Maps of Gettysburg by Bradley Gottfried

Author:Bradley Gottfried
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Bisac Code 1: HIS036051
ISBN: eBook ISBN: 9781611210255
Publisher: Savas Beatie
Published: 2008-06-18T16:00:00+00:00

Map 18.5

With the 2nd New Hampshire, 3rd Maine, and 68th Pennsylvania gone, the 141st Pennsylvania faced the advance of the 21st Mississippi alone. A captain rushed up to the regiment’s commander, Col. Henry Madill, and begged him to pull the regiment back to safety. “I have no order to get out,” Madill replied. “If I had my full regiment here we could whip the whole crew.” Seeing troops on their right flank beyond the smoke, the men opened fire. An officer who thought the troops were Federals quickly ordered the firing to halt. The mistake was costly, as a subsequent volley from Barksdale’s men brought down more than a score of Pennsylvanians.

After holding his position for what he believed to be twenty minutes, Colonel Madill finally accepted that to remain was suicide and ordered his men to pull back. “It was at this point that my regiment suffered so severely,” Madill recalled. General Sickles watched the men retreat and asked, “Colonel! For God’s sake can’t you hold on?” With tears in his eyes, Madill replied, “Where are my men?”21

Meanwhile, the 105th Pennsylvania offered the last organized resistance from Graham’s brigade along Emmitsburg Road. As Barksdale’s victorious troops wheeled about and approached from the southwest, Col. Calvin Craig ordered his men to “retire slowly, a short distance, and changed front to the rear on the first company,” which resulted in a new line of battle across Emmitsburg Road, approximately where it intersected with Trostle Lane. Members of the 57th Pennsylvania joined the men of the 105th there, and together they opened fire on the enemy. One Confederate recalled that the Pennsylvanians were “posted behind an embankment, and they killed lots of our boys.” The Mississippians nearly engulfed the short makeshift defensive line. To stay meant annihilation, so Colonel Craig ordered his men to withdraw. “The regiment being so small and both flanks being entirely unprotected, I ordered the regiment to retire slowly,” Craig recalled. The regiment managed to reform a short distance in the rear and again opened fire. One veteran estimated that the regiment performed this maneuver eight to ten times. In the continuous firefight, the Mississippians gave as good as they got, and the 105th Pennsylvania lost almost half of its men.22

One Confederate veteran recalled that the Federal troops “fought back bravely, retiring slowly until the firing was at close quarters, when the retreat became a rout in which our men took [a] heavy toll for the losses inflicted on them.” Barksdale’s infantry captured sizeable numbers of Federal soldiers during this portion of the attack, including the wounded General Graham. Colonel Tippin was surprised that Graham did not get out for, “after dismounting, he walked with apparently little difficulty.”23

With the Peach Orchard salient crushed, the 21st Mississippi continued its eastward advance, colliding with the 7th New Jersey of Burling’s brigade, which had been supporting the Federal batteries. These troops had already had a share of excitement when Clark’s battery, with its horses, cannons, and caissons, barreled through their line in its haste to reach safety.

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