CHAP. IX. South, crowned by the salient of Culp's Hill, guarded that flank; the Round Tops formed a redoubtable bastion on the south, and between them the hill was battlemented with a chaos of boulders. The Taneytown road wound just below the crest, and the Baltimore road, at the foot of the eastern slope, afforded a perfect service of transportation for the defense; and in front, the gentle slope and the cultivated fields furnished, as Hooker would have said, "elbow-room" for fighting, such as neither army had as yet ever beheld.

1863.

Of course not all these advantages could be at once perceived by a cavalier riding by in the dust of a column on the march. But enough was seen to inspire to heroic effort, and nerve to heroic death, the peerless soldier who dashed up the Emmitsburg road in hot haste on the morning of the first of July. General John F. Reynolds- the noblest sacrifice offered up on that ensanguined field-was in command of the First, Third, and Eleventh Corps, the left grand division of Meade's army. He had been ordered to Gettysburg to observe the enemy and to mask the retrograde movement to Pipe Creek. His advance, the First Corps, was four miles south of there; the others at Emmitsburg and Taneytown, twice and three times. as far. They all had their orders for the movement to the right and rear. But hearing from Buford early in the morning that the enemy was in his front in considerable force, Reynolds ordered the First Corps forward with all possible speed, sent for the other two to join him, and rode ahead with his own pickets, impelled not only by his soldierly spirit, but also by the feelings of a patriotic

Pennsylvanian repelling an invasion of his native CHAP. IX. State.

Arriving at the seminary, west of the town, he July 1, 1863. met General Buford, and was immediately informed of the situation of affairs. Buford had taken possession of Gettysburg the day before, throwing his pickets well out along the Chambersburg road. There they had encountered the advance of Pettigrew's brigade of Heth's division and Hill's corps; Pettigrew, not suspecting the presence of an enemy, was coming into Gettysburg with the prosaic purpose of plundering the shoestores, the foot-gear of his men having gone to pieces in the sharp marching of the last fortnight; meeting Buford, he retired, without making any resistance, to Cashtown. Buford, knowing that this respite was only momentary, prepared to withstand the advance which was sure to come, and did come the next morning. Alone, with his two brigades of cavalry, he valiantly held the line of Willoughby's Run, until Reynolds came to the rescue with Wadsworth's division, the rest of the First Corps under General Doubleday, who galloped on in front of his own advance, coming up soon afterwards. Reynolds found Buford anxiously surveying the field from the belfry of the Lutheran seminary, and only a moment's conference between these two thorough soldiers was needed to determine the morning's work. The enemy was there. The place for the great battle was just behind them; their duty was to hold back the oncoming wave of Lee's forces until Meade could concentrate the Army of the Potomac to meet it. In a case so clear, the letter of his

CHAP. IX. orders mattered little to a man like Reynolds. His duty was under his eyes, clearer and more sacred than anything written upon paper could be. He was the lifelong friend and comrade of Meade; they had commanded brigades together in McCall's division, and had risen step by step to be first and second in command of the Army of the Potomac; he felt sure Meade would approve his action, and resolved to make his fight there. He was as ready to sacrifice his life as his orders.

The enemy were approaching in great force on the western side of Willoughby's Run, consisting of Heth's division of four brigades, and Reynolds at once made his preparations to meet them. There was a bit of woods just east of Willoughby's Run midway between the two roads, and both sides rushed to seize it. Reynolds had just sent an order to Doubleday, "Hold on to the Hagerstown road, and I will take care of this one"- the Chambersburg road, on which he had posted Cutler's brigade; he was watching Solomon Meredith's "Iron brigade" enter the woods on one side and James J. Archer's Confederates going in on the other when he was July 1, 1863. shot dead by a bullet through the brain. Doubleday, who had been placed temporarily in command of the First Corps, now took charge of the field, and the fighting began in earnest. At first it was favorable to the Union arms. Wadsworth on the right captured Archer and a considerable portion of his brigade. On the left the attacking force was caught in a railroad cut beside the Chambersburg road, and a large number were killed and taken. Wadsworth's division held the field until about eleven o'clock, when the rest of the First Corps