Just Before the Battle: Marching to Gettysburg with the 11th Corps

    On the night of June 30, 1863, the Ohioans attached to the 11th Army Corps under the command of Major General Oliver O. Howard lay in camps around Emmitsburg, Maryland. “That night at Emmitsburg, with its recollections, is to me as sacred as holy writ,” recalled Leonidas Jewett of the 61st Ohio. “The excitement, the knowledge of a great battle soon to be fought with the killing and wounding of many of the brave boys of Ohio and the other loyal states of the Union; the wonder what fate awaited us, were all thoughts that flew through the minds of the soldiers of our army who camped at Emmitsburg. Of my own regiment, I remember that night Colonel Stephen J. McGroarty, Lieutenant Colonel William L. Bown, Major D.C. Beckett, and many others in the next days that gave up their lives that this vast Republic might live.”

The XI Army Corps headquarters flag belonging to Major General Oliver O. Howard who led the corps for much of its existence. 

          The Buckeyes and their comrades of the 11th Corps had marched all day through the rain on June 29th before going into camp in the fields along the Emmitsburg Road. “That day had been cold and rainy, the roads heavy, and the march very tiresome,” remembered General Howard. “We arrived at Emmitsburg at 4 o’clock in the afternoon having marched 38 miles in 24 hours carrying knapsacks, blankets, 60 rounds of ammunition, and three days’ rations,” noted Major Samuel H. Hurst of the 73rd Ohio. “This march which, for rapidity, has rarely been excelled during the war, led us through a very rich farming district. But the citizens seemed wonderfully indifferent to the danger threatened by an invading army. They only exhibited curiosity and wonder at seeing so many soldiers and from their remarks, evidently thought our force was abundantly able to annihilate the rest of the human family. We expected to see them rising as one man and rushing to arms to defend their homes; we only saw them rush to the fields, scythe, and reaper, and leave the work of driving back the foe all undivided to ourselves.”

Sergeant Henry Lockwood, Co. C, 75th O.V.I.

The men enjoyed their day of rest after several days of marching, much of it along the hot and dusty roads of Maryland where the troops moved upwards of 30 miles in a day. “During the afternoon, we got our mail for the first time in several weeks,” wrote Jacob Smith of the 107th Ohio. “At such times when the mail was being distributed, there was considerably crowding around of the boys, all anxious to hear from home and loved ones. If any failed to get a letter, they went away apparently sad at the disappointment. Many of the boys spent part of the afternoon writing letters to the folks at home and their sweethearts. There were many of those writing home today who were penning their last messages to loved ones, never more to see or hear each other until the great day of final reckoning shall come. It was the earnest desire of every Union soldier that we might gain the victory in the coming engagement. Many prayers went up to the Supreme Ruler for the success of our Army.”

Quartermaster Sergeant Cecil C. Reed of Battery K of the 1st Ohio Light Artillery recalled that on the night of the 30th “came a report along the line that our advance had overtaken the invaders and there would surely be an engagement on the morrow. We soon received orders to make ourselves comfortable for the night, and you may rest assured that it was not long until the boys were snugly ensconced- some under rail piles, some under the bushes, and some under tents, with nothing to disturb their peaceful repose but some of the many pleasant dreams that never fail to visit the soldier’s couch.”

Generals Howard and Carl Schurz, commanding the Third Division, both found quarters at St. Joseph’s Academy and Free School on the south side of town. “I waited upon the Lady Superior to ask her for permission to use one of her buildings as my headquarters for the night, suggesting, with perfect sincerity, that her buildings and grounds would be better protected by our presence within than by any guards stationed without,” Schurz later wrote. “The Lady Superior received me very graciously and at once put one of the houses within the enclosure at my disposal. She even sent for the chaplain of the institution, Father Borlando, to conduct us through the main edifice and permitted one of my officers, a good musician, to play on the organ in the chapel which he did to the edification of all who heard him. The conduct of my troops camped around the institution was exemplary and we enjoyed there as still and restful a night as if the outside of the nunnery had been as peaceful as daily life was ordinarily within it.”

Major General Carl Schurz

“I mention this as one of the strange contrasts of our existence, for at daybreak the next morning I was woken up by a marching order directing me to take the road to Gettysburg,” he continued. “We did not know that we were marching towards the most famous battlefield of the war. In fact, we, I mean even the superior officers, had no clear conception as to where the decisive battle of the campaign was to take place. Only a few days before, General Hooker had left the command of the Army of the Potomac and General Meade had been put in his place. Such a change of commanders at the critical period of the campaign would ordinarily have had a disquieting effect upon the officers and men. But in this case, it had not, for by his boastful proclamations and his subsequent blunders and failures at Chancellorsville, General Hooker had largely forfeited the confidence of the army.”


          The cloud of Chancellorsville hung especially heavy over the men of the 11th Corps as the collapse of the corps on the evening of May 2nd had been seized upon by many as the root cause of the loss at Chancellorsville. Some newspapers hurled invective at the “cowardly Germans” of the corps. Horace Greeley of the New York Daily Tribune charged that "if the 11th Corps had held its ground, the defeat and destruction of Jackson would have been inevitable, but when they fled, it became necessary to recall Sickles and the whole maneuver was foiled. General Howard who commanded it is a brave and skillful general, but neither his efforts nor those of General Devens and General Schurz could arrest the panic. We trust that swift justice will overtake the regiments that broke; that if it be deemed too rigid to shoot them all, they may at least be decimated and then dissolved.”

General Carl Schurz described the effect this type of "publicity" had on his troops, exhausted, and bloodied after a hard campaign. “Every newspaper that fell into our hands told the world the frightful story of the unexampled misconduct of the 11th Corps, how the ‘cowardly Dutchmen’ of that corps had thrown down their arms and fled at the first fire of the enemy, how my division led in the disgraceful flight without firing a shot, how these cowardly Dutch like a herd of frightened sheep had overrun the whole battlefield and come near stampeding other brigades or divisions, in short, the whole failure of the Army of the Potomac was owing to the scandalous poltroonery of the 11th Corps. We procured whatever newspapers we could obtain- newspapers from New York, Washington, Philadelphia, Boston, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago, Milwaukee- the same story everywhere. I was thunderstruck." General Schurz and other officers of the corps fought back fruitlessly against this type of incendiary rhetoric, but General Hooker, consumed with defending his own record with the public and the Lincoln administration, seemed content to let the Germans take the blame for the Chancellorsville defeat. The men would march to Gettysburg with this criticism ringing in their ears but determined to prove themselves in the next fight.

The following morning, the First Division under General Francis C. Barlow marched to Gettysburg along Emmitsburg Road following the three divisions of the First Corps while the Third Division under General Schurz and the Second on General Adolph von Steinwehr marched on a crossroad to the Taneytown Road and then turned north.

 

Major Samuel H. Hurst, 73rd O.V.I.

Sources:

Hurst, Samuel H. Journal History of the Seventy-Third Ohio Volunteer Infantry. Chillicothe: n.p., 1866, pg. 65

“From Stafford Heights to Gettysburg in 1863.” Leonidas M. Jewett, 61st Ohio Volunteer Infantry, Sketches of War History, 1861-1865 of the Commandery of the State of Ohio Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, Volume V, pgs. 213-222

Schurz, Carl. The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz, Volume III, pgs. 3-4

Smith, Jacob. Camps and Campaigns of the 107th Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry. Navarre: Indian River Graphics, 2000, pgs. 85-86

Letter from Quartermaster Sergeant Cecil C. Reed, Battery K, 1st Ohio Light Artillery, Cleveland Morning Leader (Ohio), July 24, 1863, pg. 2


Comments

Post a Comment

Most Popular Posts

Arming the Buckeyes: Longarms of the Ohio Infantry Regiments

Image
     A common question that comes up in conversation about Civil War Buckeye regiments is "What were they armed with?" We are fortunate in that the state of Ohio kept good records of how the regiments were armed when they went into service, this being especially true for those regiments which went into service in 1861 and 1862. The state adjutant general's reports for 1861 and 1862 have been heavily drawn upon to construct this article, as well as consultation with Phil Spaugy who has done extensive research on how Ohio's troops were armed during the war.      Buckeyes carried a fairly wide variety of weapons into the field, and the below article breaks this down into weapons of both domestic manufacture and imported arms. The early days of the war found the state of Ohio practically bereft of longarms; as an example, when the 1st and 2nd Ohio Volunteer Militia left the state in late April 1861, they left unarmed, being armed at Lancaster, Pennsylvania on t...
Read more

Bullets for the Union: Manufacturing Small Arms Ammunition During the Civil War

Image
       Civil War bullets are perhaps the most common item collected from the era; the two armies expended bullets by the millions during the four years’ conflict and spent or deformed bullets of all shapes and sizes have made fascinating and affordable collectibles since the guns went silent in 1865.       I recently acquired a display piece featuring 35 different types of small arms ammunition used during the Civil War, including everything from a small .28 caliber ball up to a .69 caliber three-ring Minie and it triggered some questions: how did the Federal army obtain its small arms ammunition during the war? Where did the lead come from to make the bullets, and where and how was the ammunition manufactured? This post seeks to answer those questions. A typical .58 caliber 3-ring Minie bullet   “Whenever the blasts of war blow in the ears of men who trade in the implements of destruction, they are apt to experience more joy than the true ...
Read more

Dressing the Rebels: How to Dye Butternut Jeans Cloth

Image
     In the early days of the Civil War,  the Southern states found themselves with an abundance of cotton but a shortage of cloth with which to make army uniforms. The trade in cloth prior to the war had largely been to send raw cotton or wool north to New England (or Great Britain) where it was converted into usable cloth; but now that trade was broken and the Southern states were thrown upon their own resources in their efforts to properly clothe the Confederate army.  This collection of Confederate enlisted men's frock coats and shell jackets gives some indication of the variety of shades of butternut worn during the war. All of them are shades of yellow brown, some heavier on the yellow and some heavier on the brown. The blue used around the collar or as rank insignia indicates that the soldier was in the infantry. Surviving Confederate uniforms are considered rather rare and command quite a healthy price in the collecting market. For an in-depth study of h...
Read more

The Wizard of Oz and the Civil War

Image
T he 1939 film The Wizard of Oz has delighted viewers for 85 years and ranks as a personal favorite, especially during the Halloween season. While watching it with the family the other night, I wondered if there were any connections between the film and the Civil War. Not surprisingly, the answer is yes and those connections touch both the blue and the gray.           Interestingly both “witches” in the film not only had Civil War ancestors but had connections with Civil War soldiers from Ohio. Margaret Hamilton, the “Wicked Witch of the West,” was born in Cleveland, Ohio on December 9, 1902, to attorney Walter Jones Hamilton and his wife Mary Jane Adams; Margaret’s grandfather was Judge Edwin Timothy Hamilton. Judge Hamilton had served as a private in Co. D of the 84 th Ohio Infantry during the summer of 1862. The 84 th Ohio, a three months’ regiment, served nearly the whole of its service attached to the Railroad District in western Ma...
Read more

The Vaunted Enfield Rifle Musket

Image
     The English-made Model 1853 .577 caliber Enfield Rifle Musket was widely regarded as the best infantry arm in the world at the outbreak of the Civil War in April 1861. Favorable international press describing its efficiency in the Crimean War and in suppressing the Indian rebellion led to the widespread desire of American infantrymen (both Federal and Confederate) to be armed with these accurate and well-made arms. The lock plate of this well-worn P1853 Enfield rifle musket produced in 1862 shows the typical markings of a British-made weapon that made it through the Federal blockade.  ( Army of Tennessee Relics ) Enfield-pattern weapons were imported into the states by the tens and hundreds of thousands during the war years; one estimate stated that the Federal government purchased 500,000 while the Confederates purchased another 400,000. The Confederate government dispatched Captain Caleb Huse to Europe in April 1861 to purchase weapons and Huse focused on se...
Read more

In front of Atlanta with the 68th Ohio

Image
  The arrow corps badge of the 17th Army Corps was worn by many members of the 68th Ohio in the latter days of the war.       Private Edward A. Bigelow of Co. F of the 68th Ohio Volunteer Infantry wrote this brief account of the Battle of Atlanta just two days afterwards to his father back home in Henry County, Ohio. The regiment formed a part of Colonel Robert K. Scott's three regiment all-Ohio brigade consisting of the 20th, 68th, and 78th regiments, being designated the Second Brigade of the Third Division of Frank Blair's 17th Army Corps. Bigelow's letter originally appeared in the Napoleon Press newspaper and was copied in the Toledo Daily Commercial which was providential as no known copies exist today of the wartime Napoleon Press.  
Read more

Charging Battery Robinett: An Alabama Soldier Recalls the Vicious Fighting at Corinth

Image
W riting 30 years after the Battle of Corinth, James A. McKinstry of the 42 nd Alabama recalled his experiences storming Battery Robinett with Colonel William P. Rogers of the 2 nd Texas and expressed guilt that it was perhaps his action that brought about the colonel’s demise. “On seeing a line of Federals approaching, and before giving the situation a thought, I immediately raised my gun and fired full into the breast of a Federal sergeant, who was in front of the column, and only a short distance from us.  'Twas then that Captain George Foster shouted, "Cease firing, men! cease firing!" and waved his handkerchief, then I realized the true situation. 'Twas too late! That fatal volley had been turned on our little band from the muzzles of 1,500 muskets. I was still standing just as I was when I fired my last shot, and within a few feet of Colonel Rogers, when a Minie ball went crashing through my left hip and turned me half round; another went tearing through my ...
Read more

Cook & Brother of New Orleans

Image
    The lockplate of a New Orleans-made Cook & Brother Enfield rifle produced in 1862 shows the fine craftsmanship that became the hallmark of the maker throughout the Civil War. Note the stars and bars flag at left, an emblem used on C&B's production throughout the war and the Cook & Brother, N.O. 1862 markings. Earlier production weapons at New Orleans had the flag located just above the maker's name while later weapons produced in Athens, Georgia would have a modified flag and Athens on the plate followed by the serial number.        In the spring of 1861, two English-born businessmen, Ferdinand and Francis Cook of New Orleans, perceived the need for the South to have its own domestic production of firearms and  set out to prove "that rifles could made here as well as in Yankee land or in Europe." The brothers  elected to produce copies of the British Model 1853 .577 caliber Enfield rifle as this was considered the benchmark longarm...
Read more

I Want to See a Battle: A Hoosier at Shiloh

Image
W riting in his diary, Private Manius Buchanan of the 29 th Indiana recalled the eagerness with which his regiment marched towards Savannah, Tennessee with the sounds of the battle of Shiloh ringing in their ears.           “The forced march was kept up until 2 p.m. when we were halted until 4 p.m,” he noted. “The rest was really needed, but the continual question is ‘Why are we stopped here?’ The sound of battle increased in volume and anxiety to be up and doing grows more intense. As I am weak from a late sickness, I am urged to fall to the rear; but no, in common with all, I want to see a battle and fear this will be my only chance.” The regiment would go into action the following afternoon, and of the four neighborhood boys who had enlisted together in Co. B, only Buchanan escaped unscathed. One afternoon's exposure to the horrors of battle was all it took to satisfy this Hoosier's desire to see the elephant. “I wanted to see a battl...
Read more

An Interview with Forrest in May 1864

Image
  “The noise of battle is the only music that ravishes the senses of Forrest.” I t was May 1864. Back east, the Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of the Potomac were locked in the deadly dance of the Overland Campaign while in Georgia, General William Tecumseh Sherman's army squared off against General Joseph E. Johnston and the Army of the Tennessee in the campaign for Atlanta.       Based in relatively quiet northern Mississippi, General Nathan Bedford Forrest bided his time waiting for a Federal advance from Memphis. Earlier in the month, General Samuel Sturgis led a brief campaign into Mississippi but Forrest was sure Sturgis would venture out again. In the meantime, he tried to keep his reorganized command intact despite persistent demands from his superiors that he return the absentees and deserters who inflated his ranks (nearly 1,000 in number) to their original commands.      Around this same time,  an old acquaintance from Me...
Read more