Lee and His Men at Gettysburg: The Death of a Nation (39 page)

The officer who was the center of the preliminary stirrings was a twenty-eight-year-old colonel of an artillery battalion, E. Porter Alexander. Born in Washington, Georgia, in a plantation town house, Colonel Alexander was a highly gifted and literate young aristocrat whose range of talents extended far beyond his chosen profession of arms. As a soldier, his energy, confidence, and flexible intelligence had earned him a more varied career in his six years out of West Point (class of ’57) than many competent professionals in both armies achieved in a lifetime.

After some frontier service and a period as instructor at West Point, the impressive-looking young Georgian was selected to study the newfangled system of signaling by flags. At First Manassas, attached to Beauregard’s staff as engineering and signal officer, Alexander made important use of his flags and introduced the “wig-wag” method of signaling into warfare. Transferred to field ordnance, he rose to chief ordnance officer before, in November 1862, he was drafted into the artillery. As he first commanded a gun battalion in action at Fredericksburg, during the Gettysburg campaign Colonel Alexander had little more than six months’ artillery experience behind him.

Because of the brevity of his service, in the May reorganization Colonel Walton, of the famed Washington Artillery from New Orleans, was appointed chief of corps artillery, and Porter Alexander was
not
(as is usually stated) chief of Longstreet’s artillery at Gettysburg. What happened was that General Longstreet, perceiving Alexander’s unusual talents, used Walton’s temporary absence from the field on administrative duties as an excuse for placing the young Georgian unofficially in field command for that battle. Later Colonel Walton showed a bitter resentment at the assumption that Alexander was chief of First Corps artillery at Gettysburg. Without belittling Walton, it is nonetheless true that Long-street’s pragmatic shift in’his artillery command placed at the head of his guns the most brilliant cannoneer ever in the Army of Northern Virginia and one of the instinctive soldiers in the
Wer
.

Yet Alexander’s role further muddled the already confused situation in army artillery command. The source of the confusion was the abolition of the reserve artillery corps in the pre-invasion reorganization. The Federal army made the same experiments with abolishing the artillery reserve, and the wisdom of retaining it was never more forcefully illustrated than at Gettysburg. If, as is probable, Lee was influenced in his decision by the ineffectualness of the Reverend General Pendleton as chief of reserve artillery, he was betrayed by his personal loyalties in upping the well-meaning bumbler to the official, if nominal, status of chief of artillery.

The clergyman, whose only military training lay mistily among memories of his youth, was not an instinctive soldier, and the absorption with details that made him an able administrator gave him the type of vision that sees the trees instead of the woods. In battle, he fussed over pieces of artillery rather than viewing the effect of fire on the enemy. In giving him a higher title while placing more authority with the artillery corps commanders, Lee evidently expected his friend to content himself with the administrative duties of the artillery corps. This was a not inconsiderable task, and its proper performance would have been highly useful.

The Confederate caissons and ordnance wagons carried from 130 to 150 rounds per gun into Pennsylvania, and the practice was for the cannoneers to supply the caissons with ammunition from wagons “parked” (as they said) near by. The reserve supply of ammunition was carried in other wagons with the wagon trains, and the wagoneers near the guns replaced their ammunition from these reserve wagons. Ideally, the reserve ordnance wagons carried about 100 rounds for each of the 240 guns with the army, though Alexander believed that on the invasion they carried no more than 60 rounds. To maintain the flow of ammunition from the reserve wagons through the ordnance wagons to the caissons was an assignment that Pendleton was ideally equipped to fulfill.

But, a dedicated Confederate and too obtuse to perceive the nuances of his promotion, this “Granny” (as a First Corps captain called him) took his title literally. With the best intent in the world, he sought to “supervise” the whole artillery operation. The result was that he parked the reserve wagons too far from the field to be of any use. Then, although he placed the lighter ordnance wagons near by in a protected hollow, some unauthorized person (unknown to this day) moved the ordnance wagons without telling anyone. Vital time was lost while frantic caisson-drivers searched for the wagons. On finding them, they discovered that the wagons had not been re-supplied from reserve ordnance for shot spent the day before. By trying to supervise everywhere, conscientious Pendleton had failed to exercise control where he was most needed.

This contribution of Pendleton, costly as it was to the assaulting forces, merely illustrated the effects of his anomalous status. Not doing that which he should have done, the chief of artillery lurked around the artillery corps commanders and gave them the impression that he was exercising the supervisory control implied by his title. He was not.

Alexander did not know what Lindsay Walker was doing with Hill’s artillery, and Walker apparently was not even sure of what he was doing himself. A fundamentally capable man who improved steadily in command of the Third Corps artillery, the personable and well-connected Virginian showed at Gettysburg the effects of his inexperience at the post, of the uncertainty in army command, and of the long wait.

Walker had allowed his men to waste ammunition during the late morning in the pointless fight over a barn, while Alexander forbade his gunners to fire a shot. Then, because his corps commander, A. P. Hill, had tacitly turned over his attacking troops to Longstreet, Walker’s artillery was left somewhere between the authority of Hill, Longstreet, and Pendleton.

Pendleton’s supervision of Walker’s guns consisted in removing nine howitzers, whose range was too short for the bombardment, and transferring them to Alexander. They were the guns Alexander planned to use in immediate support of the infantry in the charge. When he turned to send them in, Pendleton had moved them elsewhere. Pendleton’s reason was sound—their placement exposed them to the enemy’s counter artillery fire—but he neglected to inform Alexander.

With his attention thus occupied by moving nine guns around, when the great cannonade opened Pendleton took no notice of the number of Walker’s batteries which were silent. Even more fundamental, he permitted the traditional parallel alignment of Walker’s guns which ignored the opportunity to direct crossfire on the enemy. It is more than possible that earnest Pendleton did not himself recognize this missed opportunity. The same opening was offered to Ewell’s corps artillery and was equally ignored. Those guns actually needed supervision, as Stapleton Crutchfield, corps artillery commander, was out wounded.

For whatever reasons, two thirds of Lee’s artillery was idle or improperly employed. The guns achieved little beyond adding to the terrifying noise and, overshooting, scaring the men in Meade’s noncombatant services who had hitherto opperated safely in the rear.

Colonel Long, of Lee’s staff, in the old army had received gunnery instruction from General Henry Hunt, now commanding the Federal artillery. When the fire became scattered, Long wondered what his old instructor would think of it. General Hunt thought very little of it. After the war he told his former gunnery student that “he had not been satisfied with the conduct of the cannonade”—which he had believed was under Long’s direction—“insomuch as he [Long] had not done justice to his instruction.”

Pendleton cannot be said to have been responsible for all the errors, but his fussy presence made nobody responsible.

Alexander’s attention was directed away from the details of ammunition toward the larger sphere of a decision involving the whole attack. This decision was placed upon the young Georgian by Longstreet.

With every foot soldier and every gunner in position, ready and waiting, Longstreet could not bring himself to commit the troops.

Between twelve and one o’clock, wherever he had been earlier, Longstreet was in the clearing north of the Spangler’s Woods which served as general headquarters. There Lee’s staff officers moved restlessly in the glaring heat, other staff officers came and went, military observers from other countries, field glasses in hand, sought points of vantage to view the charge that must eventually be delivered. No newspapermen were present. Longstreet may or may not have conferred with Lee during this final hour of the wait. No record shows any exchange between them—or, indeed, that Longstreet consulted anyone.

He wrote a rather garbled note to Alexander, the burden of which was to give the twenty-eight-year-old cannoneer the responsibility for ordering the attack. After sending the message off by a courier, Longstreet settled down on the grass with his back against the snake fence that, running east to west, marked the northern boundary of Spangler’s Woods. There he was completely alone. The day before, Longstreet had shown his ability to immobilize himself in a state of complete inanition. Propped against Spangler’s fence the stolid general went further: he fell asleep.

Thus it was that an obscure artillery colonel, placed temporarily in charge of one corps’s batteries, was given the responsibility of opening the decisive action of the Battle of Gettysburg.

It was Alexander’s first large assignment with the army that, in his experience, had always performed with heroic adroitness. Out in front of the infantry with his guns along the road, away from all general officers, Porter Alexander had no reason to suspect that the assault forming behind him was collapsing in detail before it started. Had he known this, the charge would probably never have been made.

The artillery colonel, who all day had done those things that should have been done, grappled with the immediate problem presented to him by Longstreet’s note.

8

Colonel Alexander was among those officers who began their day at three in the morning. In the moonlight he was placing gun batteries for the morning attack, following orders that Longstreet later claimed had not been given the night before. By daylight Alexander had seventy-five guns in proper position except for one battery that he observed was exposed; to his relief, he was able to shift it without drawing enemy fire. From then on, his biggest job, like that of his companions, was to do nothing in the face of a powerful enemy. But he was not a nervous man, and, probably more than any other Confederate on the field, he perceived precisely what was expected of him.

Under some negligent provocations from the enemy and uneasy bustlings around him, Alexander succeeded in doing nothing while waiting until Longstreet’s curious note reached him around noon. The note said:

If the artillery fire does not have the effect to drive off the enemy or greatly demoralize him, so as to make our effort pretty certain, I should prefer that you not advise Pickett to make the charge. I shall rely a great deal upon your judgment to determine the matter and shall expect you to let General Pickett know when the moment offers.

This note made a profound impression on the young artillerist. Alexander wrote about that moment three times after the war—around the ages of forty, fifty, and nearly seventy—and his accounts never varied. A composite of his reports of receiving Longstreet’s message reads:

“The note rather startled me … [It] suggested at once that there was some alternative to the attack, and placed me on the responsibility of deciding the question. … If that assault was to be made on General Lee’s judgment it was all right, but I did not want it on mine. … Until that moment, though I fully recognized the strength of the enemy’s position, I had not doubted that we would carry it, in my confidence that Lee was ordering it. But here was a proposition that
I
should decide the question. Overwhelming reasons against the assault at once seemed to stare me in the face.”

Alexander here revealed the tremendous expansion required of mind and character in passing from the subordinate’s responsibility, limited to tactical performance, into the sphere of making decisions that affected the whole army. The depth of Longstreet’s disturbance was indicated by his willingness to shift such a responsibility onto a young gunner; Alexander’s contrasting soundness was indicated both by his declining to accept this responsibility and by his manner of so doing.

He hurriedly wrote on a piece of foolscap paper an answer which, if not (because of excitement) illustrative of his literacy, showed his comprehension of the total military situation and went to the heart of Longstreet’s proposition.

General: I will only be able to judge the affect of our fire on the enemy by this return fire, as his infantry is little exposed to view and the smoke will obscure the field. If, as I infer from your note, there is any alternative to this attack, it should be carefully considered before opening our fire, for it will take all the ammunition we have left to test this one, and if result is unfavorable we will have none left for another effort. And even if this is entirely successful, it can only be so at a very bloody cost.

A courier rode off from Alexander’s post at the peach orchard with this reply that, giving clearly the artillerist’s military opinion, declined to act for the corps commander. The courier aroused the stocky general who never admitted he had been asleep. He said he had retired to think.

Years later, in trying to show that he had acted despite his opposition to Lee’s plan, Longstreet said he had replied to Alexander that, according to Lee’s orders, “there was no alternative; that I could find no way out of it; that General Lee had considered and would listen to nothing else; that orders had gone for the guns to give signal for the batteries [to open fire]; that he should call the troops [forward] at the first opportunity or lull in the enemy’s fire.”