Dixie Betrayed (27 page)

The small regiment posted on the extreme left of Little Round Top on the warm afternoon was the Twentieth Maine Infantry,
commanded by Col. Joshua L. Chamberlain, a former professor at Bowdoin College. As the repeated attacks struck along the lines
from the woods, Chamberlain’s Twentieth Maine was running desperately low on ammunition. It was a moment of crisis for the
Union cause at Gettysburg. “A critical moment has arrived, and we can remain as we are no longer,” wrote Theodore Gerrish,
a private in the Twentieth Maine. “We must advance or retreat. It must not be the latter, but how can it be the former? Colonel
Chamberlain understands how it can be done. The order is given ‘Fix bayonets!’ and the steel shanks of the bayonets rattle
upon the rifle barrels. ‘Charge bayonets, charge!’”
³

Although Gerrish’s account is embellished (he was not present at the battle, and no such order was dispatched), the passage
helped immortalize the legendary fight of the Twentieth Maine on Little Round Top, which sent Col. William Oates’s Alabamans
downhill in a scramble. Other actions along the crest of Little Round Top held the position for the Federal army, and the
many other concurrent fights slowly wound down into the silent campfires of the night.

The second day at Gettysburg may have decided the outcome of the battle, but the next day, July 3, would offer its greatest
spectacle. Dissatisfied with the prospect of pulling away without a decisive victory, Lee ordered a desperate charge toward
the one area that had not been struck forcefully the previous day—the Union center, held by none other than Hancock’s Second
Corps. In hindsight it was a foolish move, and some commanders—most notably Longstreet—chafed at the idea on the spot. But
the Confederate commander believed the Federal guns were running low on ammunition, and he reasoned that if he could split
the Union center, he could drive a wedge through the army and rout the Yankees yet. The frontal attack came on the afternoon
of July 3 and consisted of divisions under Maj. Gen. George E. Pickett and Brig. Gens. James J. Pettigrew and Isaac R. Trimble.
All together more than twelve thousand men would march more than a mile across the plain toward a copse of trees and an angle
in the stone wall, beyond which Union blue coated the landscape, rifles and ordnance ready.

The relative silence at noontime on July 3 didn’t last long. “The cannonade in the center soon began, and presented one of
the most magnificent battle-scenes witnessed during the war,” wrote Evander M. Law, the Confederate brigadier general who
inherited Hood’s division. “Looking up the valley toward Gettysburg, the hills on either side were capped with crowns of flame
and smoke, as 300 guns, about equally divided between the two ridges, vomited their iron hail upon each other.”
⁴

The artillery barrage, designed to prepare the Union center for the assault, carried on in full force as the assembled Southerners
readied to move out of the woods. In Longstreet’s words, “Pickett said, ‘General, shall I advance?’ The effort to speak the
order failed, and I could only indicate it by an affirmative bow.”
⁵
Pickett scurried to the assembled troops, blaring, “Up, men, and to your posts! Don’t forget today that you are from old
Virginia.”

The attack proceeded, the Union soldiers momentarily stunned at the vision of such a long line of gray moving toward them.
The Federal artillery belched long-range shell, shot, and finally short-range canister, and waves of bluecoats poured lines
of fire into the approaching Rebels. It was a desperate moment of the war. As Edmund Rice, lieutenant colonel of the Nineteenth
Massachusetts Infantry, recalled, “Voices were lost in the uproar; so I turned partly toward them, raised my sword to attract
their attention, and motioned to advance. They surged forward, and just then, as I was stepping backward with my face toward
the men, urging them on, I felt a sharp blow as a shot struck me, then another; I whirled round, my sword torn from my hand
by a bullet or shell splinter. My visor saved my face, but the shock stunned me.” Rice won the Medal of Honor for his action
that afternoon. Another Federal officer, Col. Frank Haskell, remembered the chaos: “The line springs—the crest of the solid
ground with a great roar, heaves forward its maddened load, men, arms, smoke, fire, a fighting mass. It rolls to the wall—flash
meets flash, the wall is crossed—a moment ensues of thrusts, yells, blows, shots, and indistinguishable conflict, followed
by a shout universal that makes the welkin ring again, and the last and bloodiest fight of the great battle of Gettysburg
is ended and won.”
⁶

Gettysburg indeed had ended. Lee’s spectacular attack was a failure, most of those who marched toward the Union line dead,
wounded, or captured. The following day Lee marched his army southward, back toward Virginia, Meade’s battered force too depleted
of energy, ammunition, and supplies to pursue with any meaning. To make matters worse, however, on the same day the siege
at Vicksburg came to a close, Pemberton and his remaining Confederates surrendered to Grant. The double victory marked a major
turning point of the war and the beginning of the end for the Confederate nation.

At Vicksburg the celebration of the weary Union troops was vigorous, the terms offered by Grant typically magnanimous. “As
soon as our troops took possession of the city, guards were established along the whole line of parapet, from the river above
to the river below,” wrote Grant. “The prisoners were allowed to occupy their old camps behind the intrenchments. No restraint
was put upon them, except by their own commanders.”
⁷

In Washington, although he was disturbed by Meade’s lethargic pursuit of Lee, Lincoln finally had a major event to celebrate.
He had found not only a victory at Vicksburg but also a reliable and forceful commander.

As the major war news was unfolding at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, the summer of 1863 also brought action along the Atlantic
coast and at the gateway into the Deep South. In Charleston, South Carolina, a hotbed of rebellion, the Federal navy and army
made slow progress by a series of movements on land and water. A naval attack in April by Rear Adm. Samuel F. Du Pont failed,
but by July the Federal army initiated another set of engagements designed to disable the forts protecting Charleston Harbor.
The troops would assault James Island and Morris Island, capture Fort Wagner and Battery Gregg, and place guns to concentrate
fire on Fort Sumter.

Leading the attack through a thin strip of sand on Fort Wagner was Col. Robert Gould Shaw’s Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Infantry,
a national regiment of African American soldiers, one of the first deployed in combat. The attack on Wagner became a test
of whether black American troops could fight effectively. An account of the attack of July 18 published in the
New York Tribune
records the outcome: “In the midst of this terrible shower of shot and shell they pushed their way, reached the Fort, portions
of the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts, the Sixth Connecticut, and the Forty-eighth New York dashed through the ditches, gained
the parapet, and engaged in a hand-to-hand fight with the enemy, and for nearly half an hour held their ground, and did not
fall back until nearly every commissioned officer was shot down.”
⁸
The attack failed, but the gallant efforts of Shaw’s regiment strongly supported the emerging role of black Americans in
the crucial first summer of emancipation.

B
ACK
in Richmond political squabbles continued at a frenzied pace despite the fact that the third session of Congress had ended
on May 1 and the fourth session would not begin until December. With battles east and west raging, every politician on hiatus
and officers in the capital city or in the field speculated on where the whole war was headed. Greatly upset at the loss of
Vicksburg, Jefferson Davis asked Joe Johnston how he possibly could have allowed it to happen, having been in the area (though
not the commanding general holding the city). “Painfully anxious as to the result,” Davis wrote, “I have remained without
information from you as to any plans proposed or attempted to raise the siege. Equally uninformed as to your plans in relation
to Port Hudson, I have to request such information in relation thereto as the Government has a right to expect from one of
its commanding Generals in the field.”
⁹
Davis was further irritated with Johnston over the latter’s seemingly cavalier grasp of authority to do what he wished. “After
a full examination of all the correspondence between you and myself and the War Office, including the despatches referred
to in your telegrams of the 20th inst., I am still at a loss to account for your strange error in stating to the Secretary
of War that your right to withdraw reinforcements from Bragg’s Army had been restricted by the Executive, or that your command
over the Army of Tennessee had been withdrawn.”
¹⁰
For weeks Davis and Johnston continued to bicker over the responsibility and authority of the Mississippi theater and who
was responsible for the loss of Vicksburg.

Former South Carolina governor Francis Pickens, still fuming over the loss of Vicksburg and John Pemberton’s alleged incompetence
while stationed at Charleston, could not resist playing “I told you so” to his confidant in Richmond, Louis Wigfall. “You
know I wrote you three months ago, that we would lose Vicksburg & the S. West from the incompetency of Pemberton,” Pickens
wrote, “and now the facts . . . have no room to doubt in any man’s head, and if Pemberton is put in responsible command again,
I assure you it will be a great public calamity. It will produce deep seated disaffection, & endanger any army. I know him
well.”
¹¹
This provided still more authority to rail against Davis, who was Pemberton’s friend.

On August 1 Davis wrote again to Johnston, sending a newspaper clipping critical of Davis and pointing out that it clearly
had been written by “someone having access to your correspondence.” Moreover, a staff member of Johnston’s had been found
showing similar material around Richmond. “A copy of a letter written by one of your staff has been exhibited in this city
which contains passages so identical with the published communication as to leave little room for doubt as to its origin,”
Davis fumed. He asked Johnston to “take the proper action.”
¹²

Johnston looked to his old friend Louis Wigfall for help, writing him a heartfelt letter in August. “I write [because] my
wife, who apprehends that the whole power of the government is preparing to overwhelm me, insists on it,” Johnston admitted.
He then gave Wigfall a lengthy treatise on how he could not possibly have conducted the operations in Mississippi any better.
¹³

Soon thereafter Davis wrote again to Johnston. He now knew that Johnston’s medical director, John M. Johnson, had allowed
a newspaper editor to copy some of Johnston’s private correspondence. Davis found the medical director’s explanation “not
satisfactory” and wrote to Johnston that “I feel that it would be unjust to you to have on your staff an officer, who copies
your official correspondence without your knowledge, and sends it to another who permits its publication.”
¹⁴

Davis also continued his fight with the powerful Alabama senator William Yancey. “I have now received your letter of 11th
inst.,” the president wrote, “in which you not only omit entirely any answer to my inquiry, but make the very grave charge
that in my official action I have been ‘influenced by feelings of personal hostility’ to yourself, and not satisfied with
reporting that this charge is based on information received by you, you add that you ‘believe it.’ Repelling this charge as
utterly untrue, I again claim the right of inquiring on what information it is based.”
¹⁵
It was nearly a carbon copy emotionally of what he had written Yancey months before, and as then, it had virtually no effect.
The controversy would smolder for months to come.

The governors also continued to pelt Davis with requests for help, which he most often felt he could not comply with. For
example, cantankerous Joe Brown pressed Davis for more troops to help guard Georgia’s railroads. “I regret, however, that
the pressing exigencies of the service at other points actually invaded or immediately menaced by the enemy will not permit
that a regiment of cavalry should be detached from the armies in the field for the service which you suggest,” the president
told him.
¹⁶

Davis’s good friend Francis Lubbock, governor of Texas, continued to push the Confederate leader for more of practically everything
for the Lone Star State. “I am satisfied your Excellency does not underrate the importance of Texas to the Confederacy,” Lubbock
wrote. “We need but arms; with an adequate supply, we will battle manfully, and, I trust, with success. The Confederate Government
it is reported, have on hand a large quantity of arms.”
¹⁷
Davis, however, could not help.

From South Carolina, Governor Milledge Bonham implored the people of his state to loan more slaves to the state government.
“An immediate necessity exists for three thousand laborers,” the governor requested, “for a period not exceeding one month.
. . . Let every citizen, without a moment’s delay, send every hand he can spare. . . . A discreet [
sic
] overseer to every fifty hands should be sent. The hands should bring spades and shovels. . . . The Executive ventures to
say the negroes will be properly cared for.”
¹⁸
The call was answered by some, but ignored by many. On August 27 Bonham issued a declaration increasing the required furnished
labor for the construction of coastal defenses in and around Charleston. Slave owners now were ordered to send “all they can
share.”
¹⁹
While he was appealing to his own people, Bonham also sent unsatisfied missives to congressmen in Richmond.