First Day at Gettysburg: Crisis at the Crossroads

2. The Meeting of the Ways

CHAPTER 2 The Meeting of the Ways IN ORDER TO COMPREHEND THE FIGHTING ON THE FIRST DAY'S Battle of Gettysburg, a clear, somewhat detailed description of the physical features of the country which comprise the battlefield is essential. The accidents of terrain often playa key role in the progress and outcome of a military contest, and Gettysburg is no exception to this axiom. A hill here, a wood there, a stream coursing through the arena of combat, the lack of a natural or man-made bastion on which to anchor a flank-these and other physiographic features might well have a decisive effect on the development of a battle. Generals try to take advantage of the roads which are available for reinforcement, of high ground, of wooded areas, of good fields of fire, and of bodies of water which might serve as defensive moats. And, too, the imponderable of luck, of good fortune, coming to one side or the other at a crucial moment, must never be ignored by the careful and thorough commander. Few battles are more illustrative of these military facts of life than the combat of July I, 1863. The first thing that strikes the eye upon looking at the Gettysburg battlefield (which area surrounds the town and includes it) is the complex network of ten roads which radiate from the town like spokes from the hub of a wheel. The various roads, and the directions from which they approach Gettysburg, are as follows: the Chambersburg pike,l from the west-northwest; the Mummasburg road, from the northwest; the Carlisle road, from the north; the Harrisburg road, from the northeast; the York pike,2 from the east-northeast; the Han21 over road, from the east-southeast; the Baltimore pike, from the southeast ; the Taneytown road, from the south; the Emmitsburg road, from the south-southwest; and the Hagerstown road, from the westsouthwest . Running parallel with, and approximately 200 yards north of the Chambersburg pike, was an unfinished railroad grading, forming a series of cuts and fills with the various ridges and intervening ground west of town. At the time of the battle in 1863, the roadbed was graded but no rails had as yet been placed in position. Gettysburg was, therefore a notable meeting of the ways, with more roads radiating from it than from any other town or city in the entire region, including Harrisburg, York, Chambersburg, and Carlisle. The soil of the country around Gettysburg, although showing evidence of red clay, was nonetheless excellent for extensive crop cultivation . Orchards dotted the landscape. The country was more open than that of Virginia, where the previous great battles of the war had been fought largely on heavily forested terrain. Copses and small woods, however, were generously sprinkled about the countryside around Gettysburg. The most interesting feature of the country about Gettysburg was the ridge system. Ten miles west of town the horizon was limited by the "towering bulk of the South Mountain, vanguard of the serried chain behind it." 3 This range ran in a generally north and south direction . Gettysburg was "among the subsiding swells that the South Mountain has sent rippling off to the east." 4 "When the force which folded and raised up the strata that form the South Mountain was in action, it produced fissures in the strata of red shale which cover the surface of this region of country, permitting the fused material from beneath to rise and fill them on cooling with trap-dykes or greenstone and syenitic greenstone. The rock, being for the most part very hard, remained as the axes and crests of hills and ridges when the softer shale in the intervening spaces was excavated by great water-currents into valleys and plains." 5 The first ridge west of Gettysburg was wooded Seminary Ridge, running north and south, about three-quarters of a mile west of town. It was named for the Lutheran Theological Seminary located thereon between the Chambersburg pike and the Hagerstown road. North of the railroad grading this ridge is known as Oak Ridge, so called because it was largely covered with groves of oak trees. This latter ridge 22 terminated in a prominent knob, known as Oak Hill, which was approximately one and one-quarter miles northwest of Gettysburg.6 Passing just to the south of Oak Hill was the Mummasburg road. This hill was the key to the entire first...