Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 3.

[65]

both commanders were averse to taking the initiative of battle. Lee perceived the decided advantage in position which Howard had secured for the National army, it projecting like a wedge toward his center, with rocky acclivities along its front. Meade, feeling secure, had determined to leave to Lee the perilous movement of attack, if possible; and yet, Early in the morning, observing Ewell stretching his line along the base of Culp's Hill, with batteries on heights in his rear, as if intending to attack, he was constrained to propose an offensive movement by Slocum with his own and the corps of Sykes, when Sedgwick should arrive. He finally sent orders for Slocum to attack without Sedgwick, but that officer considered it not advisable, and was supported in that opinion by General Warren, the engineer-in-chief. So the hours passed by with only a little skirmishing and now and then a shot from a battery, until late in the afternoon.

Lee, meanwhile, encouraged by the success of the previous day, and “in view of the valuable results that would ensue from the defeat of the army under General Meade,” ¹ resolved to attack Sickles, who was holding the irregular Ridge between Hancock and Round Top. Satisfied that a movement on him was in preparation, he had thrown a considerable portion of his corps forward to a slight elevation along the Emmettsburg road, his right, under General Humphreys, being several hundred yards in front of Hancock's left, with the line prolonged to the left by Graham's brigade of Birney's division, to a large peach-orchard belonging to John Scherfey, who lived near.² from that point Birney's line, formed by the brigades of De Trobriand and Ward, of his division, bent back obliquely toward Round Top, with a stony interval behind it, and having some Massachusetts batteries on the extreme left. In this position Meade found Sickles between three and four o'clock in the afternoon. Sedgwick had arrived, after a march of thirty-five miles in nineteen hours, and been placed in reserve, and Meade had gone forward

Scherfey's House.3

to superintend the posting of Sykes's troops on the left of Sickles, when he discovered the Third Corps well up toward the heaviest columns of the enemy, without flank supports. He deplored the perilous movement, and would probably have ordered Sickles back, had not the opening of the batteries of Lee and the pressing forward of his heavy columns to attack Sickles put an end to all deliberations. Meade could now do nothing better