After defeating first Brig. Gen. Francis Barlow’s division on Blocher’s Knoll, and then Col. Wladimir Krzyzanowski’s brigade to the southwest, Brig. Gen. George Doles pushed his brigade toward Gettysburg. Although somewhat disordered, the Georgians were still full of fight and relatively fresh.
Doles marched his brigade due southward, aligned with the 12th Georgia on the left, the 44th Georgia in the center, and the 4th Georgia on the right. Doles’ fourth regiment, the 21st Georgia, remained at the Blocher house, where it had retreated during its initial fight with Krzyzanowski’s brigade. The two regiments of Gordon’s Brigade that had helped defeat Krzyzanowski, the 31st and 60th Georgia, remained in place on Doles’ left and advanced simultaneously with Doles.1
When the acting 3rd Division commander, Brig. Gen. Alexander Schimmelfennig, spotted Doles’ Brigade moving forward to attack the advanced XI Corps units, Schimmelfennig looked around for a unit that could strike the enemy’s vulnerable right flank. The two most advanced units on that portion of the field were the 157th New York and the 82nd Illinois, both of von Amsberg’s brigade, 3rd Division. The brigade occupied the sector near the Hagy farm along Mummasburg Road, with the 45th New York, 61st Ohio, and 74th Pennsylvania manning the skirmish line while the 82nd Illinois and 157th New York supported Dilger’s and Wheeler’s batteries. When Dilger advanced his guns, the two supporting regiments advanced with him.
Schimmelfennig chose the 400-man 157th New York and quickly ordered it north, leaving the 82nd Illinois alone to support the two batteries. The New Yorkers marched up the west side of Carlisle Road until its commander, Col. Philip Brown, ordered the men to change front to the right to form a line of battle parallel to the road. To their south and east were the remnants of Krzyzanowski’s brigade fleeing to the rear. Hundreds of Georgians from Doles’ and Gordon’s brigades, most in reasonably good alignment, were in hot pursuit.2
As he was pursuing the withdrawing Federals to the south, an organized force of Federal troops suddenly appeared on Doles’ right flank and rear. Colonel Brown’s 157th New York had assumed a perfect tactical position. The New Yorkers opened fire on the 44th Georgia from a distance of perhaps 40 yards.3 The rolling ground west of Doles’ right flank had obscured Brown’s advance from Confederate eyes. Colonel Brown must have been excited when he realized his quick march had placed him undetected on the flank of the 44th Georgia. That same ground, however, also concealed the men of the 21st Georgia near the Blocher farm lane on Brown’s left flank. These Georgians, lying prone, received orders to load their weapons and prepare to fire a volley into the unsuspecting New Yorkers. Brown’s sudden good fortune was about to reverse itself.4
Few first-person accounts exist from the men who served that day in the 157th New York. This is partly so because many members of the regiment were eventually killed or wounded that afternoon. One of the few soldiers who left his recollections was Jonathon Boynton. “We moved forward, obliqued to the right, passed through and over a rail fence, and halted, then received orders to fire,” he wrote in his unfortunately sketchy account of the combat. “Then came the order to load and fire at will. The noise of shells and bullets hurtling through the air was terrible. We continued to advance and all at once the regiment charged bayonets.”5
It was at this point that, far from any reinforcements, Colonel Brown discovered his single regiment was facing an entire brigade of veteran Confederate infantry.