THE SITUATION ON JULY 2

General Robert E. Lee was presented with quite the puzzle in the early morning hours of July 2, 1863. Ewell had failed to seize Cemetery Hill or Culp’s Hill, the Union forces on those two hills were now consolidating and fortifying their positions, and yet Lee knew the key to winning the Battle of Gettysburg was the seizure of one or both of those hills. They protected Meade’s supply/communication line (Taneytown Road) and line of retreat (Baltimore Pike). Lieutenant General Richard S. Ewell – Lee’s Second Corps commander – wanted none of either hill, arguing very passionately and persuasively that to seize them in a direct assault would mean losses the army could ill afford.

Longstreet, his most senior subordinate, didn’t even want to fight at Gettysburg. His Old War Horse argued for a strategic re-deployment by swinging deep behind the Union left flank and interdicting the Army of the Potomac’s supply and communication lines on a battlefield of their own choosing. Lee rejected this idea because he felt to abandon Gettysburg would be bad for troop morale after the heavy fighting on July 1. Plus, such a move in the face of the enemy would be dangerous without Stuart’s still-absent cavalry force. Lee had no intelligence on the current status of the Army of the Potomac nor any intelligence on where all of its units were. To make a move without identifying where each of the seven army corps of the Union army were could invite disaster.

So Lee resolved to stay at Gettysburg and attempt to get at Cemetery Hill. The direct assault had been ruled out and so instead Lee would back door his way onto the hill by launching his main attack from the south. He would hit the Union army squarely on the flank, roll it up like a wet blanket, and take the hill from that direction. Meade would either be trapped or forced to retreat. To make this assault he would employ the fresh divisions of Longstreet’s First Corps as well as the still relatively fresh units of Ewell’s Second Corps. Orders went out to the two commanders, including ones instructing Ewell to re-deploy his corps from its current position to a position beside Longstreet on Seminary Ridge.

Ewell once again protested, arguing such a move could invite an attack by the enemy. It was his opinion that the Second Corps should remain deployed where it was. Lee relented and instead would employ the First Corps and the fresh division of Major General Richard Anderson’s from the Third Corps for the main assault. Hindsight being what it was, the Army of Northern Virginia probably would have been better served attacking the Union left with both the First and Second Corps, as Ewell’s impact on the remainder of the battle would be minimal to say the least.

A FLAWED SCOUTING EXPEDITION

Before the Army of Northern Virginia could launch its grand assault on the Union left, Lee first needed to know exactly where the Union left was. Before dawn on July 2, a member of Lee’s staff – Captain S.R. Johnston – was deployed to the south to ascertain where the Union line ended. The events which happened next are still being hotly debated by historians. To his dying breath, Johnston claimed he had gotten to the summit of the hill now known as Little Round Top. From this position of observation he claims there were no Union infantry or cavalry in the vicinity.

This is impossible given the time he claims he was there. Buford’s cavalry division was encamped essentially at the base of the hill at this time and Brigadier General John Geary’s Twelfth Corps division actually would have been on Little Round Top. So if he was where he says he was and when he was, it is very likely Johnston would have either been shot or captured by Union soldiers. The important takeaway from Johnston’s scouting expedition isn’t where he was but what he told Lee. The trusted subordinate informed his commanding general that the Union left was adjacent to the Emmitsburg Road, was in the air, and ended short of the southern edge of Cemetery Ridge. The information was dangerously flawed but is what Lee used to develop his plan of attack for July 2.

As Lee originally drew it up, the plan was for Longstreet’s First Corps to make the main assault. With two divisions at his disposal (Longstreet’s third – that of Major General George Pickett – was still a day’s march away) Longstreet would launch a surprise attack straddling and then guiding on the Emmitsburg Road. The division of Major General John B. Hood would advance on the east side of the road while that of Major General Lafayette McLaws would advance on the west side of the road. The attack would smash into the Union left obliquely and roll it up. This would uncover Anderson’s division, allowing him to join the assault to the left of McLaws’s division. Meanwhile, Ewell’s Second Corps would demonstrate against the Union right, preventing them from sending reinforcements to the left, and then make his demonstration a general attack once Longstreet’s assault was well on its way to success.

While the plan was a good one and typical of how Lee manipulated his opponent’s army on the battlefield, it was based on faulty intelligence that might have been more accurate had Stuart already been at Gettysburg with the army. Lee was having to rely on less-than-adequate staff work from men nowhere near as skilled as Stuart to ascertain the enemy’s positions and strength. This would frustrate him on more than one occasion this day.

Robert E. Lee's Original Plan - July 2, 1863