AT THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG

1. AT THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG

2. TUESDAY JUNE 30, 1863

3. 11th CORPS HOWARD 2ND DIVISION VON STEINWEHR 3RD DIVISION SCHURZ 1ST DIVISION BARLOW 1ST BRIGADE VON GILSA 1ST BRIGADE COSTER 1ST BRIGADE SCHIMMILEFENNIG 2ND BRIGADE KRZYZANOWSKI 2ND BRIGADE SMITH 2ND BRIGADE AMES 17TH CT VOLUNTEERS

4. Colonel Noble was not with the 17th Connecticut in Gettysburg. He had been home on a leave of absence on account of the wound that he had received at the Battle of Chancellorsville. However, realizing that a fight was imminent, he left home five days before his leave expired and reported directly to Washington to find the location of his regiment. The authorities there could not give him any information and they kept him there for five days—so long that he was unable to join his command until it was too late to take part in the fight.

5. GENERAL OLIVER OTIS HOWARD COMMANDER OF THE 11TH CORPS

6. Brigadier General Francis Channing Barlow, the commander of the 1st Division of the 11th Corpswas a twenty-nine year old Harvard graduate and former New York lawyer.

7. 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.

8. By June 30, Meade’s orders placed each corps within a day’s march of Gettysburg. Approaching Gettysburg along the Emmitsburg Road, Major General John F. Reynolds’s First Corps 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 eleven miles of Gettysburg. When the 17th Connecticut bivouacked near Emmitsburg that evening, it numbered just 17 officers and 369 enlisted men, a far cry from its original strength of nearly 1,000. As the regiment approached Gettysburg, it was commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Douglas Fowler of Norwalk.

9. WILLIAM WARREN COMPANY C We rested all day of the 30th of June at Emmittsburg. At night we had a good supper of fresh bread, young onions and milk—at our own expense. At 7 o’clock the next morning, July 1, we were ordered into line, the objective point being Gettysburg, five or six miles distant.

10. JAMES MONTGOMERY BAILEY of Company C recalled: “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. In my imagination I was amid the carnage, surrounded by gleaming bayonets and staggering wounded, while the air resounded with the unearthly hiss and whiz of shot and shell, and piercing cries of the mangled combatants.”

11. WEDNESDAY JULY 1, 1863

12. JAMES MONTGOMERY BAILEY COMPANY C • “We expected to be on the move at daylight the next morning, but for some reason were not. The delay offered us time to get a good breakfast, with milk in our coffee, a meal never to be forgotten by me, as after circumstances fully justified. At eight o’clock our corps was in line, taking the Gettysburg trail, left in front.” WILLIAM WARREN COMPANY C “Early on the morning of the 1st of July we were on the move with orders to march as rapidly as possible to Gettysburg, and when within a few miles we heard the guns which told us the strife had already begun. At nine o’clock on the morning of the 1st of July we passed from the Emmittsburg Pike to Cemetery Hill and while on the hill could plainly see the first army corps in line of battle. It was here the news was brought to us that General Reynolds, the corps commander, was killed, and that the eleventh corps was to deploy at once on the right of the 1st Corps.”

13. JAMES MONTGOMERY BAILEY COMPANY C I well remember the march was very fatiguing. At one period while filing through a piece of forest, the low rumbling report of a heavy gun sounded afar off on our front. It had an ominous impact and gave rise to many an anxious glance. As we approached Gettysburg, the clouds of smoke among the hills on the left of the village showed the position and action of the 1st Corps. The 2nd and 3rd Divisions of our Corps were drawn up in line on the side of the road. We moved by them and took up our position on the advance. As we passed through the principal street, the inhabitants thronged us with refreshments. A shell, shrieking and screaming, flew over our heads and buried itself in a neighboring yard.

14. 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.

15. WILLIAM WARREN COMPANY C Passing through the city we were halted and passed into a grain field just beyond the poor house on the outskirts of the city. It was here that the Seventeenth was called upon to furnish a small detachment to guard a wooden bridge which the rebels were trying to destroy. By orders from General Ames, Lieut. Doty of his staff requested from Colonel Fowler one or two of his companies for this duty. Knowing his officers would all be glad to go, and not desiring to discriminate, Colonel Fowler called for companies to volunteer. Colonel Henry Allen, then in command of Company F, at once stepped forward, and saluting, said: “Colonel Fowler, COMPANY F is ready.” Soon after,COMPANIES A, B, AND K joined them.

16. MAJOR ALLEN G. BRADY COMPANIES A, B, F, AND K

17. MAJOR ALLEN G. BRADY Four companies were immediately ordered out by Brigadier-General Ames, under command of Major Brady, to the right of the bridge at the lower end of the town, with instructions to throw out two companies as skirmishers, the other two to be held as a reserve, and to take and hold the brick house to the left and beyond the bridge. 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.

18. On the north side of Rock Creek, along the Harrisburg Road, sat the Josiah Benner Farm. The farmhouse, barn and springhouse saw action as Early’s division rolled down the Harrisburg Road toward Barlow’s Knoll. Four companies of the 17th Connecticut Infantry which constituted Barlow’s forward right flank were deployed in and around the farm buildings, and to the right of the Harrisburg Road.

19. MAJOR ALLEN BRADY When near the house, the enemy opened upon us with shot, shell, grape, and canister, which retarded our advance for a moment, until I dismounted, went in front of the line of skirmishers, and led them on until quite near the house. The enemy, anticipating our movements, shelled the house, and set it on fire. We, however, held our ground, and held the enemy’s skirmishers in check. Their loss up to this time was at least 5 to 1, most of the men in the four companies being excellent marksmen and having volunteered for this occasion.

20. MAJOR ALLEN BRADY We continued skirmishing briskly until I received orders from Brigadier-GeneralAmesto draw in my skirmishers and return to town as rapidly as possible, and take command of the regiment. The order was obeyed, and we fell back in good order, skirmishing with the enemy, who advanced as we retreated, and tried to cut us off and capture us before we got to the town. We foiled them in this attempt 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 the town. The loss in the four companies under my command was three men killed, one captain and one lieutenant wounded, one sergeant and three men taken prisoners.

21. Ames had good reason to recall Brady’s men. Barlow, poised on his knoll and ready to cut into Dole’s left flank, was about to drive his regiments forward. According to Doubleday: 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.

22. BARLOW’S KNOLL

24. 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. He created a salient.

25. Barlow’s Division held the extreme right flank of the Union line north of Gettysburg, and he decided to anchor that flank on a little knoll where he placed his division’s only battery of artillery. Just beyond the knoll- and thus beyond the end of Barlow’s line—was Rock Creek, which Barlow hoped might provide some additional cover for his flank. To occupy that knoll, however, Barlow had to move his line well forward of where Carl Schurz, (who was commanding the corps temporarily while Howard exercised overall command of the battlefield) had wanted him to put it. The entire 11th Corps line was already stretched far too thin, but that could not be helped if the 1st and 11th Corps were going to try to keep the Rebels out of Gettysburg. Barlow’s move made the situation worse by stretching the line farther. Barlow was determined to confront the Confederates of Rodes’s Division that were coming down from the neighborhood of Oak Hill, northwest of the 11th Corps.

27. Disastrously for Barlow and the chronic hard-luck soldiers of the 11th Corps, the primary assault on their line developed not from Rodes’s position on Oak Hill, but rather from Early’s Division sweeping down the Heidlersburg Road, directly onto the flank of the Corps at Barlow’s Knoll. To make matters worse, woods along Rock Creek screened Early’s approach so that the first real warning that Barlow had of the attack was when Early’s artillery opened up on him from just across the creek. Barlow’s single battery, commanded by 19-year-old Lieutenant Bayard Wilkeson, fired back gamely, but the more numerous Confederate guns began to pound it to pieces and Wilkeson was hit by a shell.

28. 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 A. Early’s division artillery. Less than a half-mile further north on the Harrisburg Road, cannoneers of Lt. Col. 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 Wilkesons’s four Napoleons on the knoll now returned fire both ways.

29. Then about half an hour into the one-sided artillery duel, Early’s infantry started forward. The Georgia Brigade of John B. Gordon, Early’s right flank brigade, splashed through the creek and charged out of the trees scarcely a hundred yards from the knoll, which suddenly became the center of a fierce, close-range fight. Flanked, Barlow’s men never had a chance. George P. Dole’s Brigade of Rodes’s Division moved in to help their fellow Georgians, striking the front of Barlow’s position while Gordon hit the front and rear.

30. From his position on the right 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, 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.”

31. 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.

32. JAMES MONTGOMERY BAILEY “I looked in back of us for the remainder of the Corps, but it was nowhere in sight. The fields between us and the town were free of troops. I thought it strange that just our division of the 11th Corps should be posted so far to the front. Meanwhile the ammunition of our battery gave out, as also all hopes of a fresh supply.” “Colonel Fowler shouted to us with a laugh, “Beware of the big ones, boys, the little ones will take care of themselves,” referring to the shell flying over us, and the forthcoming bullets.”

33. JAMES MONTGOMERY BAILEY It was then that the first Brigade gave way, and simultaneous with the order to deploy and charge, the Germans struck us. All was confusion immediately. But, our boys, determined to follow the brave Fowler, yelled defiantly, and forced their way through the timid sheep, up, up to the woods.

34. 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 1st Brigade of this division running through the lines of the regiments of my brigade and thereby creating considerable confusion.” Private William Warren noted in his diary that “the Dutchmen ran right through our regiment and broke us up.”

35. JAMES MONTGOMERY BAILEY The boys fell back, taking advantage of every opportunity for an effective shot. I saw Rufus Warren as the rout became general. He lay on his side crying for help, but none could be given him then. He was the only one of our wounded that I saw.

36. JAMES MONTGOMERY BAILEY The fire had now grown terrific on both sides, but the decidedly superior advantage of the enemy, both in numbers and position, told heavy on us. I could not help but be aware that a fearful avalanche of death was sweeping through my Regiment. It was one continual hiss about my ears, and the boys dropped in rapid succession on both sides of me. The enemy continued to move slowly up, firing rapidly. The din had reached the standard of a hell, and then the order to retreat was given. Colonel Fowler shouted the command to us, and the next instant he reeled from the saddle.

37. Colonel Douglas Fowler had been leading the 17th Connecticut forward on a beautiful white horse, setting a brave and noble example for his troops. Joking with his men, as deadly iron from Confederate artillery shrieked frantically by, he encouraged his soldiers to "Dodge the big ones Boys!" In only moments, his men were horrified as a shell fragment slammed into Colonel Fowler's head, killing him instantly.

39. Barlow’s position grew desperate, for, in addition to Gordon’s Georgians, two additional Confederate brigades were beginning to curl in upon 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.

40. Thirty percent of Gordon’s men fell before the knoll was theirs. Then the tide of the battled rolled on toward the Union flank and rear, leaving the grassy hillock strewn with the fallen of both sides, including the badly wounded Barlow. A Confederate soldier later described the impact of the wild assault on Barlow’s Knoll: “It was a fearful slaughter, the golden wheat fields, a few minutes before in beauty, now gone, and the ground covered with the dead and wounded in blue.”

41. As the Southern divisions tightened the vise, the outnumbered Union troops were steadily compressed toward the center of Gettysburg. The 1st Corps followed the retreat of the 11th Corps through the town, jamming its streets and alleys in an effort to move south to Cemetery Hill. Many of these men 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 momentarily to make a stand.

42. Once at the Almshouse, General Ames ordered Major Brady to “return to town as rapidly as possible and take command” of the isolated 17th Connecticut soldiers still 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, skirmishing with the enemy, who advanced as we retreated, and tried to cut us off and capture us before we got back to town.”

43. 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.

44. Hays’s Tigers next smashed Harris’s Brigade around the Almshouse and sent the Union Line in retreat once more. The Tigers met some resistance in the streets from the 17th Connecticut, but soon cleared the town. From atop Cemetery Hill. Howard witnessed the disaster and sent orders for his Federal troops to withdraw to the high ground.

45. Somehow 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 thought town with the 88th PA 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 breast the storm and repulse the greybacks. Amidst all the excitement, the 17th Connecticut deployed in the streets, firing several rounds before it was compelled to fall back. The crowd was frightful and the men almost prostrated with over-exertion and the great heat, while the Confederate sharp-shooters occupied the streets, their line of battle almost encircling the city.

46. MAJOR BRADY: 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 street of our men for the purpose of planting a battery. The 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.

47. MAJOR ALLEN BRADY 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, the Seventeenth Connecticut will!” and advanced at once to the place indicated, remained a few moments, and again advanced across another lot until nearer the town and behind a rail fence at the upper end of town, which position we held until late in the evening, exposed to a galling fire from the enemy’s sharpshooters.

48. While the 17th Connecticut and a few other Union regiments protected the escape route to Cemetery Hill, Northern soldiers who were 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 ward off any sudden Confederate attack.

49. The first day at Gettysburg had been costly. Of the more than 20,000 Union soldiers who reached the field that day, 9,100 were casualties before evening.

50. When Major Brady mustered the 17th Connecticut on the morning of July 2, 1863, 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 Almshouse, and the final retreat through town