But for the benefit of the present—of the young, the busy, who have neither time nor inclination to study the records, and for that sentiment that is increasingly shaped by the public press,—for these and other reasons it appears fitting that in this hour historical truth should have a spokesman on the Gettysburg contentions. In the absence of one more able to speak, this little story of the truth is written. The writer belongs to a generation that has come up since the gloom of Appomattox closed the drama of the great “Lost Cause” of American history—a generation that seeks the truth, unwarped and undistorted by passion, and can face the truth.
In the prosecution of my researches for the origin of the extraordinary calumnies aimed at General Longstreet’s honor as a soldier, two most significant facts have continually pressed upon my attention.
First, not one word appears to have been published openly accusing him of disobedience at Gettysburg until the man who could forever have silenced all criticism was in his grave—until the knightly soul of Robert Edward Lee had passed into eternity.
Second, General Longstreet’s operations on the field of Gettysburg were above the suspicion of reproach until he came under the political ban in the South, for meeting in the proper spirit, as he saw it, the requirements of good citizenship in the observance of his Appomattox parole, and, after the removal of his political disabilities, for having accepted office at the hands of a Republican President who happened to be his old West Point comrade,—Grant.
Then the storm broke. He was heralded as traitor, deserter of his people, deserter of Democracy, etc. In the fury of this onslaught originated the cruel slander that he had disobeyed Lee’s most vital orders, causing the loss of the Gettysburg battle and the ultimate fall of the Confederate cause. Most singularly, this strange discovery was not made until some years after the battle and General Lee’s death. Thereafter for two decades the South was sedulously taught to believe that the Federal victory was wholly the fortuitous outcome of the culpable disobedience of General Longstreet.
The sectional complaint that he deserted “Democracy” is about as relevant and truthful as the assertion that he lost Gettysburg. He was a West Pointer, a professional soldier. He had never cast a ballot before the Civil War; he had no politics. Its passions and prejudices had no dwelling-place in his mind. The war was over, and he quietly accepted the result, fraternizing with all Americans. It was no great crime.
But the peculiar circumstances favored an opportunity to make Longstreet the long-desired scape-goat for Gettysburg. There was an ulterior and deeper purpose, however, than merely besmirching his military record. Short-sighted partisans seemingly argued that the disparagement of Longstreet was necessary to save the military reputation of Lee. But Lee’s great fame needed no such sacrifice.
The outrageous charges against Longstreet have been wholly disproved. Much of the partisan rancor that once pursued him has died out. Many of the more intelligent Southerners have been long convinced that he was the victim of a great wrong.
It was unworthy of Major-General John B. Gordon, once of the army of Northern Virginia, to revive this dead controversy. He simply reiterates the old charges in full, produces no evidence in their support, and gratuitously endorses a false and cruel verdict. His contribution is of no historical value. It carries inherent evidence that General Gordon made no critical examination of the documentary history of Gettysburg. He assumes to render a verdict on the say-so of others.
Gordon’s unsupported assertions would require no attention but for one fact. Both South and North there is a widespread impression that Gordon was a conspicuous figure at Gettysburg. This is erroneous. He was merely a brigade commander there, stationed five miles from Longstreet. It is not certain that he personally saw either Lee or Longstreet while the army was in Pennsylvania.
In his official report Gordon uses this language regarding the operations of his own small command at Gettysburg when the heaviest fighting was going on, finely showing the scope of his opportunities for observation:
“The movements during the succeeding days of the battle, July 2 and 3, I do not consider of sufficient importance to mention.”
It is but just to Gordon, however, to say that in his subordinate capacity at the head of one of the thirty-seven brigades of infantry comprising Lee’s army, he performed excellent service on the first day’s battle. But in estimating his value as a personal witness, the foregoing undisputed facts must be taken into consideration. His testimony is obviously of the hearsay kind. In fact, as will be observed from his own admission, it is no more than his own personal conclusions, wholly deduced from the assertions of others, based on an assumed state of facts which did not exist.
In his recent publication, “Reminiscences of the Civil War,” Gordon says,—
“It now seems certain that impartial military critics, after thorough investigation, will consider the following facts established:
“First, that General Lee distinctly ordered Longstreet to attack early on the morning of the second day, and if Longstreet had done so two of the largest corps of Meade’s army would not have been in the fight; but Longstreet delayed the fight until four o’clock in the afternoon, and thus lost his opportunity of occupying Little Round Top, the key of the position, which he might have done in the morning without firing a shot or losing a man.”
It is competent to point out that Longstreet’s orders from General Lee were “to move around to gain the Emmitsburg road, on the enemy’s left.” In short, he was “to attack up the Emmitsburg road,” as all the authorities agree. He therefore could not well “occupy” Little Round Top up the Emmitsburg road, because it was but a fraction less than a mile to the east of that road. It is as clear as noonday that Lee had no thought at first, if ever, that Little Round Top was the “key to the position.” Lee merely contemplated driving the enemy from some high ground on the Emmitsburg road from which the “more elevated ground” of Cemetery Hill in its rear, more than a mile to the northward of Little Round Top, could be subsequently assailed.
Lee’s luminous report of the battle, dated July 31, 1863, only four weeks after, has escaped Gordon’s notice, or has been conveniently ignored by him. It is found at page 305 et seq., of Part II., Vol. XXVII., of the printed War Records, easily accessible to everybody. At page 308, Lee’s report:
“ ... In front of General Longstreet the enemy held a position from which, if he could be driven, it was thought our artillery could be used to advantage in assailing the more elevated ground beyond, and thus enable us to reach the crest of the ridge. That officer was directed to carry this position.... After a severe struggle, Longstreet succeeded in getting possession of and holding the desired ground.... The battle ceased at dark.”
The “desired ground” captured was that held by Sickles’s Federal Third Corps,—the celebrated peach-orchard, wheat-field, and adjacent high ground, from which Cemetery Hill was next day assailed by the Confederate artillery as a prelude to Pickett’s infantry assault.
It was the “crest of the ridge,” not the Round Top, that Lee wished to assail. His eye from the first appears to have been steadily fixed upon the Federal centre. That is why he ordered the “attack up the Emmitsburg road.”
Longstreet’s official report is very explicit on this point. It was written July 27, 1863. On page 358 of the same book he says,—
“I received instructions from the commanding general to move, with the portion of my command that was up, around to gain the Emmitsburg road, on the enemy’s left.”
Lieutenant-General R. H. Anderson, then of Hill’s corps, also makes this definite statement:
“Shortly after the line had been formed, I received notice that Lieutenant-General Longstreet would occupy the ground on my right, and that his line would be in a direction nearly at right angles with mine, and that he would assault the extreme left of the enemy and drive him towards Gettysburg.”
Just here it is pertinent to say that General Longstreet had the afternoon previous, and again that morning, suggested to General Lee the more promising plan of a movement by the Confederate right to interpose between the Federals and their capital, and thus compel General Meade to give battle at a disadvantage. On this point General Longstreet uses the following language in a newspaper publicationB more than a quarter of a century ago:
“When I overtook General Lee at five o’clock that afternoon [July 1], he said, to my surprise, that he thought of attacking General Meade upon the heights the next day. I suggested that this course seemed to be at variance with the plan of the campaign that had been agreed upon before leaving Fredericksburg. He said, ‘If the enemy is there to-morrow, we must attack him.’ I replied: ‘If he is there, it will be because he is anxious that we should attack him—a good reason in my judgment for not doing so.’ I urged that we should move around by our right to the left of Meade and put our army between him and Washington, threatening his left and rear, and thus force him to attack us in such position as we might select.... I called his attention to the fact that the country was admirably adapted for a defensive battle, and that we should surely repulse Meade with crushing loss if we would take position so as to force him to attack us, and suggested that even if we carried the heights in front of us, and drove Meade out, we should be so badly crippled that we could not reap the fruits of victory; and that the heights of Gettysburg were in themselves of no more importance to us than the ground we then occupied, and that the mere possession of the ground was not worth a hundred men to us. That Meade’s army, not its position, was our objective. General Lee was impressed with the idea that by attacking the Federals he could whip them in detail. I reminded him that if the Federals were there in the morning it would be proof that they had their forces well in hand, and that with Pickett in Chambersburg, and Stuart out of reach, we should be somewhat in detail. He, however, did not seem to abandon the idea of attack on the next day. He seemed under a subdued excitement which occasionally took possession of him when ‘the hunt was up,’ and threatened his superb equipoise.... When I left General Lee on the night of the 1st, I believed that he had made up his mind to attack, but was confident that he had not yet determined as to when the attack should be made.”
But General Lee persisted in the direct attack “up the Emmitsburg road.” Hood, deployed on Longstreet’s extreme right, at once perceived that the true direction was by flank against the southern slopes of Big Round Top. He delayed the advance to advise of the discovery he had made. Soon the positive order came back: “General Lee’s orders are to attack up the Emmitsburg road.” He still hesitated and repeated the suggestion. Again it was reiterated: “General Lee’s orders are to attack up the Emmitsburg road.” Then the troops moved to the attack. There was no alternative. Lee’s orders were imperative, and made after he had personally examined the enemy’s position. Longstreet was ordered to attack a specific position “up the Emmitsburg road,” which was not Little Round Top, as assumed by Gordon. This point is particularly elaborated because in it lies the “milk in the cocoanut” of the charges against Longstreet. Without consulting the records Gordon has merely followed the lead of some of General Lee’s biographers, notably Fitzhugh Lee, who asserts that his illustrious uncle “expected Longstreet to seize Little Round Top on the 2d of July.” The records clearly show that nothing was farther from General Lee’s thoughts.
After the war it was discovered that a very early attack on Little Round Top would perhaps have found it undefended, hence the afterthought that General Longstreet was ordered to attack at sunrise. But whatever the hour Longstreet was ordered to attack, it was most certainly not Little Round Top that was made his objective.
CHAPTER II
LEE CHANGES PLAN OF CAMPAIGN
“General, I have been a soldier all my life. I have been with soldiers engaged in fights by couples, by squads, companies, regiments, divisions, and armies, and should know as well as any one what soldiers can do. It is my opinion that no fifteen thousand men ever arrayed for battle can take that position,” pointing to Cemetery Hill.—Longstreet to Lee.
General Longstreet’s personal account of this magnificent battle “up the Emmitsburg road” will not be out of place here. In the newspaper article previously quoted from he very graphically describes the advance of the two divisions of McLaws and Hood, for when he went into battle it must be understood that even yet one of his divisions, that of Pickett, was still absent. He states his total force at thirteen thousand men. An account of this clash of arms must send a thrill of pride through every Southern heart:
“At half-past three o’clock the order was given General Hood to advance upon the enemy, and, hurrying to the head of McLaws’s division, I moved with his line. Then was fairly commenced what I do not hesitate to pronounce the best three hours’ fighting ever done by any troops on any battle-field. Directly in front of us, occupying the peach-orchard, on a piece of elevated ground that General Lee desired me to take and hold for his artillery, was the Third Corps of the Federals, commanded by General Sickles.
MAJOR-GENERAL D. E. SICKLES“Prompt to the order the combat opened, followed by artillery of the other corps, and our artillerists measured up to the better metal of the enemy by vigilant work....
“In his usual gallant style Hood led his troops through the rocky fastnesses against the strong lines of his earnest adversary, and encountered battle that called for all of his power and skill. The enemy was tenacious of his strong ground; his skilfully handled batteries swept through the passes between the rocks; the more deadly fire of infantry concentrated as our men bore upon the angle of the enemy’s line and stemmed the fiercest onset until it became necessary to shorten their work by a desperate charge. This pressing struggle and the cross-fire of our batteries broke in the salient angle, but the thickening fire, as the angle was pressed back, hurt Hood’s left and held him in steady fight. His right brigade was drawn towards Round Top by the heavy fire pouring from that quarter, Benning’s brigade was pressed to the thickening line at the angle, and G. T. Anderson’s was put in support of the battle growing against Hood’s right.
“I rode to McLaws, found him ready for his opportunity, and Barksdale chafing in his wait for the order to seize the battery in his front. Kershaw’s brigade of his right first advanced and struck near the angle of the enemy’s line where his forces were gathering strength. After additional caution to hold his ranks closed, McLaws ordered Barksdale in. With glorious bearing he sprang to his work, overriding obstacles and dangers. Without a pause to deliver a shot, he had the battery. Kershaw, joined by Semmes’s brigade, responded, and Hood’s men, feeling the impulsion of relief, resumed their bold fight, and presently the enemy’s line was broken through its length. But his well-seasoned troops knew how to utilize the advantage of their ground and put back their dreadful fires from rocks, depressions, and stone fences, as they went for shelter about Little Round Top.... The fighting had become tremendous, and brave men and officers were stricken by hundreds. Posey and Wilcox dislodged the forces about the Brick House.
“General Sickles was desperately wounded!
“General Willard was dead!
“General Semmes, of McLaws’s division, was mortally wounded!...
“I had one brigade—Wofford’s—that had not been engaged in the hottest battle. To urge the troops to their reserve power in the precious moments, I rode with Wofford. The rugged field, the rough plunge of artillery fire, and the piercing musket-shots delayed somewhat the march, but Alexander dashed up with his batteries and gave new spirit to the worn infantry ranks.... While Meade’s lines were growing my men were dropping; we had no others to call to their aid, and the weight against us was too heavy to carry.... Nothing was heard or felt but the clear ring of the enemy’s fresh metal as he came against us. No other part of the army had engaged! My seventeen thousand against the Army of the Potomac! The sun was down, and with it went down the severe battle.”
Surely these are not the utterances of one who had been slow, balky, and obstructive on that field. The ring of these sentences tells no tale of apathy or backwardness because his advice to pursue a different line of operations had been ignored by Lee.
General Gordon, continuing, very complacently assumes that “two of the largest corps of Meade’s army would not have been in the fight” of the 2d had Longstreet attacked early in the morning. He refers to the Union Fifth and Sixth Corps. That statement is correct only as regards the Sixth Corps, which, it is true, did not arrive on the field until late in the afternoon. But it took only a slight part at dark on the 2d, when the battle was over. Indeed, as it was so slightly engaged, the hour of its arrival at Gettysburg is unimportant. The losses of the different corps conclusively show what part the Sixth, which was the largest in the army, took in the battle of the 2d of July; as given in the Rebellion Records:
Killed and wounded: First Corps, 3980; Second Corps, 3991; Third Corps, 3662; Fifth Corps, 1976; Sixth Corps, 212; Eleventh Corps, 2353; Twelfth Corps, 1016.
Its non-participation strongly militates against the spirit of Gordon’s argument, in that Meade entirely frustrated Lee’s plans and defeated the Confederate army, scarcely using the Sixth Corps, some fifteen thousand men, at all. This is a significant commentary on the anti-Longstreet assumption of how easy it was to win at Gettysburg if only Longstreet had obeyed orders!
At sunrise on the 2d, the hour at which Longstreet’s critics would have had this attack delivered, the Federal Fifth Corps was as near the battle-ground of that day as Longstreet’s troops. Longstreet’s troops were bivouacked the night previous at Marsh Creek, four miles west of Gettysburg. They began to arrive near Lee’s head-quarters on Seminary Ridge not earlier than 7 A.M. of the 2d, and the last of the column did not get in until near noon. Then they were still five miles by the route pursued from the chosen point of attack.
The Union Fifth Corps was bivouacked five miles east of Gettysburg about the same hour on the 1st that Longstreet’s tired infantry reached Marsh Creek. At four o’clock A.M. of the 2d they marched on Gettysburg, arriving about the same hour that Longstreet’s troops were being massed near Lee’s head-quarters, and were thereupon posted upon the extreme Federal right.
Upon the first manifestation of Confederate movements on the right and left, we know that the Fifth Corps was immediately drawn in closer, and about nine o’clock massed at the bridge over Rock Creek on the Baltimore pike, ready for developments. Meade thought Lee intended to attack his right. That Lee contemplated it is quite certain. Colonel Venable, of his staff, was sent about sunrise to consult with Lieutenant-General Ewell upon the feasibility of a general attack from his front. Lee wanted Ewell’s views as to the advisability of moving all the available troops around to that front for such a purpose. Venable and Ewell rode from point to point to determine if this should be done. Finally, Venable says, Lee himself came to Ewell’s lines, and eventually the design for an attack on the Union right was abandoned.
Where the Fifth Corps was finally massed, it was only one and a half miles in the rear of General Sickles’s position. Moreover, it had an almost direct road to that point. This facility for reinforcing incidentally illustrates the advantages of the Union position. At the same hour General Longstreet’s troops were still massed near the Chambersburg pike, three miles on a straight line from the point of attack. That is to say, Longstreet had twice as far to march on an air-line to strike Sickles “up the Emmitsburg road” as Sykes had to reinforce the threatened point. But, in fact, Sykes’s advantage was far greater in point of time, because, by order of Lee, Longstreet was compelled to move by back roads and lanes, out of sight of the enemy’s signal officers on Round Top. His troops actually marched six or seven miles to reach the point of deployment.
Longstreet eventually attacked about 4 P.M., and the Fifth Corps was used very effectively against him. But no historian who esteems the truth, with the undisputed records before him, will deny that it could and would have been used just as effectively at seven or eight o’clock in the morning. The moment Longstreet’s movement was detected it was immediately hurried over to the left and occupied Round Top. If Longstreet had moved earlier, the Fifth Corps also would have moved earlier. It could have been on Sickles’s left and rear as early as seven o’clock A.M., had it been necessary. If Ewell and not Longstreet had delivered the general attack it would have been found in his front.
It is mathematically correct to say that the troops which met Longstreet on the afternoon of the 2d could have been brought against him in the morning. The reports of General Meade, General Sykes, the commander of the Fifth Corps of Sykes’s brigade, and regimental commanders, and various other documentary history bearing on the subject, are convincing upon this point.
General Sickles’s advance was made in consequence of the Confederate threatening, and would have been sooner or later according as that threatening was made. The critics ignore this fact.
General Longstreet says on this point:
“General Meade was with General Sickles discussing the feasibility of moving the Third Corps back to the line originally assigned for it; the discussion was cut short by the opening of the Confederate battle. If that opening had been delayed thirty or forty minutes, Sickles’s corps would have been drawn back to the general line, and my first deployment would have enveloped Little Round Top and carried it before it could have been strongly manned. The point should have been that the battle was opened too soon.”
So much for one part of Gordon’s assumption, based upon other assumptions founded upon an erroneous presumption, that if Longstreet had taken wings and flown on an air-line from his bivouac at Marsh Creek to the Federal left and attacked at sunrise he would have found no enemy near the Round Tops.
In another equally unwarranted assumption of what the “impartial” military critic will consider an “established fact,” Gordon declares:
“Secondly, that General Lee ordered Longstreet to attack at daylight on the morning of the third day, and that the latter did not attack until two or three o’clock in the afternoon, the artillery opening at one.”
Lee himself mentions no such order. In his final report, penned six months afterwards, he merely mentions that the “general plan was unchanged,” and Longstreet, reinforced, ordered to attack “next morning,” no definite hour being fixed. It is significant, however, that in his letter to Jefferson Davis from the field, dated July 4, Lee uses this language:
“Next day (July 3), the third division of General Longstreet’s corps having come up, a more extensive attack was made,” etc.
The “third division” was Pickett’s, which did not arrive from Chambersburg until 9 A.M. of the 3d. In the same report, Lee himself states that “Pickett, with three of his brigades, joined Longstreet the following morning.” There is no dispute, however, about the hour of Pickett’s arrival.
So that, as Pickett was selected by Lee to lead the charge, and as Lee knew exactly where Pickett was, it is morally impossible that it was fixed for daylight, five hours before Pickett’s troops were up.
In one place Lee remarks in his report: “The morning was occupied in necessary preparations, and the battle recommenced in the afternoon of the 3d.” Time was not an essential element in the problem of the 3d. The Federal army was then all up, whereas Pickett’s Confederate division was still absent. The delay of a few hours was therefore a distinct gain for the Confederates, and not prejudicial, as Gordon would have the world believe.
But Longstreet’s official report is decisive of the whole question. He says,—
“On the following morning (that is, after the fight of the 2d) our arrangements were made for renewing the attack by my right, with a view to pass round the hill occupied by the enemy’s left, and gain it by flank and reverse attack. A few moments after my orders for the execution of this plan were given, the commanding general joined me, and ordered a column of attack to be formed of Pickett’s, Heth’s, and part of Pender’s divisions, the assault to be made directly at the enemy’s main position, the Cemetery Hill.”
Clearly this shows that Longstreet had no orders for the morning of July 3. As Longstreet’s report passed through Lee’s hands, the superior would most certainly have returned it to the subordinate for correction if there were errors in it. This he did not do, neither did Lee indorse upon the document itself any dissent from its tenor.
As Pickett did not come up until 9 A.M., and as General Lee says “the morning was occupied in necessary preparations,” it was logistically and morally impossible to make an attack at daylight, and General Longstreet states that it could not have been delivered sooner than it was.
Finally, Longstreet emphatically denies that Lee ordered him to attack at daylight on the 3d. He says that he had no orders of any kind on that morning until Lee personally came over to his front and ordered the Pickett charge. No early attack was possible under the conditions imposed by Lee to use Pickett’s, Pettigrew’s, and Pender’s troops, widely separated.
But without any orders from Lee, as is quite apparent, Longstreet had already given orders for a flank attack by the southern face of Big Round Top, as an alternative to directly attacking again the impregnable heights from which he had been repulsed the night before. That would have been “simple madness,” to quote the language of the Confederate General Law. But such an act of “simple madness” was the only daylight attack possible from Longstreet’s front on the morning of the 3d. Lee substituted for the feasible early attack projected by Longstreet the Pickett movement straight on Cemetery Heights which it required hours of preparation to fulminate, and which proved the most disastrous and destructive in Confederate annals. It was, in fact, the death-knell of the Southern republic.
In his published memoirs,C page 385, General Longstreet makes this concise statement in regard to Lee’s alleged orders for the early morning operations on the 3d: “He [General Lee] did not give or send me orders for the morning of the third day, nor did he reinforce me by Pickett’s brigades for morning attack. As his head-quarters were about four miles from the command, I did not ride over, but sent, to report the work of the second day. In the absence of orders, I had scouting parties out during the night in search of a way by which we might strike the enemy’s left and push it down towards his centre. I found a way that gave some promise of results, and was about to move the command when he [Lee] rode over after sunrise and gave his orders.”
But in his paper of 1877, on Gettysburg, herein-before freely quoted from, General Longstreet goes more into detail with relation to Lee’s plans and orders for the morning of the 3d, and more fully discloses the genesis of the Pickett charge. In this account his own opposition to a renewal of the attack on Cemetery Hill is developed and the obvious reasons therefor. As he is confirmed in nearly every particular by participants and by the records, his account is here reprinted:
“On the next morning he came to see me, and, fearing that he was still in his disposition to attack, I tried to anticipate him by saying, ‘General, I have had my scouts out all night, and I find that you still have an excellent opportunity to move around to the right of Meade’s army and manœuvre him into attacking us.’ He replied, pointing with his fist at Cemetery Hill, ‘The enemy is there, and I am going to strike him.’ I felt then that it was my duty to express my convictions. I said, ‘General, I have been a soldier all my life. I have been with soldiers engaged in fights by couples, by squads, companies, regiments, divisions, and armies, and should know as well as any one what soldiers can do. It is my opinion that no fifteen thousand men ever arrayed for battle can take that position,’ pointing to Cemetery Hill.
“General Lee, in reply to this, ordered me to prepare Pickett’s division for the attack. I should not have been so urgent had I not foreseen the hopelessness of the proposed assault. I felt that I must say a word against the sacrifice of my men; and then I felt that my record was such that General Lee would or could not misconstrue my motives. I said no more, however, but turned away. The most of the morning was consumed in waiting for Pickett’s men and getting into position.”
To make the attitude of the superior and his subordinate more clear in relation to the proposed desperate throw of General Lee for victory, and to further explain the foregoing protest of General Longstreet, quotations from a second paper of the series printed in 1877 are here given, in which he says,—
“In my first article I declared that the invasion of Pennsylvania was a movement that General Lee and his council agreed should be defensive in tactics, while of course it was offensive in strategy; that the campaign was conducted on this plan until we had left Chambersburg, when, owing to the absence of our cavalry and our consequent ignorance of the enemy’s whereabouts, we collided with them unexpectedly, and that General Lee had lost the matchless equipoise that usually characterized him, and through excitement and the doubt that enveloped the enemy’s movements, changed the whole plan of the campaign and delivered a battle under ominous circumstances.”
CHAPTER III
PICKETT’S CHARGE
“Pickett swept past our artillery in splendid style, and the men marched steadily and compactly down the slope. As they started up the ridge over one hundred cannon from the breastworks of the Federals hurled a rain of canister, grape, and shell down upon them; still they pressed on until half-way up the slope, when the crest of the hill was lit with a solid sheet of flame as the masses of infantry rose and fired. When the smoke cleared away Pickett’s division was gone. Nearly two-thirds of his men lay dead on the field.”—Longstreet on Pickett’s Charge.
General Longstreet’s description of the Pickett charge itself also throws much light on these old controversies. It is confirmed in all essential particulars by General Alexander and others who have written on the subject since the war, and also by the reports:
“The plan of assault was as follows: Our artillery was to be massed in a wood from which Pickett was to charge, and it was to pour a continuous fire upon the cemetery. Under cover of this fire, and supported by it, Pickett was to charge. General E. P. Alexander, a brave and gifted officer, being at the head of the column, and being first in position, and being besides an officer of unusual promptness, sagacity, and intelligence, was given charge of the artillery. The arrangements were completed about one o’clock. General Alexander had arranged that a battery of seven 11-pound howitzers, with fresh horses and full caissons, were to charge with Pickett, at the head of his line, but General Pendleton, from whom the guns had been borrowed, recalled them just before the charge was made, and thus deranged this wise plan.
“Never was I so depressed as upon that day. I felt that my men were to be sacrificed, and that I should have to order them to make a hopeless charge. I had instructed General Alexander, being unwilling to trust myself with the entire responsibility, to carefully observe the effect of the fire upon the enemy, and when it began to tell to notify Pickett to begin the assault. I was so much impressed with the hopelessness of the charge that I wrote the following note to General Alexander:
“‘If the artillery fire does not have the effect to drive off the enemy or greatly demoralize him, so as to make our efforts pretty certain, I would prefer that you should not advise General Pickett to make the charge. I shall rely a great deal on your judgment to determine the matter, and shall expect you to let Pickett know when the moment offers.’
“To my note the general replied as follows:
“‘I will only be able to judge the effect of our fire upon the enemy by his return fire, for his infantry is but little exposed to view, and the smoke will obscure the whole field. If, as I infer from your note, there is an alternative to this attack, it should be carefully considered before opening our fire, for it will take all of the artillery ammunition we have left to test this one thoroughly, and if the result is unfavorable, we will have none left for another effort, and even if this is entirely successful it can only be so at a very bloody cost.’
“I still desired to save my men, and felt that if the artillery did not produce the desired effect I would be justified in holding Pickett off. I wrote this note to Colonel Walton at exactly 1.30 P.M.:
“‘Let the batteries open. Order great precision in firing. If the batteries at the peach-orchard cannot be used against the point we intend attacking, let them open on the enemy at Rocky Hill.’
“The cannonading which opened along both lines was grand. In a few moments a courier brought a note to General Pickett (who was standing near me) from Alexander, which, after reading, he handed to me. It was as follows:
“‘If you are coming at all you must come at once, or I cannot give you proper support; but the enemy’s fire has not slackened at all; at least eighteen guns are still firing from the cemetery itself.’
“After I had read the note Pickett said to me, ‘General, shall I advance?’ My feelings had so overcome me that I would not speak for fear of betraying my want of confidence to him. I bowed affirmation and turned to mount my horse. Pickett immediately said, ‘I shall lead my division forward, sir.’ I spurred my horse to the wood where Alexander was stationed with artillery. When I reached him he told me of the disappearance of the seven guns which were to have led the charge with Pickett, and that his ammunition was so low that he could not properly support the charge. I at once ordered him to stop Pickett until the ammunition had been replenished. He informed me that he had no ammunition with which to replenish. I then saw that there was no help for it, and that Pickett must advance under his orders. He swept past our artillery in splendid style, and the men marched steadily and compactly down the slope. As they started up the ridge over one hundred cannon from the breastworks of the Federals hurled a rain of canister, grape, and shell down upon them; still they pressed on until half-way up the slope, when the crest of the hill was lit with a solid sheet of flame as the masses of infantry rose and fired. When the smoke cleared away Pickett’s division was gone. Nearly two-thirds of his men lay dead on the field, and the survivors were sullenly retreating down the hill. Mortal man could not have stood that fire. In half an hour the contested field was cleared and the battle of Gettysburg was over.
“When this charge had failed I expected that of course the enemy would throw himself against our shattered ranks and try to crush us. I sent my staff-officers to the rear to assist in rallying the troops, and hurried to our line of batteries as the only support that I could give them, knowing that my presence would impress upon every one of them the necessity of holding the ground to the last extremity. I knew if the army was to be saved those batteries must check the enemy.”
CHAPTER IV
GORDON’S “ESTABLISHED FACTS” AND PENDLETON’S
FULMINATIONS
No officer in a position to know anything about the matter confirmed Pendleton’s statement, while everybody who should have been aware of such an important order directly contradicted it, as do all the records.
Continuing on the subject of Longstreet’s alleged disobedience, Gordon considers the following as another of the “facts established:”
“Thirdly, that General Lee, according to the testimony of Colonel Walter Taylor, Colonel C. S. Venable, and General A. L. Long, who were present when the order was given, ordered Longstreet to make the attack on the last day with the three divisions of his own corps and two divisions of A. P. Hill’s corps, and that instead of doing so Longstreet sent only fourteen thousand men to assail Meade’s army in the latter’s strong and heavily intrenched position.”
This is the old story that Longstreet was culpable in not sending McLaws and Hood to the attack with Pickett.
But, in fact, Lee’s own utterances show that McLaws and Hood were not to join in the Pickett attack, but, on the contrary, were excluded for other vital service by Lee’s specific directions. It is true this was done upon Longstreet’s strenuous representations that twenty thousand Federals were massed behind the Round Top to swoop down on the Confederate flank if Hood and McLaws were withdrawn. After viewing the ground himself Lee acquiesced. The eye-witnesses quoted by Gordon heard only the original order; they evidently did not know of its necessary modification, after Lee was made aware by his own personal observations and by Longstreet’s explanations that it was impossible to withdraw Hood and McLaws.
The official reports of both Lee and Longstreet are conclusive on this point, and they substantially agree. In the paragraph quoted in the preceding chapter, Longstreet states explicitly that “the commanding general joined me” (on the far right on the morning of the 3d) “and ordered a column of attack to be formed of Pickett’s, Heth’s, and part of Pender’s divisions,” etc. If this was a misstatement, why did not Lee correct it before sending the report to the War Department? He did not; on the contrary, Lee corroborates Longstreet in these paragraphs of his own official report, in which he also explains in detail why McLaws and Hood were not ordered forward with Pickett:
“General Longstreet was delayed by a force occupying the high rocky hills on the enemy’s extreme left, from which his troops could be attacked in reverse as they advanced. His operations had been embarrassed the day previous by the same cause, and he now deemed it necessary to defend his flank and rear with the divisions of Hood and McLaws. He was therefore reinforced by Heth’s division and two brigades of Pender’s.... General Longstreet ordered forward the column of attack, consisting of Pickett’s and Heth’s divisions in two lines, Pickett on the right.”
Now, one of Lee’s favorite officers, General Pickett, had personal supervision of the formation of the attacking column. General Lee was for a time personally present while this work was going on, conversing with Pickett concerning the proper dispositions and making various suggestions. He therefore knew by personal observation, before the charge was made, exactly what troops were included and what were not. He knew that the extreme right of Hood’s division was at that moment fully three miles away, holding a difficult position in face of an overwhelming force of Federals, and McLaws almost equally distant.
With these documents before him, how can Gordon believe it an “established fact” that Lee expected McLaws and Hood to take part in the Pickett charge?
It is admitted by almost if not quite all authority on the subject that Pickett’s charge was hopeless. The addition of McLaws and Hood would not have increased the chances of success. The Confederates under Longstreet and R. H. Anderson had tested the enemy’s position on that front thoroughly in the battle of the 2d, and with a much larger force, including these same divisions of McLaws and Hood, who had been repulsed. There was every reason to believe that the position was much stronger on the final day than when Longstreet attacked it on the 2d. The troops of Hood and McLaws, in view of their enormous losses, were in no condition to support Pickett effectively, even had they been free for that purpose. But it has been shown above by the testimony of both Lee and Longstreet that they were required to maintain the position they had won in the desperate struggle of the evening previous to prevent the twenty-two thousand men of the Union Fifth and Sixth Corps from falling en masse upon Pickett’s right flank, or their own flank and rear had they moved in unison with Pickett.
Having proved from Lee’s own official written utterances that the three foregoing points set up by Gordon cannot possibly be accepted as “established facts,” we now come to his “fourthly,” which is really a summing up of the whole case against Longstreet,—viz., that he was disobedient, slow, “balky,” and obstructive at Gettysburg. He says,—
“Fourthly, that the great mistake of the halt on the first day would have been repaired on the second, and even on the third day, if Lee’s orders had been vigorously executed, and that General Lee died believing that he lost Gettysburg at last by Longstreet’s disobedience of orders.”
The first positive utterance holding General Longstreet responsible for the defeat at Gettysburg, through failure to obey Lee’s orders, came from Rev. Dr. William N. Pendleton, an Episcopal clergyman of Virginia, on the 17th of January, 1873. General Lee had then been dead more than two years. In view of what follows it is well to bear in mind these two distinct dates. There had been some vague hints, particularly among some of the higher ex-Confederates from Virginia prior to Pendleton’s categorical story, but Pendleton was the first person to distinctly formulate the indictment against Longstreet for disobedience of orders. In an address delivered in the town of Lexington, Virginia, on the date mentioned, in behalf of a memorial church to General Lee, Pendleton uses this language, referring to the battle of Gettysburg:
“The ground southwest of the town [Gettysburg] was carefully examined by me after the engagement of July 1.... Its practicable character was reported to our commanding general. He informed me that he had ordered Longstreet to attack on that front at sunrise next morning. And he added to myself: ‘I want you to be out long before sunrise, so as to re-examine and save time.’ He also desired me to communicate with General Longstreet, as well as himself. The reconnoissance was accordingly made as soon as it was light enough on the 2d.... All this, as it occurred under my personal observation, it is nothing short of imperative duty that I thus fairly state.”
Rev. Dr. Pendleton was a brigadier-general and chief of artillery on Lee’s staff. He was a graduate of West Point, and was the cadet friend of Lee for more than three years in the Military Academy. After the war they were closely associated at Lexington, Virginia. His fulmination had the effect of a bombshell. There was a hue and cry at once; corroborative evidence of the easy hearsay sort was forthcoming from various interested quarters, but most markedly and noisily from the State of Virginia, as if by preconcert. Pendleton’s fulmination appeared to have been expected by those who had previously been pursuing Longstreet. The late General Jubal A. Early was particularly strenuous in unreserved endorsement of the Pendleton story. The Rev. J. William Jones, of Richmond, the self-appointed conservator of General Lee’s fair fame, also quickly added his testimony to the reliability of the Rev. Dr. Pendleton’s discovery and dramatic disclosure. Those who approved generally fortified Pendleton with additional statements of their own.
Pendleton’s statement is characteristic of the whole, but it was for a time the more effective because it was more definite, in that it purported to recite a positive statement by Lee of an alleged order to Longstreet. If Pendleton’s statement falls, the whole falls.
General Longstreet was astounded when Pendleton’s Lexington story was brought to his attention. He had previously paid but little attention to indefinite gossip of a certain coterie that he had been “slow” and even “obstructive” at Gettysburg, and had never heard before that he was accused of having disobeyed a positive order to attack at any given hour. That false accusation aroused him to action. He categorically denied Pendleton’s absurd allegations, and at once appealed to several living members of Lee’s staff and to others in a position to know the facts, to exonerate him from the charge of having disobeyed his chief, thereby causing disaster.
Colonel Walter H. Taylor, a Virginian, and General Lee’s adjutant-general, promptly responded as follows:
“Norfolk, Virginia, April 28, 1875.
“Dear General,—I have received your letter of the 20th inst. I have not read the article of which you speak, nor have I ever seen any copy of General Pendleton’s address; indeed, I have read little or nothing of what has been written since the war. In the first place, because I could not spare the time, and in the second, of those of whose writings I have heard I deem but very few entitled to any attention whatever. I can only say that I never before heard of ‘the sunrise attack’ you were to have made as charged by General Pendleton. If such an order was given you I never knew of it, or it has strangely escaped my memory. I think it more than probable that if General Lee had had your troops available the evening previous to the day of which you speak he would have ordered an early attack, but this does not touch the point at issue. I regard it as a great mistake on the part of those who, perhaps because of political differences, now undertake to criticise and attack your war record. Such conduct is most ungenerous, and I am sure meets the disapprobation of all good Confederates with whom I have had the pleasure of associating in the daily walks of life.
“Yours very respectfully,
“W. H. Taylor.“To General Longstreet.”
Two years afterwards Colonel Taylor published an article strongly criticising General Longstreet’s operations at Gettysburg, but in that article was this candid admission:
“Indeed, great injustice has been done him [Longstreet] in the charge that he had orders from the commanding general to attack the enemy at sunrise on the 2d of July, and that he disobeyed these orders. This would imply that he was in position to attack, whereas General Lee but anticipated his early arrival on the 2d, and based his calculations upon it. I have shown how he was disappointed, and I need hardly add that the delay was fatal.”
The fact that Colonel Taylor was himself a somewhat severe critic of General Longstreet, through a misapprehension of certain facts and conditions, gives additional force and value to this statement.
Colonel Charles Marshall, then an aide on Lee’s staff, who succeeded Long as Military Secretary and subsequently had charge of all the papers left by General Lee, wrote as follows:
“Baltimore, Maryland, May 7, 1875.
“Dear General,—Your letter of the 20th ult. was received and should have had an earlier reply but for my engagements preventing me from looking at my papers to find what I could on the subject. I have no personal recollection of the order to which you refer. It certainly was not conveyed by me, nor is there anything in General Lee’s official report to show the attack on the 2d was expected by him to begin earlier, except that he notices that there was not proper concert of action on that day....
“Respectfully,
“Charles Marshall.
“To General Longstreet, New Orleans.”
Colonel Charles S. Venable, another of Lee’s aides and after the war one of his firmest partisans, made the following detailed statement, which not only refutes Pendleton’s Lexington story, but bears luminously upon every other point at issue concerning the alleged early attack order of the 2d:
“University of Virginia, May 11, 1875.
“General James Longstreet:
“Dear General,—Your letter of the 25th ultimo, with regard to General Lee’s battle order on the 1st and 2d of July at Gettysburg, was duly received. I did not know of any order for an attack on the enemy at sunrise on the 2d, nor can I believe any such order was issued by General Lee. About sunrise on the 2d of July I was sent by General Lee to General Ewell to ask him what he thought of the advantages of an attack on the enemy from his position. (Colonel Marshall had been sent with a similar order on the night of the 1st.) General Ewell made me ride with him from point to point of his lines, so as to see with him the exact position of things. Before he got through the examination of the enemy’s position General Lee came himself to General Ewell’s lines. In sending the message to General Ewell, General Lee was explicit in saying that the question was whether he should move all the troops around on the right and attack on that side. I do not think that the errand on which I was sent by the commanding general is consistent with the idea of an attack at sunrise by any portion of the army.
“Yours very truly,
“Chas. S. Venable.”
General A. L. Long, a Virginian, was General Lee’s Military Secretary and aide at Gettysburg. After the war he wrote a book,—“Memoirs of General Lee,”—in which he endeavored to hold Longstreet largely responsible for the Gettysburg disaster. But in it he made no assertion that Longstreet had disobeyed an order for a sunrise attack on the 2d, or at any other specific hour on that or the next day. He wrote as follows:
“Big Island, Bedford, Virginia, May 31, 1875.
“Dear General,—Your letter of the 20th ult., referring to an assertion of General Pendleton’s, made in a lecture delivered several years ago, which was recently published in the Southern Historical Society Magazine substantially as follows: ‘That General Lee ordered General Longstreet to attack General Meade at sunrise on the morning of the 2d of July,’ has been received. I do not recollect of hearing of an order to attack at sunrise, or at any other designated hour, pending the operations at Gettysburg during the first three days of July, 1863....
“Yours truly,
“A. L. Long,
“To General Longstreet.”
The foregoing letters, all written by members of General Lee’s military family, all his close friends and personal partisans, are worth a careful study. They not only negative General Pendleton’s “sunrise” story, but as a whole they go to prove that it was not expected by Lee, Longstreet, Pendleton, nor any other high officer, that an early attack was to have been delivered on the 2d of July. Both Generals McLaws and Hood, Longstreet’s division commanders, made statements disclosing that they were totally unaware at Gettysburg of any order for a sunrise attack on that day. No officer in a position to know anything about the matter confirmed Pendleton’s statement, while everybody who should have been aware of such an important order, directly contradicted it, as do all the records.
The statement of General McLaws appeared in a narrative of Gettysburg published in a Savannah paper nearly thirty years ago. Besides its direct bearing on the Pendleton story, it furnishes valuable information as to some of the causes of delay encountered by Longstreet’s troops in their long march from Chambersburg on the 1st of July:
“On the 30th of June I had been directed to have my division in readiness to follow General Ewell’s corps. Marching towards Gettysburg, which it was intimated we would have passed by ten o’clock the next day (the 1st of July), my division was accordingly marched from its camp and lined along the road in the order of march by eight o’clock the 1st of July. When the troops of Ewell’s corps (it was Johnston’s division in charge of Ewell’s wagon-trains, which were coming from Carlisle by the road west of the mountains) had passed the head of my column I asked General Longstreet’s staff-officer, Major Fairfax, if my division should follow. He went off to inquire, and returned with orders for me to wait until Ewell’s wagon-train had passed, which did not happen until after four o’clock P.M.
“The train was calculated to be fourteen miles long, when I took up the line of march and continued marching until I arrived within three miles of Gettysburg, where my command camped along a creek. This was far into the night. My division was leading Longstreet’s corps, and of course the other divisions came up later. I saw Hood’s division the next morning, and understood that Pickett had been detached to guard the rear.
“While on the march, at about ten o’clock at night I met General Longstreet and some of his staff coming from the direction of Gettysburg and had a few moments’ conversation with him. He said nothing of having received an order to attack at daylight the next morning. Here I will state that until General Pendleton mentioned it about two years ago, when he was on a lecturing tour, after the death of General Lee, I never heard it intimated even that any such order had ever been given.”
The following is an extract from a letterD of General Hood to General Longstreet on the subject of the sunrise order, which indirectly, though conclusively, shows there could have been no such order, besides being interesting and instructive as to other points:
“I arrived with my staff in front of the heights of Gettysburg shortly after daybreak, as I have already stated, on the morning of the 2d of July. My division soon commenced filing into an open field near me, when the troops were allowed to stack arms and rest until further orders. A short distance in advance of this point, and during the early part of the same morning, we were both engaged in company with Generals A. P. Hill and Lee in observing the position of the Federals. General Lee, with coat buttoned to the throat, sabre belt around his waist, and field-glasses pending at his side, walked up and down in the shade of large trees near us, halting now and then to observe the enemy. He seemed full of hope, yet at times buried in deep thought. Colonel Fremantle, of England, was ensconced in the forks of a tree not far off with glasses in constant use examining the lofty position of the Federal army.
“General Lee was seemingly anxious that you should attack that morning. He remarked to me, ‘The enemy is here, and if we do not whip him he will whip us.’ You thought it better to await the arrival of Pickett’s division, at that time still in the rear, in order to make the attack, and you said to me subsequently, while we were seated together near the trunk of a tree, ‘General Lee is a little nervous this morning. He wishes me to attack. I do not wish to do so without Pickett. I never like to go into a battle with one boot off.’”
Another letter, which in a way is still more important than any of the foregoing, is one from Colonel John W. Fairfax, a member of General Longstreet’s staff. It tends to show that the sunrise-order story was conjured up by Dr. Pendleton and others at Lexington after Lee’s death; in other words, it is strong circumstantial confirmation of General Longstreet’s belief in a conspiracy. Written more than twenty-six years ago, the manner in which it dovetails with all the foregoing statements and documents as to the various events involved is peculiarly significant. Colonel Fairfax is a Virginian and was always an ardent admirer of General Lee, but not to the extent of desiring to uphold his fame at the expense of honor or the ruin of another:
“Freestone P. O., Prince William County, Virginia.
“November 12, 1877.“My dear General Longstreet,— ... The winter after the death of General Lee I was in Lexington, visiting my sons at the Virginia Military Institute. General Pendleton called to see me at the hotel. General Custis Lee was in my room when he came in. After General Lee left, General Pendleton asked me if General Longstreet was not ordered to attack on the 2d of July at six o’clock in the morning, and did not attack until four in the evening. I told him it was not possible. When he left me I was under the impression I had convinced him of his mistaken idea. I told General Pendleton that you and General Lee were together the greater part of the day up to about three o’clock or later; that you separated at the mouth of a lane not long thereafter. You said to me, ‘Those troops will be in position by the time you get there; tell General Hood to attack.’
“When I gave the order to General Hood he was standing within a step or two of his line of battle. I asked him to please delay his attack until I could communicate to General Longstreet that he can turn the enemy—pointing to a gorge in the mountain, where we would be sheltered from his view and attack by his cavalry. General Hood slapped me on the knee, and said, ‘I agree with you; bring General Longstreet to see for himself. When I reported to you, your answer was, ‘It is General Lee’s order; the time is up,—attack at once.’ I lost no time in repeating the same to General Hood, and remained with him to see the attack, which was made instantly. We had a beautiful view of the enemy’s left from Hood’s position, which was close up to him. He gave way quickly. General Hood charged, and I spurred to report to you; found you with hat in hand, cheering on General McLaws’s division....
“Truly your friend,
“John W. Fairfax.”
General Longstreet’s views at the time of the Gettysburg operations are conveyed in a personal letter of a confidential nature, written only twenty days after the event to his uncle in Georgia, upon being made aware that there was a sly undercurrent of misrepresentation of his course current in certain circles of the army:
“Camp Culpeper Court-House,
“July 24, 1863.
“My dear Uncle,—Your letters of the 13th and 14th were received on yesterday. As to our late battle I cannot say much. I have no right to say anything, in fact, but will venture a little for you alone. If it goes to aunt and cousins it must be under promise that it will go no farther. The battle was not made as I would have made it. My idea was to throw ourselves between the enemy and Washington, select a strong position, and force the enemy to attack us. So far as is given to man the ability to judge, we may say with confidence that we should have destroyed the Federal army, marched into Washington, and dictated our terms, or at least held Washington and marched over as much of Pennsylvania as we cared to, had we drawn the enemy into attack upon our carefully chosen position in his rear. General Lee chose the plans adopted, and he is the person appointed to choose and to order. I consider it a part of my duty to express my views to the commanding general. If he approves and adopts them, it is well; if he does not, it is my duty to adopt his views and to execute his orders as faithfully as if they were my own. I cannot help but think that great results would have been obtained had my views been thought better of, yet I am much inclined to accept the present condition as for the best. I hope and trust that it is so. Your programme would all be well enough had it been practicable, and was duly thought of, too. I fancy that no good ideas upon that campaign will be mentioned at any time that did not receive their share of consideration by General Lee. The few things that he might have overlooked himself were, I believe, suggested by myself. As we failed, I must take my share of the responsibility. In fact, I would prefer that all the blame should rest upon me. As General Lee is our commander, he should have the support and influence we can give him. If the blame, if there is any, can be shifted from him to me, I shall help him and our cause by taking it. I desire, therefore, that all the responsibility that can be put upon me shall go there and shall remain there. The truth will be known in time, and I leave that to show how much of the responsibility of Gettysburg rests on my shoulders....
“Most affectionately yours,
“J. Longstreet.
“To A. B. Longstreet, LL.D., Columbus, Ga.”
Aside from all this irrefragable personal testimony of conspicuous participants disproving Pendleton’s apocryphal story, there is other evidence still more conclusive that no sunrise order for attack by Longstreet was given by Lee, and equally strong that an early attack on that day was out of the question. The position of Longstreet’s troops, all still absent from the field and on the march, forbade an attack by him at sunrise, or at any other hour much before noon, at the point designated by Lee. General Lee was well aware of its impossibility. At sunrise Longstreet’s infantry was still distant from the field, but rapidly coming up. One brigade (Law’s) was not less than twenty miles away at the very hour Pendleton would have had Longstreet attack. McLaws’s and Hood’s divisions had encamped at Marsh Creek, four miles from Gettysburg, at midnight of the 1st, and did not begin to arrive on Seminary Ridge until more than three hours after sunrise on the 2d.
The corps artillery did not get up until nine or ten o’clock, and part of it not until noon or after. Pickett’s division did not begin its march from the vicinity of Chambersburg, some thirty miles away, until the 2d. Pendleton’s report, herein quoted, shows how the artillery was delayed, and the deterrent effect that delay had upon Longstreet’s advance after he received the order. Pendleton himself was the chief of artillery, and largely responsible for its manœuvres.
After their arrival upon Seminary Ridge, the infantry of Hood and McLaws was massed in a field within musket shot of General Lee’s head-quarters, and there rested until the troops took arms for the march to the point of attack. From this point of rest near Lee’s head-quarters to the point of attack, by the circuitous route selected by Pendleton, was between five and seven miles.
So that Longstreet’s infantry, the nearest at hand, had from nine to eleven miles to march to reach the selected point of attack, the greater part of which march by the back roads and ravines, to avoid the observation of the enemy, was necessarily slow at best, and made doubly so by the mistakes of Pendleton’s guides, who put the troops upon the wrong routes. The artillery, still back on the Chambersburg road, did not all get up until noon, causing a further delay of the whole column, as shown by the Pendleton report. General Law’s brigade, marching from 3 A.M., arrived about noon.
After they came up all movements were still several hours delayed, awaiting Lee’s personal reconnoissances on the left and right to determine the point of attack.
Colonel Venable says that “about sunrise” he was sent to General Ewell on the left to inquire if it were not more feasible to attack in that quarter. While he was riding from point to point with Ewell, Lee himself came over to see Ewell in person. Lee did not return to Longstreet’s front until about nine o’clock. Meanwhile, his staff-officers, Pendleton, Long, Colonel Walker, and Captain Johnston, by Lee’s orders, had been examining the ground to the right. Upon Lee’s return from the left he rode far to the right and joined Pendleton.
Not until then was the attack on the enemy’s left by Longstreet finally decided upon. Longstreet said it was not earlier than eleven o’clock when he received his orders to move; from the time consumed by Lee and his staff it was probably later. The front of the Confederate army was six miles in extent.
Hence matters on the morning of July 2 were not awaiting Longstreet’s movements. All that long forenoon everything was still in the air, depending upon Lee’s personal examinations and final decisions.
It is perfectly clear from this indecision on the 2d that Lee could not have arrived at a decision the previous night, as asserted by Pendleton at Lexington long after the war.