Don't Give an Inch: The Second Day at Gettysburg, July 2, 1863—From Little Round Top to Cemetery Ridge

By Daniel T. Davis, Chris Mackowski, Kristopher D. White and Tom Huntington

This vividly detailed Civil War history reveals many of the incredible true stories behind the legendary sites of the Gettysburg battlefield.

Having unexpectedly been thrust into command of the Army of the Potomac only three days earlier, General George Gordon Meade was caught by a much harsher surprise when the Confederate Army of North Virginia launched a bold invasion northward. Outside the small college town of Gettysburg, the lead elements of Meade's army were suddenly under attack. By nightfall, they were forced to take a lodgment on high ground south of town. There, they fortified—and waited. "Don't give an inch, boys!" one Federal commander told his men.


The next day, July 2, 1863, would be one of the Civil War's bloodiest. With names that have become legendary—Little Round Top, Devil's Den, the Peach Orchard, the Wheatfield, Culp's Hill—the second day at Gettysburg encompasses some of the best-known engagements of the Civil War. Yet those same stories have also become shrouded in mythology and misunderstanding. In Don't Give an Inch, Emerging Civil War historians Chris Mackowski and Daniel T. Davis peel back the layers to share the real and often-overlooked stories of that fateful summer day.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: May 20, 2022
• ISBN: 9781611212266

Book preview

Also part of the Emerging Civil War Series:

The Aftermath of Battle: The Burial of the Civil War Dead by Meg Groeling

All the Fighting They Want: The Atlanta Campaign, from Peachtree Creek to the Surrender of the City, July 18-September 2, 1864 by Steve Davis

Bloody Autumn: The Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1864 by Daniel T. Davis and Phillip S. Greenwalt

Bushwhacking on a Grand Scale: The Battle of Chickamauga, September 18-20, 1863 by William Lee White

Calamity in Carolina: The Battles of Averasboro and Bentonville, March 1865 by Daniel T. Davis and Phillip S. Greenwalt

Dawn of Victory: Breakthrough at Petersburg, March 25-April 2, 1865 by Edward S. Alexander

Don’t Give an Inch: The Second Day at Gettysburg, from Little Round Top to Cemetery Ridge, July 2, 1863 by Chris Mackowski, Kristopher D. White, and Daniel T. Davis

Fight Like the Devil: The First Day at Gettysburg, July 1, 1863 by Chris Mackowski, Kristopher D. White, and Daniel T. Davis

Grant’s Last Battle: The Story Behind the Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant by Chris Mackowski

Hell Itself: The Battle of the Wilderness, May 5-7, 1864 by Chris Mackowski

Hurricane from the Heavens: The Battle of Cold Harbor, May 26-June 5, 1864 by Daniel T. Davis and Phillip S. Greenwalt

The Last Days of Stonewall Jackson: The Mortal Wounding of the Confederacy’s Greatest Icon by Chris Mackowski and Kristopher D. White

The Last Road North: A Guide to the Gettysburg Campaign, 1863 by Robert Orrison and Dan Welch

A Long and Bloody Task: The Atlanta Campaign, from Dalton to Kennesaw to the Chattahooche, May 5-July 18, 1864 by Steve Davis

No Turning Back: A Guide to the 1864 Overland Campaign by Robert M. Dunkerly, Donald C. Pfanz, and David R. Ruth

Out Flew the Sabres: The Battle of Brandy Station, June 9, 1863 by Eric J. Wittenberg and Daniel T. Davis

A Season of Slaughter: The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, May 8-21, 1864 by Chris Mackowski and Kristopher D. White

Simply Murder: The Battle of Fredericksburg, December 13, 1862 by Chris Mackowski and Kristopher D. White

Strike Them a Blow: Battle Along the North Anna River, May 21-25, 1864 by Chris Mackowski

That Furious Struggle: Chancellorsville and the High Tide of the Confederacy, May 1-4, 1863 by Chris Mackowski and Kristopher D. White

To the Bitter End: Appomattox, Bennett Place, and the Surrenders of the Confederacy by Robert M. Dunkerly

A Want of Vigilance: The Bristoe Station Campaign, October 9-19, 1863 by Bill Backus and Rob Orrison

© 2016 by Chris Mackowski, Kristopher D. White, and Daniel T. Davis

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Printed in the United States of America.

ISBN (paperback): 978-1-61121-229-7

ISBN (ebook): 978-1-611-21226-6

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Mackowski, Chris, author. | White, Kristopher D., author. | Davis, Daniel T., 1982- author.

Title: Don’t give an inch : the second day at Gettysburg, July 2, 1863--from Little Round Top to Cemetery Ridge / by Chris Mackowski, Kristopher D. White, and Daniel T. Davis.

Description: First edition. | El Dorado Hills, California : Savas Beatie, 2016. | Series: Emerging Civil War series

Identifiers: LCCN 2016021034 | ISBN 9781611212297 (pbk.) | ISBN 9781611212266 (ebk.)

Subjects: LCSH: Gettysburg, Battle of, Gettysburg, Pa., 1863.

Classification: LCC E475.53 .M1269 2016 | DDC 973.7/349--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016021034

Published by

Savas Beatie LLC

989 Governor Drive, Suite 102

El Dorado Hills, California 95762

Phone: [phone]

Email: [e-mail]

Web: www.savasbeatie.com

Savas Beatie titles are available at special discounts for bulk purchases in the United States by corporations, institutions, and other organizations. For more details, please contact Special Sales, P.O. Box 4527, El Dorado Hills, CA 95762, or you may e-mail us as at [e-mail], or visit our website at www.savasbeatie.com for additional information.

CHRIS: For my mother

KRIS: John The Rankin Rocket Gales and Naomi, who has fueled the rocket for these many years

DAN: For my father-in-law, Tom Bowen

Jointly, we dedicate this book to Ted

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Touring the Battlefield

FOREWORD by Tom Huntington

PROLOGUE: The Old Gray Fox vs. The Old War Horse

CHAPTER ONE: Before July 2

CHAPTER TWO: Pitzer’s Woods

CHAPTER THREE: Longstreet’s March

CHAPTER FOUR: Hood Attacks

CHAPTER FIVE: The Assault Against Little Round Top

CHAPTER SIX: The Defense of the 20th Maine

CHAPTER SEVEN: Devil’s Den

CHAPTER EIGHT: The Wheatfield

CHAPTER NINE: The Peach Orchard

CHAPTER TEN: The Wounding of Dan Sickles

CHAPTER ELEVEN: Cemetery Ridge

EPILOGUE

APPENDIX A: The Wheatfield: A Walking Tour by Kristopher D. White

APPENDIX B: The Hero of Little Round Top? by Ryan Quint

APPENDIX C: Home of a Rebel Sharpshooter by James Brookes

APPENDIX D: Not a Leg to Stand On: Sickles vs. Meade in the Wake of Gettysburg by Chris Mackowski

Order of Battle

Suggested Reading

About the Authors

List of Maps

Maps by Hal Jespersen

Gettysburg Day 2 Driving Tour

Opposing Forces

Battle of Gettysburg—Lee’s Plan for July 2, 1863

Sickle’s Salient

Hood’s Assaults

Little Round Top

Devil’s Den

The Wheatfield

Fall of the Peach Orchard

Assault on Cemetery Ridge

Footnotes for this volume are available at http://emergingcivilwar.com/publications/the-emerging-civil-war-series/footnotes

Battle damage still pocks the face of the Trostle barn. (cm)

Acknowledgments

To write about Gettysburg is almost to invite disaster because the battle is so famous in the public imagination. Perhaps no other event in American history—and certainly of the Civil War—is so closely scrutinized and parsed—or so mythologized. Therefore, we owe a debt to the many people who’ve looked over this manuscript for us in an attempt to help us avoid the inevitable minefields, especially Edward Alexander, Sarah Kay Bierle, and Rea Redd.

For their contributions to this volume, we thank our ECW colleagues Ryan Quint and James Brookes and cartographer Hal Jespersen. We also thank ECW’s good friend, Joe Owen, the keeper of the flame for Texans in the Civil War, for helping us run down a few accounts of Hood’s wounding.

Tom Huntington’s Searching for George Gordon Meade is both a wonderful piece of journalism and a sympathetic portrait of one of the war’s most overlooked heroes. The book also offers one of the best explorations of Civil War memory available. We’re so delighted that he contributed the foreword to this book. Another must-read book on the role of memory in shaping our understanding of Gettysburg is Tom Desjardin’s These Honored Dead, which has had a major influence on our thinking about the battle, for which we offer Tom our thanks.

The wolfhound at the base of the Irish Brigade monument—or the authors after a long day working on this book? (cm)

At Savas Beatie, we thank, as always, publisher Theodore Savas, to whom this volume is dedicated. We also thank his right hand, Sarah Keeney, who helps us keep the ECWS on track. Thanks, too, to the rest of the Savas Beatie staff.

KRIS: As always, I have to thank my family for the continued support of all my projects, and I am especially thankful for the support of my wife, Sarah. My research assistants Dobby and Mosby were invaluable, as they proceeded to walk on, and sleep on, the majority of my research. I am deeply indebted to Roger Doty, who knows the battle in the Wheatfield better than anyone I know. Our many conversations over the years have shed light on the most confusing aspects of the battle. Finally, I have to thank my co-authors, Chris Mackowski and Daniel Davis, who have been tireless in their efforts to bring these Gettysburg books to life.

CHRIS: At St. Bonaventure University, thanks to Dr. Pauline Hoffmann, dean of the school of journalism and mass communication, for her ongoing support of my work. Suzzane Ciesla, Kathy Boser, and their small army of work-study students offer a ton of logistical support, for which I’m grateful.

Co-authors Kris and Dan make great battlefield companions, in the field and in the writing process.

At home, my wife Jennifer continues to support all this crazy writing stuff. The best trooper remains my son, Jackson, who spends a lot of time hanging out with me as I write. He and his sister, Stephanie, remain my greatest inspirations.

PHOTO CREDITS: Ancestry.com (a); Army Heritage Center Foundation (ahcf); Battles & Leaders (b&l); Blue & Gray magazine (b&g); Dan Davis (dd); Kyle Elizabeth (ke); Gettysburg Battlefield Preservation Association (gbpa); Library of Congress (loc); Bill Mackowski (bm); Chris Mackowski (cm); John Maginn (jm); National Archives (na); National Park Service (nps); Naval Historical Society (nhs); William Styple (ws); Richard P. Roberts/ https://richardproberts.wordpress.com/ (rpr); United States Military History Institute (usmhi); University of New Hampshire (unh); Washington & Jefferson College (w&jc): Kris White (kw); Wikipedia (w)

DAN: My profound thanks to Chris and Kris for allowing me to chronicle the battle of Gettysburg with them. I look forward to finishing the story. I would also like to thank my parents, Tommy and Kathy; my brother, Matt; and Matt’s wife, Candice, for all of their encouragement and support. Also thanks to my Bowen family: my mother-in-law, Cathy, and sister- and brother-inlaw, Becca and Andy. To my entire family, thank you. Lastly, to my beautiful wife, Katy, for all of her love and patience.

Your first step toward preserving the battlefield is the one you don’t take on the lawn. (kw)

For the Emerging Civil War Series

Theodore P. Savas, publisher

Chris Mackowski, series editor

Kristopher D. White, chief historian

Sarah Keeney, editorial consultant

Daniel T. Davis, emeritus editor

Maps by Hal Jespersen

Design and layout by Chris Mackowski

Touring the Battlefield

The organization of this book and tour follow the fighting that occurred on the southern end of the Gettysburg battlefield on July 2, 1863. The tour picks up where our previous volume, Fight Like the Devil: The First Day at Gettysburg, July 1, 1863, leaves off. That narrative ended with Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia in possession of the north end of the field; therefore, we begin the tour at the Seminary Ridge Museum, not far from Lee’s headquarters. From there, it heads south with the Confederates as they prepare to launch their attack. Some stops coincide with the National Park Service’s driving tour stops, but others do not.

Roads remain busy, especially during the peak season. Please exercise caution. Please also note that some park roads are one way. You may only park in designated areas. All park roads and trails receive year-round maintenance. They close each night at 10 p.m. April 1-October 31 and at 7 p.m. November 1-March 31.

The War Department observation tower on West Confederate Avenue offers a spectacular panoramic view of the south end of the battlefield. (cm)

While the narrative follows one phase of the battle, we encourage visitors to explore the full park as they’re able. Gettysburg is a wonderful town with many sites to see and places to explore. We particularly encourage visitors to walk around downtown and also explore the shops along Steinwehr Avenue. Gettysburg National Military Park’s visitor center is also an excellent place to get additional resources and employ a Licensed Battlefield Guide.

GETTYSBURG DAY 2 DRIVING TOUR—With iconic places like Devil’s Den, Little Round Top, the Valley of Death, and the Wheatfield, the south end of the Gettysburg battlefield has become one of the most heavily visited areas of the national park. The July 2 action on Culp’s Hill and Cemetery Hill are covered in the companion volume, Stay and Fight it Out: The Second Day at Gettysburg, July 2, 1863–Culp’s Hill and the North End of the Battlefield.

As the last portion of the Confederate attack approached, George Meade sat stoically atop his horse, his gaze fixed to the west, waiting for the reinforcements he had called for. The Federal commander straightened himself in his stirrups, as do also his aides who now ride closer to him, bracing themselves to meet the crisis. (cm)

Foreword

BY TOM HUNTINGTON

When discussing Gettysburg, people sometimes say that George Gordon Meade, commander of the Army of the Potomac, did not win the battle. Instead, they say, Robert E. Lee, who led the Army of Northern Virginia, lost it.

I don’t quite understand this reasoning myself. It reminds me of an old Warner Bros. cartoon, where Wile E. Coyote falls victim to his own outlandish schemes while the Road Runner simply stands aside and watches.

Well, the Army of the Potomac hardly stood aside and watched at Gettysburg, especially on July 2, 1863, the second day of battle. That was a day filled with violence and bloodshed and hard, hard fighting. We remember the sanguinary encounters by their geographic place names: The Wheatfield, the Peach Orchard, Devil’s Den, Little Round Top, Culp’s Hill. It’s true that Meade’s army did not win the battle on July 2. But, neither did Lee’s. The slaughter only set the stage for the next day’s struggle, climaxed by the Union repulse of Pickett’s Charge. The Union soldiers who fought and died on those days would certainly dispute the idea that they had not won the battle.

And, you certainly can’t accuse Meade of idly standing by at Gettysburg, either. Promoted from command of the V Corps to the head of the entire army only three days before the fighting began, Meade was in the thick of things on July 2. He did not fight a flawless battle—what Civil War general ever did? Critics fault him for not paying enough attention to his right, at Culp’s Hill, or his left, where Maj. Gen. Daniel Sickles took matters into his own hands and advanced his III Corps to a dangerously exposed position. To the end of his life—and he lived a long and interesting life indeed—Sickles told people he had won the Battle of Gettysburg. By moving forward, Sickles said, he forced the timid Meade to stand and fight. Meade’s reputation still bears the scars from Sickles’s attacks.

Of course, finger pointing has not been restricted to the Union side. Armed with 20-20 hindsight—and political axes to grind—some Southerners began blaming the Confederate loss on James Longstreet. Despite the fact that he oversaw a furious offensive on July 2—the best three hours’ fighting ever done by any troops on any battle-field, he said—Longstreet has been criticized for being sulky and moving slowly on the second day. By that reasoning, it wasn’t even Lee who lost the battle. It was Longstreet’s fault.

The underlying assumption to all this is that Lee should have won. After all, he was the military genius who had whipped the Army of the Potomac time and time again. Meade was merely a grumpy goggle-eyed snapping turtle who wouldn’t even come out from behind his strong defensive line at Gettysburg to fight like a real man. Why should he get credit for beating the South’s finest general? Well, quite often he doesn’t. As Francis A. Walker wrote in Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, There is probably no other battle of which men are so prone to think and speak without a conscious reference to the commanding general of the victorious party, as they are regarding Gettysburg. Even Meade realized this. Less than a year after the battle he grumbled in a letter to his wife, I supposed after awhile it will be discovered I wasn’t at Gettysburg at all. Meade did get a statue on the battlefield. It stands on Cemetery Ridge, where the bronze Meade can stare across at the statute of Lee, whose perch on the Virginia State Monument is considerably taller than Meade’s. Anyone unaware of the battle’s outcome can be forgiven for thinking that Lee must have been the victor here.

The truth is that Meade didn’t win the battle of Gettysburg. No single man, not even the commanding general, can take full credit for a victory. The Army of the Potomac won the battle. Meade just happened to be in command of that army, and he commanded it very well.

TOM HUNTINGTON is the author of Searching for George Gordon Meade: The Forgotten Victor of Gettysburg; Guide to Gettysburg Battlefield Monuments; and Pennsylvania Civil War Trails. He is currently working on a book about