Hallowed Ground by James M. McPherson

Author:James M. McPherson
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Non-fiction, Travel, History
ISBN: 9780307529756
Publisher: Crown Journeys
Published: 2003-05-13T10:00:00+00:00

Day Three: July 3, 1863

JULY 3 DAWNED warm and humid—normal for midsummer in Gettysburg. As the light strengthened, firing broke out and grew louder on the Culp's Hill lines, where it had died away only seven hours earlier. The Union Twelfth Corps brigades that had departed to reinforce the left had returned during the night and were determined to regain their lost trenches in the morning. We return now to the Spangler's Spring area to discuss what happened there on that morning of July 3.

Ewell had also reinforced the Confederate units at Culp's Hill, doubling their numbers overnight. Both sides planned to attack there at first light—the Federals to regain the trenches they had abandoned, the Confederates to renew their effort to capture the hill. The Yankees struck first, at 4:30 A.M., with an artillery barrage against the Confederates in those captured trenches on the southern slope of the hill. Soon after, Confederate infantry renewed their attack on the higher slopes where the fighting had taken place the previous evening.

Once again the 137th New York found itself in the thick of the action, but this time it had plenty of help. Back and forth for several hours on this line came attacks and counterattacks, in the woods and in a small clearing called Pardee Field. Some fifty monuments and markers crowded into the half-mile from Spangler's Spring up to the observation tower testify to the intensity of fighting for nearly seven hours on this hot morning. Most of the time it was the Confederates who attacked, but each time they were driven back.

One dramatic Union assault in late morning by the Second Massachusetts and Twenty-seventh Indiana against the Confederate left was also repulsed with heavy loss, a story told by the interpretive marker and the monuments of these two regiments near Spangler's Spring. Both were elite regiments; most of the Second Massachusetts's officers were Harvard alumni. In a few minutes, about 250 men in the two regiments were shot down, ninety-five of them fatally.

Another poignant event took place on this flank that morning. Twenty-two-year-old Wesley Culp was a private in the Second Virginia Infantry, which took position as skirmishers on the Confederate left across Rock Creek, about four hundred yards east of Spangler's Spring. Culp had grown up in Gettysburg where, like Henry Wentz, he had learned the trade of carriage-maker. Also like Wentz, he had gone to Virginia before the war, when his employer moved the carriage-making business to Shepherdstown. Young Culp had joined the local militia there, which became Company B of the Second Virginia when the war broke out. Now he was back at Gettysburg, fighting near the hill named after his great-grandfather, who had established a farm near the hill now owned by Wesley's cousin Henry Culp. As a boy, Wesley had splashed in the local swimming hole in Rock Creek; now as a soldier he was taking potshots at Yankees along the creek; one of them took a shot at him and the bullet went home.

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