Confederate Command Failure
July 1, 1863: The First Evening at Gettysburg
Mark Acres
In the musical play 1776, the John Adams character sings about the Continental Congress, “Piddle, twiddle, and resolve, not one damned thing do we solve.” His words, an apt description of many congresses through the ages, also describe the activities of the Confederate high command in the late afternoon and evening of the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg.
After a series of initial reverses, the Confederate III Corps of Lieutenant General A. P. Hill, striking from the west, and the Confederate II Corps of Lieutenant General Richard S. Ewell, striking from the north, had driven the Union forces from the ridges and fields west and north Gettysburg. By 4 P.M. two Union Corps, the I and XI, were in full retreat toward Cemetery Hill just south of the town. A good portion of the XI Corps units panicked and routed when a blunder by Major General Francis Barlow exposed the right flank of his division (and the entire Union line) to a flanking attack by Jubal Early’s Rebel division. A desperate battle against Major General Henry Heth’s and Major General William Dorsey Pender’s divisions of Hill’s corps on McPherson and Seminary Ridges, and against Major General Robert E. Rodes’s division of Ewell’s corps on Oak Hill, left the Union I Corps shredded, although it managed to retreat in good order. As the Union troops streamed in disarray, and some in panic, toward Cemetery Hill, Confederate General Robert E. Lee watched from Seminary Ridge. Lee immediately saw the necessity of occupying Cemetery Hill, and observed that it would be “only necessary to push those people” to drive them from the heights. Lee sent Colonel Walter Taylor to Ewell with word that he should go ahead and “take that hill, if practicable.”
Lee’s order started an ineffective discussion that began that afternoon, grew into a firestorm of controversy after the battle, and continues to this day. The sequence of events that ensued is a case study in the difficulty of communication and coordination on the battlefield in the Civil War. One of the Confederates’ two best chances to claim victory at Gettysburg evaporated in the ensuing stream of piddle, twiddle, and hot air. While taking Cemetery Hill that afternoon or evening would probably have been difficult, perhaps impossible, the opportunity to seize Culp’s Hill, the higher eminence just east of Cemetery Hill and the key to the Union right flank, was lost.
After the battle, many Confederates found it convenient to blame Ewell for the failure to drive straight on up Cemetery Hill immediately in the wake of the Union retreat. The question this criticism overlooks, but which Ewell could not overlook, is, drive up Cemetery Hill with what troops? Rodes’s division had suffered heavily in the fighting on Oak Hill and was just closing the distance to link up with the right flank of Early’s division as the Federals retreated. Early, meanwhile, had two brigades left relatively fresh. The rest of Early’s command was in disarray as a result of chasing the Union troops through the narrow streets of Gettysburg. It would take an hour, probably two, to bring order out of the chaos engendered by the sudden Confederate occupation and wild chase through the town.
Ewell, with his great balding dome and his wooden leg, was new to corps command. Already he had formed a habit of consulting with his subordinates about important decisions or orders that confused him, as Lee’s orders often did. Even before Lee’s order to take Cemetery Hill reached him, Ewell turned to Jubal Early with his two fresh brigades, and General Rodes, who had slugged it out on Oak Hill. Ewell wanted to know if he should continue the attack—pursue the Federals onto Cemetery Hill. Early, normally an aggressive general, urged caution. Rodes agreed with Early. An attack could succeed, Early thought, but only with support from A. P. Hill’s corps to the west, on Seminary Ridge.
Ewell sent word to Lee, asking if Hill’s corps could coordinate in an attack on Cemetery Hill. (Tick-tock, tick-tock went the victory clock.) Ewell’s message and Lee’s order crossed each other in transit; Taylor arrived and got Lee’s order to Ewell after Ewell had sent word to Lee asking if Hill’s corps could help in an assault.
A. P. Hill, himself normally an aggressive commander ready for a hard march and a harder fight, failed to live up to his former reputation at Gettysburg. Like Ewell, he was new to corps command. It is also likely that Hill was ill the three days of the battle. Speculation has it that he was suffering from a bout of a “social disease” he had contracted during a visit to a house of ill repute in New York City during his West Point cadet days. In any event, Hill was hardly aggressive on July 1. Lee’s arrival that morning in Cashtown on the way to Gettysburg had roused him from a late sleep, and he had exercised but scarce control over the fighting by his subordinates. Asked by Lee if he could assist Ewell in an assault on Cemetery Hill, the usually reliable General Hill decided his troops were too worn-out by the previous fighting for McPherson’s and Seminary Ridges to participate in another attack. He did have one fresh division, Anderson’s, just arriving on the field, but Lee himself wanted Anderson’s division held as a reserve for the army. And so another rider galloped from Lee to Ewell: there would be no help from Hill’s corps.
Meanwhile, a closer examination of the Federal defenses discouraged Ewell. It is easy to understand why. A ring of forty-two Union guns crowned Cemetery Hill. Clearly visible from the town below, their black tubes promised fiery death by ball and canister to any who dared the steep slope to assault the masses of men in blue who swarmed in confusion among them. Some order was already emerging from that swarm as Union lines began to form among the artillery batteries. (Unbeknownst to the Confederates, the Union’s secret weapon—Major General Winfield Scott Hancock—had arrived about 4 P.M., taken command, and begun organizing the Union defenses.) Ewell would later write that he was also constrained by Lee’s previous order not to bring on a general engagement until the full army was up. This shows the depth of Ewell’s confusion; that earlier order was obviously no longer in effect since a general engagement had been under way since 1 P.M., with Ewell’s own corps a major participant in it.
Then—Yankees on our flank and rear! Suddenly that desperate report arrived from William “Extra Billy” Smith’s brigade of Early’s division. The brigade, one of the two fresh formations available to Ewell, had been guarding the left rear of the Confederate line along the York Road. Now the brigade reported Union infantry, cavalry, and artillery advancing in force on Ewell’s flank along that road. Smith sent a second rider, even asking for reinforcements. Early, with Ewell’s consent, responded by sending his best brigade commander, Brigadier General John Brown Gordon, along with his reformed brigade, to take command of Smith’s brigade, assess the situation, and bring Smith’s brigade back onto Ewell’s left flank. Smith’s report proved false—there were no Yankees on the York Road. The result was to make both Smith’s and Gordon’s brigades unavailable for a later afternoon or evening attack.
As Ewell continued to ponder what to do—now with the worry of a possible Union force on his flank and rear—Lee rode in person to find Ewell. The two met, with Rodes and Early both present, sometime between 6 P.M. and 7 P.M. Lee was not in good spirits. Despite winning a significant victory, he had already heard sour notes of protest about continuing the battle here from his most trusted subordinate, Lieutenant General James Longstreet. Now Hill and Ewell were both balking at continuing the fight today. In their meeting, Lee told the officers of Ewell’s corps that he wanted an immediate attack on Cemetery Hill. If they felt they could not attack, he wanted the entire corps moved from the north side of Gettysburg to the opposite flank of his army, south of Hill’s corps along Seminary Ridge.
It is difficult to imagine Lee’s consternation when Early and Rodes both objected strenuously to moving the corps as well as to launching an attack. Ewell, apparently diffident, did nothing to constrain the argumentativeness of his two division commanders. Lee did not insist; he left the meeting with nothing agreed upon and nothing accomplished.
Tick-tock, tick-tock went the victory clock.
Ewell no doubt sensed Lee’s disappointment. He found a compromise idea: a new division of his corps, Johnson’s division, was just arriving on the field. Perhaps he could use that division to attack the hill to the east of Cemetery Hill. Culp’s Hill protected the Union’s line of communications along the Baltimore Pike. It dominated Cemetery Hill. Taking Culp’s Hill would unhinge the Union position. Ewell ordered a reconnaissance of Culp’s Hill and learned it was unoccupied. (This intelligence was not entirely accurate, as remnants of the Iron Brigade were already deploying on the slope of the hill nearest to the Union lines.)
Back at his own headquarters, Lee could no longer contain his irritation nor brook inaction. A courier galloped off to find Ewell with a preemptive order: Ewell must either attack immediately or move his corps to the right of the army.
By the time Lee’s new order arrived, Ewell had formulated his new idea based on the intelligence he had received about Culp’s Hill. Johnson’s troops had marched all day, but they had not engaged. Now they were taking position in front of Culp’s Hill on Ewell’s right. With Lee’s permission, they could attack. Perhaps that would satisfy Lee’s eagerness for an attack, keep Ewell’s subordinates Rodes and especially Early happy, and avoid any movement of the corps that would involve leaving the town and the real estate they had already paid for that afternoon.
Rather than entrust this to a courier, Ewell himself rode over to General Lee’s headquarters, and soon had a meeting with the commanding general. By now it must have been at least 8 P.M. and the last of daylight would be fading soon. Lee consented to Ewell’s plan to attack Culp’s Hill. No doubt Lee sought any plan that would bring about more decisive action.
Ewell rode back to his headquarters. (Tick-tock, tick-tock went the victory clock.) Orders were prepared for Johnson to attack. Johnson, appropriately, sent skirmishers forward toward the crest of the hill. By now the sun was gone and the attack would be a night attack. Johnson wanted to be sure what was in front of him.
What were in front of him were skirmishers from the 7th Indiana Regiment, the only fresh regiment from the Union’s First Division. The Hoosier skirmishers opened fire in the dark as the Confederate skirmishers from Johnson’s division approached the crest of the hill. After a brief firefight in the darkness and thick woods, the Rebel skirmishers withdrew. Johnson now knew that Federal troops were on the hill; it was not unoccupied as Ewell had thought. Johnson sent word to Ewell that the enemy possessed the crest and that it was now too late, darkness having fallen, to mount an attack on the unknown foe.
So it was that no further attack was made anywhere on the Federal line on the first day at Gettysburg. Responsibility for this failure to act rests with all the persons of the high command involved in the decision making: Lee, Ewell, Hill, and even Early. Brigadier Smith deserves some special distinction in the false alarm category. A determined attack, especially on Culp’s Hill, that afternoon or evening would have been difficult for the Union to meet. While Henry Slocum’s XII Corps was available, the command disarray on the Union side (despite Hancock’s best efforts) might have made it difficult to bring that asset to bear in time. But tick-tock, tick-tock went the victory clock—and when it struck midnight, the Confederate chances disappeared. Culp’s and Cemetery Hills would become the scenes of bitter fighting and bitter defeats for the Rebels over the next two days.