We continue now onto reason 16 as to why Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia was unsuccessful in the Gettysburg Campaign. As stated before, the 17 reasons for the confederate loss at Gettysburg must be credited to the authors of the highly informative book "Last Chance for Victory".
Today we are going to take a look at reason number 16, Meade's localized counter attack at Culps Hill early on the morning of July 3rd. To understand what happened on July 3rd we must first take a quick look at Ewells actions and the attack made by Edward Johnson's division on July 2nd.
Quick Review of Lee's Plan for the Union Right Flank on July 2nd
As we are all very much aware, Lee's plans for July 2nd was to conduct what is referred to as an en echelon attack. This attack was to begin with Longstreet's corp using the Emmitsburg road as a guide line to assault the union left flank. The attack was to begin with Hoods division and Mclaw's division. It was Lee's plan to then have A.P. Hill commit his division in an assault in the area of Cemetery Ridge and finally Ewells corp would commit its divisions in an assault on Cemetery Hill and Culp's Hill.
The reason behind this plan was Lee was hoping that Longstreet's divisions would strike the union left and have enough success that Meade would be forced to strip away troops from the area around Cemetery Hill and Culp's Hill to stop the tide of Longstreet's and essentially A.P. Hills assault. With the area of Cemetery Hill and Culp's Hill weakened, Ewells corp would then attack in the weening hours of July 2nd and if all went according to plan, Ewell's corp would carry these objectives and could quite possibly win the day for the confederacy.
Although Lee's en echelon attack began to fall apart with A.P. Hills corp, which is a topic we will discuss in an other post, Meade was still forced to do exactly what Lee had intended. By the early evening hours of July 2nd, Meade had only one of Slocum's 12th corp brigades manning the defenses of Culp's Hill. He had sent the rest to endangered parts of the union line to the south.
Ewell Attacks Culp's Hill on the Evening of July 2nd.
Somewhere between the hours of 4pm and 6pm, while Ewells guns were being outmatched by Union artillery on Cemetery Hill and along the Baltimore Pike, Ewell and his staff rode through the town of Gettysburg to St, Francis Xavier's Roman Catholic Church located on High Street. Ewell sent his staff scurrying up the ladder of the church to the cupola to observe how things were progressing. While Ewell waited down in the street below, his staff members, who had an excellent view straight down the Emmitsburg road from there high perched posistion, called down to Ewell. "Things are going splendidly! We are driving them back everywhere!" It was not long after Ewell and his staff left the church on high street, that he received reports from skirmishers along Rock Creek, that union troops were quitting there positions.
Even Ewell, the general who had erred so much on the side of caution during the early evening hours of July 1st, knew that all of these signs showed it was time to attack. It was sometime between 6pm and 6:45pm that Ewell's division commander Edward "Allegheny" Johnson received his orders to proceed with the assault on Culps Hill. By 7pm Johnson had his men aligned and ready to proceed with the assault.
Johnsons division, minus Walker's Stonewall brigade, which was kept on the Hanover road to protect the flank in lieu of Stuart's missing cavalry, crossed waist deep Rock Creek. It was just about dark when Johnson's division began to struggle up the rocky slopes, guided only by the flash of small arms fire. In there front lay the lone New York Brigade of George Greene.
Greene had been forced to stretch his brigade from the area occupied by General Wadsworth all the way to lower Culp's Hill. 400 hundred yards of breast works from lower Culp's Hill to the area around Spanglers Spring were left unoccupied.
It was on this fateful evening that glory could have fell upon confederate brigadier general George Hume "Maryland" Steuart. Steuart occupied the far left of Johnson's line. Steuart had lucked out, and his left most regiments stumbled up the rocky slopes and into unoccupied trenches that stretched beyond Greene's line. Steuart began to turn Greene's flank and forced at least two regiments back to the summit of the hill. Little did Steuart know that thanks to his flanking movement, he and his regiments were now within 400 yards of Meades vital supply line along the Baltimore Pike, but the day was not to be Steuart's. In the nick of time, badly cut up regiments from the first corp arrived, halting Steuart's advance. The combination of darkness, the rugged and rocky terrain, and finally the arrival of those battered first corp regiments, caused Johnsons advance to grind to a stop, and the men of the division hunkered down in the abandoned trenches the men occupied.
Meade Counter Attacks on July 3rd
During the late night hours of July 3rd, the commanding generals of both armies made fateful decisions that would effect both countries that they represented in this brutal conflict. The generals had something in common in there choices that late evening. They both made the choice to stay on the current battlefield and fight it out. One would choose to stay and attack, while an other would choose to stay and defend the ground they currently occupied.
While Lee sat by candlelight that fateful late night of July 2nd, and planned his attack on the union center, he knew that he would have to do everything in his power to draw as many troops away from the center as he possibly could. The best way to achieve this would be to have Ewell use Johnsons division to press there July 2nd gained advantages on Culps Hill.
Meade also sat by candlelight on the late evening of July 2nd. The difference being he sat in a room filled with his generals attending a council of war. When Meade chose to stay and fight it out, he knew that he would have to secure the union's endangered right flank. He knew he would have to regain the ground lost to Johnson's division.
In the wee hours of the morning of July 3rd, the focus was not on Little Round Top, Devils Den, or the Wheat field. The focus was on Culp's Hill, and the results of the upcoming day lay could very well lay in the balance with the occupation of this crucial ground.
It was 4:30 am on the morning of July 3rd when a furious cannonade exploded from the union right, bombarding the confederate left. Eventually 26 guns would participate in the bombardment. Meade had attacked first. General Slocum's plan was to hit the confederates hard and "Drive them out at daylight."
Meades choice to stay and fight at Gettysburg, let alone attack Johnson's division, was a brave and smart decision. Meades army had lost almost 20,000 troops in two days time. Three of Meade's corps were shattered, and many other regiments from the other corps had been used and chewed up. A little known fact about the Army of the Potomac was that water was in very short supply, and much of the army had just one days rations, if that. Despite all of this, Meade took the initiative from Lee on Culp's Hill that muggy summer morning.
Because of the rugged and rocky terrain that makes up Culp's Hill. The union cannonade caused little casualties among Johnson's reinforced division. (Two of Rode's brigades and one of Early's brigades had joined Johnson's division that morning.) Johnson's reinforced division surged forward up the difficult terrain and began a fight that would be fought foot by foot by just about six hours.
The First Division of the Twelfth Corp crossed the ground around Spanglers Spring and struck Johnson's left flank. Two brigades from the second division attempted to attack and retake the earthworks the confederates occupied the night before, but they were thrown back with great slaughter. It is rumored that as the sun grew higher in the sky on the morning of July 3rd, that Johnson caught a glimpse of how close the Baltimore Pike really was to the confederates, and he doubled his efforts to push forward. Johnson would try twice more to push the union out from there position, but the effort was for naught. The enemy was well entrenched and to large in number. Johnson also could not count on confederate artillery support because of the fear the artillery would cause damage among there own men, while the union artillery could fire freely, even going through two thirds of there ammunition. Attacks were made back and forth all morning long. Attempts were made to dislodge Billy Smiths Virginian brigade from a stone wall in the field around Spangler's Spring, but the attempt failed with heavy loss to the union. Despite all of this, by 11am the fight was over. All of the trenches and earthworks were firmly in the hands of the Army of the Potomac and all of Johnson's brigades had been repulsed.
The tale of Culp's Hill was a tragic tale for the Army of Northern Virginia. When Ewell and Johnson continued the attack on the morning of July 3rd, they were under the impression that Longstreet would at least be beginning his bombardment by that point. It was not until a half hour after the fighting began that Ewell received word that Longstreet would not begin his assault until 10:30pm and even that assessment at the time was wildly optimistic. (Longstreet did not begin his bombardment until 1pm) When Ewell received word of this, there was no way he could call of the attack. The Federals were in charge now, and Ewell and Johnson had no choice but to continue the fight.
And so we have reason 16. Thanks to Meade counter attacking Johnson's division in the area of Culp's Hill, he protected the vital Baltimore Pike, and helped derail Lee's initial plan for July 3rd.
Yours Truly,
Fred Brennan
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