DAY 1: JULY 1, 1863 THE 17 TH CONNECTICUT. HERRS RIDGE AND MCPHERSONS RIDGE THE RAILROAD CUT OAK RIDGE AND MCPHERSONS RIDGE MCLEANS FARM AND BARLOWS KNOLL.

DAY 1: JULY 1, 1863

THE 17TH CONNECTICUT

HERR’S RIDGE AND MCPHERSON’S RIDGE

THE RAILROAD CUT

OAK RIDGE AND MCPHERSON’S RIDGE

MCLEAN’S FARM AND BARLOW’S KNOLL

OAK RIDGE AND SEMINARY RIDGE

THE TOWN OF GETTYSBURG

CEMETERY HILL

At dawn on July 1, 1863, neither George Meade nor Robert E. Lee was looking for a battle at Gettysburg. The biggest battle of the Civil War took both commanders by surprise.  Early that morning, General Henry Heth led a column of 7,000 Confederate soldiers toward Gettysburg on Chambersburg Pike. He saw the Union cavalry men, but had orders from General Lee not to bring on a sustained fight.  Three miles west of Gettysburg, Union scout Lieutenant Marcellus Jones of the 8th Illinois Cavalry spotted a column of Confederate infantry. He sent a rider back with word that the Confederates were on their way. Then he borrowed a Carbine from his sergeant, rested it on a fence rail, and fired a warning shot.  Heth’s men responded with shots of their own and continued their march toward Gettysburg. Meanwhile, Union General John Buford led his 2,700 cavalry men toward the McPherson farm one half mile west of Gettysburg and positioned them in a arc stretching from the west to the northeast, from Hagerstown to Harrisburg Roads. The Battle of Gettysburg had begun.

HENRY HETH, CSA

JOHN BUFORD, CAVALRY

McPherson’s Ridge

The outnumbered Union cavalry of General John Buford fought through the morning to slow the Confederate advance. They dismounted, formed a line, fired until the Confederates got too close, and then pulled back to form again. One of the first Union infantry units to reach the battlefield and relieve General Buford’s cavalry was the 1st Corps. One of its units, known as the Iron Brigade, rushed into battle on McPherson’s Ridge and attacked the Confederates along a tiny stream called Willoughby Run.  In a grim and bloody hour-long battle, the 1st Corps defeated Heth’s infantrymen and drove them back. After a lull, the Confederates attacked again. Both sides suffered heavy losses, but the Confederates managed to push the 1st Corps back.

GENERAL JOHN FULTON REYNOLDS

At 10:00 A.M., Major General John Reynolds arrived with the lead units of his Union 1sr Corps Infantry. Under fire, he quickly directed his men into action.

·        The first of his troops on the scene were those of Cutler’s Brigade, (7th Indiana, 76th New York, 84th New York, 95th New York, 147th New York, 56th Pennsylvania). The 56th Pennsylvania fired the first infantry volley.

·        When Confederates of Brigadier General James Archer’s Brigade (13th Alabama, 5th Alabama Battalion, 1st Tennessee, 7th Tennessee, 14th Tennessee) entered the woods (a woodlot immediately south of the McPherson Farm), Reynolds sent portions of Brigadier General Solomon Meredith’s “Iron Brigade” (19th Indiana, 24th Michigan, 2nd Wisconsin, 6th Wisconsin, 7th Wisconsin) to stop them.

The Iron Brigade pushed the Confederates back and captured many, including General Archer.

Near the eastern edge of the woods, Reynolds was shot in the brain and instantly killed---the highest ranking officer casualty of the battle.

GENERAL OLIVER OTIS HOWARD

11th CORPSHOWARD

1ST DIVISION

BARLOW2ND DIVISION

VON STEINWEHR

3RD DIVISION

SCHURZ

1ST BRIGADE

VON GILSA

2ND BRIGADEAMES

1ST BRIGADECOSTER

2ND BRIGADESMITH

1ST BRIGADESCHIMMILEFENNIG

2ND BRIGADE

KRZYZANOWSKI

17TH CT VOLUNTEERS

THE 11TH CORPS WAS MADE UP OF 26 REGIMENTS OF INFANTRY AND FIVE

BATTERIES OF ARTILLERY.

On the day before the battle of Gettysburg, the corps reported 10,576 officers and men for duty; its loss in that battle would be 368 killed, 1,922 wounded, and 1,511 captured or missing; total, 3,801, out of less than 9,000 engaged.

Brigadier General Francis Channing Barlow was a twenty-nine year old Harvard graduate and former New York lawyer.

Brigadier General Adelbert Ames was a twenty-eight year old Maine native When the Rebels attacked Cemetery Hill on July 2nd, it was Ames’s old brigade (which included the 17th Connecticut) that bore the brunt of the assault.

JUNE 30, 1863

By June 30, General Meade had ordered his seven corps commanders to drive the men within a day’s march of Gettysburg.

Approaching Gettysburg along the Emmitsburg Road, Major John F. Reynolds’s First Corps had stopped for the night at Marsh Creek, only five miles to the southwest.

Behind Reynolds, and camped near Emmitsburg, were the troops of General Oliver Otis Howard’s 11th Corps, within 11 miles of Gettysburg.

James Montgomery Bailey:

“I well remember the night of the 30th of June. The sky was clear of clouds and filled with bright glittering stars. The moon threw a calm, mellow light over our camp, and the surrounding hills. We were lying at Emmittsburg in Maryland, near the Pennsylvania border. We felt that our marching was about done for the present, and that we were on the eve of a heavy struggle. The solemnity which always foreruns a battle, pervaded our minds, intensifying our thoughts of home, and weaving shadows of anxiety across our future. The conflict was imminent. All through the day flying rumors came on all sides. Lee had destroyed Harrisburg, routed the militia, and was rapidly advancing on us by way of Gettysburg.”

One of the men in Howard’s command, Private William H. Warren, captured the urgency of Meade’s advance when he wrote in his diary on the evening of June 29th ---

“Marched all day through the mud and the rain---very hard walking—and marched between 11 and 12 miles to Emmitsburg.”

JULY 1, 1863

Justus Silliman, a member of the 17th Connecticut in Ames’s Brigade, wrote,

“the roads were muddy and the march very tiresome as we were pushed forward in great haste. On arriving to within about three miles of the town, we heard the cannonading and, for the first time, it entered our minds that we might soon have some fighting to do.”

After the last regiments of the 3rd Division had marched through Gettysburg, the men of the 17th Connecticut swung into view pressing along the Emmitsburg Road with the rest of Brigadier General Francis Barlow’s 1st Division.

The day was hot and sultry as the 17th Connecticut marched into Gettysburg.

GENERAL RICHARD S. EWELL, CSA

Rodes’s division was the first unit of Ewell’s Corps to arrive in Gettysburg, and shortly after 2:00 p.m., it became hotly engaged with the Union 1st and 11th Corps northwest of town.

When Jubal Early approached the field along the Harrisburg Road, he was perfectly positioned to attack Barlow’s division on the extreme right flank of the 11th Corps.

Early placed Gordan’s brigade on the right of the road, Hayes’s brigade astride and to the left of the road, and Avery’s brigade on Hays’s left. At approximately 3:45 p.m. Gordon attacked.

Gen. John Gordon Gen. Isaac Avery Gen. Harry Hays

BARLOW’S KNOLL

At about 2:00 p.m., Francis Barlow, energetic and eager, pushed his men forward into the line of battle----too far forward, further jeopardizing the already precarious position of Howard’s right flank, Barlow’s superior officer, Major General Schurz contended.

When he learned from Barlow the general area to be occupied by the 2nd Brigade, Ames immediately sent one of his aides, Lieutenant Charles E. Doty of Norwalk, formerly of Company F, 17th Connecticut, to request that a detachment of the 17th proceed as rapidly as possible along the Harrisburg Road to secure a small wooden bridge spanning Rock Creek.

Then, as skirmishers, they were to press across the bridge in order to take and hold “a brick house to the left and beyond the bridge.”

Lieutenant-Colonel Douglas Fowler called for volunteers, and Major Allen G. Brady, second in command of the regiment, offered to lead them.

In the words of Lieutenant Doty, “Captain Henry Allen, then in command of Company F, at once stepped forward, and as Major Brady set out on his mission, he had with him companies A, B, F, and K, commanded, respectively by Captains John McQuade of Norwalk, Charles A. Hobby of Darien, Henry Allen of Norwalk, and John McCarty of Fairfield.

These Connecticut infantry, once across the bridge, were at the extreme right of the entire Federal line. They were the only organized units during the first day’s fight to engage the Confederates on the far side of Rock Creek.

The rest of Barlow’s division followed along the Harrisburg Road toward Rock Creek to the Alms House. Here Schurz expected Barlow to ground his right flank behind the protective brick walls of the buildings on the grounds.

But it was not long before Lieutenant Bayard Wilkeson, commanding Battery G, 4th United States Artillery, wheeled four of his Napoleon cannons to the only elevation near the Alms House, the hillock about 500 yards northeast bordering on Rock Creek.

It was the best site in the area for artillery, and Barlow thought that Wilkeson would also need infantry support to maintain his position. Furthermore, he was in the mood to take his turn in the flanking game.

These were his orders as viewed by General Howard, and by swinging his 3,200 men up the gentle slope of the knoll and then into battle line, he could send them down the opposite side in a northwesterly direction and slam into the left flank of Dole’s Georgia Brigade. At the same time, he could give Wilkeson’s guns the infantry support they needed.

As Barlow’s men moved up the knoll, Confederate skirmishers in the area were speedily swept aside. A little before 3:00 p.m., Barlow had his two brigades on top and along the eastern and northern slopes of the knoll. Already Wilkeson had zeroed in on two Southern batteries located on the eastern edge of Oak Hill.

On the left of that regiment, Lieutenant Colonel Douglas Fowler readied the six remaining companies (C, G, H, and I) of the 17th Connecticut.

His line was extended to the left by first the 75th and then the 107th Ohio regiments. Nestled among these units at the highest point of the knoll, Lieutenant Wilkeson’s guns fired at the enemy as rapidly as his sweating gunners could load them.

The heavy Confederate return fire made some of the Nutmeggers uneasy, prompting Lieutenant Colonel Fowler to jokingly cry out, “Dodge the big ones, boys!”

Barlow was ready to make his move. Colonel von Gilsa already had skirmishers moving north along the creek side to feel out the Confederate left flank. Dole was pushing his Georgians slowly toward Gettysburg just to the left of Barlow’s battle line. So intent was Barlow upon attacking Dole that he did not heed the military lightning flashing on his own right, directly across the creek.

On the opposite side of Rock Creek, the four Connecticut companies [A, B, F, and K] were getting more than their fair share of Confederate attention as they approached the two-story brick home of Josiah Benner.

As they approached the Benner Farm, “two companies were thrown out, and deployed as skirmishers as rapidly as possible to the right of the bridge, along the creek. The other two, held as reserve, were advanced in line, loading and firing as rapidly as possible, making at the same time a left wheel, so as to swing our right around the house, the reserve keeping near and conforming to the movements of the skirmishers.”

Here they drew fire from the Confederate artillery and Southern skirmishers. Brady tells of the enemy pouring in “shot, shell, grape, and canister.”

The concentration of fire was effective enough to slow down the advance toward the buildings, so much so that “Major Brady, dismounted, went in front of the line of skirmishers, and led them on until quite near the house.”

Aware of Brady’s desire to use the buildings for protection, the Confederates trained their guns on the farmhouse, and soon portions of it caught fire. But, said Brady, “We held our ground, and held the enemy’s skirmishers in check.” He added in his battle report that most of his men were excellent marksmen and had volunteered for this mission.

Brisk fighting continued until General Ames ordered Brady to “draw in his skirmishers and return to town as rapidly as possible.”

Ames had good reason to recall Brady’s men. Barlow, poised on the knoll and ready to cut into Dole’s left flank, was about to drive his regiments forward. Doubleday, whose 1st Corps was then very much in need of Barlow’s assistance said, “Barlow had advanced with von Gilsa’s brigade, had driven back Ewell’s skirmish line, and with the aid of Wilkeson’s Battery, was preparing to hold the Carlisle Road. He was not aware that Early was approaching, and saw Dole’s advance with pleasure, for he felt confident he could swing around his right and envelop Dole’s left; a maneuver which could hardly fail to be successful.”

But Howard stopped him. As he phrased it, “Barlow against a shower of bullets made a strong effort to advance his lines, but as soon as I heard of the approach of Ewell and saw that nothing could prevent the turning of my right flank if Barlow advanced, the order was countermanded, except to press out a skirmish line.”

Barlow seems not to have sensed the danger!

Intent on pressing his attack on Dole , he and his two brigades suddenly heard the thunder of General Jubal Early’s division artillery. Less than a half-mile further north on the Harrisburg Road, cannoneers of Lieutenant-Colonel H.P. Jones’s battalion quickly found the range and fixed upon Barlow’s exposed right flank.

Bombarded from two directions, from Oak Hill and the Harrisburg Road, Lieutenant Wilkeson’s four Napoleons on the knoll now returned fire both ways.

The concentration of Southern fire on the knoll soon succeeded in knocking this gallant young artilleryman from his horse.

As Wilkeson lay mortally wounded, Lieutenant Eugene A. Bancroft took command of the battery. And while the southern cannons were weakening the defenses surrounding Barlow’s Knoll, Early’s entire division moved in for the kill.

At about 3:30 p.m., Early had deployed three of his brigades into battle line on the opposite side of Rock Creek, and 6,300 Rebels stood ready to wade across the stream and roll up General Howard’s right flank. Theirs was to be the closing trick of the first day’s flanking game.

Leading Early’s right brigade was Brigadier General John B. Gordon. One of the South’s most colorful leaders, Gordon was keen of mind and bold in strategy and was the epitome of the southern gentleman. His immediate chore was to close ranks with his fellow Georgians in Dole’s brigade off to his right near the Carlisle Road and force Barlow off the knoll.

In Gordon’s own words,  “The Union forces…were again advancing and pressing back Lee’s left and threatening to envelop it. The Confederates were stubbornly contesting every foot of ground, but the Southern left was slowly yielding. A few moments more, and that day’s battle might have been ended by the complete turning of Lee’s flank. I was ordered to move at once to the aid of the heavily pressed Confederates. With a ringing yell, my command rushed upon the line posted to protect the Union right.”

Caught in the confusion of changing fronts to meet this new threat were the six companies of the 17th Connecticut. When General Gordon turned his Georgians loose, a full brigade of Rebels came out of the wheat fields, crossed the creek, and broke into the open area at the foot of the knoll. Within minutes, the charging Confederates had flushed out and sent over the hillock the remnants of von Gilsa’s three regiments, previously positioned along the creek.

Thrown first into disarray, and then into panic, these same unlucky “Dutchmen” were the first troops to “run for it” at Gettysburg, as they were at Chancellorsville.

As Gordon chased von Gilsa’s men to the rear, he ran into real resistance as his Georgians approached the top of the knoll. Changing fronts as best it could, Barlow’s 2nd Brigade, under General Ames, made a stubborn fight of it.

They were further handicapped, Ames reported, by “the men of the First Brigade of this division running through the lines of the regiments of my brigade and thereby creating considerable confusion.”

Private William Warren also noted in his diary that “the Dutchmen ran right through our regiment and broke it up.”

Barlow, now with but four fighting regiments, fought to hold his ground against increasing odds

Warren wrote:

  “Rufus Warren fell. He was about a rod ahead of me. He fell the opposite way he was running, throwed up his hands and hollowed “Oh dear; help me! Help me!” It was not time for me to stop so I kept on. I had hardly gone a rod farther when a bullet cut a hole out of my pants…but it did not touch me. Bullets were coming in a shower. I thought I was spoke for. Still I kept moving on and shortly I expect it was a piece of spent shell struck my right shoulder blade and almost knocked me over.” (Note: Rufus Warren was eventually rescued from the battlefield, but later died of his wounds.)

Close by, Lieutenant-Colonel Douglas Fowler moved his Connecticut companies toward the onrushing Confederates.

A native of Norwalk, Fowler had been in and out of the army three times since the beginning of the war. Among the first of Connecticut’s volunteers, he served first as captain of Company G, 3rd Connecticut, until that unit’s three months of service expired.

In September 1861 he was back in the service with the 8th Connecticut as captain of Company H, which he had raised in and about Norwalk.

Fowler resigned his commission in January 1862 and reenlisted as captain of Company A, 17th Connecticut in July 1862.

During that same summer, he also successfully raised yet another company of Fairfield County men which became Company F of the 17th Connecticut.

At Chancellorsville, he left the hospital to lead his company; he fought tenaciously and was among the last to retreat. Skillful as a tactician, Fowler brought to Gettysburg a regiment of Nutmeggers confident in his ability and ready to follow wherever he led.

From his position on the right side of the Union line at the top of the knoll, Fowler prepared for action. In the words of Lieutenant Doty, “Colonel Fowler at once rode to the front and gave the command to deploy columns, and swinging his sword, said, “Now, Seventeenth, do your duty! Forward, double-quick! Charge bayonets!”

And with a yell, which our boys knew how to give, they charged.”

When his soldiers approached the top of the rise, a hand-to-hand struggle followed, with the “colors on the two lines being part of the time only fifty paces apart.”

Mounted conspicuously on a large white horse, Lieutenant-Colonel Fowler was an easy target, and was killed instantly by an artillery shell.

FOUND ON BARLOW’S KNOLL AFTER THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG

“Along with Douglas Fowler, Captain James Moore was killed about the same time, and Captain Wilson French and Lieutenant Henry Quien were wounded.

Many of our men [the 17th] were killed, wounded, or taken prisoner.”

Barlow’s position grew desperate, for in addition to Gordon’s Georgians, two additional Confederate brigades were beginning to curl in on the Union flank. With 4,500 Confederates closing in, Barlow had to withdraw or face entrapment. Still unwilling to yield his position, he tried to rally his regiments as they began to move back from the knoll, but at this point, he was severely wounded and General Ames assumed command.

General Gordon described it this way:

“That protecting Union line once broken left my command not only on the right flank, but obliquely in the rear of it. Any troops that were ever marshaled would, under like conditions, have been as surely and swiftly shattered. There was no alternative for Howard’s men except to break and fly, or to throw down their arms and surrender. Under the concentrated fire from front and flank, the marvel is that any [of the soldiers] escaped.”

Some Northern units did “break and fly” from Barlow’s Knoll, but it is also true that Ames’s 2nd Brigade and Lieutenant Bancroft’s Battery G, 4th U.S. Artillery left the hillock in reasonably good order. Under the command of General Ames, “the division retreated to a second position near the Alms House, where it formed again.”

One of those caught up in the retreat was Sergeant Major C. Frederick Betts of Norwalk, who first tried to lift the body of Lieutenant-Colonel Fowler onto a horse. In spite of assistance from another soldier, however, “found it impossible to do so, as his weight was beyond our strength, and after several attempts, we reluctantly left him.”

[Note: Some of the soldiers of the 17th returned to the battlefield some time later to try to recover the body of Lieutenant-Colonel Fowler, but found that Rebel burial details had stripped the bodies of Union dead of all valuables and then tossed them into mass graves. The Lieutenant-Colonel’s body was never found.]

With the enemy closing in and making requests to surrender “more vigorous than polite,” Betts made good his escape by “scaling a fence in front of us and tearing across the next field towards the stone wall of the poor house.” Another soldier who ran for the Alms house, Private William Warren, described in vivid detail those moments in his diary.

“I partly loaded with my back to the enemy, then they commenced to run again, so I run. A little ways farther, and Rufus Warren fell. He was about a rod ahead of me, and fell the opposite way he was running. Then he threw up his hands and hollered, ‘O Dear. Help me! Help me!” There was not time for me to stop so I kept on. Before I had hardly gone a rod further, a bullet cut a hole out of my pants, but did not touch me. Bullets were coming in a shower. I thought I was spoke for. Still I kept moving on, and shortly afterward I expect it was a piece of spent shell that struck my right shoulder blade and almost knocked me over. I ran across the field and everything before me looked as white as a sheet.” .

[Note: Rufus Warren was eventually rescued from the battlefield and lived about two weeks before dying from his wounds on July 17th.]

Once at the Alms House, General Ames ordered Major Brady to “return to town as rapidly as possible, and take command” of the isolated companies of the 17th Connecticut who were still out skirmishing near the Benner House. Brady then drew in his skirmishers and pulled back across Rock Creek. Under fire all the way, Brady reported, “We fell back in good order, still skirmishing with the enemy, who advanced while we retreated, and tried to cut us off and capture us before we got to the town.”

Moving across the creek and toward the town in pursuit of the Connecticut companies, Confederate general Harry T. Hays spurred on his brigade of 1,500 Louisiana Tigers.

Hays reported that when General Gordon “encountered the enemy in force, I received an order to advance in support. Pressing steadily on, I met with no other opposition than that presented by the enemy’s skirmishers and the firing of artillery.”

Hays thus agreed with Brady that his advance, ordered to support Gordon’s left flank, met no infantry opposition other than Brady’s four companies of Connecticut skirmishers.

When his advance approached the Alms House, Hays “found the enemy in considerable strength.” It was there that he had met the line of resistance hastily formed by Ames with his 2nd Brigade remnants. Ames could not withstand for long the overwhelming pressure of the Louisiana Tigers cutting into his flank as Gordon continued to pound him from the front. After crashing into this last organized but futile Northern defense, General Hays says he continued to move on, “driving before me all the force opposed until I arrived at the railroad…just striking the edge of the city of Gettysburg.”

But Major Brady, a wily, resourceful Yankee, had a few more tricks up his sleeve! Somehow he got his four Connecticut companies beyond the reach of the 1,500 Louisiana Tigers who were chasing them down.

“We foiled them…by making a circuit and entering the town near the upper end, and soon joined the remainder of the regiment, which we found near the lower end of town.”

As the Southern divisions tightened the noose, the outnumbered Union troops were steadily compressed toward the center of Gettysburg. Howard’s right flank collapsed first, leaving Doubleday’s rear unprotected. Under intense pressure from Heth and Pender, the 1st Corps followed the retreat of the 11th Corps through the town, jamming the streets and alleys in an effort to move south to Cemetery Hill. Many of these men had lost their will to fight, and much of their cohesion as the Rebels closed in.

Yet there was some resistance as a few Northern units tried desperately to make yet another stand!

Major Brady got his Connecticut Yankees to attempt to slow the Southern pursuit. As he rallied his tired men, his efforts caught the eye of a Union soldier retreating through town with the 88th Pennsylvania Regiment:

“Any attempt to make a stand in this bewildered and frantic mob was attended with the greatest difficulty and peril, yet many fragments of both Corps did their level best to brave the storm and repulse the Rebels. Amidst all of the excitement, I could see the 17th Connecticut deployed in the streets, firing several rounds before it was compelled to fall back.”

This account give credence to Major Brady’s report about the regiments efforts to stall the Confederate advance through the town. Having located what was left of the regiment in Gettysburg, Brady first reported to General Ames for instructions. The enemy were at this time advancing rapidly through the town. The regiment was immediately deployed through the streets, and fired several volleys into the ranks of the enemy, which thinned their ranks and retarded their advance. We kept the enemy from advancing through the town until ordered to clear the streets of our men for the purpose of planting a battery. This battery not being placed in position as intended, and the regiment being in line on the sidewalk, the enemy took advantage of this, and with a superior force, rushed through the main street, which compelled us to fall back, which we did reluctantly, but not without contesting the ground inch by inch.

All afternoon, General Howard had hesitated to send any reserves from the top of Cemetery Hill to aid in the withdrawal of the Northern forces. Almost too late, he allowed General von Steinwehr to send Colonel Charles R. Coster’s brigade and one artillery battery to the northeastern rim of town to ward off the fast approach of the Confederate brigades led by General Hays and Colonel Avery.

Since overrunning the Northern defense line near the Alms House, Hays had moved ahead unmolested, and Avery’s brigade to his left also moved quickly to flank the 11th Corps. Luckily, Colonel Coster got his brigade into position beyond the railroad station in town just before the Southerners closed in. Coster’s brigade fought stubbornly and long enough to allow many Union soldiers to get through the town to Cemetery Hill. Protected by this temporary screen, General Ames’s First Division was able to withdraw.

Close behind Ames’s First Division, the shattered ranks of General Shimmelfennig’s Third Division of the 11th Corps intermingled with Doubleday’s First Corps troops now streaming through town. As these Union soldiers scrambled toward Cemetery Hill, the Rebels jammed into town from the east, the north, and the west. Every street echoed rifle fire and the boisterous Rebel yells of Lee’s victorious men. Casualties were high among the Union soldiers, and thousands of Federal infantrymen were taken prisoner as their lanes of escape collapsed.

The melee in and about town was so confused, though, that the Confederate surge lost its momentum. When General Ewell reached the center of Gettysburg, he observed a state of jubilation and disorder among his own troops so great that any organized pursuit of the fleeing Yankees was at that moment impossible. Precious moments were lost as Ewell reorganized his men for an assault on Cemetery Hill. A discretionary order from Lee suggested a prompt move against the hills to the south of Gettysburg, but Ewell chose not to move. His work for the day was done. His hesitation gave Howard’s men precious minutes to regroup for the defense of their hilltop.

As some of Brady’s veterans climbed to the top of Cemetery Hill, General Howard, unaware that they were Connecticut men, approached them taking them for one of his German regiments. Howard remembered, “Seeing the color sergeant and guard as they came between me and the stone wall, near the edge of the city, I called out, “Sergeant, plant your flag down there in that stone wall!” Not recognizing me, the sergeant said impulsively, “All right, if you will go with me, I will !” Whereupon I took the flag and accompanied by Rogers, my aide, the sergeant, and his men, set it above the wall. That flag served to rally the 17th Connecticut Regiment, always brave and energetic, and other troops.”

Major Brady’s official report of the same incident, written on July 4th, said: About this time Major General Howard, who was in the thickest of the battle, regardless of danger, asked if he had troops brave enough to advance to a stone wall across a lot toward the town, and said he would lead them. We replied, “Yes, Sir, the Seventeenth Connecticut will,” and advanced at once to the place indicated, remained a few moments, and again advanced across another lot still nearer the town, which position we held until later in the evening, exposed to a galling fire from the enemy’s sharpshooters.

While the 17th Connecticut and a few other Union regiments protected the escape route to Cemetery Hill, Northern soldiers able to break free from the havoc in town struggled up the slope toward Howard’s headquarters. On the crest, Howard and his aides continued efforts to reorganize the new arrivals and post them in positions to war off any sudden Confederate attack. At 4:30 p.m., 2nd Corps commander Major General Winfield Scott Hancock and his staff arrived, sent ahead by General Meade to take temporary command of Gettysburg.

Once Hancock was on the scene, he lifted the spirits of all around him; he was a commander whose presence and ability called forth immediate respect and trust. Within minutes of his arrival, his direction brought gradual order out of what had been milling confusion. Soon the Federals in Cemetery Hill, and further east on Culp’s Hill, were fortifying already strong defensive positions.

The first day at Gettysburg had been costly for the more than 20,000 Union soldiers who reached the field; 9,100 were casualties before evening. But their sacrifice had interrupted Lee’s original plans, exacted thousands of Confederate casualties, and given Meade the advantage of defending the strategic heights south of town on the following day. Were it not for the stubborn resistance of the left wing of the Army of the Potomac that day, General Lee might well have turned Gettysburg into another Chancellorsville—but with far more serious consequences.

When Major Brady mustered the 17th Connecticut on the morning of July 2nd, only 241 men answered the roll call.

The regiment had lost 145 of its 386 men: 17 killed, 73 wounded, and 55 missing or captured.

Nine of these casualties were among the four companies --- A, B. F, and K --- detached from the regiment as skirmishers at the Benner Farm, where three men were killed, two wounded, and four captured.

The regiment suffered another 136 casualties during the fight at Barlow’s Knoll, the short encounter at the Alms House, and the final retreat through town.

It had been a hard and costly battle for both sides. Lee, Hill, and Ewell had amassed a force of 17 brigades of infantry, over 25,000 men. to oppose twelve Federal brigades of infantry, 18,000 soldiers, counting Orland Smith’s brigade on Cemetery Hill, plus two small brigades of cavalry.

On the Confederate side, Rodes division with five brigades and a strength of about 8,000 must have sustained must have sustained most of its reported 2,869 casualties during the battle of July 1. The casualties of Heth’s division numbered about 2,000 and Pender’s about 1,100.

On the union side, the First Corps had over 5,700 casualties, and the 11th Corps 3,200. Many of the 11th Corps losses, its missing especially, were prisoners captured during its retreat through the town to the hill.

Warren wrote:

  “Rufus Warren fell. He was about a rod ahead of me. He fell the opposite way he was running, throwed up his hands and hollowed “Oh dear; help me! Help me!” It was not time for me to stop so I kept on. I had hardly gone a rod farther when a bullet cut a hole out of my pants…but it did not touch me. Bullets were coming in a shower. I thought I was spoke for. Still I kept moving on and shortly I expect it was a piece of spent shell struck my right shoulder blade and almost knocked me over.” (Note: Rufus Warren was eventually rescued from the battlefield, but later died of his wounds.)

While the battle raged that July afternoon, Meade sent Major General Winfield Scott ahead of the main army to take command of the field. Hancock’s arrival boosted Union morale, and he briefly consulted with Generals Gouverneur K. Warren and Buford before deploying the remnants of the 1st and the 11th Corps to hold the high ground at Cemetery and Culp’s Hills. Wadsworth’s Division and the 5th Maine Artillery were sent to the western slope of Culp’s Hill. Colonel Orland Smith’s brigade of von Steinwehr’s division was put in front of the town at the base of Cemetery Hill. With Colonel Charles K. Coster’s brigade and Ames’s division on his right. Schurz’s division was put on the left in the cemetery, artillery batteries were quickly brought up, and earthworks were erected.

Steven's Knoll  

Saddle between Culp's Hill &

Cemetery Hill  

Evergreen Cemetery 

View from Cemetery Hill looking north. Culps farm is at right

Painting of Confederate Sharpshooters who built a barricade across Baltimore St. at Breckinridge St, firing toward Cemetery Hill.

BENNER FARM