Hallowed Ground - James M. McPherson [28]
Custer's horse went down, but he jumped up and mounted a riderless horse and continued to slash away with his saber, scarcely missing a beat. Other Northern units closed in on Hampton's flanks; one New Jersey trooper charged through the confusion and sent Hampton to the rear with severe saber wounds to his head. Their leader down, and beset by angry Yankees yelling like maniacs, the Rebel horsemen retreated to the protection of their artillery on the ridge from which they had started. Not long after Pickett's Virginians reeled back from Seminary Ridge, three miles to the west, Stuart recoiled from what has been known ever since as East Cavalry Field.
About the time the cavalry action began, the temporary calm back in Gettysburg was shattered by two cannon shots from Seminary Ridge at 1:07 P.M. This was the signal for 150 Confederate guns to soften up the point of attack near a copse of woods on Cemetery Ridge that Lee had selected for the target of his infantry assault. Union guns replied, and for almost two hours the rapid fire of more than 250 cannons shook the countryside. Owing to some freak acoustic condition of the atmosphere, several people in the Pittsburgh area, 150 miles to the west, heard this artillery barrage, while residents of Chambersburg, only twenty-five miles away, heard little or nothing.
After the first few minutes, the Confederate shells began to go too far before exploding, causing havoc a couple of hundred yards in the rear of the Union lines, but leaving infantry and artillery at the front relatively unscathed. Confederate gunners failed to realize the inaccuracy of their fire because the smoke from all these guns hung in the calm, humid air and obscured their view. Several explanations for this Confederate overshooting have been offered. One theory is that as the gun barrels heated up, the powder exploded with greater force. Another is that the recoil scarred the ground, lowering the carriage trails and elevating the barrels ever so slightly. The most ingenious explanation grows out of an explosion at the Richmond arsenal in March that took it out of production for several weeks. The Army of Northern Virginia had to depend on arsenals farther south for production of many of the shells for the invasion of Pennsylvania. Confederate gunners did not realize that fuses on these shells burned more slowly than those from the Richmond arsenal; thus the shells whose fuses they tried to time for explosion above front-line Union troops, showering them with lethal shrapnel, exploded a split second too late, after the shells had passed over.
Whatever the reason, the Confederate artillery barrage did not accomplish its purpose. Nevertheless, after an hour or so, the Union chief of artillery, Brigadier General Henry J. Hunt, began to withdraw some batteries from action as a ruse to convince the Confederates that they had been knocked out and also to save ammunition for the infantry attack he knew was coming.
Our next stop is the jump-off point for that attack. To get there from East Cavalry Field, we return to town on the Hanover Road (State Route 116), and continue west from downtown Gettysburg on Middle Street, which becomes the Fairfield Road (still Route 116). At the top of Seminary Ridge, we will turn left at the stoplight onto West Confederate Avenue, which follows the Confederate line south. The numerous cannons on our left, pointing at Cemetery Ridge across the fields, mark the positions of some of those Confederate guns firing fast and furiously that hot afternoon of July 3.
A little more than a mile after our turn, we will pull into the parking area at the Virginia monument. After viewing this impressive sculpture portraying in bronze several representative Confederate soldiers at the base, with Robert E. Lee far above, mounted on his favorite horse, Traveller, we will walk a hundred yards east to the edge of the woods on the right. From this point the Confederate artillery stretched