The First Day's Battle of Gettysburg

THE FIRST DAY'S BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG Warren W. Hassler, Jr. rr has in general been conceded that the Battle of Gettysburg, July 1-3, 1863, was, militarily, one of the most crucial and decisive combats waged during the American Civil War. Certainly, it was the greatest clash of arms that has ever been seen on the shores of the New World. So vast and so momentous were the consequences hinging on this memorable battle that Gettysburg is justly termed one of the mountain peaks of the American historical past. Historians of this campaign have usually seen fit, however, to stress the second and third days' battles, while merely glossing over the sanguinary fighting on the first day. "Thus far, indeed," declares Jesse Bowman Young, "no historian has done justice to the devotion, steadfastness , and superior service rendered by the officers and men ... in this part of the Battle of Gettysburg."1 It is the present writer's contention that the first day's battle at Gettysburg was quite as important and significant as the succeeding two days of combat, which were of larger proportions though of less duration than the opening day's struggle. The casualties on the first day, in percentage of numbers engaged , were enormous in both the Union and Confederate armies. On July 1, 1863, two Federal army corps were pitted against four Confederate divisions. The two Union corps totaled approximately one-fifth of Major General George G. Meade's Army of the Potomac, while the four Southern divisions comprised almost one-half of General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. It will be seen that, by holding back almost twice their numbers of advancing gray soldiers for over eight hours, the Federal First and Eleventh Corps prevented the better-concentrated Confederate army from occupying the vital Dr. Hassler, a member of the history faculty at Pennsylvania State University , is the author of a biography of McClellan. He has completed a study of the commanders of the Army of the Potomac which LSU will shortly publish. !Jesse B. Young, The Battle of Gettysburg: A Comprehensive Narrative (New York, 1913), p. 190. 259 260WAHREN W. HASSLEHJH. and strategic Cemetery heights south of the town of Gettysburg until the scattered Union corps could concentrate on those elevations and thereby render the position impregnable to the ensuing Southern assaults on the following two days of battle. It will be noted that many of the Confederate brigades were so shattered by the terrible fighting on the first day that their crippled condition greatly weakened Lee's subsequent attacks on July 2-3. Early in the Pennsylvania campaign, Lee had determined to defeat the blue army in detail, thus removing from serious contention the only effective Federal field army in the Eastern theater of operations, and thereby opening the way to Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington. "I shall," the great Southern chieftain asserted to Major General Isaac Trimble, "throw an overwhelming force on their advance, crush it, follow up the success, drive one corps back on another, and by successive repulses and surprises, before they can concentrate, create a panic and virtually destroy the army." Thus, perhaps, a peace based on the recognition of Southern independence could be won on the soil of the Keystone State. The morale of the grayclad troops was never higher than in these months after their spectacular victories at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville.2 Having contemplated occupying the line of Pipe Creek near the Mason and Dixon Line, Meade issued the following general circular to his corps commanders on June 30, 1863; "The commanding general has received information that the enemy are advancing, probably in strong force, on Gettysburg. ... It is the intention to hold this army pretty nearly in the position it now occupies until the plans of the enemy shall have been more fully developed." General-in-Chief Henry W. Halleck, in Washington, approved Meade's plan of action. However , at the same time, Meade ordered Brigadier General John Buford 's cavalry division to Gettysburg on June 30, with Major General Abner Doubleday's First Corps and Major General Oliver O. Howard's Eleventh Corps to follow there a day later. The Third Corps...