The fighting 175trapped in a deep cut of an unfinished
railroad and lost most of them.
Confederate fortunes were abetted when a
bullet killed Union General John F. Reynolds,
a soldierly and much-admired officer
commanding everything Federal on the field
at that early hour. They benefited even more
Confederate General Lewis A. Armistead leads the
desperate 'Pickett's Charge' at the forefront, just before
being mortally wounded. (Painting by Don Troiani,
http://www.historicaiartprints.com)from the superb timing - the result of luck,
not prescience - with which the fresh
Southern division of General Robert E. Rodes
dropped squarely onto the north flank of the
Federal position. Intense fighting ensued on
both sides of the road leading from
Chambersburg to Gettysburg, with success
perching first upon one banner then
another, but the arrival of Rodes's division
and other associated troops at a fortuitous
point doomed Federal resistance. Eventually
the whole Union line west of town collapsed
and the Confederates enjoyed a field day
chasing their fleeing foe into Gettysburg.
Alexander Schimmelfennig, a Prussian-born
general, eluded capture by hiding in a pigsty.
Thousands of other men in blue became
prisoners of war.
One of the battle's most-discussed turning
points came as Confederates converged on
Gettysburg from the north and west, and
contemplated riding the crest of the tidal
wave of momentum they had created. Lee
characteristically left to the discretion of his
new corps commander, General Ewell, the
responsibility for continuing the advance.
Possession of the crest of a long ridge that
curled around Gettysburg and ran east to East
Cemetery Hill and Gulp's Hill would
guarantee control of the military terrain for a
considerable distance. Ewell equivocated,
consulted, temporized - and never attacked.
For the next two days, his troops would suffer
mightily against the same two hills, by then
strongly occupied, attacking again and again
where he had not chosen to fight under far
better terms. On the evening of 1 July, Ewell
did nothing. His inaction remains highly
controversial today. The counter-factual
question, 'What would Jackson have done
had he been there?' is, of course,
unanswerable. A North Carolina soldier who
fought there thought he knew. 'We missed
the genius of Jackson,' he wrote a few days
later. 'The simplest soldier in the ranks felt it.'