The Amazing Mystery of Billy Mahone
July 2, 1863: Gettysburg
Mark Acres
Blunders, insubordination, miscommunications, and sand in the gears of command abound in the story of the Battle of Gettysburg. The bizarre behavior of Confederate Brigadier General William “Little Billy” Mahone on the second day of the battle ranks among the most amazing and mysterious of all the military mistakes that occurred over those dreadful three days. What did Billy Mahone do that remains one of the great unsolved mysteries of Gettysburg? Nothing—he did nothing at all.
The second day at Gettysburg began slowly for the Army of Northern Virginia. Commanding General Robert E. Lee met with his commanders that morning and gave orders for an attack that would drive up the Emmitsburg Road, strike Cemetery Ridge from the left flank, and roll up the Army of the Potomac all the way to Cemetery Hill. For whatever reason, it took Lieutenant General James Longstreet, commander of the Confederate I Corps, until almost 4 P.M. to position his troops for the assault. By then, events had outpaced Lee’s plan. Union Major General Dan Sickles’s III Corps occupied the ground directly in front of Longstreet.
A new Confederate plan rapidly evolved. The attack would be an echelon attack. An echelon attack begins at one point in the enemy line—usually a flank—with the object of drawing the enemy’s reinforcements to that point. After a while, a second attacking force comes forward to attack the next point in the enemy line—hopefully drawing in more reinforcements. Then a third force advances, and so on, until the enemy has no reserves left and his line can be broken at what is now the weakest point. Echelon attacks can be quite effective, but require careful timing and coordination between all the participating units.
First, Longstreet would hurl the division of Major General John Hood against the Union left flank in the area of Devil’s Den and the Round Tops. Then the division of Major General Lafayette McLaws would strike just north of Hood’s division—moving through the Peach Orchard toward the low point in the Union line north of Little Round Top. Next up would be Major General Richard H. Anderson’s division. Billy Mahone’s brigade stood at the left, or north end, of Anderson’s line.
After the battle, critics tore into Longstreet for taking so long to get his two divisions into position to lead the attack. It is no secret that Longstreet did not want to make this attack; he did not want Lee to attack at all. But when it comes to foot-dragging, recalcitrance, and doing nothing in a time of desperate need, Billy Mahone outshines Longstreet so brightly that the corps commander’s mere dilatoriness disappears in the blinding light of Mahone’s incompetent insubordination.
Longstreet’s attacks finally went in. Hood’s boys went first, and they, along with their Union foes, immortalized the names of Little Round Top, the Triangle Field, Houck’s Ridge, Devil’s Den, and a branch of Plum Run creek forever after known as the Slaughter Pen. McLaws’s men followed Hood’s, and their blood flowed freely in the Rose Woods, the Stony Hill, the Wheatfield, the Peach Orchard, and the Trostle Farm.
Union commander Lieutenant General George Meade, hampered by the actions of Dan Sickles, who led his III Corps forward contrary to orders, found himself forced to throw troops helter-skelter into the explosive mayhem that threatened to unhinge the left end of his line. He chose the ubiquitous Major General Winfield Scott Hancock to take command in the center. After nearly two hours of fighting, Hancock had thrown one of his entire divisions, most of the V Corps, and elements of the arriving VI Corps into the fight against Hood and McLaws, and still elements of the Rebel force were coming forward.
At about 6 P.M., it was time for Anderson’s division to hit the Union line. Brigadier General Cadmus Wilcox led forward his brigade of Alabamians, accompanied by the tiniest brigade in Lee’s army, one of three Florida regiments under the command of Colonel David Lang. Lang’s men formed on the left or north side of Wilcox’s brigade. Together, Wilcox and Lang crossed the ground between the Spangler Farm and the Emmitsburg Road, driving in the last remnants of Union Brigadier General Andrew Humphreys’s Second Division of III Corps and elements of Brigadier General John Gibbon’s Second Division, II Corps, sent to reinforce Humphreys. The charging Confederate line began to near Plum Run in the center of the battlefield and had an unobstructed path straight ahead toward Cemetery Ridge.
Desperately, Hancock searched the Union center for troops—any troops. He found the 1st Minnesota Regiment and ordered them forward in their famous charge that bought Hancock just enough time to draw even more troops up from the VI Corps and from his own II Corps divisions farther north along the Union line.
Into this confused maelstrom Brigadier General Ambrose Wright brought forward the next Confederate brigade. His four regiments of Georgians, numbering just over 1,400 men, surged forward toward the Emmitsburg Road, the Codori Farm, and the Union-held ridgeline just beyond. Joining with Lang’s brigade in driving back elements of Gibbon’s Second Division, II Corps, Wright’s Georgians advanced against terrible artillery fire, finally driving back a Federal battery and approaching the crest of Cemetery Ridge. According to many accounts, Wright’s men actually reached the crest of that ridge, momentarily breeching the Union line. Whether they did punch a clean hole in that line or not—still a debated issue—here is the great secret about the fighting that day that many histories ignore or dispute: the echelon attack was working. Troops were being drawn from as far north as the area where the Union line turned, the Angle, to plug the growing gap in the Union center. Further, it was at about 6 P.M. that Meade ordered units of the XII Corps, stationed on his far right flank on Culp’s Hill, to march to the assistance of the far left flank. This opened up Culp’s Hill to attack.
If ever there was a moment to continue an echelon attack, this was that moment.
It didn’t happen.
On Cemetery Ridge, Wright desperately sent word for support to come forward. His troops were now facing two Federal batteries firing from the crest of the ridge, a deadly fire from the 69th Pennsylvania at the famous stone wall in the Union center, and an advance of Vermont troops led by Union Brigadier General George Stannard. In fact, Wright’s brigade was facing alone the very troops that on the next day would be instrumental in repelling “Pickett’s Charge.” Anderson, his division commander, sent word back that Confederate Brigadier General Carnot Posey’s brigade would be coming quickly.
Anderson erred. He had ordered Posey forward to support Wright, but Posey no longer had control of his brigade. A minor skirmish at the Bliss Farm, a house and barn conveniently located in the no-man’s-land between the two armies, sucked in one after another of Posey’s regiments. When the time came to advance, at most one of Posey’s regiments was available in any semblance of order—the rest were engaged in a hot skirmish and sniping from the Bliss property. In fact, Posey was so hotly engaged in this sideshow that he appealed for help to the brigadier commanding the brigade on his left—Brigadier General Billy Mahone.
At about the same time, a second plea for help from Wright reached Anderson. The division commander sent a courier to Billy Mahone with orders for him to advance his brigade at once to support Wright’s.
Billy Mahone weighed about a hundred pounds when dripping wet. Standing five feet six inches high in his best boots, the wiry, hard-muscled man sported a huge beard down to his chest and favored a large cowboy-type hat. With his sharp, angular face and scrawny but tough limbs, he looked like nothing so much as a scrappy bantam rooster when fully decked out in uniform.
A Virginian by birth, educated at Virginia Military Institute, Mahone made his fortune in the railroad business prior to the war, and was active in Virginia politics, managing to win election to the Virginia legislature in 1863 while still on active duty with the army. By the time of Gettysburg, at the age of thirty-six, he was a veteran of the fighting in the Peninsula at Seven Pines and Malvern Hill, and had led troops at Second Bull Run, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville.
It was this veteran, scrappy little man who told Anderson’s courier that his brigade would not move. Mahone claimed that General Anderson himself had told him to occupy his current position. The aide protested that he had just come from General Anderson with this urgent order. His pleas didn’t move Mahone, and Mahone did not move. The courier returned to General Anderson in some consternation. Amazingly, Anderson took no further action!
After this strange incident, another courier arrived—this time from Posey—asking for help on his front. Mahone replied that he could not render aid to General Posey, as he had just been ordered to render aid to General Wright! And then Mahone continued to hold his ground. Not a soldier moved forward.
Wright’s brigade, alone in the midst of a growing crowd of Union troops, retreated. All along the line to their south, the Union reinforcements drawn from the center, the Union right, and the newly arriving VI Corps advanced to throw back the Confederates. And north and east of Billy Mahone, the waiting brigades of Heth’s, Pender’s, and Rodes’s divisions sat, never moving forward, since the key for their movement was the movement of the brigade to their right. Mahone broke the chain of the echelon attack at the very moment when it had the best chance of success.
There is more to the strange story of Billy Mahone. Not only did Anderson never take Mahone to task for his disobedience, he even defended Mahone in print. The only public criticism of Mahone appeared in a Virginia newspaper. When made aware of a public rebuke to Mahone, Anderson wrote to the newspaper defending Mahone, saying his subordinate had done nothing wrong, though Anderson didn’t provide any details to back up his claim.
Mahone went on in his military career to become one of Lee’s most respected generals. He performed with distinction in later fighting, and was the Confederate hero of the famous Battle of the Crater at the siege of Petersburg, Virginia, in 1864. After the war he was highly respected in both business and politics.
Why didn’t Anderson take sterner measures to get Mahone moving? Where was corps commander A. P. Hill, and why wasn’t he overseeing both Anderson and Mahone? Lastly, if the echelon attack plan was working—and it was working—why didn’t Robert E. Lee himself step in to see why it was breaking down at the most crucial moment? These questions remain unanswered, as does the larger question: if Mahone had gone forward, followed by Pender’s and then Heth’s divisions, would the Union line have collapsed, turning Gettysburg into Robert E. Lee’s greatest victory?