previous next

[315] brigade, and I was instructed to follow Mahone's command. About 10 o'clock A. M., and when within about one mile of Cashtown (which is at the foot of the eastern slope of South mountain), my command was stopped by the halt of Mahone's brigade in the road, in my immediate front. In a few minutes after I had halted, the report of artillery was heard in the direction of Gettysburg, and seemingly not more than six or eight miles distant.

After remaining about an hour or hour and a half in the road, the column again moved forward, my brigade following Mahone's as before. On arriving near Cashtown, I was directed to file off to the right of the turnpike and bivouac my men in a piece of timbered land in the rear of Mahone, who had preceded me in the woods. At the same time I was informed that my wagon train would be parked in the open field in my front. In this position I remained until about 1 P. M., when we again took up the line of march along the turnpike in the direction of Gettysburg.

When within about six miles of the latter place, I was compelled by severe indisposition to leave my command, and consequently know nothing more of the day's operations, except that derived from Colonel Gibson, of the Forty-eighth Georgia regiment, who, in my absence, assumed command of the brigade. By him I was informed that between 4 and 5 o'clock P. M., the brigade reached a position three-quarters of a mile to the right of the turnpike, and about two and a half or three miles from Gettysburg, where they remained until the next morning, when I found them in line of battle at 7 A. M., on returning to the command July 2d. Just after assuming command, I received orders to move my brigade by the right flank, following immediately in rear of Perry's brigade. In this order, I was conducted by Major-General Anderson to a position already occupied by the troops of the Third corps, and was directed to relieve a brigade (Davis', I think, of Heth's division) then in line of battle, about two miles south of Gettysburg. About noon, I was informed by Major-General Anderson that an attack upon the enemy's lines would soon be made by the whole division, commencing on our right, by Wilcox's brigade, and that each brigade of the division would begin the attack as soon as the brigade on its right commenced the movement. I was instructed to move simultaneously with Perry's brigade, which was on my right, and informed that Posey's brigade, on my left, would move forward upon my advance. This being the order of battle, I awaited the signal for the general advance, which, at about 5 P. M.,


Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

hide Places (automatically extracted)

View a map of the most frequently mentioned places in this document.

Sort places alphabetically, as they appear on the page, by frequency
Click on a place to search for it in this document.
Gettysburg (Pennsylvania, United States) (4)
Cashtown (Pennsylvania, United States) (2)

Download Pleiades ancient places geospacial dataset for this text.

hide People (automatically extracted)
Sort people alphabetically, as they appear on the page, by frequency
Click on a person to search for him/her in this document.
William Mahone (4)
Perry (2)
R. H. Anderson (2)
C. M. Wilcox (1)
C. Posey (1)
Heth (1)
William Gibson (1)
Joseph R. Davis (1)
hide Dates (automatically extracted)
Sort dates alphabetically, as they appear on the page, by frequency
Click on a date to search for it in this document.
July 2nd (1)
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: