Hess Earl J. Field Armies and Fortifications in the Civil War: The Eastern Campaigns, 1861-1864

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218 Gettysburg and Lee’s Pennsylvania Campaign

three brigades aligned on the guns and prepared to continue the attack

the next day. Hays’s men reversed West Fort and made connecting trenches

to each side of the work that night. Dusk put an end to the ﬁghting as Gor-

don’s brigade began to dig a redoubt on Bowers Hill. Engineers marked

the outline, and picks and shovels were issued. The Georgians worked

until dawn.

Ω

The fall of West Fort convinced Milroy that he could no longer hold the

town. He had enough artillery ammunition left for only three more hours of

ﬁring, and a council of war advised evacuation. Since Gordon was so close on

Bowers Hill, Milroy ordered all artillery and wagons left behind. The Fed-

erals spiked the guns and took all the ammunition they could carry and left

at 1:00 a.m. on June 15. Ewell sent Johnson’s division toward Stephenson’s

Depot, several miles north of Winchester, to cut off Milroy’s retreat. A sharp

battle was fought there at dawn on June 15—a confused, open ﬁeld ﬁght in

which the poorly handled Union column barely managed to bypass John-

son’s men. About 3,500 Federals were captured, while the rest escaped to

Harpers Ferry and Bloody Run, Pennsylvania.

∞≠

Ewell’s capture of Winchester opened an invasion route for Lee, nabbed a

large haul of prisoners and guns, and demonstrated how a poorly fortiﬁed

post could be quickly overcome with the right tactics. Ewell lost only 266

men in taking the town, but Milroy lost 4,443 (of whom 413 were killed and

wounded), twenty-three guns, and 300 wagons. ‘‘I feel most miserable about

it,’’ Milroy confessed to his wife. ‘‘There is so much disappointment and

anguish in my defeat and retreat from Winchester that it is painful for me to

think of it and relate the facts to you.’’ Milroy was beset by almost every

disadvantage imaginable. He was outnumbered and outmaneuvered. His

fortiﬁcations were inadequate against a force of three divisions, he had no

outside help, and his men did not ﬁght to hold West Fort. A board of inquiry,

held to investigate the disaster, absolved Milroy of blame even though his

lack of inspired leadership contributed to the failure. For their part, the

Confederates celebrated a brilliant victory. Fort Milroy was renamed Fort

Jackson, making it perhaps the fortiﬁcation with the largest number of ali-

ases in the Civil War.

∞∞

Lee started the rest of his army toward Pennsylvania at the same time that

Winchester fell into Ewell’s hands. By late June his eager veterans were

crossing the Potomac River, traversing western Maryland, and entering the

state. The North was aﬂame with anxiety and uncertainty. Lee’s exact target

was unknown, and the authorities and the public alike scrambled to prepare

for any eventuality.

Gettysburg and Lee’s Pennsylvania Campaign 219

Pittsburgh and Harrisburg

Pittsburgh was the ﬁrst to feel the grip of fear, despite its distance from

the theater of war. Already known as the Iron City, it produced 15 percent of

the Union’s cannon and 80 percent of its heavy guns. Reports that Confeder-

ate guerrillas might raid southwestern Pennsylvania from western Virginia

sparked efforts to defend the place. The Department of the Monongahela,

with headquarters at Pittsburgh, was created on June 9, 1863, to be headed

by Brig. Gen. William T. H. Brooks. Brooks found only one militia regiment

and a battery with no guns, but the engineers sent Capt. William P. Craighill

to help fortify the city. Brooks called a public meeting for June 14, the day

Early captured West Fort at Winchester. Here he asked the citizens for up to

5,000 volunteers. Business leaders agreed to provide their employees as

laborers to build the works and pay their salaries while they were doing it, if

the government agreed to provide them a subsidy of $1.25 per man each day.

Brooks readily agreed, and more than 2,000 men gathered for work on

June 15. They broke ground at three places around Pittsburgh, and many

other sites were opened during the next few days. A wide variety of people

worked on the fortiﬁcations: industrial workers, tobacconists, photogra-

phers, carters, stonecutters, and students of the Iron City Business College,

Jefferson College, and Duff ’s College. The city’s free blacks offered their

help; at ﬁrst it was rejected, but then the authorities allowed them to partici-

pate. All told, more than 11,000 people helped build the defenses of Pitts-

burgh. They were still working on July 2 when the temperature reached 111

degrees and the battle of Gettysburg was in full swing. Brooks hired boys to

haul water to the workers.

A surviving time-and-pay book for laborers who built one redoubt, called

Fort Mechanic on Coal Hill, shows that it was begun on June 15. A total of 121

workers spent a week building it, and they received $699.20 for their time.

The water boys were paid seventy-ﬁve cents per day.

News of the battle of Gettysburg cooled the ardor in Pittsburgh, so the

extensive ring of fortiﬁcations was never completed. Only one fort was ever

garrisoned, and it is doubtful if any were armed; but the defenses of the city

were impressive. They totaled sixteen redoubts, sixteen batteries, and one

work large enough to be termed a fort. About twelve miles of defenses circled

the city. Superb postwar photographs show the works to have been well

made and very well sited on the high ground that surrounded Pittsburgh.

The threat of cavalry raids had sparked the building frenzy, yet Craighill

planned and the citizens executed a defensive arrangement that was de-

signed to protect Pittsburgh against a major threat, such as Lee’s army. But

220 Gettysburg and Lee’s Pennsylvania Campaign

the Confederate commander gave no indication of contemplating such an

absurd plan as moving his army through the mountains of northern Ap-

palachia to attack this important but isolated city. Such a move would have

endangered his own men more than Pittsburgh. As it were, the well-made

forts served as monuments to the war for decades to come, until most fell

prey to urban expansion.

∞≤

Harrisburg, on the other hand, had plenty of reason to worry. The state

capital, located on the Susquehanna River in south central Pennsylvania,

was vulnerable to a strike from Virginia and Maryland. South Mountain, the

continuation of Virginia’s Blue Ridge north of the Potomac, curved north and

east directly toward the city, while Cumberland Valley, just to the north of

South Mountain, offered a ready-made avenue of invasion for Lee. The Con-

federates apparently intended to capture or at least threaten Harrisburg, and

the citizens went into a frenzy of digging to protect their homes.

The city lay on the east bank of the Susquehanna, which greatly aided its

defense, but a good ford and two bridges offered easy access across the

stream. In September 1862, Army engineers had recommended that defenses

be constructed in response to Lee’s invasion of Maryland, but the plan was

never implemented. It called for eight redans and a connecting line of infan-

try trenches, built in a four-mile-long semicircle, to cover all approaches to

the river crossings. The plan also called for a large redoubt inside the semi-

circle. Lee’s approach prompted action in 1863. As in Pittsburgh, a public

meeting was held during which 1,000 volunteers were summoned. The 1862

plan was utilized, and a huge work called Fort Washington was started on

Hummel Hill, also known as Bridgeport Heights. John H. Wilson, a Pennsyl-

vania Railroad engineer, helped Capt. Richard I. Dodge of the 8th U.S. Infan-

try lay out the fort on June 15. Although shale made the digging difﬁcult, as

many as 600 volunteers nearly ﬁnished it by June 20. Fort Washington en-

compassed sixty acres within its semicircular conﬁguration, its rear facing

the river. Abatis was placed before it on the slopes of Hummel Hill, artillery

emplacements were built, and a military road was cut up the hill to its rear. A

telegraph line also was stretched up the hill to the fort. The remnants of the

work show a deep, wide ditch in front of large parapets, and there are ample

supplies of the gritty shale that made up the substance of the hill.

Dodge and Wilson also laid out Fort Couch on top of Hummel Hill, half a

mile in front of Fort Washington. The hill actually is a long, commanding

ridge running lengthwise along the valley. Designed by Maj. James Brady of

a Pennsylvania artillery regiment, Fort Couch was built to deny the Rebels

access to the ridgetop and thus was a support and protection for Fort Wash-

ington. Its remnants include a large and wide parapet laid out in a zigzag

Gettysburg and Lee’s Pennsylvania Campaign 221

conﬁguration. Open to the rear, it is much smaller than Fort Washington;

perhaps it was designed to be more extensive but was never ﬁnished. In

addition to Fort Couch, several smaller earthworks were built at different

locations along the route of the Cumberland Valley Railroad west of Harris-

burg and along the Susquehanna River. A number of infantry and artillery

ofﬁcers thought the defenses were weak due to the loose shale that made up

the parapets, which they feared would ﬂy through the air when hit with

projectiles, but Harrisburg was well fortiﬁed despite that possible danger.

∞≥

Gettysburg

The Harrisburg defenses were almost tested in battle. The vanguard of

Ewell’s corps approached within two miles of Fort Washington on June 29,

when Lee ordered his army to concentrate in the general vicinity of Gettys-

burg. Two days later, ﬁghting broke out west of that town, forcing the gen-

erals to accept battle where neither had planned it. Maj. Gen. George G.

Meade, who replaced Hooker on June 28, devised a contingency plan based

on fortifying a strong position that blocked Lee’s path to Washington, D.C.,

and Baltimore. That plan was nulliﬁed by the developing battle at Gettys-

burg, but it was a sound approach to dealing with the Confederate threat.

On the evening of June 28, Meade began moving the Army of the Potomac

from its bivouac near Frederick, Maryland. He established an extended posi-

tion near Emmitsburg, Taneytown, Union Mills, and Westminster so as to

block Lee’s possible moves south and east. The First Corps probed toward

Gettysburg on June 30, hoping to determine more accurately where the

Confederates were located. That same day Lee’s cavalry under Stuart rode

through Meade’s scattered position, passing Union Mills on its way to join Lee

at Gettysburg. The next day, July 1, ﬁghting started at that crossroads town.

Also on July 1, Meade issued a directive to establish what became known

as the Pipe Creek Line. The directive became irrelevant a few hours later

when the scale of the ﬁghting and the need to consolidate the army at

Gettysburg became clear. Meade’s engineers had scouted the location of the

line the day before, enlisting the aid of local resident Peter Koons. A Union

sympathizer, Koons told the ofﬁcers everything he knew of the local topogra-

phy and promised not to reveal to anyone what they were doing. The line

was laid out along the south bank of Big Pipe Creek, which started west

of Manchester and ﬂowed westerly past Union Mills. The creek then veered

southwest between Taneytown and Middleburg to join Little Pipe Creek.

Now named Double Pipe Creek, the stream continued westward to the Mo-

nocacy River. The line was to stretch from the origin of Big Pipe Creek for

nearly twelve miles, almost to Middleburg. Union Mills would be just to the

222 Gettysburg and Lee’s Pennsylvania Campaign

right of the line’s center. The creek valley was narrow and bordered by hills

on what would be Meade’s right, upstream from Union Mills, but it was wide

and ﬂat downstream from that tiny community. The terrain on both sides

consisted of ‘‘high sloping wooded hills’’ about 100 to 200 feet above water

level. These constituted superb positions for infantry and artillery. Baltimore

was thirty-two miles to the southeast, and Washington, D.C., was about ﬁfty

miles due south.

∞∂

The earthworks were never dug because developments at Gettysburg

turned everyone’s attention to the north. Meade was compelled to send

Second Corps commander Winﬁeld S. Hancock with authority to decide

whether to stay and ﬁght or fall back to Pipe Creek. Hancock arrived at

4:00 p.m. on July 1 and decided the army must concentrate at Gettysburg.

Meade then ordered it done. By dawn of July 2, all units of the Army of the

Potomac had left Pipe Creek except the Sixth Corps, and it would soon set

out as well. Meade continued to view Pipe Creek as a possible fall-back

position during the battle. When he asked a council of war on the night of

July 2 whether the army should remain at Gettysburg or retire, he had the

Pipe Creek position in mind. Fortunately, there was little desire on anyone’s

part to give up the good ground at Gettysburg. Because it remained unfor-

tiﬁed and untested, the Pipe Creek position was obscure in the minds of

observers and historians of the campaign. Brig. Gen. Henry J. Hunt, Meade’s

artillery chief, had thoroughly inspected it on the morning of July 1 and

believed it was a better position than the one assumed at Gettysburg. But

First Corps division commander Maj. Gen. Abner Doubleday had little faith

in Lee’s willingness to follow Meade’s plan. He thought that Lee probably

would have avoided the Pipe Creek Line by leaving one corps to occupy the

Federals while he used the other two to attack Harrisburg, perhaps even to

strike at Philadelphia.

∞∑

Whether Meade’s position at Pipe Creek would have been stronger than

the hills and ridges outside Gettysburg will never be known. Gettysburg was

an encounter battle, initiated without plan by either commander but taken

advantage of by both to concentrate their respective armies and accept the

ﬂow of events. Lee brought two of his corps to the battleﬁeld, Hill’s west of

town and Ewell’s north of town, while the Federals pitted their First Corps

under Maj. Gen. John Reynolds against Hill and Howard’s Eleventh Corps

against Ewell.

The ﬁghting on July 1 was grand and bitter, and there was little time

for even hasty fortiﬁcations. Many First Corps units literally deployed from

marching column into battle line while loading their riﬂe muskets on the run.

Reynolds was killed early in the engagement, and his successor, Doubleday,

Gettysburg and Lee’s Pennsylvania Campaign 223

ordered Brig. Gen. John C. Robinson’s division into reserve on Seminary

Ridge. Doubleday instructed Robinson to build ‘‘some slight entrenchments.’’

Brig. Gen. Gabriel R. Paul’s brigade dismantled fences and used the rails to

create a semicircular line covering the west side of the Lutheran Seminary

building. The First Corps line was soon advanced to McPherson’s Ridge 400

yards forward, but the breastwork would come into play as a defensive

position later that day.

∞∏

Meanwhile, elements of the First Corps tangled with Brig. Gen. Joseph R.

Davis’s Mississippi and North Carolina brigade of Heth’s division in and

around one of three cuts of an unﬁnished railroad grade that paralleled

Chambersburg Pike, the major artery entering Gettysburg from the west.

Brig. Gen. Lysander Cutler positioned three regiments to the right of this cut,

but they were outﬂanked by Davis’s advance. Ordered to retire, two of the

regiments managed to do so in orderly fashion, but the leftmost unit, the

147th New York, stayed on the ﬁeld due to a mix-up of orders. It ﬁnally had to

retreat, and part of the regiment ﬂed across the cut to the south side of

Chambersburg Pike as Davis’s men took position in and near the excavation.

Three fresh regiments, led by the 6th Wisconsin of Brig. Gen. Solomon

Meredith’s Iron Brigade and Cutler’s 14th Brooklyn and 95th New York, coun-

terattacked the Rebels. It was a magniﬁcent advance across a long stretch of

open ground. The Wisconsin regiment lost 160 men but managed to close on

the waiting Confederates. Davis’s men found that this civilian feature, like

that at Second Bull Run and Antietam, was at best an imperfect fortiﬁcation.

A. L. P. Vairin of the 2nd Mississippi recalled that ‘‘our men thought [the cut]

would prove a good breastwork but it was too deep.’’ They could not see,

much less ﬁre, over the top of it. What seemed at ﬁrst like a good shelter

turned into a trap. ‘‘I did not go into the cut, seeing its danger,’’ recalled

Vairin, ‘‘and cautioned all I could to get out by the right ﬂank.’’ Davis’s

position collapsed as the 6th Wisconsin alone captured 232 Confederates.

∞π

The Federals reconstructed their position near the railroad cut but later

evacuated it when Ewell’s corps arrived on the battleﬁeld north of Gettys-

burg. Ewell’s artillery enﬁladed Cutler and the other Yankee regiments, so

they fell back. Cutler’s 56th Pennsylvania, along with the 76th and the 147th

New York, took up several positions during the day on and near Oak Ridge,

the continuation of Seminary Ridge north of Chambersburg Pike. At the ﬁrst

of these locations they built a slight breastwork of fence rails. Col. J. William

Hofmann of the 56th Pennsylvania commented that he had seen Confeder-

ates at Antietam who had ‘‘picked up rails and fought very stubbornly behind

them,’’ so he encouraged other regimental commanders to do the same.

Soon after, Brig. Gen. Alfred Iverson’s North Carolina brigade of Ewell’s

224 Gettysburg and Lee’s Pennsylvania Campaign

corps attacked. Its extreme right faced Cutler’s left, but Brig. Gen. Henry

Baxter’s brigade, to Cutler’s right, did most of the work of ripping apart

Iverson’s ranks and decisively stopping this Confederate advance.

∞∫

Maj. Gen. Oliver O. Howard’s Eleventh Corps moved through Gettysburg

to confront Ewell’s veterans north of town. These unlucky victims of Jack-

son’s ﬂank attack at Chancellorsville had no well-deﬁned terrain features to

use as natural fortiﬁcations. Brig. Gen. Francis C. Barlow’s division occupied

Blocher’s Knoll, the only high ground conveniently situated, yet it is clear

that no one in the corps had the time or inclination to construct ﬁeldworks of

any kind. After the war, Capt. Alfred Lee of the 82nd Ohio explained that this

lack of attention contributed to the crushing defeat suffered by the corps.

Barlow’s position was outﬂanked and overrun, and the corps suffered a

ﬁasco that was nearly as bad as that of May 2.

∞Ω

The ﬁnal action on July 1 involved a ﬁerce struggle for the position partly

shielded by Paul’s breastwork around the Lutheran Seminary building. The

Federals were forced to fall back to this position because Heth’s division had

pushed them off McPherson Ridge in heavy ﬁghting. Maj. Gen. William D.

Pender’s division replaced Heth’s exhausted men. The semicircular breast-

work did not cover the entire 700 yards of the First Corps line on Seminary

Ridge. It was only two feet tall, and the ends connected with a stone fence

that stretched along the top of the low ridge for about 200 yards south of

Chambersburg Pike. The Iron Brigade and Col. Chapman Biddle’s brigade,

both worsted in the ﬁght for McPherson Ridge, held the breastwork with

tenacity when Pender advanced. The left wing of Col. Abner Perrin’s South

Carolina brigade and the right wing of Brig. Gen. Alfred M. Scales’s North

Carolina brigade fronted the ﬁeldwork. Scales’s line was raked by ﬁre from a

cluster of Federal guns north of the seminary building, but Perrin managed

to break the Federals through inspired leadership. He detected a weakly

held segment of the Union line just south of the breastwork. Advancing the

14th South Carolina to Biddle’s front to hold his attention, he ordered the

1st South Carolina to advance laterally toward that spot. The Carolinians

smashed through, and the position collapsed, sending the First Corps stream-

ing to the high ground south of Gettysburg.

≤≠

It is not surprising that the Confederates, since they were on the offensive,

paid no attention to constructing breastworks on July 1. Rather than fortify-

ing, their pioneers spent the day on other duties. Thomas Bailey of the 47th

North Carolina in Pettigrew’s brigade had been assigned to the pioneer corps

of Heth’s division on June 10 and was given ‘‘a very sorry spade.’’ The corps

stayed one and a half miles from the battleﬁeld on July 1, moving on to bury

Gettysburg and Lee’s Pennsylvania Campaign 225

the dead that evening. Then it picked up abandoned arms and equipment

the next day when the ﬁghting resumed.

≤∞

While it is understandable that so little fortifying was done on July 1,

there were no excuses on July 2. Even though the ﬁghting did not start until

the evening, very few units on either side dug in. Only the Twelfth Corps and

some regiments of the First Corps took advantage of the lull to construct

earthworks on Culp’s Hill, the anchor of the Union right. Eight hundred

yards southwest of Culp’s Hill lay Cemetery Hill, with Stevens’s Knoll be-

tween. Culp’s Hill has two crests, one much lower than the other, with a

saddle between the two. While the west and south slopes are gentle, the

north and east slopes of both crests are quite steep and rocky. Those slopes

were effective obstacles to an attacking enemy.

The Twelfth Corps and elements of the First Corps dug in here on the eve-

ning of July 1. The 6th Wisconsin of the Iron Brigade had twelve spades and

shovels, quite a lot in comparison with many Civil War regiments. Lt. Col.

Rufus R. Dawes told his men to dig in, and they did it ‘‘with great energy. A

man would dig with all his strength till out of breath, when another would

seize the spade and push on the work. There were no orders to construct

these breastworks, but the situation plainly dictated their necessity.’’

The Iron Brigade line ran along the north slope of Culp’s Hill from Ste-

vens’s Knoll. It was placed on the military crest a few feet forward of the

natural crest. The line incorporated rocky outcroppings whenever possible,

even angling back to the natural crest to do so. Two gaps in the line resulted

from hasty construction. A small opening three feet wide existed between

the left of the 6th Wisconsin and the right of the 2nd Wisconsin, and a gap of

forty yards lay between the left of the 2nd Wisconsin and the right of the 7th

Wisconsin. The latter hole was less dangerous than it appears, for the 7th

was positioned forty yards behind the line of the 2nd. The parapets consisted

of logs, fence rails, rocks, and earth. The dirt came from a trench, for there is

little evidence that a ditch existed. Photographs taken the following Novem-

ber show that some units used posts stuck in the parapet to support the logs

and rails.

≤≤

The Twelfth Corps works, to the right of the Iron Brigade, were con-

structed in a similar manner. Logs and rocks were the main components of

the parapets. In fact, in a photograph taken about July 15, 1863, one section

of the line appears to have no trench or ditch and no earth on the parapet.

Some units took apart a nearby stack of ﬁrewood to revet the works. Several

Twelfth Corps regiments also added headlogs to their parapets. They raised

the log above the work to create slits through which they could ﬁre their riﬂe

226 Gettysburg and Lee’s Pennsylvania Campaign

Federal ﬁeldworks on Culp’s Hill, Gettysburg. Taken about July 15, 1863, this is a view

of works built by the 102nd New York of Greene’s brigade. Note the absence of a trench

or of dirt on the parapet. In places, it appears that the ﬁeldworks of the Twelfth Corps

were simply rock, timber, and rail breastworks. (Massachusetts Commandery, Mili-

tary Order of the Loyal Legion and the U.S. Army Military History Institute)

muskets, duplicating the type of protection at least one Twelfth Corps regi-

ment erected on Hooker’s fortiﬁed bridgehead at Chancellorsville. All of

this construction was done in about four hours of hard labor; the men often

used cups, plates, and bayonets to compensate for the shortage of entrench-

ing tools.

Since these works played a signiﬁcant role when the Confederates at-

tacked Culp’s Hill on July 2, there was lot of postwar argument about who

deserved credit for them. Maj. Gen. Henry W. Slocum, commander of the

Twelfth Corps; division leader Brig. Gen. Alpheus S. Williams; and brigade

leader Brig. Gen. George S. Greene were all credited with the idea. It also

appears that John W. Geary left the option of fortifying up to his brigade

leaders. Geary was said to have remarked that he did not like the idea

personally, as he thought it might dull the offensive spirit of the men, but

Greene disagreed and dug in anyway. Williams later wrote his daughter that

he ordered his division to build works, for he had ‘‘experienced their beneﬁts

at Chancellorsville.’’ It seemed ‘‘almost absurd’’ to do so, given the rough

Gettysburg and Lee’s Pennsylvania Campaign 227

nature of the slope in front of his men. ‘‘Still, though ridiculous the work, we

were there, and our men had learned to love entrenching with logs. So at it

they went and in a couple of hours had covered themselves with a good,

substantial breastwork.’’

It made little difference who was credited for initiating the ﬁeldworks at

Culp’s Hill, for all signs pointed to their construction. The Iron Brigade was

already fortifying its line before the Twelfth Corps began. Slocum’s men had

ample experience with earthworks at Chancellorsville, so it would have been

surprising if they had lolled about on the hill all evening doing nothing.

≤≥

On Stevens’s Knoll the 5th Maine Battery was protected by small lunettes

consisting of semicircular parapets. Similar works shielded the artillery on

Cemetery Hill. Capt. Michael Wiedrich’s Battery I, 1st New York Light Artil-

lery, made low, semicircular parapets. These did not interfere with the tra-

versing of the muzzle but offered little protection for the gunners. No ad-

ditional construction of artillery defenses took place after Capt. R. Bruce

Ricketts’s Batteries F and G, 1st Pennsylvania Light Artillery, arrived on Cem-

etery Hill at 4:30 p.m.

At the very least, small earthworks helped to shield the artillery on Ceme-

tery Hill during the ﬁghting of July 2, and they probably were improved the

next day. A photograph taken about July 12, 1863, of the eastern side of the

hill shows much more elaborate works for Lt. James Stewart’s Battery B, 4th

U.S. Artillery. It had three guns on the north side of Baltimore Pike and one

on the south side. The photograph shows substantial log revetments sup-

porting the stone and earth parapets. There was one such work, wrapping

around three sides but open to the rear, for each gun.

While the artillery on Cemetery Hill was at least partially protected, the

infantry manning this sector of Meade’s line was not. Eleventh Corps units

simply relied on existing stone fences along the bottom of the eastern and

northern slopes. These fences were only a couple of feet high and thus

offered scant protection, but they provided a ready-made line of demarca-

tion for the battle and were better than nothing. Why the Eleventh Corps did

not follow the example of its sister corps to the right and dig in is unknown.

Its experience at Chancellorsville and on July 1 should have been a guide.

≤∂

The Second Corps did not dig in on Cemetery Ridge, mostly because ﬂinty

rock just below the surface made it difﬁcult to do so. A low stone fence

offered some protection for infantry and artillery alike. The Third Corps,

responsible for holding the southern end of Cemetery Ridge, not only failed

to dig in but advanced its line without authorization from Meade. Corps

commander Maj. Gen. Daniel Sickles liked the lay of the land some distance

ahead, where Sherfy’s Peach Orchard occupied some of the highest ground