The Way I See It

            History has always been personal to me. It has parasitically latched onto me and there are times when I wish it had not. When I am pensive, my mind flooded with memories and observations which I want to share but am afraid to do so because I question whether they really matter at all, I wish I could forget that the past had ever occurred. Studying history, in particular military history, has made me rather cynical. While I have never been in combat, I know how it affects some people. I know how a lot of politicians and their ilk have twisted it and glorified it to suit their own purposes. I know that the effects of war affect the civilians almost as much as it does the men fighting it.  The melancholia of living with the memories is as palpable decades afterward as they were when they were still fresh. As an historian, those impressions overwhelm me at times and make it nearly impossible for me to write.

            History teaches relationships between cause and effect, between perceived reality and reality, between legend and memory, between rage and fear. The list of correlations could go on ad infinitum. People and their basic reactions to stress, fear, and death have never changed. They are part of an eternal continuum than spans the centuries of human existence. My particular quest is to discover, as accurately as I can, what happened on the alleged “fields of glory,”

            On a personal level, I can relate to the intense fear that a person experiences when coming within a second of dying violently. During recurring spats with physical and mental exhaustion I can almost feel the blade of the hunting knife being held against my throat from behind and hearing, “Don’t move.” The incident occurred 56 years ago, when I was 13, but I recall it a vividly as if it had just happened. I remember lying awake at night, frozen in place in my bed, anxiously watching the shadows of the tree branches outside the bedroom window dance menacingly against the pulled window blinds, waiting for the assailant to make a second call while I slept.

            I know what it is like to watch someone very close to me die. The face grows pale then gray. The eyes lock in their sockets and grow dull. The death rattle fills the room with its ominous, rapid clatter and the fingers grow indescribably cold as it creeps progressively up the left arm. The rattling stops. Life is gone, just as Walt Whitman described his hospital experience with a dying soldier. Some things never change and never will.

            I can still see an employee, who had just been severely beaten, on her back on the floor. Eyes fixed but still alive, shivering uncontrollably, yet still as a corpse, not dead but seemingly so. Her boyfriend had stolen onto the jobsite and roughed her up then left her to lie there.

            I remember regaining consciousness after a student kicked me unconscious, having no recollection of what had transpired seconds before. My glasses lay askew to one side. My hearing aids flanked me on either side. I cannot recall him repeatedly kicking me in the chest and head. I still cringe at videos of anyone needlessly getting kicked while down. They trigger memories I would prefer to leave in the shadows. Hyper-vigilance and I have become lifelong companions.

            I just read an article about a study of generational trauma concerning Civil War veterans and the longevity of their male offspring. Many historians could honestly verify that “The sins of the father are visited upon the children.” Many who have had relatives in the Holocaust, who survived the Great Depression of the 1930’s, or who was raised in abject poverty has experienced some generational trauma. Children perceive the world through their parents’ eyes and will probably pass on, to some degree those influences, to the generation which follows them.

            So it is when I write history. Rifled shells “Scream.” Twelve pounder Napoleons “ring.” The faces of the dead and dying glow phosphorescently in the moonlight of a humid, sultry spring night in the mosquito infested swamp land along the James River. Men reek of sweat and wood smoke and scratch the lice and wood ticks imbedded in their clothing and their skin. They weep uncontrollably when a friend dies in their arms and often swear out of frustration and hopelessness. Others just leave their comrades where they lay because they have no choice and can do nothing for them because after all “Death is just Death.”

            My experiences growing up have shaped who I am and not always for the better. I understand from my past why I write history the way I do. It is a mixed curse/blessing. Sometimes I have to put my writing down because it gets too vivid. Erich Maria Remarque, in All Quiet on the Western Front unknowingly, of course, described my approach to history best when he wrote:

“This book is to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure. For death is not an adventure with those who stand face-to-face with it. It will try, simply, to tell of a generation of men, who even though they may have escaped its shells but were destroyed by the war.”

Timing IS Everything

            One of the persisting problems within the Civil War community is that “modern” historians insist that unreliable time pieces created the discrepancy in times recorded in the hundreds of battle accounts, including the Official Records [ORs], and therefore the times cited are not reliable. With the plethora of information now available to the historian, I believe it is possible to verify the accuracy of the times cited by the various participants.

When researching my new project, I encountered a problem trying to establish when Wadsworth’s Division, Army of the Potomac, actually marched and arrived on the field. I had a difficult time reconciling the various sightings of Maj. Gen. John F. Reynolds on the field. Therefore, I decided to develop a system to verify the accuracy of the veterans’ accounts which I have used throughout this work to determine to some degree when the various units arrived upon the field. It is a system which I developed by accident while developing a miniature wargame over the last couple of decades.

Basic “Givens”

1.      Not every timepiece, even today, will have the same time, despite the global usage of GPS and cell phones.

2.      Armies, once watches appeared on the scene, ran on more precise time schedules than during the age of sundials and hour glasses. Adjutants in their diaries often listed the times for all of the bugle and drum calls required to run their regiments, brigades, divisions, and corps on a regular schedule. The time for “Reveille” varied based upon the time of sunrise, which was often determined by almanacs, and by whether an army was in camp or on campaign. The following is the typical Artillery schedule. Infantry calls were not that different.

Reveille – Sunrise

Breakfast – Immediately after Reveille

Sick Call/Stable Call – half an hour after breakfast

Guard Mounting – 8:30 a.m.

Boots and Saddle (Section or Battery Drill) – 9:00 a.m.

Watering Call – 11:30 a.m.

Dinner Call – 12:00 p.m.

Drill (Standing Gun or Marching Drill – 2:00 p.m.

Recall – 4:00 p.m.

Stable Call, water before grooming – 4:00 – 5:00 p.m.

Retreat Sunset

Tattoo – 8:00 p.m.

Taps – 8:30 p.m.

            Times had to be accurate to make the Army function properly. The responsibility for keeping accurate time rested on the Army commander and filtered down to the regimental adjutants and their musicians.

       3.  Many of the farmers and the outdoor laborers in the military had learned to judge the time, give or take about 15 minutes, by observing the position of the sun in the sky. As a construction worker, decades ago, I could do the same thing.

       4.  Almanacs, for instance, established sunrise and sunsets by locales: New York City to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Washington, DC to Baltimore, Maryland, and, Staunton, Virginia. Everyone who had a watch depended upon them to establish a standard time based upon their geographic region.

Using Drill Manuals to Establish Rate of Movement and Distance to be Covered When in the Field

According to Hardee’s Rifle and Light Infantry Tactics, Vol. 1, 1861, and Silas Casey’s Infantry Tactics, Vol. 1, 1862  the infantryman marched at three distinct rates – Common Time  (90 steps per minute), Quick Time (110 Steps per minute), and Double-Quick (165 steps per minute). The length of the step for Common Time and Quick Time was a prescribed 28 inches from heel to heel and for the Double-Quick 33 inches from heel to heel. Therefore, a soldier at the Common Time could cover 210 feet in one minute (2.4 mph); at the Quick Time: 256.7 feet per minute (2.9 mph); and at the Double-Quick: 453.75 feet per minute (5.2 mph). Both manuals stressed that once the recruits learned to march at the Common Time, they should immediately transition to the Quick Time for all maneuvers.

Phillip St. George Cooke’s Cavalry Tactics, Vol. 1, 1862 explained the following gates for mounted cavalrymen: Walk (3.75 mph), Trot (7.5 mph), and Gallop (10 mph). George B. McClellan’s, Regulations and Instructions for the Field Service of the U.S. Cavalry In Time of War, 1862 sets the paces at: Walk – 100 yards per minute (3.4 mph); Trot – 240 yards per minute (8.2 mph); Gallop – 300 yards per minute (10.2 mph). The Canter and Charge do not appear in either manual. According to www.speedofanimals.com/animals/horse, the Walk is 4 mph The Trot is 8.1mph – 12 mph; the Canter is 12 mph – 15mph; the Gallop is 25 – 30 mph. It seems that in the 1860’s the modern Canter and Gallop would be considered a Charge.

Because gaits vary from horse to horse based upon size, age, and physical condition, I averaged the rates between McClellan’s and Cooke’s regulations. The Walk becomes 3.57 mph. The Trot amounts to 7.85 mph, and the Gallop equals 10.1 mph. The modern Canter and Gallop (Charge) would fatigue or possibly kill a horse if extended beyond 2 miles. When casually riding a horse over extended distances the pace could alter between all three paces, unless the urgency of the moment required the riders to maintain a faster pace. At that point, the rider could alternate between the Trot and the Gallop which would bring the horse’s approximate speed to 8.975 mph. However a sound animal could complete the entire 10 miles at the Gallop without getting fagged out. Attempting to calculate departure and arrival times on the field are, at best, estimates. By calculating the estimated times of departure and arrival, the researcher can somewhat accurately determine if the “official times” cited in the military records are reasonable or not.

The Time to March from the Bridge on Marsh Creek to the Peach Orchard

            Nearly every regimental account from Wadsworth’s Division said they halted at the Peach Orchard then went to the Codori Farm where their columns turned northwest and cut cross country to get to Seminary Ridge. Therefore, using the Peach Orchard as the marker point, I had to calculate how long it took the infantry to traverse the distance from Marsh Creek to that point at the Common Time. It is 3.4 miles from Marsh Creek to the Peach Orchard. To reach the approximate time of arrival, I had to divide the distance (3.4 miles) by the rate of march at Quick Time (2.9 mph) which translated into 1.17 hours (1 hour 10 minutes) to get to the Peach Orchard.

Witnesses said that Cutler’s Brigade, which led the advance, got at least a 1 mile to 1.5 mile lead on the Iron Brigade. Cutler’s men left their bivouac around 6:45 a.m. They would have reached the Peach Orchard around 7:55 a.m. Rounding it up to 8:00 a.m., places Cutler at the Peach Orchard at the time that Meredith’s Iron Brigade left its Marsh Creek bivouac. This created a 3.4 mile gap between the two brigades, not a 1 mile – 1.5 mile lead. Cutler halted at the Peach Orchard, according to the men to get a breather and, by my undocumented conjecture, to probably allow time for Meredith to catch up.

The 19th Indiana received word around 7:30 a.m. that the division would march at 8:00 a.m.. Meredith’s Westerners left the bivouac at Marsh Creek on schedule but at what some referred to as a leisurely pace. More than likely, they were at the Common Time rate but in Route Step. The men kept their intervals and pace but not in step and with their weapons at the carry which they preferred, and they were allowed to talk while on the move.  Being, at the least, 2 miles further north, within sight of Big Round Top, the brigade would not reach the regiment until around 8:50 a.m. (Colonel Samuel J. Williams 19^th Indiana recorded that the regiment was on the march before 9:00 a.m..) Allowing 5 minutes for the regiment to take its place in the column, it would take another 35 minutes to reach the Peach Orchard around 9:30 a.m., by which time Cutler’s men were in the swale west of the Seminary and out of sight.

I also had to estimate how long it took Reynolds and his staff to reach the Peach Orchard from Marsh Creek. Moving at a Trot/Gallop (8.975 mph) to make good time and not overtax their animals would put them at the Peach Orchard within in 22 minutes. If Reynolds and Wadsworth left Marsh Creek around 7:30 a.m., they could have overtaken the head of the column by 8:00 a.m., which would have given them time to dismount, examine their maps and give the infantry a much needed rest. Colonel Hofmann (56th Pennsylvania) saw Reynolds and his staff dismounted in the road at the Peach Orchard studying a map.

From there, Reynolds and his entourage, without Wadsworth, took the Emmitsburg Road into Gettysburg. They traveled north on the Emmitsburg Road to the Taneytown Road-Washington Street intersection. They stopped momentarily at the George George house to ask for the most direct route to Seminary Ridge. They took Washington Street north to York Street.  Turning west, they rode to the Chambersburg Pike intersection and followed it northwest to the seminary building. The General did a short inspection with Buford to the west to McPherson’s Ridge to the position held by Calef’s Battery – a distance of 2.73 miles. They then returned through Gettysburg by shorter route than he took into the town.  At the Gallop that would mean that Reynolds left the Peach Orchard around 8:15 a.m. 

            The general, before returning to Wadsworth’s Division, made a preliminary reconnaissance of McPherson’s ridge, and stopped in a field near to Seminary to dispatch his aides to various corps commanders and to Army Headquarters. He then rode to the John Burns House on the southeast corner of York and West Streets, where he turned south on West Street.  The corner of West and High Street, he went east to Washington Street. He took Washington Street to the Emmitsburg Road where he encountered Major Henry E. Tremain, General Sickles’s aide de camp, and stopped briefly to scan Cemetery Hill and the surrounding field before riding to Codori’s at which place he sent Cutler’s Brigade through the field to the northwest. Adding an estimated .6 miles on his return route the distance works out to 2.66 miles, which he could have covered in about 20 minutes. At the minimum gallop, had he left McPherson’s Ridge at 8:40 a.m., he could have reached Codori’s about 9:00 a.m., the time most of Cutler’s witnesses said they started cross country. At a faster gate, Reynolds and his staff could have stayed until 8:50 a.m. and still arrived at Codori’s by that time.

            Cutler’s Brigade reached Codori’s around 9:00 a.m..  Pioneers went forward to widen the fence openings which Company L, 1^st Maine Cavalry had created to make the advance. A couple of the regiments used the delay to load their weapons. They crossed the field at the Double-Quick the rate for which could vary from 5.2 – 5.625 mph. The distance from Codori’s to the college lane is 1.42 miles. At that speed, the head of the column would have reached the lane within 15 to 16 minutes. Interestingly enough, G. B Garrison, Buford’s scout, jotted the infantry’s time of arrival at 9:15 a.m.

This is the time line of departure and arrival as I understand it and Reynolds’s activities upon the field. Being the proverbial “work in progress,” these times could vary as the research progresses.

1.      6:45 a.m. Cutler’s Brigade leaves the Marsh Creek bivouac, with Cutler at the head of the column.

2.      7:00 a.m. Meredith’s Iron Brigade forms in the Emmitsburg Road at Marsh Creek.

3.      7:26 a.m. Cutler’s brigade passes the 19^th Indiana at the Alexander Currens place. (2 miles from Marsh Creek)

4.      7:30 Reynolds, Wadsworth and their staffs leave the Marsh Creek bivouac.

5.      7:45 a.m., the generals pass the 19^th Indiana at Alexander Currens. (2 miles from Marsh Creek)

6.      7:55 a.m. Cutler’s brigade halts at the Peach Orchard. (3.4 miles from the Marsh Creek bivouac.)

7.      7:55 a.m. Reynolds, Wadsworth and their escorts arrive at the head of Cutler’s brigade at the Peach Orchard.

8.      8:00 a.m. Meredith’s brigade marches out of the Marsh Creek bivouac.

9.      8:00 a.m. Biddle’s Brigade heads north on the Nunemaker Mill Road.

10.  7:55 a.m. – 8:10 a.m. The generals dismount to study their maps.

11.  They dismount to study a map for about 15 minutes – 8:10 a.m. – before mounting up to reconnoiter the situation west of the town.

12.  8:10 a.m. – 8:35 a.m. Reynolds and his officers, without Wadsworth and his staff ride through Gettysburg. He meets Buford at the seminary and they ride out to McPherson’s Ridge, where Buford redeploys Calef’s Battery. (3.19 miles)

13.  8:35 a.m. – 9:00 a.m. Reynolds takes in the situation, rides back to the Chambersburg Road, halts briefly to disperse several aides to Howard, Sickles, Meade, and Wadsworth . He then rides back by West Street to High Street to the Emmitsburg Road where he meets Major Tremain.  He momentarily stops to study the surrounding terrain. From there he rides to Codori’s and meets Wadsworth who is leading Cutler’s Brigade north. He orders Wadsworth to move Cutler across the fields to Seminary Ridge. (2.66 miles)

14.  8:50 a.m. - 8:55 a.m. The 19th Indiana joins the Iron Brigade near Alexander Currens’s place.

15.  9:00 a.m. – 9:30 a.m.  Reynolds and Wadsworth with their staffs ride back through town and west on the Chambersburg Road to the McPherson farm.

16.  9:00 a.m. – 9:15 a.m. The remainder of Company L, 1^st Maine Cavalry cuts north across the fields to tear down fences for the passage of Cutler’s brigade. Infantry pioneers follow in their wake to widen the gaps in the fences, with the infantry in column in their wake. 

17.  9:15 a.m. The 76^th New York, at the front of Cutler’s brigade, halts at the eastern base of Seminary Ridge while the pioneers clear an opening in the fence along the Chambersburg Road to allow the passage of Hall’s Maine Battery. (1.42 miles from Codori’s to the Seminary Lane at the Chambersburg Road.)

18.  9:15 a.m. Biddle’s Brigade crossed Marsh Creek at Sach’s Bridge on what is now the Water Works Road.

19.  9:15 a.m. - 9:30 a.m. Cutler’s brigade, in column, has ascended Seminary Ridge, south of the seminary and is moving north through the low ground east of McPherson’s Ridge. It cannot be seen from the Peach Orchard at the Emmitsburg Road. (.13 miles)  

20.  9:15 a.m.- 9:30 a.m. Reynolds has ordered Hall’s Battery B, 2^nd Maine Artillery to replace Calef’s two sections of horse artillery on McPherson’s Ridge, north of the Chambersburg Road.

21.  9:30 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. Reynolds rides into the low ground south of the pike and leads the 95^th New York and the 14^th Brooklyn onto the ridge south of the guns. In so doing, he sees the part of the 5^th Alabama Battalion skirmishers slowly working through the woods toward the right flank of the 14^th Brooklyn with the rest of their brigade not too far behind.

22.  9:30 a.m. The 2^nd Wisconsin reaches the Peach Orchard and finds Cutler’s Brigade is nowhere in sight, which leaves the men with the impression they are at the head of the division and are therefore the first troops on the field.

23.  9:30 a.m., Double Day’s column, consisting of Wainwright’s I Corps Artillery Brigade (three batteries), followed, respectively, by Stone’ Brigade of Rowley’s Third Division, then Robinson’s Second Division, starts its march north on the Emmitsburg Road.

24.  9:30 a.m. Doubleday dispatches Lt. Charles Marten to contact Reynolds and get instructions for his deployment.

25.  9:35 a.m. – 9:40 a.m. Doubleday sends Lt. Eminel P. Halstead and Meredith L. Jones to get orders from Reynolds.

26.  9:30 a.m. – 9:45 a.m. Meredith quick time marches to Codori’s. (.72 miles)

27.  9:45 a.m. – 10:00 a.m., the 2^nd Wisconsin, leading the Iron Brigade at the double-quick, reaches the Seminary Lane on the Chambersburg Road. (1.42 miles)

28.  10:00 a.m. – 10:05 a.m., at the double-quick, the 2^nd Wisconsin reaches the campus main street, where it encounters General Reynolds, who urges them forward. (.13 miles)

29.  10:00 a.m. – 10:05 a.m. Lt. Marten meets Reynolds at the Seminary and gets orders for Doubleday to protect the Fairfield Road.

30.  10:05 a.m. – 10:10 a.m. the 2^nd Wisconsin double-quicks into the Rebs on McPherson’s Ridge.

31.  10:05 a.m. – 10:10 a.m. Lieutenants. Halstead and Jones arrive at the Seminary. Reynolds orders Halstead to bring up the rest of the I Corps quickly and Jones is told to fetch Wainwright’s artillery.

32.  10:15 a.m. Biddle reaches the Fairfield Road at Henry Meals’s place.

33.  10:25 a.m. (estimated) Marten delivers his orders to Doubleday.

34.  10:30 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. Meredith’s Brigade is rounding up prisoners and gathering weapons on the west side of Willoughby Run.

35.  10:35 a.m. (estimated) Halstead and Jones reach the head of the Artillery Brigade about .5 miles southwest of the Millerstown Road intersection.

36.  10:35 a.m. Doubleday turns back to bring up the rest of the Corps

37.  10:35 a.m. Wainwright put his guns in motion at the trot and he heads toward Gettysburg.