The Maps of Gettysburg, eBook Short #4: Pickett’s Charge and the Retreat to Virginia, July 3-14, 1863

By Bradley M. Gottfried

More academic and photographic accounts on the battle of Gettysburg exist than for all other battles of the Civil War combined—and for good reason. The three days of maneuver, attack, and counterattack consisted of scores of encounters, from corps-size actions to small unit engagements. Despite all its coverage, Gettysburg remains one of the most complex and difficult to understand battles of the war. The Maps Gettysburg by Bradley Gottfried offers a unique approach to the study of this multifaceted engagement.

Now available as an ebook short, The Maps of Gettysburg: Pickett’s Charge and the Retreat to Virginia, July 3-14, 1863 plows new ground in the study of the campaign by breaking down the entire campaign in 25 detailed full page original maps. These cartographic creations bore down to the regimental level, offering students of the campaign a unique and fascinating approach to studying what may have been the climactic battle of the war.

The Maps of Gettysburg: Pickett’s Charge and the Retreat to Virginia, July 3-14, 1863 offers five “action-sections” including:

- Culp’s Hill Remains in Union Hands - The Pickett – Pettigrew – Trimble Charge - East Cavalry Field - South Cavalry Field - The Retreat from Gettysburg

Gottfried’s original maps enrich each map section. Keyed to each piece of cartography is detailed text about the units, personnel, movements, and combat (including quotes from eyewitnesses) that make the Gettysburg story come alive. This presentation allows readers to easily and quickly find a map and text on virtually any portion of the campaign. Serious students of the battle will appreciate the extensive endnotes and will want to take this book with them on their trips to the battlefield.

Perfect for the easy chair or for stomping the hallowed ground of Gettysburg, The Maps of Gettysburg promises to be a seminal work that belongs on the bookshelf of every serious and casual student of the battle.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Savas Beatie
• Release date: Feb 21, 2013
• ISBN: 9781611211344

Bradley M. Gottfried

Bradley M. Gottfried served as a college educator for more than 40 years before retiring in 2017. After receiving his doctorate, he worked as a full-time faculty member before entering the administrator ranks. He rose to the position of president and served for 17 years at two colleges. His interest in the Civil War began when he was a youngster in the Philadelphia area. He has written 18 books on the Civil War, including a number on Gettysburg and map studies of various campaigns. A resident of the Chambersburg/Gettysburg, Pennsylvania area, Brad is an Antietam Licensed Battlefield Guide and a Gettysburg Licensed Town Guide.

Book preview

frontcovertitle

© 2007 by Bradley M. Gottfried

The Maps of Gettysburg: Pickett's Charge and the Retreat to Virginia, July 3-14, 1863

All rights reserved. No part of this work 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.

Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the Library of Congress.

Original edition published in black and white in 2007

eISBN: 9781611211344

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

First Edition, First Printing, Color edition, 2010

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For Linda Nieman and Theodore P. Savas,

whose support and interest made this book possible.

Contents

Introduction

Map Set 25: Culp’s Hill Remains in Union Hands

Map Set 26: The Pickett – Pettigrew – Trimble Charge

Map Set 27: East Cavalry Field

Map Set 28: South Cavalry Field

July 4-13

Withdrawal to Virginia

Map Set 29: The Retreat from Gettysburg

Appendix A: Order of Battle

Notes

Bibliography

List of Maps

Map 25.1: Culp’s Hill, July 3: Return of the XII Corps to the Union Right

Map 25.2: Culp’s Hill, July 3: The Union Spoiling Attack Begins

Map 25.3: Culp’s Hill, July 3: The Confederates Attack Up the Hill

Map 25.4: Culp’s Hill, July 3: Steuart and Daniel Press the Attack

Map 25.5: Culp’s Hill, July 3: The Final Attacks and Counterattacks

Map 26.1: The Pickett-Pettigrew-Trimble Charge: Preparations

Map 26.2: The Pickett-Pettigrew-Trimble Charge: The Artillery Barrage

Map 26.3: The Pickett-Pettigrew-Trimble Charge: The Attack Begins

Map 26.4: The Pickett-Pettigrew-Trimble Charge: Crossing the Emmitsburg Road

Map 26.5: The Pickett-Pettigrew-Trimble Charge: Closing with the Federals

Map 26.6: The Pickett-Pettigrew-Trimble Charge: Federal Defenders Hold Fast

Map 26.7: The Pickett-Pettigrew-Trimble Charge: Wilcox and Lang Advance

Map 27.1: East Cavalry Field: Initial Troop Depositions

Map 27.2: East Cavalry Field: Opening Federal Attacks

Map 27.3: East Cavalry Field: Custer Attacks the Confederate Cavalry Positions

Map 27.4: East Cavalry Field: The Confederate Attack is Repulsed

Map 28.1: South Cavalry Field: Federal Cavalry Deploys

Map 28.2: South Cavalry Field: Initial Combat Between Cavalry and Infantry

Map 28.3: South Cavalry Field: Farnsworth’s Attack is Repulsed

Map 29.1: The Retreat from Gettysburg: July 4, 1863

Map 29.2: The Retreat from Gettysburg: July 5, 1863

Map 29.3: The Retreat from Gettysburg: July 6, 1863

Map 29.4: The Retreat from Gettysburg: July 7-8, 1863

Map 29.5: The Retreat from Gettysburg: July 9-12, 1863

Map 29.6: The Retreat from Gettysburg: July 12-14, 1863

Introduction

Another book on Gettysburg?

A few years ago, a distinguished Civil War historian decried the continual flow of books, articles, and research on the battle of Gettysburg. As far as he was concerned, the energy poured into the battle directed attention away from other important events that needed scholarly attention. One of the books he focused attention on in his article was my own recently released Brigades of Gettysburg: The Union and Confederate Brigades at the Battle of Gettysburg (Da Capo, 2002). That title, and others like it, intoned the historian, was what was wrong with modern Civil War historiography. Although I respect his broad body of work, and own many of his books, I disagree entirely with his assessment.

First, no other campaign has uncovered so many first-person accounts of those pivotal weeks in 1863. These recollections make it easier for anyone writing on the subject to understand—at a much broader and deeper level—what really occurred during that campaign. This is true not only at the strategic level, but from the eyes of men who served in the ranks and from the perspective of ordinary civilians. Newly discovered accounts on this subject appear with regularity. As ongoing research turns up new sources, it is the historian’s job to synthesize that material and produce something useful from it. The recently published and well received Plenty of Blame to Go Around: Jeb Stuart’s Controversial Ride to Gettysburg, by Eric J. Wittenberg and J. David Petruzzi (Savas Beatie, 2006) is a classic example of what good historians can do with new material.

Second, the national interest in Gettysburg continues unabated. Attendance at the national park dedicated to memorializing the battle has fallen recently, but nearly 2,000,000 people still visit each year. Books on the subject continue to sell well because the interest in reading about the campaign remains vibrant.

All of this is a roundabout way of coming back to how this Introduction opened. In your hands is another book with Gettysburg in the title (twice). My own work on the subject is concentrated on topics I think others want to read more about, including reference material that will hopefully assist experts and laymen alike. I am a firm believer that plowing ground that will help others in the future is a worthwhile endeavor.

Researching and preparing Brigades of Gettysburg in the late 1990s was much more difficult than I expected it might be. A dearth of easy-to-read complete maps on the campaign made tracking the daily movement of the opposing armies and individual units much more difficult than it would otherwise have been. To understand fully any campaign or battle, a student must appreciate how and when the individual armies and their component parts marched to the battlefield and their proximity to one another along the way at any given time. Being able to visualize this information makes it come alive and weaves the threads of understanding together into a tighter picture that usually explains why commanders marched when and where they did, or why they made one decision and not another. Knowing the precise movements of the opposing forces also sheds light on why and when a particular battle took place. Understanding how the opposing armies reached the field of battle goes a long way toward explaining why the subsequent fighting unfolded as it did. This is true of every military campaign of every age.

When it comes to Gettysburg, readers have several cartographic works from which to choose. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses. Any serious study of Gettysburg must include time with John Bachelder’s maps. These maps are invaluable for studying the battle. However, Bachelder’s maps only cover the events on the field at Gettysburg, and although crafted with care, contain many inaccuracies. John Imhof’s Gettysburg—Day Two: A Study in Maps (Butternut and Blue, 1997) is an outstanding work designed to cover only a slice of the battle (the second day); it does so admirably. Another similar study includes Jeffrey Hall’s The Stand of the U.S. Army at Gettysburg (Indiana University Press, 2003). The topographical maps are impressive and helpful, but Hall’s pro-Northern point of view, coupled with his sequential approach, makes it less valuable than it might otherwise have been.

The Maps of Gettysburg: An Atlas of the Gettysburg Campaign, June 3 – July 13, 1863 takes a different approach on two levels. First, its neutral coverage includes the entire campaign from both points of view. The text and maps carry the armies from the opening step of the campaign during the early days of June all the way to the battlefield in Pennsylvania, through the three days of fighting, and then south again until the Army of Northern Virginia crossed the Potomac River in mid-July. My purpose is to offer a broad and full understanding of the complete campaign, rather than a micro-history of one day or one sector of the battle itself.

Second, The Maps of Gettysburg dissects the actions within each sector of the battlefield for a deeper and hopefully more meaningful experience. Each section of this book includes a number of text and map combinations. Every left-hand page includes descriptive text corresponding with a facing right-hand page original map. An added advantage of this arrangement is that it eliminates the need to flip through the book to try to find a map to match the text. Some sections, like the defeat of the 157th New York north of Gettysburg on July 1, are short and required only two maps. Others, like the prolonged bloody combat in the Wheatfield on July 2, required a large number of maps and text pages. Wherever possible, I utilized relevant firsthand accounts to personalize the otherwise straightforward text.

To my knowledge, no single source until now has pulled together the myriad of movements and events of this mammoth campaign and offered it in a cartographic form side-by-side with reasonably detailed text complete with end notes. I hope readers find this method of presentation useful. Newcomers to Gettysburg should find the plentiful maps and sectioned coverage easy to follow and understand. Hopefully, it makes digesting what is an otherwise complex campaign easier to grasp in its broad strokes. The various sections may also trigger a special interest or two and so pry open avenues for further study. I am optimistic that readers who approach the subject with a higher level of expertise will find the maps and text not only interesting to study and read, but truly helpful. If someone, somewhere, places this book within reach to refer to it now and again as a reference guide, the long hours invested in this project will have been worthwhile.

The Maps of Gettysburg is not the last word or definitive treatment of the campaign, battle, or any part thereof—nor