Confederate Army’s Second Day at Gettysburg

The contest here was intensely exciting and terrible. The gloom of the falling night was lighted up by the flashes of the enemy’s guns.

Continuing Battle of Gettysburg,
with a selection from The Lost Cause by Edward A. Pollard published in 1866. This selection is presented in 5 installments, each one 5 minutes long. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Previously in Battle of Gettysburg.

Time: July 1-3, 1863
Place: Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

General Ewell had been ordered to attack directly the high ground on the enemy’s right, which had already been partially fortified. It was half an hour of sunset when Johnson’s infantry were ordered forward to the attack. In passing down the hill on which they had been posted, and while crossing the creek, they were much annoyed by the fire to which they were subjected from the enemy’s artillery, which from Cemetery Hill poured nearly an enfilade fire upon them. The creek was wide and its banks were steep, so that our men had to break ranks to cross it. Having passed the creek, General Jones’s brigade was thrown into disorder and retired a short distance.

On the extreme left General G. H. Steuart’s brigade was more successful. Pushing around to the enemy’s left, he enfiladed and drove the enemy from a breastwork which they had built in order to defend their right flank, and which ran at right angles to the rest of their lines up the mountainside. The enemy, however, quickly moved forward a force to retake it, but were repulsed, our troops occupying their own breastworks in order to receive their attack. General Steuart made no further effort to advance. Night had nearly fallen, and the ground was new to him.

General Early, upon hearing General Johnson’s infantry engaged, sent forward Hays’s Louisiana and Hoke’s North Carolina brigades. The troops, advancing as a storming-party, quickly passed over a ridge and down a hill. In a valley be low they met two lines of the Federals posted behind stone walls. These they charged. At the charge the Federals broke and fled up the hill closely pursued by our men. It was now dark; but Hays and Avery, still pursuing, pushed the enemy up the hill and stormed the Cemetery heights.

The contest here was intensely exciting and terrible. The gloom of the falling night was lighted up by the flashes of the enemy’s guns. Thirty or forty pieces, perhaps more, were firing canister with inconceivable rapidity at Early’s column. It must have been that they imagined this to be a general and simultaneous advance, for they opened on our men in three or four directions besides that which they were attacking.

Hays’s and Hoke’s brigades pressed on and captured two or three lines of breastworks and three or four of their batteries of artillery. For a few moments every gun of the enemy on the heights was silenced; but, by the time General Hays could get his command together, a dark line appeared in front of them and on either flank a few yards off. The true situation soon became clear. The Federals were bringing up at least a division to retake the works. General Hays, being unsupported by the troops on his right (which were from Hill’s corps), was compelled to fall back.

Major-General Rodes began to advance simultaneously with General Early. He had, however, more than double the distance of Early to go, and being unsupported by the troops on his right, who made no advance, he consequently moved slower than he would have moved had he been supported. Before reaching the enemy’s works Early had been repulsed, and so General Rodes halted, thinking it useless to attack, since he was unsupported.

When the second day closed this was the position of Ewell’s corps: Johnson’s left had gained important ground, part of it being a very short distance from the top of the mountain, which, if once gained, would command the whole of the enemy’s position; but his right had made no progress. Early’s attack, almost a brilliant success, had produced no results, and he occupied nearly his former position. Rodes, having advanced nearly half way to the enemy’s works, and finding there good cover for his troops, remained in his advanced position.

But we must take the reader’s attention to another part of the field, where a more dramatic circumstance than Early’s momentary grasp of victory had occurred. General Hill had been instructed to threaten the center of the Federal line, in order to prevent reinforcements being sent to either wing, and to avail himself of any opportunity that might present itself to attack.

On the right of Hill’s corps and the left of Longstreet, being joined on to Barksdale’s brigade of McLaws’s division, was Wil cox’s brigade, then Perry’s, Wright’s, Posey’s, Mahone’s. At half-past five o’clock Longstreet began the attack, and Wilcox followed it up by promptly moving forward; Perry’s brigade quickly followed, and Wright moved simultaneously with him. The two divisions of Longstreet’s corps soon encountered the enemy, posted a little in rear of the Emmetsburg turnpike, which winds along the slope of the range upon which the enemy’s main force was concentrated. After a short but spirited engagement the enemy was driven back upon the main line upon the crest of the hill. McLaws’s and Hood’s divisions made a desperate assault upon the main line, but, owing to the precipitate and rugged character of the slope, were unable to reach the summit.

After Barksdale’s brigade, of McLaws’s division, had been engaged for some time, Wilcox, Wright, and Perry were ordered forward, encountering a line of the enemy and soon putting them to rout. Still pressing forward, these three brigades met with another and stronger line of the enemy, backed by twelve pieces of artillery. No pause was made. The line moved rapidly forward and captured the artillery.

Another fresh line of battle was thrown forward by the enemy. Wright had swept over the valley under a terrific fire from the batteries posted upon the heights, had encountered the enemy’s advance line, and had driven it across the Emmetsburg pike, to a position behind a stone wall or fence which runs parallel with the pike and sixty or eighty yards in front of the batteries on the heights and immediately under them. Here the enemy made a desperate attempt to retrieve his fortunes. The engagement lasted fifteen or twenty minutes. Charging up the steep sides of the mountains, the Confederates succeeded in driving the enemy from behind the wall at the point of the bayonet. Rushing forward with a shout, they gained the summit of the heights, driving the enemy’s infantry in disorder and confusion into the woods beyond.

Orville J. Victor begins here. Edward A. Pollard begins here. Abraham Lincoln begins here.

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