Transcript 17th ct at gettysburg

AT THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG
TUESDAY
JUNE 30, 1863
11th CORPS
HOWARD
1ST DIVISION
BARLOW
1ST BRIGADE
VON GILSA
2ND
BRIGADE
AMES
17TH CT
VOLUNTEERS
2ND
DIVISION
VON STEINWEHR
1ST BRIGADE
COSTER
2ND BRIGADE
SMITH
3RD DIVISION
SCHURZ
1ST BRIGADE
SCHIMMILEFENNIG
2ND BRIGADE
KRZYZANOWSKI
Colonel Noble was not with the 17th Connecticut in
Gettysburg. He had been home on a leave of
absence on account of the wound that he had
received at the Battle of Chancellorsville. However,
realizing that a fight was imminent, he left home five
days before his leave expired and reported directly to
Washington to find the location of his regiment. The
authorities there could not give him any information
and they kept him there for five days—so long that he
was unable to join his command until it was too late
to take part in the fight.
GENERAL OLIVER OTIS HOWARD
COMMANDER OF THE 11TH CORPS
Brigadier General Francis Channing
Barlow, the commander of the 1st
Division of the 11th Corps was a twentynine year old Harvard graduate and
former New York lawyer.
Brigadier General Adelbert Ames was a twentyeight year old Maine native. When the Rebels
attacked Cemetery Hill on July 2nd, it was
Ames’s old brigade (which included the 17th
Connecticut) that bore the brunt of the assault.
By June 30, Meade’s orders placed each corps within a
day’s march of Gettysburg.
Approaching Gettysburg along the Emmitsburg Road,
Major General John F. Reynolds’s First Corps stopped for
the night at Marsh Creek, only five miles to the
southwest. Behind Reynolds, and camped near
Emmitsburg, were the troops of General Oliver Otis
Howard’s 11th Corps, within eleven miles of Gettysburg.
When the 17th Connecticut bivouacked near Emmitsburg
that evening, it numbered just 17 officers and 369 enlisted
men, a far cry from its original strength of nearly 1,000. As
the regiment approached Gettysburg, it was commanded
by Lieutenant-Colonel Douglas Fowler of Norwalk.
WILLIAM WARREN COMPANY C
We rested all day of the 30th of June at
Emmittsburg. At night we had a good
supper of fresh bread, young onions
and milk—at our own expense.
At 7 o’clock the next morning, July 1,
we were ordered into line, the
objective point being Gettysburg, five
or six miles distant.
JAMES MONTGOMERY BAILEY of Company C recalled:
“I well remember the night of the 30th of June. The sky was clear of
clouds and filled with bright glittering stars. The moon threw a
calm, mellow light over our camp, and the surrounding hills. We
were lying at Emmittsburg in Maryland, near the Pennsylvania
border. We felt that our marching was about done for the present,
and that we were on the eve of a heavy struggle. The solemnity
which always foreruns a battle, pervaded our minds, intensifying
our thoughts of home, and weaving shadows of anxiety across our
future. The conflict was imminent. All through the day flying rumors
came on all sides.
In my imagination I was amid the carnage, surrounded by
gleaming bayonets and staggering wounded, while the air
resounded with the unearthly hiss and whiz of shot and shell,
and piercing cries of the mangled combatants.”
WEDNESDAY
JULY 1, 1863
JAMES MONTGOMERY BAILEY COMPANY C
“We expected to be on the move at daylight the next morning,
but for some reason were not. The delay offered us time to get a
good breakfast, with milk in our coffee, a meal never to be
forgotten by me, as after circumstances fully justified. At eight
o’clock our corps was in line, taking the Gettysburg trail, left in
front.”
WILLIAM WARREN COMPANY C
“Early on the morning of the 1st of July we were on the move
with orders to march as rapidly as possible to Gettysburg, and
when within a few miles we heard the guns which told us the
strife had already begun. At nine o’clock on the morning of the
1st of July we passed from the Emmittsburg Pike to Cemetery
Hill and while on the hill could plainly see the first army corps in
line of battle. It was here the news was brought to us that
General Reynolds, the corps commander, was killed, and that
the eleventh corps was to deploy at once on the right of the 1st
Corps.”
JAMES MONTGOMERY BAILEY COMPANY C
I well remember the march was very fatiguing. At one
period while filing through a piece of forest, the low
rumbling report of a heavy gun sounded afar off on our
front. It had an ominous impact and gave rise to many
an anxious glance.
As we approached Gettysburg, the clouds of smoke
among the hills on the left of the village showed the
position and action of the 1st Corps. The 2nd and 3rd
Divisions of our Corps were drawn up in line on the
side of the road. We moved by them and took up our
position on the advance. As we passed through the
principal street, the inhabitants thronged us with
refreshments. A shell, shrieking and screaming, flew
over our heads and buried itself in a neighboring yard.
After the last regiments of the 3rd
Division had marched through
Gettysburg, the men of the 17th
Connecticut swung into view
pressing along the Emmitsburg Road
with the rest of Brigadier General
Francis Barlow’s 1st Division.
The day was hot and sultry as the
17th Connecticut marched into
Gettysburg.
WILLIAM WARREN COMPANY C
Passing through the city we were halted and passed into a grain
field just beyond the poor house on the outskirts of the city. It
was here that the Seventeenth was called upon to furnish a small
detachment to guard a wooden bridge which the rebels were
trying to destroy. By orders from General Ames, Lieut. Doty of his
staff requested from Colonel Fowler one or two of his companies
for this duty.
Knowing his officers would all be glad to go, and not desiring to
discriminate, Colonel Fowler called for companies to volunteer.
Colonel Henry Allen, then in command of Company F, at once
stepped forward, and saluting, said: “Colonel Fowler, COMPANY
F is ready.” Soon after, COMPANIES A, B, AND K joined them.
MAJOR ALLEN G. BRADY
COMPANIES A, B, F, AND K
MAJOR ALLEN G. BRADY
Four companies were immediately ordered out by
Brigadier-General Ames, under command of Major Brady,
to the right of the bridge at the lower end of the town,
with instructions to throw out two companies as
skirmishers, the other two to be held as a reserve, and to
take and hold the brick house to the left and beyond the
bridge.
Two companies were thrown out, and deployed as
skirmishers as rapidly as possible to the right of the
bridge, along the creek. The other two, held as reserve,
were advanced in line, loading and firing as rapidly as
possible, making at the same time a left wheel, so as to
swing our right around the house, the reserve keeping
near and conforming to the movements of the
skirmishers.
On the north side of Rock Creek, along the Harrisburg Road, sat
the Josiah Benner Farm. The farmhouse, barn and springhouse
saw action as Early’s division rolled down the Harrisburg Road
toward Barlow’s Knoll. Four companies of the 17th Connecticut
Infantry which constituted Barlow’s forward right flank were
deployed in and around the farm buildings, and to the right of the
Harrisburg Road.
MAJOR ALLEN BRADY
When near the house, the enemy opened upon
us with shot, shell, grape, and canister, which
retarded our advance for a moment, until I
dismounted, went in front of the line of
skirmishers, and led them on until quite near
the house. The enemy, anticipating our
movements, shelled the house, and set it on
fire. We, however, held our ground, and held the
enemy’s skirmishers in check. Their loss up to
this time was at least 5 to 1, most of the men in
the four companies being excellent marksmen
and having volunteered for this occasion.
MAJOR ALLEN BRADY
We continued skirmishing briskly until I received orders
from Brigadier-General Ames to draw in my skirmishers
and return to town as rapidly as possible, and take
command of the regiment. The order was obeyed, and
we fell back in good order, skirmishing with the enemy,
who advanced as we retreated, and tried to cut us off
and capture us before we got to the town.
We foiled them in this attempt by making a circuit and
entering the town near the upper end, and soon joined
the remainder of the regiment, which we found near the
lower end of the town. The loss in the four companies
under my command was three men killed, one captain
and one lieutenant wounded, one sergeant and three
men taken prisoners.
Ames had good reason to recall Brady’s
men. Barlow, poised on his knoll and
ready to cut into Dole’s left flank, was
about to drive his regiments forward.
According to Doubleday:
Barlow had advanced with von Gilsa’s
Brigade, had driven back Ewell’s skirmish
line, and with the aid of Wilkeson’s
battery, was preparing to hold the Carlisle
Road. He was not aware that Early was
approaching, and saw Dole’s advance with
pleasure, for he felt confident he could
swing around his right and envelop Dole’s
left, a maneuver which could hardly fail to
be successful.
BARLOW’S KNOLL
BARLOW’S KNOLL
At about 2:00 p.m., Francis Barlow, energetic and eager,
pushed his men forward into the line of battle----too far
forward, further jeopardizing the already precarious position
of Howard’s right flank. He created a salient.
Barlow’s Division held the extreme right flank of the Union
line north of Gettysburg, and he decided to anchor that
flank on a little knoll where he placed his division’s only
battery of artillery. Just beyond the knoll- and thus
beyond the end of Barlow’s line—was Rock Creek, which
Barlow hoped might provide some additional cover for his
flank. To occupy that knoll, however, Barlow had to move
his line well forward of where Carl Schurz, (who was
commanding the corps temporarily while Howard
exercised overall command of the battlefield) had wanted
him to put it.
The entire 11th Corps line was already stretched far too
thin, but that could not be helped if the 1st and 11th Corps
were going to try to keep the Rebels out of Gettysburg.
Barlow’s move made the situation worse by stretching the
line farther. Barlow was determined to confront the
Confederates of Rodes’s Division that were coming down
from the neighborhood of Oak Hill, northwest of the 11th
Corps.
Disastrously for Barlow and the chronic hard-luck soldiers of the
11th Corps, the primary assault on their line developed not from
Rodes’s position on Oak Hill, but rather from Early’s Division
sweeping down the Heidlersburg Road, directly onto the flank of
the Corps at Barlow’s Knoll.
To make matters worse, woods along Rock Creek screened
Early’s approach so that the first real warning that Barlow had of
the attack was when Early’s artillery opened up on him from just
across the creek. Barlow’s single battery, commanded by 19year-old Lieutenant Bayard Wilkeson, fired back gamely, but the
more numerous Confederate guns began to pound it to pieces
and Wilkeson was hit by a shell.
Barlow seems not to have sensed the danger.
Intent on pressing his attack on Dole, he and his
two brigades suddenly heard the thunder of
General Jubal A. Early’s division artillery.
Less than a half-mile further north on the
Harrisburg Road, cannoneers of Lt. Col. H.P.
Jones’s battalion quickly found the range and
fixed upon Barlow’s exposed right flank.
Bombarded from two directions, from Oak Hill
and the Harrisburg Road, Lieutenant Wilkesons’s
four Napoleons on the knoll now returned fire
both ways.
Then about half an hour into the one-sided
artillery duel, Early’s infantry started forward.
The Georgia Brigade of John B. Gordon,
Early’s right flank brigade, splashed through
the creek and charged out of the trees
scarcely a hundred yards from the knoll,
which suddenly became the center of a fierce,
close-range fight. Flanked, Barlow’s men
never had a chance. George P. Dole’s Brigade
of Rodes’s Division moved in to help their
fellow Georgians, striking the front of
Barlow’s position while Gordon hit the front
and rear.
From his position on the right of the Union line
at the top of the knoll, Fowler prepared for
action. In the words of Lieutenant Doty:
Colonel Fowler at once rode to the front and
gave the command to deploy columns, and
swinging his sword said, “Now Seventeenth, do
your duty! Forward, double quick! Charge
bayonets!” And with a yell, they charged!
When his soldiers approached the top of the
rise, a hand-to-hand struggle followed, “with
the colors on the two lines being part of the
time only fifty paces apart.”
Caught in the confusion of changing
fronts to meet this new threat were the
six companies of the 17th Connecticut.
When General Gordon turned his
Georgians loose, a full brigade of Rebels
came out of the wheat fields, crossed the
creek, and broke into the open area at the
foot of the knoll. Within minutes the
charging Confederates had flushed out
and sent over the hillock the remnants of
von Gilsa’s three regiments, previously
positioned along the creek.
JAMES MONTGOMERY BAILEY
“I looked in back of us for the remainder of the Corps,
but it was nowhere in sight. The fields between us and
the town were free of troops. I thought it strange that
just our division of the 11th Corps should be posted so far
to the front. Meanwhile the ammunition of our battery
gave out, as also all hopes of a fresh supply.”
“Colonel Fowler shouted to us with a laugh, “Beware
of the big ones, boys, the little ones will take care of
themselves,” referring to the shell flying over us, and
the forthcoming bullets.”
JAMES MONTGOMERY BAILEY
It was then that the first Brigade gave
way, and simultaneous with the order to
deploy and charge, the Germans struck
us. All was confusion immediately. But,
our boys, determined to follow the brave
Fowler, yelled defiantly, and forced their
way through the timid sheep, up, up to
the woods.
Thrown first into disarray and then into panic, these
same unlucky “Dutchmen” were the first troops to
“run for it” at Gettysburg, as they were at
Chancellorsville.
As Gordon chased von Gilsa’s men to the rear, he ran
into real resistance as his Georgians approached the
top of the knoll. Changing fronts as best it could,
Barlow’s 2nd Brigade, under General Ames, made a
stubborn fight of it. They were further handicapped,
Ames reported, “by the men of the 1st Brigade of this
division running through the lines of the regiments of
my brigade and thereby creating considerable
confusion.” Private William Warren noted in his diary
that “the Dutchmen ran right through our regiment and
broke us up.”
JAMES MONTGOMERY BAILEY
The boys fell back, taking advantage of
every opportunity for an effective shot. I
saw Rufus Warren as the rout became
general. He lay on his side crying for
help, but none could be given him then.
He was the only one of our wounded
that I saw.
JAMES MONTGOMERY BAILEY
The fire had now grown terrific on both sides,
but the decidedly superior advantage of the
enemy, both in numbers and position, told heavy
on us. I could not help but be aware that a
fearful avalanche of death was sweeping
through my Regiment. It was one
continual hiss about my ears, and the boys
dropped in rapid succession on both sides of
me. The enemy continued to move slowly up,
firing rapidly. The din had reached the standard
of a hell, and then the order to retreat was
given. Colonel Fowler shouted the command to
us, and the next instant he reeled from the
saddle.
Colonel Douglas Fowler had been leading
the 17th Connecticut forward on a
beautiful white horse, setting a brave
and noble example for his troops. Joking
with his men, as deadly iron from
Confederate artillery shrieked frantically
by, he encouraged his soldiers to "Dodge
the big ones Boys!" In only moments, his
men were horrified as a shell fragment
slammed into Colonel Fowler's head,
killing him instantly.
Barlow’s position grew desperate, for, in
addition to Gordon’s Georgians, two
additional Confederate brigades were
beginning to curl in upon the Union flank.
With 4,500 Confederates closing in,
Barlow had to withdraw or face
entrapment. Still unwilling to yield his
position, he tried to rally his regiments as
they began to move back from the knoll,
but at this point, he was severely
wounded and General Ames assumed
command.
Thirty percent of Gordon’s men fell before the
knoll was theirs. Then the tide of the battled
rolled on toward the Union flank and rear,
leaving the grassy hillock strewn with the fallen
of both sides, including the badly wounded
Barlow.
A Confederate soldier later described the
impact of the wild assault on Barlow’s Knoll:
“It was a fearful slaughter, the golden wheat
fields, a few minutes before in beauty, now
gone, and the ground covered with the dead
and wounded in blue.”
As the Southern divisions tightened the vise,
the outnumbered Union troops were steadily
compressed toward the center of Gettysburg.
The 1st Corps followed the retreat of the 11th
Corps through the town, jamming its streets
and alleys in an effort to move south to
Cemetery Hill. Many of these men lost their
will to fight and much of their cohesion as the
Rebels closed in. Yet there was some
resistance as a few Northern units tried
momentarily to make a stand.
Once at the Almshouse, General Ames
ordered Major Brady to “return to town as
rapidly as possible and take command” of
the isolated 17th Connecticut soldiers still
skirmishing near the Benner House. Brady
then drew in his skirmishers and pulled
back across Rock Creek. Under fire all
the way, Brady reported, “We fell back in
good order, skirmishing with the enemy,
who advanced as we retreated, and tried
to cut us off and capture us before we got
back to town.”
Moving across the creek and toward the town in
pursuit of the Connecticut companies,
Confederate General Harry T. Hays spurred on
his brigade of 1,500 Louisiana Tigers. Hays
reported that when General Gordon
“encountered the enemy in force, I received an
order to advance in support. Pressing steadily
on, I met with no other opposition than that
presented by the enemy’s skirmishers and the
firing of artillery.” Hays thus agreed with Brady
that his advance, ordered to support Gordon’s
left flank, met no infantry opposition other than
Brady’s four companies of Connecticut
skirmishers.
Hays’s Tigers next smashed Harris’s
Brigade around the Almshouse and
sent the Union Line in retreat once
more. The Tigers met some
resistance in the streets from the
17th Connecticut, but soon cleared
the town.
From atop Cemetery Hill. Howard
witnessed the disaster and sent
orders for his Federal troops to
withdraw to the high ground.
Somehow Major Brady got his Connecticut Yankees to
attempt to slow the Southern pursuit. As he rallied his
tired men, his efforts caught the eye of a Union soldier
retreating thought town with the 88th PA regiment.
Any attempt to make a stand in this bewildered and
frantic mob was attended with the greatest difficulty
and peril, yet many fragments of both Corps did their
level best to breast the storm and repulse the
greybacks. Amidst all the excitement, the 17th
Connecticut deployed in the streets, firing several
rounds before it was compelled to fall back. The crowd
was frightful and the men almost prostrated with overexertion and the great heat, while the Confederate
sharp-shooters occupied the streets, their line of battle
almost encircling the city.
MAJOR BRADY:
The enemy were at this time advancing rapidly through
the town. The regiment was immediately deployed
through the streets, and fired several volleys into the
ranks of the enemy, which thinned their ranks and
retarded their advance. We kept the enemy from
advancing through the town until ordered to clear the
street of our men for the purpose of planting a battery.
The battery not being placed in position as intended, and
the regiment being in line on the sidewalk, the enemy
took advantage of this, and with a superior force rushed
through the main street, which compelled us to fall back,
which we did reluctantly, but not without contesting the
ground inch by inch.
MAJOR ALLEN BRADY
About this time, Major General Howard, who
was in the thickest of the battle, regardless of
danger, asked if he had troops brave enough to
advance to a stone wall across a lot toward the
town, and said he would lead them. We replied,
“Yes, the Seventeenth Connecticut will!” and
advanced at once to the place indicated,
remained a few moments, and again advanced
across another lot until nearer the town and
behind a rail fence at the upper end of town,
which position we held until late in the evening,
exposed to a galling fire from the enemy’s
sharpshooters.
While the 17th Connecticut and a few
other Union regiments protected the
escape route to Cemetery Hill, Northern
soldiers who were able to break free
from the havoc in town struggled up the
slope toward Howard’s headquarters. On
the crest, Howard and his aides
continued efforts to reorganize the new
arrivals and post them in positions to
ward off any sudden Confederate attack.
The first day at Gettysburg
had been costly. Of the more
than 20,000 Union soldiers
who reached the field that
day, 9,100 were casualties
before evening.
When Major Brady mustered the 17th
Connecticut on the morning of July 2, 1863,
only 241 men answered the roll call. The
regiment had lost 145 of its 386 men: 17
killed, 73 wounded, and 55 missing or
captured. Nine of these casualties were
among the four companies ---A, B, F, and K --detached from the regiment as skirmishers
at the Benner Farm, where three men were
killed, two wounded, and four captured. The
regiment suffered another 136 casualties
during the fight at Barlow’s Knoll, the short
encounter at the Almshouse, and the final
retreat through town
Though the regiment lost 38 percent of
its strength on the first day of battle, the
17th Connecticut continued the fight on
the following evening. By chance, they
faced Hay’s Louisiana Tigers once more.
These were the same soldiers that had
sent them scurrying on July 1, but
toward dusk on July 2 quite a different
story unfolded.