Protecting the Flank at Gettysburg: The Battles for Brinkerhoff's Ridge and East Cavalry Field, July 2 -3, 1863

by Eric J. Wittenberg

Gregg’s tired horse soldiers had spent nearly four solid days in the saddle by the morning of July 2, 1863, but they still had not reached Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. They had crossed the Potomac River at Edwards Ferry on June 27 and made their way through Maryland in intense heat, with clouds of dust billowing along their line of march.

ardor of some of the men.”8 One trooper remembered losing

With his gambit having failed and darkness settling over the field, Nadenbousch realized that he had lost the brisk fight for Brinkerhoff’s Ridge. Accordingly, about 8:00 p.m., he withdrew his regiment from the ridge and rejoined the rest of Walker’s brigade.

Qwerty

The fighting that afternoon had implications well beyond Brinkerhoff’s Ridge. The struggle for the stone wall deprived Richard Ewell of Walker’s Stonewall Brigade when Ewell’s Second Corps launched its attack against Culp’s Hill later that evening.

Good action

At six on the morning of July 3, Maj. Gen. Alfred Pleasonton, commander of the Army of the Potomac’s Cavalry Corps, instructed Gregg to move his division to a position between White Run and Cemetery Hill in the event of a change in the main Union line. If no such change occurred, Gregg was to remain at White Run. “This point is so important that it must be held at all hazards,” ordered Pleasonton.14 However, the astute Gregg recognized that with Buford’s division now in Maryland and Kilpatrick’s two brigades moving to cover the Union left farther south, his obedience to this order would leave the army’s right flank dangerously unguarded. The Low Dutch Road provided a route into the rear of the Army of the Potomac’s position, and Gregg knew that leaving the critical road junction unguarded provided a recipe for disaster.

About 1:00 p.m., the cannonade preceding what became known to history as Pickett’s Charge erupted over the field. When it ended about an hour later, Colonel Gregg received orders to move most of his command east, mass his brigade, and keep a good look out toward Gettysburg. At all times, his skirmishers remained connected to Neill’s skirmishers and kept the Union line intact and unbroken. His men engaged in some heavy skirmishing with Rebel infantry, but they would not be actively involved in the fighting that was to come on the John Rummel farm.23

Been there, done that and seen it

& shells & my carriages were being so injured I could scarcely

using their pistols, shooting

Seeing the Confederate charge bearing down on them, Lt. Daniel Littlefield’s squadron of the 7th Michigan rallied and joined the charge of the 1st Michigan, adding their weight to the Union attack. Likewise, the Purnell Legionnaires, swept aside by the grand Confederate charge, resumed their former position on the Rebel right flank, where they raked the enemy and drove the charging grayclad horsemen toward the belching Union horse artillerists, whose guns tore great holes in their ranks.90

Daniel Littlefield of the7th Michigan cavalry.

angry tread,” remembered one of Hampton’s troopers. “The lines

The battlefield was a dreadful place once the fight ended. Dead and wounded men and horses mingled promiscuously all over the ground.

When he returned homes after the fighting, John Rummel saw one sight in particular that stayed with him the rest of his days. The bodies of a private of the

down with their sabers. They lay with their feet together, their heads in opposite directions, but their blood-stained sabres still clutched tightly in death. In another place, Rummel found a Virginian and yet another trooper of the 3rd Pennsylvania. They, too, had fought mounted with their sabres until they finally grabbed onto one another and their horses ran from under them. Their heads and shoulders were severely slashed, and their fingers, “though stiff in death, were so firmly embedded in each other’s flesh that they could not be removed without the aid of force.” In addition, Rummel found thirty dead horses on his property alone.6

Major William G. Connor was killed in action. His last words, as reported by a Union prisoner of war, were that he was a major of the Jeff Davis Legion. “It was a sad day for the Legion, as they all mourn the loss of Major Connor,” reported Pvt. Joseph Dunbar Shields, Jr. “In him we lost a fine officer and a good man. We miss him very much.”7 Lieutenant Colonel J. Fred Waring, the commander of the Little Jeff, as the Jeff Davis Legion was known, was also wounded in the melee. Sergeant William Brownlee of Company A of the Jeff Davis Legion was also killed in the melee. “In losing Brownlee we lost a noble man, he was loved and respected by all who knew him,” lamented Shields. “Everybody placed the greatest confidence in him, he made a good soldier and officer. We all felt his death very much.” Brownlee’s company commander, Capt. Thomas Jefferson Adams, and two enlisted men drew the sad task of burying the sergeant on the field.8

George then informed him that he had to leave with his regiment, and asked whether Horace had any final message for their parents. Horace met his gaze and replied, “Yes, Tell Father and Mother that I died doing my duty in a noble cause, and that I am contented.”

and this regiment held

sagacity displayed by a skillful chess player in moving the pawns

Pennsylvania: Edward Brugh letter, April 27, 1886 Andrew Newton Buck letter of July 9, 1863