The Sword of Lincoln by Jeffry D. Wert

Author:Jeffry D. Wert
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Fifth Corps division commander Samuel Crawford shouted to his men “to make Pennsylvania their watchword.” Seizing a flag, Crawford led the charge on foot. The Federals blunted the enemy thrust, and then retired. Cannon from Cemetery Ridge and Little Round Top pounded the enemy ranks, which withdrew beyond Houck’s Ridge. Although the Confederates had gained the base of Big Round Top, Devil’s Den, Houck’s Ridge, the Wheatfield, and the Peach Orchard, they had not seized Little Round Top or the southern end of Cemetery Ridge. At last, the combat subsided into skirmish and sharpshooter firing. 54

The struggle, meanwhile, shifted into the fields between Seminary Ridge and Cemetery Ridge. Here, Colonel George Willard’s Second Corps brigade met William Barksdale’s Mississippians, who had blown across the Peach Orchard and overrun the 9 th Massachusetts Battery. Willard’s New Yorkers had been part of the Harper’s Ferry garrison, which had surrendered in September 1862. They had carried the stain of that with the nickname “Harper’s Ferry Cowards.” On this day, it became a rallying cry of “Remember Harper’s Ferry!” 55

Shouting it, they leaned into a Rebel volley and broke the Mississippians’ assault, pushing them back and fatally wounding Barksdale. An artillery round, however, struck Willard in the head, killing the colonel. He was the fifth Union brigade commander to be either slain or mortally wounded on July 2. In his report, their division commander, Alexander Hays, declared: “The history of this brigade’s operations is written in blood…. The acts of traitors at Harper’s Ferry had not tainted their patriotism.” 56

In a final thrust, Cadmus M. Wilcox’s Alabamians and Ambrose R. Wright’s Georgians charged toward the center of the Union line on Cemetery Ridge. As the Confederates came on, Hancock rode up to the 1 st Minnesota, which numbered fewer than three hundred officers and men, and ordered them to attack the Alabamians. “Every man realized in an instant what the order meant—death or wounds to us all,” wrote a member. They double-quicked down the ridge into a shallow ravine along its base. Leveling their rifles, they triggered a volley into the stunned Rebels. But Wilcox’s veterans returned the fire, raking the small regiment in front and on the flank. Fortunately for the Minnesotans, two Union regiments blasted the Alabamians, who retreated. The 1 st Minnesota’s sacrifice had cost it nearly four out of every five men in the ranks. 57

On the Alabamians’ left, Wright’s Georgians drove through a gale of artillery fire and musketry to the crest of Cemetery Ridge near a small clump of trees before being hammered back by the Federals. Lee had expected additional units from A. P. Hill’s corps to assail the Union position, but for reasons still uncertain, Wright’s charge ended the Southern assaults. Lee’s veterans had fought magnificently and nearly achieved a decisive breakthrough. Hood’s and McLaws’s 14,000 fighters had engaged upward of 20,000 Union infantrymen, wrecked the Third Corps, and mauled every other enemy command they encountered. Their casualties approached thirty percent of their numbers. They fell short because Union reserves plugged gaps, bought time, and fought valiantly.

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