The Second Day at Gettysburg: The Attack and Defense of the Union Center on Cemetery Ridge, July 2, 1863 by David L. Shultz Scott L. Mingus Sr

Author:David L. Shultz, Scott L. Mingus Sr.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HISTORY / United States / Civil War Period (1850-1877)
ISBN: 9781611210750
Publisher: Savas Beatie
Published: 2015-10-30T00:00:00+00:00

Maj. Gen. George Sykes, commanding Fifth Corps, Army of the Potomac LOC

Meade sent several couriers galloping off to Sykes to hurry him along. Unknown to Meade, Sickles had already sent an aide seeking support from the Fifth Corps’ commander. Sickles’ rider apparently reached Sykes first, but the general again refused to move his division strictly on Sickles’ request without authorization from headquarters. Some observers have speculated that Sykes, a veteran Regular Army officer, did not respect the request of the volunteer political general, one with a shady past and questionable leadership qualities. He finally began moving his men in Sickles’ direction only after Meade’s courier arrived with the requisite order.76

Back at Sickles’ headquarters at the Trostle farm, word arrived that Meade was approaching with his entourage. Riding out to meet him, Sickles and his staff halted east of Plum Run, where the rising ground offered a decent vista of his position. Meade immediately chastised Sickles: “General, I am afraid you are too far out.” When Sickles attempted to explain the favorable topography, Meade abruptly stopped him. “General Sickles, this is in some respects higher ground than that to the rear, but there is still higher in front of you, and if you keep advancing you will find it constantly higher ground all the way to the mountains.”77

While Meade and Sickles conversed, off to the west Longstreet prepared to attack. Sometime between 3:45 and 4:15 p.m., Colonel Cabell led his artillery battalion through the woods toward an open field north of Snyder’s farm lane. A stone wall blocked immediate access (although Cabell could have used the farm lane to enter the field farther eastward), his gunners spent time moving enough rocks to create several passageways to file through by section. Fanning out in the meadow between the wood line and the Emmitsburg Road, Cabell’s battalion formed a ragged crescent facing north by northeast. From north to south (left to right from the colonel’s perspective) Cabell aligned as follows: a section of Capt. H. H. Carlton’s Troup (Georgia) Artillery (two 12-pounder howitzers); Capt. B. C. Manley’s 1st North Carolina (Ellis’s) Artillery (two Napoleons and two Ordnance Rifles); Carlton’s second section of two 10-pounder Parrott Rifles; Capt. E. S. McCarthy’s 1st Richmond Howitzers (two Napoleons and two Ordnance Rifles); and finally nearest the Emmitsburg Road, Capt. J. C. Fraser’s Pulaski (Georgia) Artillery (two Ordnance Rifles and two 10-pounder Parrotts). Cabell ran all 16 caissons up to the stone wall, where they remained under the cover of the canopy of trees. It was a formidable gun line, capable of both long- and short-range support for the impending infantry assault. Gun chiefs began sighting the distant Yankee positions and judging ranges.78

Having followed Colonel Walton’s column toward the Emmitsburg Road some 400 yards south of Captain Fraser’s Georgians, Major Henry stopped his battalion long enough for him and Walton to assess the situation. As Cabell unlimbered to the north, Walton and Henry led Capt. James Reilly’s Rowan (North Carolina) Artillery across the Emmitsburg Road onto the

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