Hallowed Ground - James M. McPherson [17]
When one of Lee's staff officers had scouted the Union position in this vicinity early that morning, he had spotted its left flank on Little Round Top and the line running north through low ground a half-mile east of the Wheatfield before gradually rising to Cemetery Ridge. But when Longstreet deployed for attack that afternoon, scouts reported that the Union line had moved forward with its left flank now in Devil's Den, an apex in the Peach Orchard, and a division deployed for a half-mile north along the Emmitsburg Road (today's Business Route 15) and disconnected from the rest of the Union line back on Cemetery Ridge. What had happened? Thereby hangs a tale that spawned one of the sharpest controversies on the Union side at Gettysburg.
At the center of this controversy was Major General Daniel E. Sickles, commander of the Union Third Corps holding the south end of Cemetery Ridge with its left flank on Little Round Top. At least that was where they were supposed to be. In a war with many colorful characters, Sickles stood out with the gaudiest hues. He was the only nonprofessional (not a West Point graduate) corps commander in either army. A New York lawyer and politician, he was prominent in the Tammany Hall political machine during the 1850s. He was also a notorious womanizer, despite the beauty and charms of his wife, Teresa. Elected to Congress in 1856, Sickles may have regretted that he ever came to Washington. His wife began an affair there with Philip Barton Key, son of the composer of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” When Sickles finally discovered what was going on, in February 1859, he seized a revolver and shot Key dead in Lafayette Park, directly across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House.
The sensational trial ended in Sickles's acquittal. One of his attorneys was Edwin M. Stanton, who became Lincoln's secretary of war in 1862. Stanton argued for acquittal on grounds of temporary insanity —the first use of that defense in the history of American jurisprudence. This argument may have helped sway the jury, but the real reason they acquitted Sickles was the “unwritten law” that justified a husband's murder of his wife's lover. Although freed under the law, Sickles was shunned by polite society. To recoup his standing, he raised a brigade (four regiments) in New York City when the war broke out, and was rewarded with appointment as brigadier general to command the brigade.
Demonstrating military ability despite no training or previous experience, Sickles hitched his star to General Joseph Hooker, who had charge of the Third Corps for a time in 1862-63. Sickles won promotion to division command and then took over the corps when Hooker became army commander in January 1863. Although he was Hooker's protege, he had opposed the commander's decision to pull Sickles back from the high ground at Hazel Grove to straighten Union lines during the battle of Chancellorsville. The Confederates had promptly moved artillery to Hazel Grove, from where they dominated Union guns on lower ground and played a key role in the Southern victory—or at least that was how Sickles saw it.
At Gettysburg he was determined not to let the same thing happen again. Sickles was unhappy about the vulnerability of his position just north of Little Round Top, which was commanded by the higher ground in the Peach Orchard almost a mile to the west. When skirmishers discovered signs of Confederate activity in his front in early afternoon, Sickles feared that the enemy would occupy the Peach Orchard and turn it into another Hazel Grove. Therefore, without notifying Meade—indeed, in violation of Meade's orders—Sickles moved his two divisions forward to take up an inverted V position with its apex at the Peach Orchard.
For the remaining fifty-one years of his life, Sickles insisted that his action saved the Union army at Gettysburg. If so, it was at the cost of 4,200 casualties (including Sickles,