of General Winfield Scott’s successful attack on Chapultepec Castle in September 1847. At age thirty-five and a West Pointer, Willard was one of the finest junior officers in the Second Corps, a rising star of promise. Fortunately, for the Army of the Potomac at this time, Willard represented a classic case of a commander and his troops united by a shared bond, lusting for validation, redemption, and vindication.

With the New York City colonel leading the way, the 125th and 126th New York, over 800 men, pushed down the slope with fixed bayonets, rolling like a blue tidal wave off the high ground of Cemetery Ridge. For the first time all day, Barksdale’s men were forced back. The New Yorkers advanced toward the brushy, elderberry thickets and rocks clogging the low ground of Plum Run. Known simply as “the swale,” the bottoms now contained hundreds of Mississippi Rebels still full of fight. After taking punishment from Colonel McGilvery’s artillery fire, including canister, pouring off the high ground, the Mississippians had prudently retired back to the cover along Plum Run to regroup, reload muskets, and take good defensive positions in preparation for meeting Willard’s attackers rolling down Cemetery Ridge’s western slope.

Yet to be issued their distinctive diamond emblems of the Second Corps to sew on their hats, the New Yorkers had much to prove, and the Mississippi Rebels were about receive the brunt of their pent-up emotions. In fact, Willard’s soldiers had been ordered by Hancock to “knock the Hell out of the Rebs” from Mississippi, their old foes from Harpers Ferry. For the first time all day, and recently fortified by the words of Chaplain Ezra Simons, only Willard’s troops took the initiative to strike back, because, wrote one Yankee, “there were no other troops on [our] right or left” at this time.476

General Alexander Hays, their division commander, wrote with pride how the “Harpers Ferry boys have turned out trumps, and when we do get a chance look out for blood.”⁴⁷⁷ Unfortunately, for the breathless Mississippians, now exhausted, low on ammunition, and with many leading regimental and company officers cut down, they could not have encountered more highly-motivated soldiers than these New Yorkers, who were determined to set the record straight once and for all.⁴⁷⁸ In the words of one of these revenge-seeking Union soldiers, the so-called Harpers Ferry brigade “panted to remove that stigma,” which called now for Mississippi blood and the thwarting of Barksdale’s soaring ambitions to win it all.⁴⁷⁹ And the youthful-looking Willard, who had suffered a severe setback to his ambitions because of the Harpers Ferry episode, was about to rise to the occasion when so much was at stake. All in all, Willard and his much-maligned New York boys were a “good match” for meeting Barksdale’s three now seriously-depleted regiments.⁴⁸⁰ Meanwhile, Hancock sent the 400 men of the 111th New York forward to extend Willard’s right, while keeping the 39th New York in reserve on the brigade’s left, facing southwest.⁴⁸¹

Mounted before his lengthy formations of bluecoats eager to meet their old tormentors from September 15, 1862, Colonel Willard waved his saber and shouted, “Charge!” The New Yorkers poured down the open slopes like an avalanche, charging on the double with fixed bayonets in the fading sunlight. The sheer momentum of their downhill attack increased as they neared the Mississippians, now positioned in good cover amid the low, brush-clogged valley of Plum Run. Because of the heavy growth along the creek, Willard had no idea that three entire Mississippi regiments—albeit bloodied and the worse for wear—were in position amid the underbrush, rocks, and timber waiting his arrival. When the New Yorkers were near, Barksdale screamed for his line to unleash their first volley, which swept through the New York ranks. Willard now realized he had stirred up a hornet’s nest. One Union officer described how “the rebels fired on the brigade as it advanced, which fire was returned by a portion of the brigade as it advanced without halting. Many fell in the charge.”

Soon to take a New York bullet in the arm, Private Joseph Charles Lloyd of the 13th Mississippi never forgot the sight: “They had come out from the top of the hill and were fresh” unlike the exhausted, powdersmeared Mississippi soldiers, who had been fighting for over an hour. Nevertheless, Barksdale’s veterans unleashed sheets of rolling volleys upon this new threat in a desperate effort to protect the brigade’s flanks, which both hung in mid-air to the north and south. The explosion of fire burst out of the brushy bottoms, raking Willard’s bluecoats with a murderous musketry that left a good many widows and orphans across New York. Indeed, the Mississippians’ Enfield rifles continued to prove to be deadly widow-makers this afternoon. Bunches of Willard’s Yankees went down, screaming and crying out in pain, as a torrent of Mississippi bullets tore savagely through the brigade.

On the right flank, Private Abernathy, 17th Mississippi, long remembered the inspiring sight of Lieutenant Colonel “Fiser on his little Blaze face bay horse [when he] rode along the lines calling the troops to halt and form.” All the while, the Mississippians busily loaded and fired from behind good cover—compared to the open fields that they had been charging across—among the trees, rocks, and brush along Plum Run. Along with the clouds of thick battle-smoke, the clumps of bushes and dense new growth of willows on Plum Run’s bottoms hid the Mississippi Rebels, who found easy targets when Willard’s brigade halted to realign its ranks. An officer in the 111th New York described a solid “line of riflemen giving us minie balls with such rapidity that it seemed as if nothing could live an instant exposed to their fire.”

Low on ammunition, the Mississippians gathered rounds from the cartridge-boxes of the dead and wounded. Known as “Old Barks” to the boys who would follow him to hell and back if necessary, Barksdale rode back and forth and waved his saber, urging his troops to fire faster at the New York troops. Holding the low, brushy ground along Plum Run yet promised potential future gains, if Barksdale’s offensive effort could be resumed. Realizing that no infantry support was forthcoming, the Mississippi Brigade’s soldiers were fully prepared to self-sacrifice themselves for the chance to yet win the day.

All the while, the opposing lines continued to frantically exchange fire while the New Yorkers applied heavy pressure to Barksdale’s exposed left flank on the north. In this sector, Colonel Clinton MacDougall’s 111th New York, on the brigade’s right, struck the 18th Mississippi, which anchored Barksdale’s left. Demonstrating their worth, the Empire State troops, surged down the slope with fixed bayonets while screaming, “Remember Harpers Ferry.”482

Nevertheless, while the 18th Mississippi was hard-hit, the 13th Mississippi and the 17th Mississippi remained firm in firing positions amid the body-strewn, underbrush-choked, and smoke-drenched swale. Here, they stood up against Willard’s surging blue tide. Loading and firing as rapidly as possible, Barksdale’s veterans shot down New York officers and color bearers, raking the lengthy Federal lines with a murderous fire. However, by this time the Mississippi Brigade had been decimated also, and “all the field officers of the brigade were either killed or wounded,” save Colonel Humphreys. And the determination of large numbers of fresh troops, with cartridge-boxes full of forty rounds, to redeem themselves against “Barksdale their nemesis at Harpers Ferry” could not be overcome by an ever-dwindling band of worn soldiers low on ammunition, isolated, and without support. A cruel fate had seemingly intervened at the last moment to cheat Barksdale out of decisive victory.

Indeed, Lieutenant Haskell revealed the key tactical advantage now enjoyed by Meade’s army to turn the tide: “On account of the convexity of our line, every part of the line could be reinforced by troops having to move a shorter distance than if the line were straight; further, for the same reason, the line of the enemy must be concave, and consequently longer, and with an equal force, thinner and so weaker than ours.” Indeed, “any fool could see that Gettysburg had become Fredericksburg in reverse!” Longstreet’s views now proved correct, especially in regard to Barksdale’s offensive effort: “Even if we carried the heights in front of us and drove Meade out, we should be so badly crippled that we could not reap the fruits of victory.”483

Nevertheless, the vicious, close-range fighting continued unabated along Plum Run for about half an hour, with the Mississippi Rebels standing firm, exchanging punishment with 1,200 fresh New York soldiers. At close range, the exchanges of musketry grew even more intense, rolling back and forth, with gunfire raging along the length of Plum Run. Clouds of choking smoke blanketed the bottoms and combined with the dropping sun to cast an eerie atmosphere and distorted reddish light, obscuring vision to create more confusion. Hiding the carnage and horrors from the eye of survivors, drifting layers of smoke shrouded the ever-increasing number of bodies of dead and wounded Mississippi boys, who began to stack up like cordwood before a hard winter.

In the riddled ranks of the Mississippi Rangers, Captain Andrew Jackson Pulliam’s Company B, 17th Mississippi, two British-born Rebels were cut down. Hit for the third time along Plum Run, Private Abernathy explained how “Billie Gast, another native of England, stepped up to a little bush, knelt, and placing his gun between the branches of a bush, took deliberate aim, and fired kneeling. Just as he did so, a bullet struck him square in the forehead and with a gasp he settled back dead on his knees.”