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When, on June 29, Lee learned that the Army of the Potomac had crossed its namesake river, he ordered a concentration of his forces around Cashtown, at the eastern base of South Mountain and eight miles west of Gettysburg. On June 30, while part of Hill's Third Corps was in Cashtown, one of Hill's brigades, North Carolinians under J. Johnston Pettigrew, ventured toward Gettysburg to look for supplies, including shoes. And thus the myth of the Battle of Gettysburg being caused by show-hunting Confederates stumbling upon the Yankees. This is in fact not true. There was no shoe factory in town; there was no large supply of shoes. Pettigrew and his superiors must have known that, four days earlier, part of Jubal A. Early's division of the Second Corps had marched through Gettysburg on its way to York. Any valuable supplies would have been taken by these troops. Pettigrew's troops espied Federal cavalry under John Buford west of town, and they wisely returned to Cashtown. When Pettigrew told Hill and Henry Heth, his division commander, about what he had seen, neither general believed that there was a substantial Federal force in or near the town. In fact, Hill reportedly said that he hoped the Federal army was there, because that's where he wanted it to be. Hill determined to mount a reconnaissance in force on the next morning to determine the size and strength of the enemy force in his front. Thus, around 5 a.m. on the morning of July 1, Hill's troops advanced to Gettysburg on the Chambersburg Pike looking for a fight, not for shoes. First Day of Battle Three miles west of town on the Chambersburg Pike, about 7:30 a.m. on July 1, Heth's division met resistance by cavalry videttes and, eventually, dismounted troopers from Gamble's brigade, Buford's division of cavalry. Within two and a half hours, the Confederates had pushed the Yankee cavalrymen east along a series of ridges, when the Federal 1st Corps, commanded by Maj. Gen. John F. Reynolds, arrived from south of town. By 10:20, the Federal infantry had entered the fight. North of the pike, the Confederates gained a temporary success, while south of the road everything went the Federals' way. The famed Iron Brigade decimated Archer's Southerners, capturing several hundred of Archer's men, including Archer himself. However, early in the fighting, General Reynolds fell from his horse, killed instantly by rifle fire. Another myth states that Reynolds was killed by a sharpshooter, but the lack of supportive evidence suggests that he was killed in a volley of rifle fire directed at the 2nd Wisconsin, which regiment Reynolds was guiding into McPherson?'s (Herbst) Woods. The morning's victory belonged to the Army of the Potomac. Meanwhile, two divisions of Ewell's Second Corps turned south on the Carlisle and Harrisburg Roads toward Gettysburg, and the Union 11th Corps raced north on the Baltimore Pike and Taneytown Road. By early afternoon, the Federal line ran in a semi-circle west, north, and northeast of Gettysburg. However, Hill threw in William Dorsey Pender's division to bolster Heth's afternoon attacks, and Robert E. Rodes's and Jubal Early's Second Corps divisions smashed and out-flanked the Federal positions north and northeast of town. At 4:10 p.m., Maj. Gen. Oliver O. Howard, 11th Corps commander and acting commander on the field, ordered a Federal retreat to the high ground south of town, Cemetery Hill. The battle of July 1 had pit ted over 25,000 Confederates against 18,000 Federals, and ranks in itself as the twenty-third largest battle of the war. Second Day of Battle |
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