Back to Pennsylvania

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While most of the regiment lazed away a few warm June days in the Fairfax camp Lieutenant Lucius Truman was sent back to the Wildcat District. He was to make one more effort to gain a few recruits. "Come in, out of the Draft!" That was the lead line on Truman's broadside. "I want 100 able-bodied men for this famous Regiment," the advertisement continued. It even mentioned the bounty which would be paid each recruit. The Bucktails at last would welcome bounty men.

It was a time of confusion and excitement. Lee had started his victorious forces north. Governor Curtin was again fearful for Pennsylvania. The same paper which carried Truman's appeal for new Bucktails had much to say regarding Andy Curtin's request for three-months men to defend the commonwealth against the invading army edging toward the Keystone State. Conscription on a national basis had also come. It was small wonder indeed that the Bucktail lieutenant got no recruits. This was the summer of '63. The spring of '61 seemed a long time ago. In the interim, too many young men had hobbled back to the Wildcat District on crutches. Too many others would never come home at all. Enlistment in the three-months militia gave at least temporary respite from the draft. Being an "emergency man" was much better than the draft or volunteering for a fighting

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outfit like the Bucktails. So, as it turned out, Harrisburg obtained a number of three-months militia. Truman rejoined his regiment empty-handed. No doubt by that time he was convinced that all of the boys of Bucktail caliber in northern Pennsylvania had already gone to war.[1]

As the Army of Northern Virginia, now reorganized into three corps under Longstreet, Ewell, and A. P. Hill, started to cross the narrow strip of Maryland behind the South Mountain range and into their native Pennsylvania, the Reserves became more restive than before. They did what they could to let topside know that they wanted to be back with the Army of the Potomac. For once the Army and the men agreed. On June 25 the two remaining Reserves brigades, soon to constitute Crawford's Division, marched toward Leesburg. They had been assigned to the Fifth Corps, commanded by their old skipper, Major General George B. Meade.[2]

Captain William E. Miller, Third Pennsylvania Cavalry, sitting his horse on the north bank of the Potomac at Edward's Ferry on the evening of the 27th, was somewhat perturbed. Before pushing on into Maryland, the cavalry must wait until a few outfits of coffee-boilers got across the shaky pontoon bridge. Finally the infantry brigade started across in the twilight. No sooner had the infantry taken up the march, than their little band started piping "Maryland, My Maryland." The foot soldiers, swinging across the swaying bridge, started to sing the old familiar song. Those singing soldiers were Pennsylvanians, Miller found out, McCandless' First Brigade of the Reserves. Miller also soon heard the tired troopers on the hillside north of the river echoing the song back across the Potomac. The cavalry captain now was glad he had to wait for this Pennsylvania infantry. Some years later, no doubt with the singing of those 1863 GI's still

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ringing in his ears, he wrote: "The scene formed one of the happy incidents that broke the monotony of the long march to Gettysburg."[3]

The next day the Reserves caught up with the Fifth Corps at a rainy camp near Ballinger's Creek. The Army once again had a new commander, and so did the Fifth Corps. Stanton and Halleck had heckled Hooker into resigning over the old question as to what should be done at Harpers Ferry as Lee moved North. Hooker had failed and he must go. The Army of the Potomac had to have a commander, and in a move approaching desperation, Lincoln had chosen Meade. The new chief of the Fifth Corps was Major General George Sykes, a professional soldier, stiff and capable. His appointment was his deserved reward for sheer efficiency. Sykes had commanded regular army troops since the beginning of the war. Rather slow, he had done his work well. More than once had his regulars set an example of how good soldiers act in battle. Such instances had always had a salutory effect on more than one outfit of "strawfeet."

Sykes would still have some regulars under his new command. Of his three divisions, the Second, under General Romeyn B. Ayres, had two brigades of professionals. The First Division was commanded by General James Barnes. Crawford's two little brigades of Reserves would constitute the Third Division of the Fifth Corps.[4]

Back again with the Army of the Potomac, the Bucktails were introduced to one of Hooker's morale-raising devices of the previous spring. General Dan Butterfield, who had given the Army Taps the year before at Harrison's Landing, had devised a badge system for the various units. The cap-badge of the Fifth Corps was a Maltese cross. Since they were the Third Division, the Reserves wore a blue cross on the top of their kepis. Blue was the color prescribed by the sys-

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tem for third divisions. Needless to say, this new badge did not displace the First Rifles' beloved bucktail.[5]

The somewhat zig-zag route followed by the Fifth Corps across Maryland during those last days of June was indicative. If the route was wobbly it could have been due to the same kind of thinking on the part of the new commander of the Army. Meade had his forces strung out over an area of rolling Maryland hills thirty-five to forty miles wide, to cover the enemy, which he placed somewhere between the two Pennsylvania towns of Chambersburg and York. With that situation that vague, marching orders were bound to be indefinite. When Crawford's Reserves were marching through Frederick on the 29th Meade said he was going to find and fight the enemy. The next day, on which the Reserves neared Union Mills, the Army commander was toying with the idea of a defensive position along Pipe Creek near Westminister. On that same day Meade ordered the First and Eleventh Corps toward Gettysburg.[6]

Robert E. Lee, at Chambersburg with Longstreet and Hill on June 28, did not learn of the recent Union movements until late that evening. Jeb Stuart had taken his cavalry on another ride around the Federal Army, was far away from Lee, and so unable to report the doings of the Army of the Potomac. Ewell's Second Confederate Corps was around Carlisle with Early's Division at York. When the Southern chieftain found out that the Union forces were spreading into Maryland, he ordered a concentration of his own somewhat scattered troops. The point chosen was the little hamlet of Cashtown, nestled near the eastern slope of the South Mountain range. A few miles east of Cashtown was a larger village, the shiretown of Adams County. The maps showed that every road in the area converged at this little Pennsylvania county seat, called Gettysburg. Meade had ordered

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two corps toward that place. A few miles to the west Lee planned to concentrate his corps. These decisions on the part of the two army commanders made it obvious where the greatest battle fought on the American continent would take place.

The meandering route of Sykes' Fifth Corps brought it near Hanover by the first day of July. The Pennsylvania Reserves were once again in their native state. Crossing Maryland, it had seemed good to get away from the desolation which the war had wrought. While southern Pennsylvania did not seem like home to the soldiers from the Wildcat District, they were glad to be back in their own state.[7]

With late afternoon came the news that the impending battle had started that day. The Fifth Corps, having switched its route to the northeast, had been marching in the wrong direction. Some miles to the west that morning Federal General John Buford had stood in a little white tower atop a red brick theological seminary and watched lines of A. P. Hill's infantry approach his few brigades of cavalry. That was the way the battle started. Capable John Buford's dismounted troopers stood off the Southern foot soldiers for two hours. Then Reynolds had come up with his First Corps, followed by the Eleventh under Oliver Otis Howard. Reynolds fell, the victim of a sharpshooter's bullet, shortly after he got into action. Soon units of Ewell's Corps came in from the north as the men of Hill pressed the Yankees from the west. The two Federal corps were outnumbered and took a severe mauling. They were forced back through the village of Gettysburg, and as reinforcements began to arrive late in the day, were able to dig in on some high ground south of the little college town. Meade, still at Taneytown, Maryland was doing his best to collect his scattered corps. Sykes received orders for a night march toward Gettysburg.[8]

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Crawford's little division, somewhat behind the other two, was the last to take up the march that evening. The marching rations of fried pork and hardtack, understandably never popular, were becoming even more monotonous than usual. The corps had done some pretty hard marching, albeit in various directions, and the men were tired. It was not all bad, however, as the Reserves headed toward Gettysburg that night. Earlier in the day a shower had laid the dust. And the moon shone over that southern Pennsylvania countryside. As the Bucktails plodded along in the quiet night, one can be sure that they noticed the neat white farm houses and the solid stone barns hard by, all so different from the farm buildings in their own part of the state. Not so certain, can it be said, that enough of the details of that day's happenings had trickled down to those veterans of many battles to give them real concern over the morrow .[9]

Before dawn the division was halted to give the men some badly needed rest. Big, tall Samuel Wylie Crawford, Pennsylvania-born and educated, had been around the Army a long time as a doctor. Now that he was a combat officer he could still keep the health and welfare of his men in mind. Crawford had a mass of dark, curly hair. He wore his whiskers somewhat a la Burnside. He also wore, most of the time, a startled expression mixed with a kind of glower. Even as an army surgeon Crawford always seemed to be able to get into the fighting side a bit. He had helped chase Comanches in Texas. In 1858 he was fighting Indians with Major William T. Sherman. The year 1860 found him as surgeon at Fort Moultrie, South Carolina. When, a few months later, it had all started at that other little fort in Charleston harbor, Dr. Crawford commanded a battery. After the war he would write a book on the Sumter story. With the advent of the war Crawford had to do staff duty for a time, but he soon

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obtained combat command. By 1862 he was a brigadier general. A severe wound at Antietam knocked Crawford out of the war until he got the Reserves when they came back into the Army of the Potomac. Governor Curtin was behind the appointment of Crawford to command the governor's favorites.[10]

It was about noon when Crawford led the Pennsylvania Reserves into Gettysburg on that hot and sultry July 2. They approached along the Hanover Road, one of the little spokes which converged at the hub toward which two mighty armies had been hastening for the past twenty-four hours or so.[11]

In more than one reunion in after-years the surviving Bucktails would talk and argue over terrain and positions on that memorable afternoon. As they hurried in to take their little place in the Union defensive fishhook, one does not expect that those men who were to do the fighting gave much attention to those things for which the Army had created brass. The point of the fishhook was around Culp's Hill, just southeast of Gettysburg. Curving west around this hill, across a little dip to Cemetery Hill (almost in the village), and around Cemetery Hill, the hook part was formed. Then the Union line ran almost due south for more than a mile along Cemetery Ridge, forming the shank. The Ridge petered out at its southern end into rather marshy low land. South of this lower land was boulder-strewn Little Round Top. Little Round Top dominated the area, and in turn was dominated by Big Round Top, a timbered height a quarter-mile to the south. It was a strong defensive position.

Across the valley west of the Union line there ran another slight ridge, called Seminary Ridge, after the Lutheran theological school which stood on its slope. On Seminary Ridge, and extending through Gettysburg and around to

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the northeast to cover the Union hook, were Lee's legions. Between the two parallel ridges the Emmitsburg Road ran south from the town.

The Hanover Road ran almost due west into Gettysburg, which was firmly in the hands of Confederate General Ewell. As soon as enemy pickets were spotted Crawford swung his Reserves to the left. Following a small creek they soon hit the Baltimore Pike, which, with the Taneytown Road, ran into the Gettysburg hub from the southeast. For a little while at last George Sykes had his entire Fifth Corps together, massed in reserve along the Baltimore Pike.[12] The Bucktails arrived amidst the tense calm of the battle-to-be. There was the reserve artillery parked in neat rows between the Baltimore Pike and the Taneytown Road, a good position for use in either direction. Ambulances had been brought up and placed in handy locations for their grim work which was sure to come. From over the ridge only occasionally came the rattle of skirmisher's fire. Along the crest the soldiers had their arms stacked. Some were boiling coffee over little fires with the pre-battle nonchalance that only veterans could muster. To the rear the surgeons were completing the supervision of the pitching of hospital tents wherever they could find water. It was early afternoon. Each hour seemed hotter than the one before.[13]