Longstreet Could Not Handle All the Men at His Disposal at Gettysburg on July 3, 1863

Months ago I wrote that Longstreet had more men at his disposal on July 3, 1863 than he employed in Pickett's Charge.  "Longstreet Had Many More than 15,000 Men Available for Pickett's Charge," petersburgcampaign@blogspot.com, July 3, 2019.  In support of this proposition I cited Richard Rollins, “The Second Wave of Pickett’s Charge,” Gettysburg Magazine, No. 18, July 1998, 104-105.  Commitment of Anderson’s entire division with the initial force would have supplied five additional brigades and around 5,000 more men, making the attack force fourteen brigades and from 15,000 to 18,000 men.  Michael J. Armstrong and Steven E. Soderbergh, “Refighting Pickett’s Charge:  mathematical modeling of the Civil War battlefield,” Social Science Quarterly 96, No. 4 (May 14, 2015), 1153-1168.  These numbers would practically have guaranteed a lodgment at the Angle and refuted Longstreet’s assertion that “thirty thousand men was the minimum of force necessary for the work.”  Ibid., 1164; Longstreet, From Manassas to Appomattox, 386.  Rollins has identified another five brigades and one regiment scheduled for the second wave of Pickett’s Charge from Pender’s and Rodes’ divisions, as well as at least another brigade from McLaws’ division, all of which would have brought the attack column still nearer the 30,000 men Longstreet thought necessary.  Rollins, “The Second Wave of Pickett’s Charge,” 105-107.  Inclusion of these troops would have made Pickett’s Charge even more likely to succeed to some degree--not necessarily a decisive one.

At the time I thought Longstreet simply delayed committing the second wave of Pickett's charge too long, but upon further reflection it seems to me that Union counterbattery fire may have made it impossible for Longstreet to handle all the men at his disposal on July 3 because the counterbattery fire interfered with couriers.  John Horn, "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), 186.  The account of a courier from the 12th Virginia assigned to Anderson's division supports that view.  Ibid.  Counterbattery fire killed his horse and forced him to deliver his order to the wrong part of the division.  Ibid.  We don't know exactly what order that courier was carrying, but it if was the order for Mahone's, Posey's and Wright's brigades of Anderson's division to advance, it's no wonder that their belated advance was halted almost immediately.  Ibid., 187-188.  If such was the situation, the only way to have committed Anderson's division (or any other unit Rollins has identified as intended for the second wave) reliably would have been to make it part of the first wave.  Maybe the Federal gunners should be credited and Longstreet should not be blamed for the failure of Pickett's Charge.

Courier Robert Randolph Henry in later years

Credit:  Judy Llamas, “Robert Randolph Henry,” findagrave.com, May 25, 2017

The Four Chrismases of the Petersburg Regiment, 12th Virginia Infantry

Merry Christmas from the Petersburg Regiment!

Four Christmases

            The 12th Virginia, the Petersburg Regiment, existed through only four Christmases, but its soldiers left us with eyewitness accounts of each.

Christmas 1861, Norfolk

            Shortly before Christmas, the Confederates at Norfolk braced for an attack by a Yankee force assembled at Annapolis—the Coastal Division of Brig. Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside.  Major General Benjamin Huger suspended the furloughs that helped make garrison duty tolerable.  “The reason for slashing the furloughs is we exspect to have a battle on the river somewhere but we can not tell where it will be,” wrote First Lt. Archibald B. Goodwyn of the Hargrave Blues, the 12th Virginia’s Company I.  “The probability is that it will be in the hampton rivers.”^[1]  The troops could not attend Christmas parties because the state of alert prohibited absence from camp after tattoo.  Private John Francis Sale of Norfolk, who had studied architecture in Williamsburg before enlisting in Company H, the Norfolk Juniors in May, thought the Christmas season “a very dull one.”^[2]  Almost the whole regiment got drunk on Christmas Day.  “The Guard house was ramed & cramed with its victims,” wrote First Sgt. James Edward “Eddie” Whitehorne of Company F, the Huger Grays.^[3] 

Christmas 1862, Fredericksburg

            December 25 began as Christmas had ordinarily begun in urban Virginia before the war—with crowds of men firing off their guns.  The racket caused the detailing of a heavy guard.  Several noisemakers found themselves in the guardhouse.  Somebody got the better of Mahone.  A few days earlier, he had acquired several turkeys.  He fattened the fowls in a pen outside his tent.  On Christmas morning he stepped out of his doorway to pick one for his dinner but found the birds gone.  “Who stole Mahone’s turkeys was a favorite ‘conundrum’ in the Division the balance of the war,” Pvt. Westwood A. Todd of the Petersburg Riflemen, Company E, remembered.  “Our fellows laid it on the Florida Brigade, but I am sure there was enterprise enough in either brigade to perform such an exploit.”^[4]  Suspicion fell so heavily upon the Floridians that the rest of the division nicknamed them “the turkeys.”^[5]  Even the orphans from Norfolk such as Sale fared better than their brigadier.  Their repast consisted of baked beef heart, boiled beef, salt pork, turkey, apples and for dessert some gingerbread.  Unfortunately, to wash down this meal they had nothing better than water.

Christmas, 1863, Culpeper County

             “Our prospects are very hard for a Christmas,” Sale, now a first sergeant, wrote on December 23.  “We can procure nothing scarcely here and what we can the most enormous prices are charged for them.”^[6]  But ten wagons were rolling up from Petersburg.  They arrived on a very cold Christmas Eve.  Almost every soldier with relatives in Petersburg received a bundle.  The townspeople forwarded parcels smuggled through enemy lines from Norfolk.  Through Mrs. Charles E. Waddell, the wife of the captain of Company A, the Petersburg City Guard, Sale received a package containing boots, a suit of clothes, a hat, underclothes, socks, soap and thread, among other items.  “Everything suited to a fraction fitting as if they were made for me, as well as could-have been done had I been where they were made,” he commented.^[7]  The boxes for the Petersburg troops far outdid the bundles for the other men and contained “anything you might name not forgetting a liberal supply of Liquor,” wrote Sale.^[8]  The Petersburg soldiers did not wait for Christmas but promptly got drunk. 

Christmas, 1864, Petersburg

            As usual, happiness at Christmas time depended largely on the degree a fellow had access to friends and family.  The men from Petersburg fared best.  For the soldiers reliant on the kindness of strangers, luck made the difference between a big eat or the cornbread and middling camp offered.

            Todd, now a sergeant and acting ordnance officer of Weisiger’s brigade, and Dr. Phil Baker, a former assistant surgeon of the 12th Virginia, met William Jarvis as they entered Petersburg to attend Christmas services.  Jarvis, the former captain of the Lafayette Guards, the 12th’s Company D, now served as major in the 3rd Battalion, Virginia State Reserves.  Jarvis invited Todd and Baker to dine with him at his residence on Old Street.  “We accepted, and after church enjoyed a capital dinner at the major’s hospitable board,” recalled Todd.^[9] 

            Sale, now a second lieutenant, had gotten in trouble for taking thirty-six hours of French leave visiting a cousin near Jarratt’s Station during the Apple Jack Raid earlier in the month.  Sale had to remain in camp and endure its meager fare.

            Captives from the 12th huddling in Federal prison camps had it worse than the men in camp.  “It is only since I have been a prisoner that I have been brought to understand fully that ‘hope long deferred maketh the heart sick,’” Pvt. James C. Riddle of Company E wrote home.  “I...so long to hear from you and the children.”[10]  A Petersburg tobacconist conscripted just in time to be captured on October 27, 1864, he had not received word from his wife since his capture, though he had written her twice and inserted a personal in the New York News.  Otherwise, Riddle had fared well, gaining an appointment as a surgeon’s clerk.   He had “a plenty of good wholesome fare a comfortable home and every thing that a prisoner has a right to expect.”[11]

---

[1] Letter, Goodwyn to “Dr. Crawford,” December 18, 1862, Private Collection of John Horn.

[2] Letter, John F. Sale to Aunt, December 28, 1862, Library of Virginia.

[3] Letter, James E. Whitehorne to Sister, January 10, 1862, Library of Virginia.

[4] Ibid.

[5] William E. Cameron, “Chancellorsville,” in George S. Bernard, ed., War Talks of Confederate Veterans, 72-73.

[6] Letter, Sale to Aunt, December 23, 1863.

[7] Letter, Sale to Uncle, December 28, 1863.

[8]Ibid.

[9] Westwood A. Todd Reminiscences, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

[10] Letter, James E. Riddle to Wife, December 16, 1864, Virginia Historical Society.

[11]Ibid.

Merry Christmas and feel free to share!

Faces of the 12th Virginia Infantry ("Petersburg Regiment"): The 12th's Last Color Bearer

The Petersburg Regiment's Last Color Bearer

Caption:  Sergeant William Crawford Smith

Credit:  U. S. Army Historical Education Center

Born in Virginia in 1837, William Crawford Smith had moved to Nashville, Tennessee and set up as a contractor by the outbreak of the Civil War.  With his friend John Mingea, Smith returned to Virginia and on May 17, 1861 enlisted in the 12th Virginia's Company B, the Petersburg Old or 'A' Grays.  At Crampton's Gap on September 14, 1862, he was wounded and captured.  After his exchange, he was promoted to corporal on March 1, 1863.  Smith was on the bridging detail at Germanna Ford at the end of April 1863 when it was overrun by Federals.  He escaped to provide valuable intelligence to Brig. Gen. William Mahone.  Smith was promoted to sergeant on August 1, 1863.

By May 6, 1864, Smith was serving as the 12th Virginia's color bearer.  In the Wilderness that day he was slightly wounded in the ankle by the same volley from the 41st Virginia that severely injured Lt. Gen. James Longstreet and killed Smith's friend Pvt. Mingea.  The Petersburg Regiment's colors passed to another soldier.

Smith had returned to the color guard by May 12.  After three color bearers were wounded, one mortally, the colors were given back to Smith.  He carried them in the charge at the Crater on July 30, when they suffered about 75 bullet holes and had their staff shattered.  On August 19 at Globe Tavern, when the Federals threatened to surround and capture the 12th and its battle flag, he tore the colors from the staff and hid them under his shirt.  When the Petersburg Regiment surrendered at Appomattox, Smith and another soldier tore up the colors and distributed their fragments.

Caption:  Phillips Flag Fragment.  Phillips’ inscription reads:  “This portion of a star is the center of star from the Battle Flag of the 12th Va Infantry, which I with my own hands tore it up at Appomattox when we surrendered on the 9th of April 1865.  I divided it out to those who wished a portion of it.  I have cut off four of the points from time to time one piece to D. M. Dunlop, one to Leroy S. Edwards & others.  I also have my sword which I had on and the dirt has never been wiped off since I returned.

“J. E. Phillips, Capt Richmond Grays”

Credit:  Elise Phillips Atkins, Arlington Heights, Ill.

Caption:  Stainback Flag Fragment.  The inscription reads:  “This Remnant of 12^th Va Infantry flag, was brought from Appomattox by a Corporal of the colorguard in his shoe.  The colorbearer divided the flag to keep the enemy from getting it.  The 12^th never lost a flag, but lost 4 colorbearers that carried it.

                                                                                    “(Requiescat in pace)”

Credit:  Francis Charles Stainback Collection, Virginia Military Institute Museum, Virginia Military Institute.

After the war, Smith returned to Nashville and resumed his work as a contractor.  In 1897 he designed and built the Parthenon as part of the Tennessee Centennial Exhibition.  He died in the Philippines in 1899 as colonel of the 1st Tennessee Infantry, United States Volunteers.

Caption:  Colonel William Crawford Smith

Credit:  Tennessee State Library and Archives

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