Pennsylvania 62nd Infantry Regiment

Gettysburg

Organization

The 62d Pennsylvania's place in the organization of Army of the Potomac at the time of Gettysburg, 1 to 3 July 1863:

• Army of the Potomac (Major General George Meade, commander)
  • Fifth Army Corps (Major General George Sykes, commander)
    • First Division (Brigadier General James Barnes)
      • Second Brigade (Colonel Jacob Bowman Sweitzer)
        • 9th Massachusetts (Colonel Patrick R. Guiney) (on picket duty)
        • 32d Massachusetts (Colonel George L. Prescott (wounded); Lietenant-Colonel Luther Stephenson (wounded); Major J. Cushing Edmunds)
        • 4th Michigan (Colonel Harrison H. Jeffords (killed); Lieutenant-Colonel George W. Lumbard)
        • 62d Pennsylvania (Lieutenant-Colonel James C. Hull).

Regimental History: Gettyburg Campaign

Engagement at Kelly's Ford, Virginia on 11 June 1863

While employed in picket duty, the 62d skirmished with Confederate forces. This was not the more famous Battle of Kelly's Ford, a cavalry action that occured on 17 March 1863.

Engagement at Upperville, Virginia, also known as Middleburg, on 21 and 22 June 1863

The First Division of the Fifth Corps reported for duty with the Cavalry Corps, General Pleasonton, commanding. While the First and Third Brigades were dispatched to Upperville to support a cavalry division, the Second Brigade, including the 62d Pennsylvania Infantry remained at Middleburg. They threw out pickets to the roads to the north and south and took a strong position to prevent an attack from the direction of Ashby's Gap. Confederate pickets were observed to the south, but no encounter took place. They remained in that position the whole day. On 22 June the First and Third Brigades returned and, under the command of the cavalry, the division marched to Aldie. The enemy endeavored to annoy the command until the command halted. The Second Brigade and a battery were directed to remain to resist any attempt of the enemy to disturb the withdrawal. No more than a few random shots were fired, and the next morning the brigade re-joined the division.

March to Gettysburg, 26 June to 1 July 1863

In the six days before the Battle at Gettysburg, the 62d Pennsylvania (as well as the rest of the 5th Corps, marched, and marched, and marched.

June 26:

20 miles

June 27

20 miles

June 28

No march

June 29

18 miles

June 30

23 miles

July 1

26 miles

Battle at Gettysburg on 2 July 1863.

The soldiers of the 62d certainly fought with gallantry at Gettysburg, but the decisions of their division commander, Brigadier General James Barnes, was much criticized after the battle, and the reputations of all the regiments in the division were besmirched. Barnes, in command of the Fifth Corps' First Division in combat for the first and only time, ordered a retreat early at a strategic moment in the engagement. After the battle the order was criticized as ill-timed, unwanted, unnecessary, done without consultation or permission, and almost fatal to the Union army that day. Barnes was not court-martialed or reprimanded, but he was reassigned to administrative duties in Washington, DC, shortly afterward. Some believe that Colonel Sweitzer did not receive promotion to general during the war because of the orders from Barnes that he carried out.

 

Summary of the battle

 

The 62d Pennsylvania Infantry Volunteers fought in and around the Wheatfield. Of all the landmarks of Gettysburg, the Wheatfield stands out the place where the battle was the most complex and confused. The area around the Wheatfield has been described as a whirlpool, as it sucked in regiments from six Confederate brigades (all from Longstreet's Corps) and 13 brigades from four Union Army Corps. The battle surrounding the Wheatfield occurred in four distinct waves. First, Confederate forces in Anderson's brigade charged against but were held off by de Trobriand's brigade and its reinforcements in Sweitzer's and Tilton's brigades. The next wave occurred when Kershaw's Brigade arrived and, in something of a coordinated effort with Anderson's brigade, drove the Union forces from the field. The third wave was a counter-assault led by three brigades of Caldwell's Division of the Second Corps. They charged through the Wheatfield and deep into Rose's Woods. A fourth brigade from Caldwell's division, joined by Sweitzer's Brigade, followed to shore up this drive. The final wave was a driving sweep from west by the Confederate force. The difference was that Wofford's Brigade, pouring in unchecked from the Peach Orchard, rallied Kershaw's, Semmes', and Anderson's brigades and turned the fortune of the battle toward a Confederate victory. Union forces were driven from the Wheatfield, and brigades from Ayres's Second Division of the Fifth Corps ineffective in mounting a counter-assault from its position on Houck's Ridge. The Confederate assault only stopped when facing the Union line up on Cemetery Ridge and Little Round Top, including fresh units from the Sixth Corps, the Confederate fighting force was ordered to halt and retire to the Wheatfield. After more than three hours of fighting, the Confederates finally won the field but ultimately failed to break the Union line.

 

Description of the Wheatfield

The Wheatfield, an irregularly trapezoidal shaped 20 acres, stood about halfway between the Peach Orchard and the Devil's Den. The field, ripe for a first cutting, was hemmed in by woods and narrow stands of timber. The field sloped from the north-east down to the south-west. The northern part of the field with its higher elevation was ideal for artillery. A battery positioned there (Winslow's) commanded the field through much of the evening. The southernmost part of the field was low, poorly drained land, very vulnerable to attack from the higher ground on all sides.

The Wheatfield was part of Rose farm, and a narrow, clay road along its northern edge formed the border between the Rose and Trostle farms. The part of the Trostle farm beyond the road was a thick woods. The 62d did much of its fighting on July 2nd on a rocky, wooded ridge to the west of the Wheatfield. The ground is now known as the Stony Hill or The Loop. Cutting off the south-westernmost corner of the Wheatfield was a rail fence. It stretched from the Stony Hill to a stone wall that ran along the entire southern end of the field, about 300 yards. Beyond the stone wall to the south was the Rose's Woods, where the first Wheatfield fighting began. Through the woods ran the western branch of Plum Run. The stone wall was described by one general's report as "not breast high." The height was no more than a foot and half in some places, but infantry from the Third Corps positioned there earlier in the afternoon had been able to bolster it with rails, earth, and timber. To the east of the Wheatfield was Houck's Ridge, yet another bit of high ground. It extended from Trostle's Woods all the way down to the Devil's Den.

Morning and afternoon before the battle

 

The 62d began the 2d of July by finishing a hard five day march from Maryland. The day before, the Fifth Army Corps had started in Unionville, marched all day with little rest, reached Hanover about 5 PM. Plans to end the day's march were immediately changed when news of the fighting at Gettysburg reached them. They "proceeded with all possible dispatch" toward Gettysburg, by way of Hanover. They marched until shortly after midnight, when they bivouacked in a woods by the roadside four or five miles from Gettysburg. The day's march totaled 28 miles.

 

Before daylight of the 2nd, they started up the march again and continued without rest until reaching a position just south of Gettysburg on the west slope of Cemetery Ridge. The Fifth Corps was ordered to remain in reserve along Baltimore Pike, near Power's Hill. For several hours the volunteers were allowed time to eat their first good meal in three days and catch any sleep or rest they could. Unlike Antietam or Chancellorsville, however, at Gettysburg the reserve corps was called into action sometime in the mid-afternoon. The Second Brigade's commanding officer, the 62d's own Colonel Sweitzer, indicated that the First Division began to move to the battle front shortly after the cannonading commenced. That would put the time at 3:30.

 

Instead of fighting as a unit, the Fifth Corps was broken up into separate forces. The decision would lead to great confusion and lack of coordination in command. The First Division, marching at the head of the Corps, was sent in to support the Third Corps on the extreme left flank of the Union Army in its thin, outstretched, and gap-filled line that covered more than a mile and a half from Devil's Den, below Little Round Top, to the Peach Orchard. Just as the corps reached the area of the wheatfield, the Third Brigade, including the soon-to-be famous 20th Maine, leading the march, was split off and sent to occupy Little Round Top, which General Warren had seen as vital and undefended. The remaining two brigades of the First Division were sent in to plug the gap in the Third Corps line. The other two divisions of the Fifth Corps remained in reserve north of Little Round Top. General James Barnes was in command of the First Division temporarily, due to the illness of General Charles Griffin. A West Point classmate of Robert E. Lee, he had no previous experience in command of a division and would not prove up to the task.

The Second Brigade was a regiment short as it marched to its initial battle position. Gettysburg was the only major battle in which the 62d Pennsylvania did not fight side by side with the 9th Massachusetts. Earlier in the day this brother regiment had been assigned picket duty on Power's Hill to guard supply wagons and later, possibly, Meade's headquarters. Originally, the 32d Massachusetts had been given the orders, but, at the requerst of the 32d's commanding officer, the 9th Massachusetts was substituted. The remaining regiments of the Second Brigade marched down the clay farm road, nameless then, but what is now called Wheatfield Road. Leaving the road, the regiments of the Second Brigade likely crossed the through a corner of Wheatfield for the first time that day to take its position on the edge on a rocky knoll, now known as Stony Hill. Again as an indication of the disjointed command of the troops, to get into that position they had to pass over part of a brigade from the Third Corps that were lying down on the ground. Stony Hill had originally been held by regiments of De Trobriand's Third Brigade of the First Division of the Third Corps, but the position had beeen abandoned when troops were moved to the east to support initial heavy fighting in the vicinity of the Devil's Den. The Stony Hill was an excellent defensive position for the Second Brigade. The knoll is tree covered today, but it is not clear to me what it looked like in July of 1962. I have read one description that on the Stony Hill was a thick strip of woods, and another that the ground was mostly cleared of timber, but interspersed with rocks, boulders, and a few straggling trees. With the rocks, boulders and high ground, with or without tres, the position was strong. Spread out along the Stony Hill, the three regiments would have faced south-west toward theRose farm and west toward the distant Peach Orchard.

 

First Wave (5 pm)

 

The day's battle began for the 62d around 5:00 in the afternoon. In early July, sunset would not occur until around 7:30, and darkness sometime after 8:00. The battle had already begun just to the east in the Devil's Den. In an uncoordinated assault, "Tige" Anderson's Georgia Brigade (of Hood's Division of Longstreet's First Corps) crossed the Emmittsburg Road and entered Rose's Wood from the vicinity of the Rose farm. With the eerie, but now familiar rebel cry filled the air, the brigade charged the Union forces positioned at the edge of the Wheatfield behind the stone wall and up on the Stony Hill. Battlefield accounts are incomplete and contradictory, so it is not certain whether the 62d Pennsylvania was present at the beginning of this attack or not. Regiments from De Trobriand's Third Brigade of the First Division of the Third Corps had come off the Stony Hill to fill out the line along the southern edge of the Wheatfield. Quite vulnerable in their low-lying area, they battled bravely, with only a few regiments being forced to break. Another commander from the Second Brigade called the position on the Stony Hill sweet and claimed he could hold that position till the cows came home. (Earlier, frightened by the movement of rebel soldiers, cows and pigs had charged through the wheatfield in terror.)
To the left and front of the Sweitzer's Second Brigade was Tilton's First Brigade. Troops were extended in a line beyond the wood in a less advantageous position, without wall, breastwork, natural barrier, or even high ground for protection, and with its right flank exposed to an attack. The gap between the First Brigade and the forces in the Peach Orchard was "filled in" only by two batteries of artillery. In addition to the problem of their positions, the two brigades of the Fifth Army, First Division, had no or almost no contact with De Trobriand's brigade, and no contact at all with the union forces in the Peach Orchard. Beyond the woods, as they faced south and south west, was a ravine, and through that ravine that Confederate troops began to stream to make their initial attack against that part of the line. The 32d Massachusetts adjusted its position to higher ground and cover of woods, and met the attack. The 62d Pennsylvania and the 4th Michigan were wheeled to the left and rear of the 32d to strengthen the position. The three regiments maintained their position and successfully held back the enemy, forcing "Tige" Anderson's Georgian Brigade (Hood's Division) to withdraw. While the Second Brigade and De Brigade held their position vigourously, the Tilton's First Brigade was less successful. Graham's brigade in the Peach Orchard had been forced to fall back under heavy loss very soon after the initial Confederate assault, and Tilton's brigade became even more vulnerable. Twice it repulsed their assailants, but with heavy losses. When Kershaw's brigade provided reenforcements, a second major assault occurred. Again, the Second Brigade held, but on either side of it, Confederates broke through. The threatened them in an outflanking manouever, Barnes, perhaps at the request of Colonel Tilton, ordered the First Brigade to fall back. Barnes then ordered Sweitzer to break off action and take a new position to the rear under the cover of the woods in order better oppose this heavy attack from the flank. Neither Sweitzer nor his brigade wished to give up their "elegant postion." Sweitzer later said the "Old Second could have held against considerable odds till the cow came." Colonel Prescott of the 32d Massachusetts declared "I don't want to retire. I am not ready to retire. I can hold this place." But fall back they did, in good order, crossing the Wheatfield into the Trostle Woods, where in their new position they faced the Wheatfield from the north side of the clay road beyond it. The timing, unfortunately was terrible. Regiments from Kershaw's South Carolina Brigade were able to pour in with little opposition and control the knoll and force back De Trobriand's regiments. General Barnes was later severely critized for ordering his brigades to fall back and blamed by some for causing the Union forces to lose the field. To his discredit, he acted independently, without orders from his Fifth Corps commander, and without consulting or informing any of the Third Corps division or brigade commanders. Indeed, it was at this particular point that the first break in the Union line occured. However, it should be remembered that had Barnes not been stripped of the Third Brigade the Division would have had the strength to fill the gap to the Peach Orchard. Additionally, it was Graham's brigade of the Third Corps falling back that allowed Kershaw's South Carolinians to gain the initial advantage. Finally, Barnes cannot be blamed too harshly since the position lost was soon retaken.

After Barnes' brigades had fallen back to their new positions, three brigades of First Division of the Second Corps, led by General Caldwell, entered the battle for the Wheatfield. Neither Colonel Sweitzer nor General Barnes mention it in their reports, but there is some indication that the Second Brigade was ordered to lie down to let the First Division pass through them. Other reports were that the soldiers had been ordered to lie down much earlier, after several soldiers had been wounded by bullet fire. Some rumors that have been refuted were that the Second Brigade not only lay down, but refused to fight, and insulted the troops passing over them. Many of the negative stories can be attributed to the fury and antagonism De Trobriand and others in the Third Corps held for the Fifth Corps because of Barnes' order. What the official reports indicate is that after three of Caldwell's brigades had driven the Confederates back into the far end of the Wheatfield, Caldwell had still kept a fourth brigade in reserve. He ordered one front liine brigade, which had lost its commanding officer and was almost out of ammunition, to fall back. The general then ordered in his fourth brigade and requested Colonel Sweitzer to support his command. Sweitzer said he would obey the directions if so ordered by General Barnes, who was not far off. Barnes arrived and agreed, and once again the Second Brigade moved forward into the Wheatfield. First, however, General Barnes "got out in front of them, and made a few patriotic remarks, to which they responded with a cheer." As they crossed the Wheatfield once again, it was now they who had to pass through a straggling line of soldiers who were falling back. Transversing the entire Wheatfield, they took a position behind the stone wall on the edge of the Wheatfield. Sweitzer noticed regiments retiring from the woods to their right. He presumed they had been relieved by other regiments, but he was mistaken. In the confusion of the battle, the Second Brigade was being sent in to support troops who having already received orders to fall back were no longer there. Entering the field of battle to the right of Caldwell's Division, Sweitzer's Brigade was moving into a trap. The Confederates had already driven the Graham's Brigade from the Peach Orchard, so they were free to move on toward the Wheatfield. Sweitzer noticed there was "considerable firing diagonally toward our rear from these woods," and thought they were shots from Union troops aimed beyond them but falling short. Edward Martin, a private from Company F who was serving as the colonel's color bearer, then spoke one of the most quoted lines of the day, "Colonel I'll be ------ if I don't think we are faced the wrong way; the rebs are up there in the woods behind us, on the right." At this point additional Confederate forces broke through the line from the direction of the Peach Orchard and advanced surrounding the Second Brigade on three sides, including to its rear. General Barnes was heard to say, "There goes the Second Brigade, we may as well bid it good-bye." Surrounded on three sides and exposed in an open field, however, the brigade fell back diagonally engaging in terrible hand-to-hand fighting, at times becoming entirely mixed up with the enemy. Some of the soldiers were brought down from friendly fire from Winslow's battery. They emerged "broken and cut to pieces," able to reach a line just to the right of a mound that was an extension of Little Round Top. Another brigade of Federal forces then made a sweeping charge into the Wheatfield to temporarily win back the ground for the Union, but before nightfall they, too, were swept back by Confederate forces.

During the night the remains of the First Division crossed a stone fence on the edge of the wheatfield and retired to the rear of a battery at the foot of a hill just to the north of Little Round Top extension. They were only a shell of the force it was at the beginning of the day. It was an unpleasant night, as the survivors had had to abandon the dead and many of the wounded, and as they tried to find a place to lie down for the night behind the stone fence, there were few places free of rocks or bodies of dead and wounded.

On the third day of the battle at Gettysburg, the 62d took a position on the Little Round Top extension in support of a battery. As it turned out, they were far removed from the action known as Picketts Charge, but they were prepared to face another attack at one of the key positions along the Union line. Several reports indicated that on the third day the regiment was fired upon, either from snipers or stray shots. John L. Cribbs brought back a souviner of the battle, a cane and an inkwell that he made from a tree on "Round Top" that he was sitting under when the tree and not he was hit by a bullet.

An account of the second day at Gettysburg from a letter written by Jacob B. Funk was excerpted in Voices of the Civil War, Gettysburg, Tell My Father I Died With My Face to the Enemy, a Time-Life book:
"Just then I came up to where some Prisoners were that had been taken a short time before. The bullets were falling like hail & the Guard that had the Prisoners ran and left the Prisoners go when they immediately picked up Guns and began to shoot our men. I saw (one) pick up a Gun and looking round he spied me with the Colors of the Old Keystone state immediately he leveled his Gun and ordered me to surrender my Colors or he would shoot me but I thought that was rather a saucy demand & I could not see the point...I took Leg Bail for security and increased the distance between him and me very fast. I had to jump a stone fence and came very near loosing my ballance but I managed to get over. I then went straight ahead when directly I heard the report of a Gun just behind me. I just concluded that was for me, and sure enough the Ball struck my arm four or five inches from the shoulder passing under the Bone and coming out in the chest near the arm pit. I called out for some one to take the Colers one of the men ran out & took them & I then made tracks to get out of farther danger...after leaving the Battle field I went about 2 miles and then got my wound dressed."

General Meade's glory was the Battle of Gettysburg, but he lost much favor during the rest of the month of July. The campaign following Gettysburg became known as the Campaign of Maneuvers because it was an indecisive time that saw more marching and bivouacing than fighting, as Meade and Lee played a cat and mouse game trying to establish positions. For the troops it only seemed to be discouraging proof that the victory at Gettysburg was not so decisive as they had hoped and the war would not soon come to an end. The Army of the Potomac moved out a few days in aftermath of Gettysburg, but it failed to prevent Lee's army escape back to Virginia.

Unfortunately, for the Union side, the Confederate army reached the Potomac in less than three days. Stopped by a swollen river, they then had almost another week before the Union forces would arrive to engage them.

On the Fifth of July the Fifth Corps began its march in a heavy downpour, and made little progress in its pursuit south until the 7th. That day it marched 20 miles through mud and rain, staying east of the South Mountains and camped near Frederick, Maryland. The next day it marched mostly west, climbing the Catoctins through not just rain, but through a heavy thunderstorm, with the South Mountain range still ahead to cross.

On the 9th they crossed the South Mountains; on the 10th they crossed the Antietam. The advance continued until the 14th when it completed its march to Williamsport, where as part of the Army of the Potomac it surrounded the Confederates on three sides, with the swollen Potomac serving to completely box them in. On the night of the 13th, however, under the cover of darkness, the Confederate army vanished.

The rest of July saw further pursuit, but mostly discouragement. The Confederates stayed west of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and the Union force to the east of it. Only skirmishes occurred now when the armies met in the gaps. The 62d Pennsylvania may have participated in a skirmish at Manassas Gap on July 23. The Third Corps engaged the Confederate without much success all day.

By the 27th the Fifth Corps reached Warrenton and encamped between Warrenton and Fayetteville. But the chase was pretty much over. The Confederate army, safely returned to Virginia, encamped in force behind Rapidan River in Orange County. The Union Army pursued no further than the Rappahannock River. There it remained throughout August and into September.

Return of Casualties, Battle at Gettysburg Casualties

The 62d was among the dozen regiments with the most casualties at Gettysburg. Figures provided here are based on a transcript of a monument engraving at Gettysburg. Numbers from some other sources differ slightly.

Officers Killed	4
Enlisted Killed	24
Officers Wounded	10
Enlisted Wounded	97
Officers Captured or Missing	0
Enlisted Captured or Missing	40
Aggregate (out of 426)	175

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This page authored and maintained by John R. Henderson (jhenderson@ithaca.edu), Lodi, NY.
Last modified: 14 December 2004
URL: http://www.ithaca.edu/staff/jhenderson/pa62d/gettys.html