This is the second part of this battle of gettysburg article
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First Day of the Battle of Gettysburg
General Buford realized the importance of the high ground directly to the south of Gettysburg. He knew that if the Confederates could gain control of the heights, Meade's army would have a hard time dislodging them. He decided to utilize three ridges west of Gettysburg: Herr's Ridge, McPherson's Ridge, and Seminary Ridge (proceeding west to east toward the town). These were appropriate terrain for a delaying action by his small division against superior Confederate forces, meant to buy time awaiting the arrival of troops (initially Maj. Gen. John F. Reynolds's I Corps) who could occupy the superior defensive positions south of town, Cemetery Hill, Cemetery Ridge, and Culp's Hill.
Heth's division advanced with two brigades forward during the Battle of Gettysburg, commanded by Brig. Gens. James Archer and Joseph R. Davis. They proceeded easterly in columns along the Chambersburg Pike. Three miles west of town, about 7:30 a.m. on July 1, Heth's two brigades met light resistance from cavalry vedettes and deployed into line. Eventually, they reached dismounted troopers from Col. William Gamble's cavalry brigade, who mounted determined resistance and delaying tactics from behind fence posts with rapid fire from their Sharps carbines. By 10:20 a.m., the Confederates had pushed the Yankee cavalrymen east to McPherson's Ridge, when the vanguard of the I Corps finally arrived.
North of the pike, Davis gained a temporary success against Brig. Gen. Lysander Cutler's brigade, but was repulsed with heavy losses in an action around an unfinished railroad bed cut in the ridge during the Battle of Gettysburg. South of the pike, Archer's brigade assaulted through Herbst's (McPherson's) Woods. The federal Iron Brigade under Brig. Gen. Solomon Meredith enjoyed initial success against Archer, capturing several hundred men, including Archer himself in the Battle of Gettysburg.
Early in the fighting of the Battle of Gettysburg, while General Reynolds was directing Cutler's brigade, he fell from his horse, killed instantly by a bullet striking him behind the ear. (Some historians believe Reynolds was killed by a sharpshooter, but it is more likely that he was killed by a volley of rifle fire directed at the 2nd Wisconsin Regiment.) Fighting in the Chambersburg Pike area lasted until about 12:30 p.m. It resumed around 2:30 p.m., when Heth's entire division engaged, adding the brigades of Pettigrew and Col. John M. Brockenbrough.
As Pettigrew's Brigade (the largest in the army) came on line during the Battle of Gettysburg, they drove the Iron Brigade back. Flanking the 19th Indiana, the North Carolinians (11th, 26th, 47th, 52nd) drove back the hard fighting Iron Brigade (19th Indiana, 24th Michigan, 2nd, 6th, 7th Wisconsin) inch by inch. The 26th North Carolina (the largest regiment in the army with nearly 900 men) lost heavily, leaving the first day's fight with around 212 men. By the end of the three-day Battle of Gettysburg, they would have about 60 men standing, the highest casualty percentage for one battle of any other regiment, north or south. Slowly the Iron Brigade was pushed out of the woods toward Seminary Ridge. Hill added William Dorsey Pender's division to the assault and the I Corps was driven back through the grounds of the Lutheran Seminary and Gettysburg streets.
As the fighting to the west proceeded during the Battle of Gettysburg, two divisions of Ewell's Second Corps, marching west toward Cashtown in accordance with Lee's order for the army to concentrate in that vicinity, turned south on the Carlisle and Harrisburg Roads toward Gettysburg, while the Union XI Corps raced north on the Baltimore Pike and Taneytown Road. By early afternoon, the Federal line ran in a semi-circle west, north, and northeast of Gettysburg.
Unfortunately, the Federals did not have enough troops; Cutler, who was deployed north of the Chambersburg Pike, had his right flank in the air. Maj. Gen. Oliver O. Howard's XI Corps leftmost division was unable to deploy in time to strengthen the line, so Maj. Gen. Abner Doubleday (the late Reynolds's replacement) was forced to throw in reserve brigades to salvage his line during the Battle of Gettysburg.
Around 2:00 p.m., Robert E. Rodes's and Jubal Early's Second Corps divisions smashed and out-flanked the Federal I and XI Corps positions north and northwest of town. The brigades of Junius Daniel and Alfred Iverson suffered severe losses assaulting the I Corps division of Brig. Gen. John C. Robinson south of Oak Hill. Early's division profited from a blunder made by Brig. Gen. Francis Barlow, when he advanced his XI Corps division to Blocher's Knoll (directly north of town and now known as Barlow's Knoll); this represented a salient in the corps line, susceptible to attack from multiple sides, and Early's troops overran his division, which constituted the right flank of the Union Army's position. Barlow was wounded and captured in the attack, at the Battle of Gettysburg.
As Federal positions collapsed at the Battle of Gettysburg, both north and west of town, at 4:10 p.m., Maj. Gen. Oliver O. Howard, XI Corps commander and acting commander on the field, ordered a retreat to the high ground south of town, Cemetery Hill.
Lee understood the defensive potential to the Union if they held this high ground. He sent orders to Ewell that Cemetery Hill be taken "if practicable." Ewell chose not to attempt the assault. One reason posited was the battle fatigue of his men in the late afternoon, although Edward "Alleghany" Johnson's division of Ewell's Corp had just arrived and was essentially fresh. Another was the difficulty of assaulting the hill through the narrow corridors afforded by the streets of Gettysburg, immediately to the north.
Lee's order has been criticized because it left too much discretion to Ewell. It is interesting to speculate how the more aggressive Stonewall Jackson would have acted on this order if he had lived to command this wing of Lee's army, and how differently the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg would have proceeded with Confederate artillery on Cemetery Hill, commanding the length of Cemetery Ridge and the Federal lines of communications on the Baltimore Pike.
The Battle of Gettysburg battle of July 1 had pitted over 25,000 Confederates against 18,000 Federals, and ranks in itself as the twenty-third largest battle of the war.
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