Civil War Ghost Stories & Legends

A Mystic Power at Gettysburg

0000 GettysburgThe battle of Gettysburg, July 1 to July 3, 1863, was the great battle ofthe Civil War. In the last days ofJune, General Robert E. Lee, with seventy-five thousand soldiers, learned that ninety-five thousand men under Major General George G. Meade were within striking distance. There was fighting on July 1, but most of the remainder of both armies arrived that night and the next morning. At four in the afternoon Confederate general John B. Hood's division swept around the Union left flank and overran Devil's Den to begin the ascent of Little Round Top, which overlooked the entire Union position. After Confederate attacks and counterattacks at Culp's Hill, the second day ended. At daylight the Confederates renewed the attack , but the Union position was too strong. In the afternoon Longstreets veterans and Pickett's fresh divisions-about fifteen thousand men-moved forward. A Union eyewitness described it as "an overwhelming resistless tide of an ocean of armed men sweeping upon us." Pickett's charge was the climax of the battle. Union reinforcements struck and the Confederates withdrew. Total casualties were about fifty thousand. Gettysburg National Military Park is on U.S. Route 15 (business) at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, thirty-seven miles southwest ofHarrisburg. 000 A MYSTIC PO\vER AT GETTYSBURG Gettysburg, Pennsylvania This story is about a moment when the choice ofone road over another was critical to the future of a nation, when the guidance seen by an entire regiment of men was so bizarre that it can only have come from the realm of the supernatural. On July 1, 1863, the Twentieth Maine under Colonel Joshua Chamberlain and Colonel Adelbert Ames's bri60 61 A Mystic Power at Gettysburg gade were heading north from Maryland into Pennsylvania to repel Lee's invasion. Above the marching men smoke-colored dust billowed and drifted as their column wound along-a solid mass ofdark and light blue punctuated by the steely glint of rifles. Infantrymen helped themselves to the large sweet cherries beside the road as they passed through lush green Maryland farm country with knee-high corn and ripening grain. Leaving the sometimes hostile state of Maryland and crossing into Pennsylvania, the drum corps struck up "Yankee Doodle," but the inhabitants behind their roadside stands selling bread, milk, cakes, and pies did not respond to this patriotic gesture. Seeing this, many of the hungry men, outraged at the prices, began to help themselves. ''Thieving Rebels!" angry vendors shouted at them. It was the worst insult they could think of. The Union troops ignored them. But the farther north they went, the friendlier people became and the lower the prices. Nearing Hanover, Pennsylvania, that afternoon, they had a shock. All around lay dead horses and Union cavalrymen with eyes staring upward as though they had seen a sight too horrible to tell. What had happened? Confederate general Jeb Stuart had been through here with a large force of cavalry and skirmished briefly as he passed. The audacious Stuart, emerging from the Blue Ridge Mountains, had galloped boldly around the entire Federal army, past its right flank, proceeding to sever all telegraph lines linking General Meade to his high headquarters in Washington. Late that afternoon a tired Colonel Chamberlain and his men bivouackedjust outside Hanover, and the colonel 62 Gettysburg, Pennsylvania sat alone, grateful for fresh bread and milk from one of the vendors. What a surprising life he was leading! A graduate of a theological seminary, his only training in supervision had been to run a Sunday school and teach at Bowdoin College. Now thirty-three, he saw soldiering as a romantic adventure. It was downright un-Christian for a man trained for the ministry, he thought with some chagrin. Watching curiously as a rider, his horse lathered, rode up to brigade commander Ames, he knew it was bad news. The First and Eleventh Corps had run into Lee at a town to the west called Gettysburg. General Reynolds had been killed, and Confederates had pursued the First Corps into town. Union soldiers not taken prisoner were dug in on some hills on the Hanover side of Gettysburg waiting for help. In July, 1863, there were only twentyfour hundred residents in Gettysburg, but the little town was at the center of a network of ten important roadstwo leading west to passes in South Mountain, others to Harrisburg, Baltimore, and nearby towns. Some were...