The Petersburg Regiment at Gettysburg
Arriving on the Gettysburg battlefield around 6:30 p.m. on June 1, 1863, Anderson’s
division occupied West McPherson’s Ridge.
Most of its men spent the night there, but some scroungers entered
Gettysburg, getting into a public hall and pillaging a banquet spread for the
return of local troops whose enlistments had expired.
The
division’s soldiers rose early on July 2.
Moving east Mahone’s brigade, which included the 12th Virginia, formed line of battle with its right in an
open field and its left in McMillan’s Woods, a big stand of oak and
hickory. The Virginians faced Ziegler’s
Grove on Cemetery Ridge, which ran southward from Cemetery Hill. Brigadier General William Mahone’s headquarters lay behind the Petersburg Riflemen, the 12th Virginia’s Company E, on the regiment's right. One
hundred yards in front of Mahone’s brigade, the gunners of Pegram’s battalion
served their pieces behind a low rock wall on Seminary Ridge’s crest. They were engaging the enemy artillery on
Cemetery Ridge. The 12th’s soldiers
slept unsoundly, cognizant of nearly everything that took place around
them. They heard the booming of cannon,
the sound of solid shot as it cut through the branches overhead and the cries
of men struck by shell fragments. They felt
the dirt and grit strike them as cannon balls tore up the earth around them, but
still they slept.
Early
that afternoon Maj. Gen. Richard Heron "Fighting Dick" General Anderson directed four of his division’s five brigades to prepare
to advance one after another from right to left across Emmitsburg Road toward
Cemetery Ridge. He ordered Mahone’s brigade to remain on
Seminary Ridge behind and in support of Pegram’s artillery and the right of
Pender’s division. General Robert Edward Lee placed Anderson’s division under Longstreet’s orders. It would join Lt. Gen. James Longstreet's attack his men
rolled up the enemy line. Meanwhile,
Ewell’s Corps would demonstrate against the enemy right. Not
until late in the afternoon did Longstreet’s men attack.
Before the time
came for Anderson’s advance, a distraction hobbled his division—the Bliss farm,
lying in the hollow halfway between Seminary Ridge and Cemetery Ridge and to
the 12th’s right front. Northern and
Southern skirmishers had driven each other back and forth across the farm’s
fields all day. Shortly before 4 p.m.,
Anderson decided to seize the farmstead and its massive barn to facilitate his
division’s advance. This task fell to
his Mississippi Brigade, which stood on the right of his Virginians and to the
left of his Georgians, Floridians and Alabamians. The Mississippi Brigade’s pickets
accomplished the mission by 5 p.m. A
call reached the 12th—the rightmost of Mahone’s regiments—to send a company to
support the Mississippians.
The 12th's adjutant, Lieutenant William Evelyn Cameron, a future governor of Virginia, approached the Huger Grays, the Petersburg Regiment's Company F.
“Where
is Lieutenant Scott?” Cameron shouted.
First Lieutenant Edward Pegram Scott, a nephew of former United States Army commander Winfield Scott, appeared.
“We
are ordered to reinforce the picket line,” Cameron said. “Take your company beyond the stone wall,
deploy them as skirmishers, advance across the field and when you strike the
skirmishers report to the commandant of the picket line.”
The
Grays advanced by company front at a double-quick. Reaching the stone wall they vaulted it and
deployed. At a run they crossed a clover
field and jumped a plank fence into the Bliss peach orchard. The storm of shot and shell passed over their
heads. They found the Confederate picket
line deployed behind another plank fence.
“In front of this fence was a wheat field, the wheat being very rank,
and as tall as a mans head,” remembered the Grays' First Sergeant James Edward Whitehorne, son of a Greensville County farmer. To the Grays’ right loomed the Bliss
barn. Across the field lurked Federal
pickets from Gibbon’s and Hays’ divisions of the Federal II Corps.
About
twelve of the Grays entered the barn.
Through holes in its sides, with some Mississippians and some soldiers
of the 16th Virginia, they sniped away at Battery B, 1st Rhode Island Light
Artillery, on Cemetery Ridge. This
annoyed the Yankees. A battalion of the
12th New Jersey, as well as elements of the 1st Delaware from Hays’ division and
a company of the 106th Pennsylvania from the Philadelphia or California brigade
of Gibbon’s division, advanced to dislodge the Confederate marksmen at about
5:30 p.m. The Jerseymen and Delawareans
drove straight across the wheat field toward the barn. The Pennsylvanians double-quicked along a
plank fence that ran through the wheat field to the barn’s right. They hopped the fence between the wheat field
and the Bliss peach orchard. Getting behind the
barn, they captured the Grays and other Southerners inside, breaking the Secessionist
picket line and flanking the rest of the Grays, who withdrew in good
order. The Unionists also retired,
carrying off their prisoners.
Caption: The
Federal Capture of Bliss’ Barn—and Many Huger Grays
Credit:
Gettysburg National Military Park
The
retreating Grays reached the plank fence between the orchard and the clover
field. “About face!” they heard. The command came to reoccupy the position
near the Bliss barn. A shrapnel burst
about twenty paces to Whitehorne’s right.
He felt a sharp blow on each leg and thought dirt kicked up by the shell
had struck him.
“You
are hit,” said Scott, who stood by Whitehorne’s side. A shell fragment had taken off nearly half his
right calf. A ball had passed between
the bones of his left calf without fracturing them. Scott advised Whitehorne to go to the
rear. He limped back by the way he had
come but could not find the field hospital of Mahone’s brigade. The Federal barrage had forced it to relocate
to a safer place. A black cook guided
him to the field hospital of Wilcox’s Alabama Brigade.
The
time for the four brigades from Anderson’s division to advance arrived after
6:20 p.m. The three right brigades charged as
planned. Wilcox’s brigade attacked first,
followed by Lang’s Florida Brigade, then Wright’s Georgia Brigade. The advance of Anderson’s division broke down
with Posey’s Mississippi Brigade, which had spent itself in the skirmishing on
the Bliss farm. To the Mississippians’
left, Mahone’s Virginians remained on McPherson’s Ridge in support of Pegram’s
guns and Pender’s right.
Against stiffening
resistance Wilcox’s and Lang’s brigades gained the upper reaches of Plum Run
and Wright’s Georgians almost summited Cemetery Ridge. Desperate counterattacks by Federals of II
Corps halted them. Enemy pressure built
upon Wilcox, Lang and Wright to retreat.
Ammunition ran low. Generals Wright and
Wilcox sent couriers to Anderson demanding support. The couriers found him and his staffers
reclining in a ravine behind the Mississippi Brigade instead of overseeing the
division’s advance. Anderson dispatched his
aide-de-camp, Capt. Samuel D. Shannon, with orders for Posey’s brigade to send
forward its right—the 19th and 48th Mississippi—on the left of Wright’s
Georgians, and for Mahone to shift to the right and advance on the left of the
two Mississippi regiments.
The
19th and 48th Mississippi charged toward Emmitsburg Road on the left of
Wright’s Georgians. Meanwhile, Shannon
reached Mahone with Anderson’s order to shift to the right and advance. Mahone reacted to this change of plan with
disbelief.
“No,”
he said, “I have orders from General Anderson himself to remain here.”
Shannon
moved on before Mahone recovered from his astonishment and complied with Anderson’s
order.
Brigadier
General Carnot Posey brought up first the 16th and then the 12th Mississippi to
support the 19th and 48th Mississippi on his right, leaving only a skirmish
line on his left. The Unionists in front
of Posey’s left threatened that flank of his brigade, and Posey sent a courier
to Mahone asking for a regiment to support the Mississippians’ left. The courier arrived after Mahone received the
order from Anderson to shift to the right and advance, which precluded literally
complying with Posey’s request though the shift provided the support sought. The attack of Posey’s right sputtered. Only a few men from the 19th and 48th
Mississippi reached Emmitsburg Road.
None neared Cemetery Ridge except for a handful from the 48th Mississippi
on the Georgia Brigade’s immediate left.
Mahone’s
brigade left its skirmishers in place. About
dark, the Virginians sidled around 200 yards to the right behind the worm fence
on the crest of Seminary Ridge until the brigade’s right stood behind the left
of Posey’s skirmishers. This put the Virginians
on the left of the body of Posey’s brigade and unmasked the left of Mahone’s
brigade from behind the right of Thomas’ brigade of Pender’s division. Mahone’s men silently advanced about 400
yards through the Bliss wheat field to the plank fence that separated it from
the Bliss orchard. The Virginians faced
the Brian farm on Cemetery Ridge, between Ziegler’s Grove and the Copse of
Trees. Had they gone forward, they would
have found themselves near Wright’s left, but by this time the Northerners were
repulsing the rest of Anderson’s division as well as Longstreet’s men.
Too
late to assist the rest of their division, the Virginians remained in their advanced
position, where they might participate in another assault—this one beginning
far to their left. East of Cemetery Hill
Ewell converted the demonstration of his corps into an attack. On Ewell’s far left as twilight gathered,
Johnson’s division seized a toehold on Culp’s Hill. On Johnson’s right at nightfall, Early’s
division broke into the enemy trenches on East Cemetery Hill. Rodes’ division maneuvered to attack West
Cemetery Hill on the right of Early’s division.
Pender’s division of Hill’s Corps prepared to advance on the right of
Rodes’ division, toward Cemetery Ridge. Mahone’s
brigade, the only fresh body of Confederates to the right of Pender’s division,
stood where it could join an advance toward Cemetery Ridge.
Secessionist
soldiers gathered around Mahone’s brigade behind the plank fence on the Bliss
farm. On the brigade’s far right, the 12th’s
men could still see some arrive but only heard the muffled tread of
others. The regiment’s soldiers
suspected they would make a night assault.
They discussed fastening white bandages to their left arms in case their
suspicion proved true. To their right
and front, the fuse of an occasional shell blazed an arc through the sky. The troops felt the order to advance would
come soon.
Before Rodes’
division could get into position, the Federals drove Early’s division from East
Cemetery Hill, leaving Rodes’ division, Pender’s division and Mahone’s brigade without
any reason to advance.
In
front of the plank fence at 10 p.m., Longstreet and Anderson conferred.
“It
would be best not to make the attempt,” Longstreet said. “Let the troops return.”
The
assault column did not disperse for several hours. Mahone’s brigade rejoined its skirmishers
near the center of Lee’s army at 2:30 a.m.
Brief
artillery exchanges punctuated the morning of July 3. The 12th’s men lay behind breastworks they
had erected. The Meherrin Grays or "Herrings," the 12th's Company I, relieved the
Huger Grays on picket duty and skirmished around the Bliss farm. The struggle swayed back and forth until about
11 a.m., when Yankees from Hays’ division burned the Bliss barn.
***
By the morning of July 4, the Petersburg Regiment numbered 222 muskets and 22 officers. Except for sharpshooting and minor artillery
duels, the day passed quietly. A
drenching rain began that afternoon. The
12th’s men dined on three-day old cornbread.
At dark they withdrew as quietly as possible, leaving fires along the
lines burning brightly. The Confederates
abandoned most of their seriously wounded and headed southwest, toward
Fairfield. “We feel mortified at our
failure, but rather pleased at the idea of once more going toward Dixie,”
remembered the Riflemen's Private George Smith Bernard, a Petersburg lawyer. The war’s bloodiest, most intense battle had
ended. The 12th’s casualty figures
conveyed the battle’s ferocity. Though
uncommitted, the regiment lost forty-one soldiers, almost as many as at Seven
Pines or Malvern Hill: two killed,
twenty-eight wounded and eleven missing.
The wounds of two proved mortal.
Ten other wounded fell into Yankee hands. The enemy captured ten of the missing
soldiers, all skirmishers. The eleventh
deserted.
--An excerpt from The Petersburg Regiment in the Civil War: A History of the 12th Virginia Infantry from John Brown's Hanging to Appomattox, 1859-1865 (Savas Beatie, 2019) (footnotes omitted), all right reserved
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